Nakagawa district

Nakagawa district is a hilly area whose steep, narrow streets and clustered houses make it inseparable from Etsuko’s memories of loss and belonging. Though she does not visit on a casual impulse, she finds herself unable to stay away for long; later, even upon waking, she can briefly feel that she is still there.

Setting and Returns

The district’s terrain shapes Etsuko’s experience of returning: climbing its steep streets brings sadness and pleasure together, with the sadness deepening into a sense of loss. Her reluctance to visit casually does not resolve into distance. She remains drawn back, as if the neighborhood holds a claim on her that ordinary choice cannot quite explain.

Memory and Significance

Nakagawa district also persists as a location in Etsuko’s disoriented moments between sleep and waking. In conversation with Mrs. Fujiwara, she describes sometimes waking and forgetting, then thinking she is still in Nakagawa. The place is therefore more than a remembered landscape: it remains vivid enough to interrupt her sense of where she is. The contrast between her repeated returns and this involuntary mental return gives the district a double presence, both a physical neighborhood and a point of attachment in memory.