“You’re so obedient.”
“I am, always. Even Okamoto said I should ask you and he’d take me if you agreed. He told me to ask if you weren’t too sick.”
“But you phoned them.”
“I did, I promised to—I said no once, but there was always the possibility that I could go after all, depending on how you seemed, so he asked me to get in touch once more by noon to let him know how you were doing.”
“That’s what Okamoto wrote back to you?”
“Yes.”
But O-Nobu hadn’t shown Tsuda the letter.
“And how do you really feel about it? Do you want to go or not?”
“Of course I’d like to.”
“So the truth is out. Off you go, then.”
With this conversation, they finished their lunch.
[ 45 ]
BY THE time O-Nobu had seen to it that her postoperative husband was reposing comfortably on his mattress and descended the stairs alone, the hour when she was expected had come and gone. Giving the rickshaw man the name of the theater and nothing more, she climbed into the cab at once. The rickshaw that was waiting for her in front of the gate was the newest among the four or five lined up at the station on the corner.
Emerging from the side street, her vehicle with its modern rubber tire wheels stuck to main, trolley streets. The rickshaw man seemed to be racing along to no purpose except his eagerness to reach the bustling part of town, and his exuberant gait was contagious. Installed on the thick, well-cushioned seat, O-Nobu felt, even as she experienced a rush of movement in her body, an uplifting of her spirits on a wave of something gentle and cheerful. She was borne aloft by the pleasure of proceeding headlong to her destination with no concern for the teeming humanity surrounding her.
In the speeding rickshaw she hadn’t the leisure to think about things at home. The image she retained, of Tsuda reclining in good spirits on the second floor of the clinic, provided her assurance that she might safely put him out of her mind for this one day at least, and she was entirely untroubled by thoughts of him. Rushing along with her was only what lay ahead. Having never fancied theater in particular, she was less concerned about arriving late than eager to be quickly there. Her breakneck journey in the brand new rickshaw was exciting, and so, in that same sense, was arriving at the theater.
The rickshaw stopped in front of the teahouse connected to the theater. As she responded to the woman who emerged to greet her with “Okamoto,” O-Nobu took in a glittering impression of lanterns, indigo banners at the entrance, silk and paper flowers of crimson and white. But before she had fairly managed to organize the colors and shapes that confronted her all at once as she alighted, she was ushered down a long corridor and found herself peering all of a sudden into the theater itself, a heaping sea of patterns spun into a tapestry many times richer and more intricate than what she had just seen. Such was her feeling as she gazed into the distance through a crack in the door at the end of the corridor that the man from the teahouse had opened for her with a polite “This way, please.” To O-Nobu, who took inordinate pleasure in coming to such places, there was nothing so very unfamiliar about the excitement she was feeling, and yet it felt always like a new excitement. It was, in other words, a perennially unfamiliar feeling. As with a person who traverses the dark and suddenly emerges into the light, O-Nobu’s eyes opened. The awareness that she was about to move from a far corner into the living pattern in front of her, to become a part of it, her every gesture and action woven into its fabric, rose distinctly through her nervousness.
Uncle Okamoto appeared to be absent from the audience. As only his wife and two daughters were there, there was plenty of room for O-Nobu to sit. Even so, the elder daughter, Tsugiko, apparently concerned that O-Nobu’s seat was in the shadow of her own, twisted around and spoke, her body angled to one side.
“Can you see? Shall I switch with you for a while?”
“Thank you—I’m fine here.”
O-Nobu shook her head.
The younger sister, Yuriko, going on fourteen, turned back to O-Nobu in the seat directly in front of her, her left elbow resting on the railing wrapped in velvet, small, ivory binoculars held, as she was left-handed, in her left hand.
“You were awfully late. I thought you were coming to the house.”
Still too young to know better, she neglected to include in her greeting a word of inquiry about Tsuda’s illness.
“You had something to do?”
“Yes.”
O-Nobu turned toward the stage without further explanation. This was the direction in which the girls’ mother had been gazing raptly all along without a glance to either side. The first time their eyes met they merely acknowledged each other with a silent dip of the head and didn’t speak a word until the wooden clappers signaled the end of the scene.
[ 46 ]
“I’M SO glad you managed to come. I was just saying to Tsugi that today might be difficult for you.”
Appearing to relax for the first time now that the scene had ended, Okamoto’s wife finally began speaking to O-Nobu.
“Didn’t I tell you so? It’s just as I predicted.”
Tsugiko addressed her mother with a look of pride on her face and, turning at once to O-Nobu, explained.
“I made a bet with Mother. Whether you’d come today or not. Mother said you might not come so I assured her you would no matter what.”
“So you consulted the box again?”
Among Tsugiko’s prize possessions was a box, three inches long and less than two inches wide, of fortune tallies. On the black lacquer lid, the words “Fortune Tags” appeared in gold in the spidery characters of the Sung dynasty style; inside were tags fashioned from beautifully planed slivers of ivory inscribed with the numbers 1 to 100.
“Let’s have a look,” Tsugiko would say, shaking one of the thin ivory wafers from the box as if it were a toothpick holder and then unfolding the booklet designed to fit inside. To read the text inscribed in characters the size of a fly’s head, she would remove from its chintz bag lined with habotai silk the magnifying glass that came with the set and bring it close to the tiny page portentously. This gift, which O-Nobu had purchased for four yen, too much to spend on a simple toy, at a shop on the temple grounds on an excursion to Asakusa with Tsuda, had become, for Tsugiko, who would turn twenty-one next year, an accessory that added a dimension of mystery in an innocent and playful way to her young girl’s imagination. Sometimes she even took it with her when she went out, tucking it into her obi just as it lay on her desk in its thick paper case.
“Did you bring it along today?”
O-Nobu had an urge to ask the question half teasingly. Tsugiko shook her head with a strained smile. At her side, her mother spoke as though replying in her stead.
“Today’s prediction didn’t come from a Fortune Tag. We had a far greater oracle today.”
“I see.”
Surveying the faces of mother and daughter, O-Nobu appeared eager to inquire further.
“Tsugi was hoping—,” her mother began, and Tsugiko interrupted, speaking over her.
“That’s enough, Mother. That isn’t something to talk about here.”
Her younger sister, Yuriko, who had been listening to the conversation in silence, giggled.
“I don’t mind telling her.”
“Yuriko-san, you hush. That’s just being mean. You stop or I’m not helping you with piano practice anymore.”
Tsugiko’s mother laughed softly, as if to avoid drawing attention from people seated nearby. O-Nobu was also amused. At the same time, she was even more interested in knowing.
“Tell! What if your sister does get mad—I’ll stand behind you.”
Yuriko looked at her sister with her jaw thrust forward. It was as if, with this however small show of dissatisfaction, she was flaunting in front of her sister the victory of someone who has seized for herself the right to speak or hold her tongue.
“Go ahead and tell, then
—do whatever you like.”
Standing as she spoke, Tsugiko opened the door behind their seats and stepped into the corridor.
“Big Sister’s angry, isn’t she?”
“She’s not angry—she’s embarrassed.”
“But there’s nothing embarrassing about saying what she said.”
“Then tell me.”
Yuriko was some six years younger than herself, and her psychology was a child’s; O-Nobu understood her feelings and tried to make clever use of them, but her elder sister’s abrupt exit had already altered the teenager’s mood, and O-Nobu’s attempt at inducement had no effect. Finally, it was the girls’ mother who was obliged to accept responsibility for everything.
“It’s nothing worth making such a fuss about. All Tsugi said was that Yoshio-san would surely come today because he’s so kind and gentle and always does whatever O-Nobu would like him to.”
“Really! Yoshio appears that dependable to Tsugiko-san? How wonderful, I should be grateful; I’ll have to thank her.”
“And Yuriko said in that case it would be nice if Sister could marry a man like Yoshio-san—that’s what Tsugi would have been embarrassed about in front of you, and that’s why she left.”
“Gracious!” There was sadness in O-Nobu’s softly spoken exclamation.
[ 47 ]
UNEXPECTEDLY, O-NOBU found herself thinking about Tsuda as a self-centered man. Despite the fact that she extended to him from morning to night what she intended to be the fullest extent of kindness and consideration she was capable of, was there no limit to the sacrifice her husband required? The question that nagged at her perennially now broke into her thoughts in vivid color. Aware that the sole responsible party capable of addressing this doubt was at that moment right in front of her eyes, she looked at Okamoto’s wife. With her parents residing far away, Aunt Okamoto was the only person in all of Tokyo on whom she could rely.
Is a husband nothing more than a sponge who exists solely to soak up a wife’s tenderness?
This was the question she had long wanted to ask her aunt face to face. Unfortunately, she carried within herself inherently a variety of pride. And this hauteur, as it were, which might be interpreted, depending on the viewpoint, as either grim forbearance or simple vanity, constrained her powerfully when it came to this matter. In a relationship between husband and wife that was in a certain sense like two sumo wrestlers facing each other daily in the arena, the woman observed from inside by the two combatants was invariably her husband’s opponent and sometimes even his enemy, but when presenting to the outside, it was O-Nobu’s nature to feel painfully embarrassed, as if she were exposing the weakness of a couple who had been decorously united in the eyes of the world, unless she appeared to take her husband’s side in all things. Accordingly, even when she felt the need to reveal something that was tormenting her, in the presence of this aunt, who, after all, from the couple’s point of view, belonged in the category of others, she was reluctant, fearing in her tremulous way what it might lead her to think about herself and her husband, to speak up. In addition, she worried constantly that her husband’s failure to requite her kindness with the kindness she expected of him might be interpreted as a consequence of her own inadequacy. Among all the rumors about her that might circulate, she most feared, as if it were fire, being labeled “thick.”
There are young women about who hold men far more difficult than Tsuda in the palm of their hands, and here you are, twenty-three years old and unable to tame your husband—it’s because you lack the wisdom.
For O-Nobu, who held that wisdom and virtue were as good as identical, words like these coming from her aunt would have been more painful than anything. To confess as a woman that she had no skill with a man would be no less demeaning, wounding her self-esteem, than the confession that she was a human being unable to function as one. An intensely personal conversation of this sort was impossible at the theater, but even at a different time and place, O-Nobu would have had no choice but to hold her tongue. Having looked at her aunt expectantly, she quickly averted her eyes.
The curtain on front of the stage rippled, and someone peered out into the audience through the narrow opening between the seams. O-Nobu, feeling as if the eyes were looking in her direction, shifted her gaze yet again.
The audience came murmuringly to life all at once as people left their seats or returned to them or moved back and forth in the aisles. The majority, who remained seated, shifted their positions in every direction, incessantly moving: the countless dark heads below them appeared to eddy. Some were dressed gaily, and the shifting panorama of bright color revealed glimpses of a restless pleasure.
Taking her eyes off the orchestra, O-Nobu began to inspect the seats across the pit on the far side of the house. Just then, Yuriko turned around and spoke unexpectedly.
“Mrs. Yoshikawa is sitting over there—do you see her?”
Directing a somewhat surprised glance in the direction Yuriko was indicating, O-Nobu easily identified a figure that seemed to be Madam Yoshikawa.
“Yuriko-san, you have eyes like a hawk—when did you notice her?”
“I didn’t have to notice—I knew she was here.”
“Did Auntie and Tsugiko-san know too?”
“We all did.”
As she continued to stare from behind Tsugiko in Mrs. Yoshikawa’s direction, realizing that only she hadn’t known, the binoculars in the matron’s hand were abruptly turned on her, accidentally or on purpose, she couldn’t say.
“I hate being looked at that way.”
O-Nobu shrank into herself as if to hide. Even so, the binoculars across the theater remained trained on her.
“Fine. I’ll just run away.”
As if in pursuit of Tsugiko, O-Nobu stepped into the corridor.
[ 48 ]
THE SCENE outside surveyed from the corridor was, as to be expected at a venue like this, bustling. Unfamiliar faces paraded back and forth unceasingly across the slatted flooring held in place by braces so that it could be removed. O-Nobu stopped at the far end of the corridor and, half leaning against a pillar, searched for Tsugiko. When she finally located her in front of the shops lining the far side of the lobby, she descended at once and moved toward her with quick, light steps across the slatted wooden flooring.
“What are you buying?”
As O-Nobu spoke, leaning forward from behind as if to peer over Tsugiko’s shoulder, her cousin wheeled in surprise so that their faces nearly rubbed as they smiled at each other.
“I’m having a terrible time. Hajime-san asked me to buy him something so I’ve been looking, but I can’t find anything likely to please him.”
Under the mistaken impression she would find a toy for a small boy, Tsugiko had gone from one item to the next, finding nothing and unable to stop until by now she was in some distress. Pausing in front of hairpins decorated with plastic flowers and bearing the crests of famous actors, wallets, hand towels, on and on, she kept glancing at O-Nobu with eyes that appealed for help. O-Nobu responded at once.
“You’re wasting your time. If it’s not a murder weapon he won’t like it, a pistol or a wooden sword, and you won’t find any such thing in these stylish shops.”
The man behind the counter laughed; O-Nobu took the opportunity to grasp Tsugiko’s hand.
“Anyway, you should ask your mother first—sorry to trouble you, another time.”
With these words to the shopkeeper, O-Nobu led a disconsolate-looking Tsugiko briskly away, half dragging her back to the corridor. There they stopped and chatted for a while, leaning against a pillar supporting the roof.
“What happened to Uncle? Why isn’t he here?”
“He’s coming. Any minute now.”
O-Nobu was surprised. Okamoto wedging his bulk into a space already cramped with the four of them would definitely be an incident.
“I’m already so skinny, if Uncle squeezes in on top of me I’ll be squashed flat.”
“He’ll take Yur
iko’s place.”
“Why?”
“No special reason. It just makes more sense. It doesn’t matter if Yuriko isn’t here.”
“Really! I wonder what would have happened if Yoshio weren’t sick and he had come along with me.”
“We’d have managed—bought more space I guess, or maybe joined Yoshikawa-san.”
“Was Yoshikawa-san invited too?”
“Yes.”
Tsugiko said no more. O-Nobu had never thought of the Okamoto and Yoshikawa families as being so close, and for just a moment she was suspicious, wondering if there might be some significance in this, but as there was abundant room to view it simply as an afternoon’s entertainment people with leisure time were likely to arrange, she didn’t pursue it further. They did touch briefly on Madam Yoshikawa’s binoculars. O-Nobu went so far as to demonstrate with a gesture.
“She pointed them at me openly like this. I couldn’t believe it.”
“How rude! But that’s apparently how foreigners behave—that’s what Father says.”
“So in the West it’s not bad manners? Does that mean I’m allowed to stare at her in the same way? I should return her kind attention.”
“Give it a try. I bet she’ll be pleased. She’s always saying, ‘Nobukosan is classy.’”
As they laughed aloud, a young man came out of nowhere and halted briefly alongside them. He was wearing a plain kimono jacket embroidered with a crest in slightly darker colored thread and stylish, serge “lantern” hakama, and their eyes had no sooner met than, conveying without words an attitude of polite respect as he passed, he descended to the wooden floor and moved away. Tsugiko blushed.
“Let’s go back in.”
Prompting O-Nobu, she stepped inside.
[ 49 ]
THE SCENE inside was just as before. The figures of the men and women moving about in the parterre directly beneath them were a tangled, dizzying spectacle, as if they were underfoot. Activity designed to attract as much attention as possible was in evidence everywhere. As one gesture completed itself, it vanished as if to cede a place to the next ostentatious burst of color. The small world compassed in their field of vision was all a wavering blur, complex and disordered and always resplendent.
Light and Darkness Page 13