“Stop faking and say something real.”
“What would you do if I did?”
“I’m your sister.”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“The trouble is, you’re not frank.”
Tsuda inclined his head as though bewildered.
“It seems the conversation has gotten very complicated all of a sudden; I wonder if I haven’t misled you. I didn’t bring Kobayashi up with anything serious in mind. All I meant was, this is the sort of troublesome fellow who goes to see your wife when you’re not home and tells her heaven knows what.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all I have to say.”
O-Hide looked as though she felt an expectation had been betrayed. But that didn’t silence her.
“But, Brother. Imagine that someone came to see me and said something when Hori was away. Do you think Hori would worry about that when he found out?”
“I wouldn’t know about Hori-san. I suppose you’ll insist he wouldn’t worry?”
“That’s right.”
“Fine—and?”
“And nothing. That’s all I have to say.”
The conversation had led them to silence.
[ 100 ]
BUT THEY were bound together by the process of unveiling they had begun. Nothing short of bringing certain things to light by means of conversation, hammering them out of each other, would suffice. For Tsuda in particular, this was a pressing necessity. His need to produce some cash was urgent—a source of funds was right in front of him. He had the feeling if he once let it slip away it would remain out of reach forever. As a consequence he had lapsed, in this regard at least, into a position of weakness relative to O-Hide. He wondered how he might retrieve the topic of conversation that had been dropped.
“Why not have lunch with me before you go?”
It was just the hour of the day when this overture was appropriate. The fact that Hori had taken his mother and children to Yokohama that morning for a visit with relatives so that no one was at home allowed him the convenience of imparting to the gesture a special significance.
“In any event there’s nothing for you to do at home.”
O-Hide did as Tsuda bid her. A dialogue between them was easily resurrected. But this was a simple conversation befitting a brother and sister and provided none of the sustenance they required. Each awaited the opportunity to venture more deeply into the thoughts of the other.
“Brother, I brought something with me.”
“Yes?”
“Something you could use.”
“Is that so?”
Tsuda scarcely bothered to respond. His indifference was proportional to his self-esteem. He was disinclined, psychologically and as a matter of form, to lower his head to his sister. But he wanted the money. To O-Hide the money meant nothing. But she wanted to oblige her brother to bow to her. And achieving her objective required using the money her brother desired as bait. The inevitable effect was to irritate him.
“Shall I give it to you?”
“If you like.”
“Father isn’t about to help you out.”
“Maybe not.”
“Mother says exactly that in her letter to me. I brought it along today thinking to show you, and then I forgot all about it.”
“You’ve already told me what she wrote.”
“Exactly. And so I’ve brought something along.”
“To aggravate me? Or do you intend to hand it over?”
As if she had been struck, O-Hide fell suddenly silent. And as he watched, tears welled in the corners of her beautiful eyes. Tsuda could only imagine they were tears of chagrin.
“What’s made you so cynical, Brother? Why can’t you accept what’s genuine in another person as you used to?”
“I’m exactly the same as I always was. You’re the one who’s changed!”
This time a look of dismay appeared on O-Hide’s face.
“How have I changed? Since when? Tell me.”
“You shouldn’t have to ask, just think about it and you’ll know.”
“I won’t, I don’t! Please tell me!”
Tsuda observed O-Hide lean toward him beseechingly with coldness in his eyes. Having come this far, he deliberated whether it would be more in his own interest to restore his sister’s sense of well-being or to squash her altogether. Resolving to take the middle road, he commenced speaking slowly.
“O-Hide, you may not see this, but from where your brother stands it appears you’ve changed a lot since you married Hori-san.”
“Of course I have! What woman doesn’t change after marriage and two children?”
“So it’s no surprise.”
“But how are you thinking I’ve changed toward you? Tell me that.”
“It’s a question of…”
Tsuda didn’t finish. But he made sure that his emphasis conveyed to O-Hide that he wasn’t incapable of finishing. O-Hide paused briefly and then pushed back.
“You never forget for one minute that I tattled on you to Kyoto, do you!”
“That’s not important.”
“Oh yes, it is! I have a sworn enemy as a result.”
“What are you talking about? Who?”
The unfortunate inquiry ignited the name that had been inscribed between them in, as it were, invisible ink. “O-Nobu.” O-Hide thrust the name in her brother’s face as though it were a firebrand.
“It’s you who’ve changed, Brother. You’re an entirely different brother now than you ever were before you married Sister. Anyone can see you’re a different person.”
[ 101 ]
AS SHE appeared to Tsuda, O-Hide was armored in her bias against him. This last attack in particular had been driven by sheer misunderstanding. Her voice, repeating “Sister, Sister,” grated on his ears. It displeased him immoderately that she should interpret his every effort to satisfy himself as intended to satisfy his wife.
“You think I’m henpecked, but you’re wrong.”
“Perhaps I am. You did ignore a phone call from Sister and went out of your way, in front of me at least, to appear indifferent.”
Facing O-Hide as she let fly such remarks one after the other, letting them fall where they might, Tsuda was pushed dangerously close to forgetting what was in his own interest. Lying motionless on his mattress, he voiced his annoyance to himself.
I warned O-Nobu not to get on the phone with this brat.
Like someone trying to distract himself from screaming nerves, he pulled repeatedly at his short mustache. Gradually his expression turned sour. Little by little, he grew taciturn.
This change in attitude had a surprising effect on O-Hide. Apparently assuming that her brother’s silence signified the shame he was feeling as the integument covering his faults was peeled away layer after painful layer, she intensified her assault. Her vehemence suggested she was feeling able to push him into comprehensive remorse.
“You were more honest before you got married to Sister. More straightforward, at least. I don’t want to be accused of saying things without evidence, so I’ll state the facts as they are. And I hope you’ll answer me straightforwardly. Before you were married, do you remember ever lying to Father as you are now?”
At this, Tsuda staggered for the first time. Clearly, what O-Hide said was true. But the truth resided in a place altogether different than she supposed. Tsuda would have said it was merely a coincidental truth.
“Are you suggesting that O-Nobu is responsible for this mess?”
“Yes, I am!” she would like to have answered, but she essayed a deflection instead.
“I haven’t said a word about Sister. I simply emphasized that fact as proof that you’ve changed, Brother.”
On the surface of things, it appeared that Tsuda had been defeated.
“Insist I’ve changed if you must; what’s wrong with that?”
“What’s wrong with it is how it feels to Father and Mother.”
“Is
that so?” Tsuda replied at once and subjoined coldly, “I can’t help how it feels.”
“And still no regrets from you?” O-Hide’s expression seemed to be saying. “There’s more proof that you’ve changed.”
Tsuda’s looked at her blankly. O-Hide presented her evidence without hesitation.
“You’ve been worrying all this time that Kobayashi-san might have said something to Sister when you weren’t home.”
“What a nuisance you are! I’ve already explained I’m not worried.”
“But certainly you’re concerned.”
“Think what you like.”
“Fine. But either way, isn’t that proof that you’ve changed?”
“Nonsense!”
“It is! Undeniable proof! It proves how afraid of Sister you are.”
Tsuda rolled his eyes. Without lifting his head from the pillow, he looked up at O-Hide as though to peer inside her. A cold smile wrinkled the well-formed bridge of his nose. This show of composure caught O-Hide off guard. A breath away, or so she thought, from pushing him backward head over heels into a deep valley of remorse, she was obliged to wonder for the first time whether there might still be level ground behind her brother. But she was compelled to push forward as far as she could.
“Until just a little while ago, you looked right through Kobayashi-san as if he weren’t there. You paid no attention no matter what he said. So why is it that today you’re suddenly so afraid? Aren’t you afraid of a nobody like him because today it’s Sister he’s talking to?”
“Maybe. But what about it? No matter how afraid I might be of Kobayashi, it doesn’t mean I’m ungrateful to Father and Mother.”
“So you’re saying I have no business saying anything?”
“Something like that.”
O-Hide was livid. At the same time a bolt of lightning arced across her mind.
[ 102 ]
“NOW I understand!”
O-Hide’s voice was sharp as a knife. But her clipped formality appeared on the surface to effect no change in Tsuda. There was nothing in his countenance to suggest he was prepared any longer to answer her challenge.
“I understand now, Brother.”
“Understand what?”
“Why you’re so concerned about Sister.”
Tsuda felt the budding of a certain curiosity.
“Say what you think.”
“There’s no need to say anything. It’s enough for me if you just acknowledge that I do understand.”
“Why should that matter? Just tell yourself you understand and keep quiet about it.”
“I can’t do that. You don’t consider me a true sister. As far as you’re concerned, I have no right to say anything to you unless it has to do with Father and Mother. So I’ll hold my tongue. But just because I don’t speak doesn’t mean I’m blind. I just want to be sure you don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m silent because I don’t know what’s going on.”
It seemed to Tsuda that discontinuing the conversation was the only course to take. Engaging even halfheartedly seemed likely to lead to trouble. Not that he had any intention of lowering his head to his sister. In his wildest dreams it would never have occurred to him to engage in histrionics like repenting in front of her. Normally he could have managed such a flourish, but when it came to O-Hide, whom he was accustomed to looking down on, he was prevented by an unaccountable pride. This was in fact an arrogance he found relatively easier to exhibit in her direction than toward others. Accordingly, though his words may have been conciliatory, they were essentially ineffective. As for O-Hide, she perceived only the contempt in her brother’s heart reaching her though his lukewarm protestations. It had been clear from his countenance for some time that he was feeling tormented beyond endurance, but she had no intention of showing him mercy. “Brother!” she began again.
At that moment Tsuda perceived a change in O-Hide. Until now she had been aiming her attack at O-Nobu. To be sure, she had also been attacking him, but that was because he stood in the line of fire: her intention had been to fell O-Nobu where she hovered behind him. At some point she had arbitrarily redefined her target. Now she charged directly at Tsuda.
“Brother! Does a sister have no right to say anything about her big brother’s character? Maybe she has no right—but assuming she has any doubts at all, isn’t it her brother’s duty to dispel them—I take back ‘duty,’ maybe that’s a word I have no business using—how about compassion? As a sister I feel so sad to be looking at a brother of mine who has no compassion.”
“What kind of impertinence is this? Hold your tongue! You have some nerve talking about something you know nothing about.”
For the first time Tsuda’s control of his fury slackened.
“What do you know about character? It’s preposterous that you think your girls’ school diploma qualifies you to even use the word in front of me.”
“I’m not putting any importance on the word. I’m concerned with facts.”
“Facts? Do you think a woman with your education can hope to grasp the facts in my head? How moronic!”
“If you’re going to dismiss me with such contempt, let me give you a warning. Are you prepared?”
“I have nothing to say to you. I just wonder how you can talk this way to a sick man. And you consider yourself my sister?”
“Because you don’t behave like a brother.”
“That’s enough.”
“I’m not finished. I’ll say what I have to say. You’re being used by your wife! You care less about Father and Mother and certainly me than you do about Sister.”
“Show me a world where it isn’t normal to care more for a wife than a sister.”
“That wouldn’t be so bad if that’s all it was. But there’s more, Brother! You care a lot about Sister, and at the same time there’s someone else you also care about.”
“Meaning?”
“And that’s why you’re afraid of Sister. And what you fear—”
In the middle of her sentence the fusuma slid open and O-Nobu’s pale face peered into the sickroom.
[ 103 ]
SHE HAD arrived at the entrance to the clinic three or four minutes earlier. The doctor saw patients in the morning and afternoon, and since afternoon hours had been set between four and eight to accommodate people working at companies and in government offices, O-Nobu opened the door and stepped inside into relative quietness.
Not realizing she had arrived at an off-hour, she found it odd that the interior should be so hushed. Not a single patient was in evidence. On her previous visit a tangle of lace-up boots and various styles of geta had been heaped just inside the door. Now only a single pair of women’s geta had been left neatly side-by-side on the quiet concrete. New geta that, by the look of them, were too expensive to be worn by a nurse or a menial, they made her pulse quicken. Unmistakably they belonged to a young wife. Her heart heavy with the suspicion Kobayashi had instilled in her, she was unable to take her eyes off them.
A student’s face appeared in the small square window on the right. Noticing the unmoving figure of O-Nobu, he looked at her inquiringly, as if to ask who she might be. O-Nobu promptly asked whether Tsuda had a visitor and whether it was a young woman. Then, declining the offer to usher her in, she went alone to the foot of the stairs and looked up.
From the second floor came the sound of voices in unflagging conversation. But the tenor of the talk was nothing like the unimpeded flow of words between partners in a normal chat. There were strong feelings. There was agitation. And, clearly detectable, the aftermath of a struggle to contain resentment. This dialogue, unmistakably intended to be heard by no one else, beset O-Nobu’s nerves like pins and needles. She felt even more overwhelmed than when she had stared at the geta. She strained to hear.
Tsuda’s room was directly above the surgery. Immediately at the top of the stairs was a wall with a small tatami room on the right; to reach Tsuda it was necessary to move down the hall past this room. This meant t
hat the dialogue was reaching O-Nobu from behind her, which made it difficult to overhear.
She tiptoed up the stairs, her lissome body as quiet as a cat’s. And she was rewarded with the same success as a cat.
At the head of the stairs to the right, as a precaution against falling, a railing six feet long had been installed. Leaning against it, O-Nobu peered in at Tsuda. Immediately O-Hide’s sharp voice reached her. She registered in particular the word “Sister.”… Breathless with surprise, she felt her nerves tauten again. The word had exploded from O-Hide’s lips like a bullet aimed at Tsuda—she had to know the context in which it was being deployed.
As she strained to hear, the pitch of their vehemence steepened. Clearly they were arguing. And before she knew it, she had been dragged down into the whirlpool of the argument. For all she knew, she might have been its principal cause.
But without knowledge of the context, she was unable to ascertain her position in the exchange. And the words they used—more precisely, the words O-Hide was using—pelted the air like frantic hail. There simply wasn’t time to take up and scrutinize the words as they came tumbling down. “Character,” “cherish,” “predictable”—one after the other, words like these assailed O-Nobu’s ears as she stood rooted to the spot.
She considered waiting where she was until the argument should become clear. Then O-Hide discharged as though it were a final round a remark that thudded into her and quickened her pulse yet again. “There’s someone else beside Sister you care about.” Nothing mattered to O-Nobu so much as this single, so distinctly audible, line. At the same time these words, more than all the others, were unclear. Independently, unless she heard what followed, they were of no use to her. No matter what it might cost her, O-Nobu wouldn’t be satisfied until she had heard what came next. At the same time she couldn’t bear to hear more. At each exchange, the words between the siblings had climbed in pitch until now it was impossible not to suppose they had arrived at a summit. Forced to advance further, one of them would raise a hand against the other. O-Nobu accordingly felt obliged to enter the sickroom as a kind of relaxant against a spasm of impropriety.
Light and Darkness Page 26