The cardboard grandpa

A visitor from another world brings me the most extraordinary gift

“It is also what comes in the wake of war and its fire: a city in ruins, the burnt-out shell of a metropolis. Its creatures have hatched out of the debris, and now they survive by the sheer tenacity with which they came into the world and by which they cling to life.”
—Jun Ishikawa, “The Jesus of the Ruins” (1946)

Marebito (noun): an ancient Japanese word used by folklorist Shinobu Orikuchi; a god who visits from the eternal world across the sea, bringing people gifts of spiritual knowledge and happiness before departing.

Five years ago, we opened Tokyo Little House, a little cafe in a 75-year old house that stands on Tamachi Street in Akasaka. It’s a busy district surrounded on all sides by glass skyscrapers, a stone’s throw from parliament and the prime minister’s office. Each day around noon, our street fills up with gaggles of television producers and expat investment bankers, political operatives and copywriters strolling during their lunch break. If you peek in our window, you’ll see pictures of the fields of ruins that still stretched across Tokyo when Little House was built. We like to think of it as a window open to the past that endures against the odds at the heart of the city.

A few weeks ago, I was sitting at our window counter and chatting with a visitor when I spotted a familiar figure sauntering down the sidewalk across the street. It was the cardboard grandpa, hunched forward with eyes straight ahead, hands clasped behind his back and mouth slightly agape. I hadn’t seen him in two years. Caught up in my conversation, I pointed him out to Ai, who was running the shop and went out to say hello. He stopped and turned, and I watched as his delightful smile spread across his face, and his neck bobbed up and down as he nodded in conversation. Lately my back has been hurting and I don’t get out as much, he told her before continuing on his way. I’ll come back again soon.

When we were renovating the house in the fall of 2017, the cardboard grandpa pushed his cart down the street every few days, always from west to east. The busy world would seem to part at his presence, paying him no mind, yet never blocking his path. Every few buildings, he would stop and fetch another parcel left for him. While can collectors are sometimes seen trundling down Tokyo side streets, cardboard pickers are rarer; a kilo of cardboard will only fetch you around ¥2-5 (2-4 cents) at a recycler.

We began to talk with him, and like others on the street, came to rely on him. We tied up our cardboard and left it in a crack between our house and the building next door, and every few days he would return. We would invite him to rest in front of the cafe, bringing him iced tea in the heat of summer. We never learned each other’s names. Eventually, he told us he had to take a break from his work for a stay in the hospital. I think he returned for some time after that, but then around the start of the pandemic, he stopped coming to collect cardboard altogether.

Yesterday, I was running the cafe for the first time in a few weeks. We did brisker-than-usual business in the morning, as travelers stopped by after checking out of their hotels, and some Singaporean visitors became enthralled with our collection of old maps. As the post-lunch rush picked up around one p.m., I was tidying up my station when I saw the cardboard grandpa out the window, this time walking straight toward me and waving. I hurried outside to say hello.

I brought you a fish! His grin widened. Is the young lady here?

It didn’t fully process, but then he held out a white plastic bag that was twisted shut, and I peeked inside. Sure enough, a freshly-gutted red snapper lay in the bottom, its moist red and silver scales glistening. A fish! And a naked one so large that its tail folded up the side of the bag. Please grill it in your garden and eat it together! At a loss for words, I asked him to wait while I went inside to put the fish in the fridge and make him some iced tea. He sat down, but a moment later disappeared from view. Returning outside, I found him leaning on the post next to the sidewalk. I don’t want to take your customers’ seats. Not to worry, I told him, and he sat down again and drank his tea. I asked him where he bought such a magnificent fish.

He had gone by bus from his home in Yotsuya to Tsukiji, the neighborhood that was once home to Tokyo’s legendary fish market. Yotsuya is just one metro stop to the west of Akasaka, but in order to get home, he would walk east to take the Shibuya-bound bus to Nishi-Azabu, then transfer to the Shinjuku-bound bus, to make use of his free senior bus pass.

A new group of customers walked into the cafe, pulling me back inside. There was still so much I wanted to ask, but he got up to go, so I asked him if I could take the photo above. I thanked him and bowed as he turned and walked down the street.

The cardboard grandpa once told us about being born in Akihabara, and losing his home at the end of the war. The air raid that erased Akihabara and the eastern half of the city happened on March 10, 1945—78 years ago today. 279 low-flying B-29s swooped over the city at midnight, raining 1,665 tons of incendiary bombs and unleashing a “violent blaze that roared and hurled itself like a flamethrower down the streets, as countless belongings and futons were reduced to so many tumbling embers in a river of fire,” in the words of one photographer who witnessed the hell-scape.¹ 100,000 people died. My visitor recalled walking through the ruins from Akihabara to Nerima, some 15 kilometers away on the city’s northwestern edge, where he found a place to stay. In 1954, he moved to Yotsuya, where he’s lived ever since. For many years, he worked at a building in front of the American Embassy. That’s how he came to be a part of Akasaka, and ended up staying another twenty years collecting cardboard.

There are moments when people, places or objects that I encounter seem to reveal glimpses of the city’s soul. It’s almost as if that grandpa walked here straight from the ruins, my colleague said when I told him about it. His way of moving through the world more closely resembles the people walking through the photos in our cafe than in the street outside the window. In his time, a fresh fish bought in Tsukiji, grilled on a brazier behind the house, was surely a pleasure of the highest order. Elsewhere in Japan such a gesture would move me, but in Akasaka, in 2023, surrounded by the towers of capitalism indifferent to history, it felt like a miracle.

In the evening, I closed up shop, stopped at the supermarket in the subway station, and stood in the automated checkout lane with other commuters to buy some mirin, sake and soy sauce. I carried the fish home in my backpack, and my skillful partner simmered it until the flesh soaked up the flavor and fell off the bone. We gave thanks to a marebito who had come bearing a gift and left behind a revelation of something more.

1. Ishikawa Koyo, Complete Record of the Great Tokyo Air Raid