[One-Minute Story] The Rose of Yanaka(No.7)

Deep in the alleyways of Yanaka, there is a small plant shop. [1]

There is no sign out front. It is the kind of place only those already in the know can find, though it has earned a quiet reputation among gardening enthusiasts. The owner, an elderly man named Kishimoto, sells a modest selection of rare plants he has spent years collecting.

Among the roses Kishimoto began stocking a few years ago, there is a variety called Mihira.

It first attracted attention among local gardening circles, then photographs began spreading on social media, and now it has been featured in specialist publications.

The one thing everyone agreed on was that it had a distinctive fragrance.

Not showy, not sweet. Some say there is a faintly weathered quality to the scent that gradually grows on you. A fellow enthusiast I know told me the fragrance felt familiar, like something smelled once and half-forgotten.

One day I asked Kishimoto directly.

“What does Mihira mean?”

He paused for a moment. His expression was difficult to read, somewhere between embarrassed and uncertain.

“It is the name of the person who developed the variety.”

“What kind of person?”

“A middle-aged man named Sanpei. An acquaintance of mine. He took up rose cultivation as a hobby after retiring. A meticulous man. A little heavyset.”

Kishimoto continued while watering the flowers.

“There are people who sometimes pass their own scent into the flowers they tend. Sanpei was one of those people.”

I brought home the single stem of Mihira I had bought that day, and held it close to my face.

It smelled of the particular kind of thing that clings to middle-aged men. [2] [3]

[1] Yanaka is one of Tokyo’s few neighborhoods to have survived the Second World War largely intact. Its narrow lanes, traditional merchant houses, and old-fashioned shopping streets give it an atmosphere closer to pre-war Japan than almost anywhere else in the city. For gardening enthusiasts, the area’s quiet, slightly faded character makes it a fitting home for an unmarked shop.

[2] The name “Mihira” is not an exotic cultivar name, as the story initially leads the reader to assume. It is the name “Sanpei” (三平) rendered using alternate Japanese readings of the same kanji: 三 read as “mi” and 平 read as “hira.” The rose was named after its creator all along. The foreign-sounding name was simply his own, seen from a different angle.

[3] In Japan there is a widely recognized concept of the distinctive body odor associated with middle-aged to older men, sometimes called kareishuu (加齢臭, literally “aging smell”). It is discussed in advertising, popular media, and everyday conversation with enough frankness that the narrator’s final observation would land immediately for any Japanese reader. The punchline asks the reader to understand that the rose’s celebrated “faintly weathered” fragrance and this particular bodily phenomenon are one and the same.

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【1分小説】谷中の薔薇(7作目)

谷中の路地の奥に、小さな植物店がある。

表に看板はない。知っている人だけが入る店で、園芸好きの間ではそれなりに名が通っている。店主の岸本という老人が、長年かけて集めためずらしい植物を細々と売っている。

その岸本が数年前から扱い始めた薔薇に、ミヒラという品種がある。

近隣の園芸好きの間でまず話題になり、やがてSNSに写真が出回り、今では専門誌にも取り上げられるようになった。

「独特な香りがする」というのが、共通した評価だった。

華やかでもなく、甘くもない。どこかひなびた匂いが癖になるという人もいる。どこかで嗅いだことがあるような気がすると知り合いの園芸好きが言っていた。

私はある日、岸本に直接聞いた。

「ミヒラって、どういう意味ですか」

岸本は少し間を置いた。照れているのか、それとも迷っているのか、判断しにくい顔だった。

「品種改良した人の名前です」

「どんな方ですか」

「三平という名のおじさんです。私の知り合いで、定年後に趣味で薔薇を作り始めたんです。几帳面で、少し太った人でした」

岸本は花に水をやりながら続けた。

「花に自分の体の匂いを移す人がたまにいます。三平さんはそういう人でした」

私はその日買ったミヒラという品種の薔薇の一輪を家に持ち帰り、鼻を近づけた。

中高年男性特有の匂いがした。