Opening the desk drawer, which was trimmed with silver hardware, Sōsuke rummaged around vigorously but to no avail, and finally snapped the drawer shut. He then removed the cover from an ink stone and began writing a letter. Finished, he pondered a moment and then called to his wife in the next room.
“Oyone, what’s my aunt’s address in Naka Roku-Banchō?”
“Number twenty-five, isn’t it?” she answered, and then, after pausing long enough for him to write it down, added, “But a letter won’t do the trick. You have to go over there and have a real talk.”
“First let’s see if a letter won’t actually work,” he declared, as if to have done with it. “If it doesn’t, then I’ll go.” His wife did not reply. “Well, what do you think?” he persisted. “Won’t that do?”
Oyone, seemingly loath to disagree, protested no further.
Letter in hand, Sōsuke stepped directly from the parlor into the vestibule. When she heard his footsteps Oyone got up from the sitting room and proceeded to the vestibule by way of the veranda.
“I’m going out for a stroll,” said Sōsuke.
“Enjoy yourself,” his wife replied with a smile.
Half an hour later, at a rattling of the door being opened, Oyone left off with her needlework and again proceeded by way of the veranda to the vestibule, where instead of Sōsuke she found his younger brother, Koroku, wearing the cap of the secondary school[4] he attended.
“It’s hot!” he said as he undid the buttons of his black woolen cloak, so long that only about six inches of his hakama[5] showed below the hem.
“But just look at you,” said Oyone, “wearing that bulky thing on a day like this!”
“Well, I was thinking it might turn cold when the sun went down,” Koroku explained hastily, before following his sister-in-law along the veranda to the sitting room. “I see you’re hard at work as usual,” he said, glancing at a partly stitched kimono, and sat down cross-legged in front of the long brazier. After sweeping her sewing into the corner, Oyone moved opposite Koroku, took down the tea kettle, and began putting coals in the brazier.
“If it’s tea you’re serving, don’t make any for me,” said Koroku.
“None at all?” Oyone asked in a cajoling, schoolgirlish tone. “Well, what about some sweets, then?” she said with a smile.
“You have some?” asked Koroku.
“Actually, I don’t,” she replied truthfully, but then, as if remembering something—“Wait a minute, there just might be . . .”—she rose, pushed the coal scuttle out of the way, and opened a small storage compartment attached to the wall.
Koroku stared idly at Oyone from behind, focusing on the swelling above the hips where her jacket covered her obi. Whatever she was looking for seemed to take forever to find, and so he said, “Let’s skip the sweets, too—but tell me, where’s my brother?”
“He went out for a while,” she replied, her back still turned toward him. She was intent on her search. Eventually she clapped the compartment door shut. “Nothing! Your brother must have gobbled them up when I wasn’t looking,” she said as she returned to her place opposite Koroku.
“Well, then, won’t you treat me to supper this evening?”
“Why, of course!” said Oyone, looking at the clock on the wall. It was nearly four o’clock. Oyone made a mental note of the two hours left before mealtime. Koroku silently studied her face. He was, in fact, not especially interested in being treated by his sister-in-law.
“Nee-san,[6] do you suppose my brother’s gone to see the Saekis on my account?” he asked Oyone.
“Well, he has been saying over and over that he’s going to see them, but he hasn’t done so yet. But then, you know, your brother goes off in the morning and doesn’t come home till evening, and when he gets home he’s exhausted—even the walk to the bathhouse is a chore. So you shouldn’t keep pressing him, it isn’t fair.”
“Yes, of course he’s busy, but as long as this matter is unsettled I feel too anxious to concentrate on my studies.” As he spoke, Koroku picked up the brass fire tongs and, wielding them energetically, scrawled something in the ashes in the brazier. Oyone watched the tips of the tongs move this way and that.
“But he did just send a letter to the Saekis,” she said by way of consolation.
“What’d it say?”
“Well, I didn’t actually see it. But I’m sure it had to do with the matter in question. When your brother comes home you should ask him yourself. I’m sure that was it.”
“If he did send a letter I suppose that was probably it.”
“Yes, he really did send a letter. When he left awhile ago he had it in his hand and was going to mail it.”
Koroku did not wish to hear another word on the subject from his sister-in-law, whether of justification or consolation. He thought to himself with annoyance that if his brother had time to go out for a stroll, he might as well have strolled right on over to the Saekis instead of sending a letter. Entering the parlor, he took out a foreign book with a red cover from the cabinet and restlessly flipped through its pages.
2
MEANWHILE, Sōsuke, unaware of his brother’s visit, had arrived at a corner shop in his neighborhood. There he purchased stamps, along with a pack of Shikishima, and wasted no time in mailing the letter. That small thing done, simply to retrace his steps homeward somehow did not suffice, so he walked on, puffing out cigarette smoke into the autumn sunlight, the urge in him to wander afar, to someplace where he could etch vividly on his mind the sensation that the very essence of Tokyo was to be found here in this spot, then take it home as a souvenir of this day, his Sunday, before he lay down to sleep. To be sure, he was a man who had for years not only lived in and breathed the air of Tokyo but who also commuted by streetcar to the office and back every day, passing twice, to and fro, through the city’s bustling quarters. Neither physically relaxed nor mentally at ease, he was in the habit of simply passing through these places in a daze and had not recently experienced even a moment’s awareness that he lived in a thriving metropolis. Normally, caught up as he was in the busyness of his daily routine, this did not bother him; but come Sunday, when granted the opportunity for relaxation, his workaday life would suddenly strike him as restless and superficial. He was driven to the conclusion that while living in Tokyo he had never in fact seen Tokyo, and whenever he reached this point in his thoughts he would feel overwhelmed by the bleakness, the dreariness of it all.
At times like this he would set out into the busier quarters as if suddenly remembering some errand. If he happened to have a bit extra in his pocket, he went so far as to think, Why not splurge a little on a good time? Yet his sense of dreariness was not so acute as to drive him to self-abandon; before he could rush to such an extreme, he would decide that this was all quite ridiculous and give it up. Besides, as is the rule with men like him, the limited thickness of his wallet was such as to prohibit any rash indulgence, and rather than racking his brains over timid half measures, it was easier just to keep his hands tucked in his kimono sleeves and turn toward home. And so it came about that a simple walk, or a leisurely look around an exhibition of useful products, would console his forlorn spirit enough to sustain him until the next Sunday.
Today as well, Sōsuke boarded a streetcar in a characteristic oh-well-why-not frame of mind. Once on board, however, he found things uncommonly pleasant, for in spite of the fine Sunday weather, there were fewer passengers than usual. Moreover, the expressions on these passengers’ faces were peaceful; each and every one of them looked thoroughly at ease. As Sōsuke sat down he reflected on his customary weekday lot: the commute to Marunouchi[7] at a fixed hour every morning, when he would hurl himself into the no-holds-barred struggle for a seat. There could be nothing more depressing than the spectacle of his fellow riders on the streetcar at rush hour. Whether he was hanging on to a leather strap or sitting on a cushioned seat, he had never once received any impression of human warmth from this daily routine. Very well then, he w
ould say to himself, and just sit there brushing shoulders and knees with his robotic seatmates, riding along to his destination, where he would hop up and get off. Today, however, as he watched an old woman seated opposite him murmuring into the ear of her granddaughter, who looked to be about seven years old, and then a thirtyish woman with the air of a tradesman’s wife showing a friendly interest in the little girl, asking her age, her name, and the like, he felt even more keenly as though transported to another world.
Overhead hung several framed advertising posters. On his weekday rides these went completely unnoticed by Sōsuke, but now he casually glanced up at the first poster, for a moving company, and read the caption: WE MAKE MOVING EASY. The next one had three parallel lines: People Who Are Economical / People Who Care About Hygiene / People Concerned About Fire Safety; below which came the culminating message: THEY ALL USE GAS—this complemented by a picture of a gas stove with flames coming out. The third poster announced in bold white characters against a red background: ETERNAL SNOWS, by the Russian Master, Count Tolstoy[8]; and: ANYTHING-GOES FARCES by the Kotatsu Troupe.
Sōsuke took a good ten minutes perusing all the posters three times over. Not that he had any desire to buy the items or attend the events advertised; rather, he derived considerable satisfaction simply from having found time for the advertisements to impress themselves on his consciousness, and beyond that, the mental leisure to read through each of them with complete comprehension. So devoid of composure were his daily comings and goings that even this one calm, collected moment was to be savored.
Sōsuke got off the streetcar at Surugadai-shita in Kanda. The instant he alighted, his eyes fixed on a row of foreign books beautifully arrayed in a store window to his right. For a while he just stood in front of the window gazing at the brilliant gilt letters embossed on red or blue or striped or otherwise patterned book covers. He could, of course, understand the titles, but they aroused in him not the slightest curiosity about what was contained inside. That time in his life when he could not pass a bookstore without wanting to go in, and once inside to buy something, now belonged to the distant past. True, one English-language volume in the center of the window with a particularly fine binding and entitled History of Gambling fairly leaped out at him with its distinctiveness, but that was all.
Smiling to himself, he hurried across the street, where he stopped for a second time, to peek inside a watchmaker’s. On display were numerous gold watches, watch chains, and the like, which again he regarded as so many pretty-colored, well-formed objects without experiencing the slightest desire to make any purchase. Nevertheless he examined all the price tags dangling there from silk threads, comparing this item and that, and came away surprised at how cheap the gold watches were.
He even paused for a moment in front of an umbrella shop, and then a Western-style haberdashery; a necktie hanging next to a silk hat attracted his attention. It was of a much higher quality than the one he wore every day, and he thought perhaps he might ask the price. He started to enter the store, only to retreat at the image conjured up of the ridiculous figure he would cut if he were to appear at work the next day in a new tie. The impulse to reach for his wallet vanished on the spot, and he moved on. Next, at a draper’s, he window-shopped leisurely and committed to memory the names of various weaves, such as “quail’s crepe,” “twill weave,” and “summer sash weave,” all previously unfamiliar to him. At the branch of a Kyoto shop called Eri-shin, for the longest time he gazed in through the window at some intricately embroidered half collars for kimonos, standing so close that the brim of his hat touched the glass. Among them was a particularly elegant one that looked well suited to his wife. He had a fleeting impulse to buy it for her. But I should have done this five or six years ago, he thought immediately thereafter, whereupon he squelched the notion and the moment’s pleasure it had brought him. Detaching himself from the window with a resigned smile, Sōsuke moved on, and before he had walked half a block he lost interest and ceased to pay much attention to either the storefronts or the passersby.
But then his eye was caught by boldly printed advertisements for the latest publications, hanging from the eaves of a large newsstand on the corner. Some posters were enclosed in an elongated ladder-like frame, others pasted to strips of wood decorated with bright patterns. Sōsuke read each title and author’s name, among them certain ones vaguely familiar from newspaper advertisements, others with an air of novelty about them.
Just around the corner from the newsstand, a man of about thirty wearing a black bowler was sitting cross-legged right on the ground and blowing up large rubber balloons, all the while calling out “A nice treat for your children!” Sōsuke marveled at how the balloons inflated automatically into the shape of a Daruma doll,[9] complete with eyes and mouth in black ink that had been applied to just the right spots. Once blown up, the doll stayed that way indefinitely, and rested easily on the palm of the man’s hand or even on a fingertip. Then, when the man stuck a thin piece of wood like a toothpick into a hollow in the Daruma balloon’s rump, it deflated with a whoosh.
Pedestrians thronged the busy street, but not a single person paused to look at the balloons. The man in the bowler, sitting nonchalantly on the street corner in the midst of the bustle and seemingly oblivious to his surroundings, alternated between calling out “A nice treat for your children” and blowing up another Daruma balloon. Taking out one and a half sen, Sōsuke bought one, had it deflated, and stuck it in the deep part of his kimono sleeve. He toyed with the idea of going to a nice, clean barbershop and having his hair cut. Not knowing where such a shop might be, he looked around for a while but to no avail. In the meantime the sun had gotten low on the horizon, and so he got back on the streetcar, homeward bound.
By the time Sōsuke reached the end of the line and handed his ticket to the conductor, the sky was losing its color and dark shadows were stretching across the damp pavement. The steel pole he grasped as he stepped down felt cold in his hand. All the other alighting passengers scattered hastily this way and that with an air of preoccupation. Surveying the neighborhood here at the city’s edge, he noticed clouds of pale white smoke drifting over the roofs and eaves of houses on both sides of the street and seemingly right into the earth’s atmosphere. Sōsuke quickened his pace like the others and headed in the direction of a well-wooded area. Realizing that both this Sunday and the fine weather that had accompanied it had drawn to a close, a certain mood came over him: a sense that such things did not last for long, and that this was a great pity. From tomorrow he would again, as always, be busy at work—the thought brought on pangs of regret for the good life he had tasted for this one afternoon. The mindless activity that filled the other six days of the week seemed utterly dreary. Even now, as he walked along, he could see before his eyes nothing but the outlines of the large, all but windowless office that the sun scarcely penetrated, the faces of his colleagues sitting beside him, the figure of his superior summoning him with a “Nonaka-san, over here, please . . .”
To reach his house, Sōsuke passed Uokatsu, the fishmonger, turned the corner at the fifth or sixth house farther on, and entered a byway—something between a side street and an alley—that dead-ended at the cliff-like embankment and was flanked on both sides by four or five rental houses with identical façades. Until recently, in the midst of this tract, well inside a tall, if sparse, hedge of cryptomeria, there had stood a weathered residence that looked as if it might have housed the descendants of a shogunal retainer. But then a man named Sakai, who now lived on top of the cliff, had bought this land and immediately remodeled the old house in the same up-to-date style as the others, doing away with the reed thatching and uprooting the hedge. Sōsuke’s house, tucked in on the left at the very end of the byway, stood directly below the embankment; hence the general gloominess. But as he and his wife had agreed before settling on this particular house, it was bound to be quiet at least, being at the farthest remove from the thoroughfare.
Now that twi
light had fallen on this week’s one Sunday, Sōsuke’s thoughts, as he hurriedly opened the latticework door in front, turned to a quick bath, perhaps a haircut, time permitting, then a leisurely dinner. From the kitchen came the sound of bowls and dishes being handled. Stepping over the threshold, he inadvertently trod on the clogs that Koroku had cast aside there. As he bent over to rearrange them, Koroku appeared. From the kitchen Oyone called out, “Who is it, your brother?”
“Well, look who’s here,” said Sōsuke, making his way into the parlor. Once he had mailed the letter not a single thought of Koroku had crossed his mind all the while he was strolling around Kanda and riding home on the streetcar. At the sight of his brother’s face he felt embarrassed, as if he had somehow wronged him.
“Oyone! Oyone!” he called, summoning his wife from the kitchen. “You’d better fix a good meal for our brother here.”
Hurrying out of the kitchen, leaving the shoji open behind her, Oyone came as far as the parlor. “Yes, right away,” she said in response to this superfluous command and started back to the kitchen, only to turn around and address her brother-in-law. “I’m sorry to trouble you, Koroku, but would you please close the shutters and light the lamp? Kiyo and I have our hands full at the moment.”
“Yes . . . of course,” Koroku replied, a bit flustered, and got to his feet.
From the kitchen came the sounds of Kiyo chopping things up, of hot or cold water flowing down the drain, and of voices: “Where should I put this, ma’am?” “Nee-san, where are the scissors to trim the wick with?” Then came a hissing sound, as of water boiling over into the flames on the portable charcoal stove.
Sōsuke rubbed his hands silently over a small charcoal burner in the darkened parlor. A reddish tongue of flame rising from the ashes was the only spot of color in the room. Just then, in the landlord’s house atop the embankment, one of the young girls in the family began playing the piano. As if prompted by the music, Sōsuke stood up and went out to the veranda in order to close the shutters. One or two stars twinkled high above the mōsō bamboo, their leaves grayish smudges against the clear sky. From beyond the bamboo the piano’s notes reverberated in the night.
The Gate Page 3