“A young man will hardly do. We can’t leave Toki alone in the house with a man.”
O-Nobu laughed.
“What are you suggesting? There won’t be time enough for anything improper.”
“You don’t know that. You have no idea.”
Tsuda put up an adamant front even as he made a show of considering.
“I wonder if there isn’t someone. An old grannie somewhere close by would be just what we need.”
But there was no one so conveniently available either at the Fujiis or the Okamotos or anywhere else.
“Let me think about it.”
Tsuda’s attempt to conclude the conversation with this misfired. O-Nobu was in no hurry to release the sleeve she had grabbed.
“What if you have no thoughts, what will happen then? If we can’t find someone, will that mean I can’t go along?”
“I’m not saying that.”
“But there won’t be a grannie just waiting around to help out—it doesn’t take thinking about it to know that much. So if you won’t allow me to go anyway, why not just tell me so and get it over with?”
In a tight corner, Tsuda managed oddly enough to produce yet another plausible objection.
“If it came to that, I wouldn’t really care so much who watched the house. But whether it’s Toki or someone else isn’t the only problem. Mrs. Yoshikawa will be paying my expenses. What will people think if we appear to be taking ourselves on a vacation as a couple using someone else’s money?”
“Then let’s not accept money from Yoshikawa-san. We have Uncle’s check.”
“But we need that money to pay our bills this month.”
“We can use the money Hideko-san left.”
Once again Tsuda was brought to a stop. At that point he opened a dangerous avenue of escape.
“I need some to lend to Kobayashi.”
“Of all people!”
“You say that, but he’s on his way to Korea of all places. You have to feel sorry for him. Besides, I’ve already promised. There’s nothing I can do about it now.”
It was no surprise that O-Nobu did not appear satisfied. Even so, Tsuda had managed somehow or other to wriggle free, at least for the moment.
[ 152 ]
SUBSEQUENTLY THE conversation flowed with an ease that could not have been predicted, and before long they had arrived at a second compromise. To satisfy his sense of friendship toward Kobayashi, and to make good on his promise, Tsuda would put aside a portion of the money O-Nobu had received to be presented to Kobayashi as a farewell gift before he departed for Korea. Nominally this would be a loan, but as the recipient would have no intention of repaying it and the money could not, consequently, be included in a budget for use at a later time, it amounted to a gift. Naturally enough, judging by the flush that came and went in her face, O-Nobu was obliged to overcome more than one attack of indignation to arrive at this point. To bestow on this presumptuous man a gift of money, or even, for that matter, to extend him a loan to help him in his hour of need in return for a signed note, would be, in her view, a kindness he scarcely deserved. Tsuda had no reason to expect her to feel otherwise; moreover, sensing the possibility that she was seeing through his insistence on her agreement to what lay behind it, he shuddered.
“I just don’t understand why you must be so kind to a man like that.”
O-Nobu repeated a similar sentiment a number of times.
Observing that Tsuda, who persisted in his appeal for compassion, betrayed no sign of taking her seriously, she persevered.
“I want to hear why. If you can just make clear to me what the circumstances are, and why that means not doing this would be dishonorable, you can use the whole check as far as I’m concerned.”
This was precisely the critical barrier O-Nobu must not be allowed to pass. Instead of defending Kobayashi, Tsuda alluded to their longstanding acquaintance and to his nostalgia about their history together. When he found himself being criticized for sentimentality, he was obliged to explain that Kobayashi today was a different animal from Kobayashi in the past. Seeing in O-Nobu’s face that she remained unsatisfied, he abruptly shifted to a more exalted tone and began a descant on ethics and humanity. However, since his remarks on humanism inevitably reduced to something pragmatic, there were moments when he moved in spite of himself and without noticing it straight toward the trap he had set himself and came close to being brought down by O-Nobu. An illustration of how this proceeded using simple examples and representative language might look as follows:
“In all events he’s suffering, and since he’s heading off to Korea because he can’t bear to be here anymore, I don’t see what’s wrong with feeling a little sympathy for him. You attack his character mercilessly, but you really go too far. I’m not saying he’s not hopeless. To be sure, he is, but when you consider how he ended up where he is, it’s not his fault. It’s just that he was disappointed. Because he couldn’t earn a living. Yet he’s no dullard or fool; he’s got a good head on his shoulders. But unfortunately he didn’t receive a proper education, and when you consider that’s why he turned out this way, you have to feel sorry for him. In other words, it’s his circumstances that are at fault, circumstances he didn’t create. When you consider that—he’s just an unlucky fellow.”
To this point, even as lip service, Tsuda had done splendidly, but he was unable to stop.
“And there’s something else to think about. There’s no telling what a person that desperate is likely to do if you oppose him. He declared right here that he was ready to fight with anyone, and he boasted that any fight he started would turn out well for him—this is a dangerous man. If I were to toss his request back in his face, he’d get angry. Just angry wouldn’t be so bad; he’d do something. He’d be sure to strike back. I have proprieties to maintain, but he has no constraints at all, which means that if something were to happen, I’d be no match for him. Do you follow me?”
By now his original humanism had been largely effaced. Even so, if he had only ended here, O-Nobu would have had no choice but to nod affirmatively in silence. But he moved onward.
“It would be one thing if all he did was attack the upper class and say nasty things about the wealthy as a matter of principle. But that’s not his way. He focuses on the reality. He tries to sink his teeth into whatever he can find, beginning with what’s within easy reach. So the one who gets damaged most is me. Which means that I’m well advised to show him the kindness he thinks he deserves from me, get him feeling all sunny and warm, and then pack him off to Korea as quickly as possible. Otherwise heaven knows what he might have in store.”
This last O-Nobu was unable to absorb in silence.
“No matter how wild Kobayashi might be, I can’t see what reason you could possibly have to be so afraid unless you were hiding something.”
Bandying words in this manner, it took them considerable time simply to agree about the check. But once the question of Kobayashi had been settled, the rest fell quickly into place. O-Nobu’s condition that she would be allowed to use the rest as spending money, indulging herself in whatever she desired, was conceded at once. In return O-Nobu agreed not to accompany Tsuda to the hot springs. She was also required to agree to his proposal that Madam Yoshikawa’s generosity in offering to pay travel expenses would be accepted.
On this chilly, autumn night, the wake of the upheaval the young couple had suffered finally subsided. For the time being, they separated.
[ 153 ]
THE POSTSURGICAL recovery Tsuda had to endure was proceeding well. More properly, it was on schedule. On the fifth day, when the doctor had changed the gauze dressing, he confirmed this.
“You’re looking good. There’s no internal bleeding; just at the entrance.”
On the sixth day the dressing was changed again. The wound was even healthier than the day before.
“Am I still bleeding?”
“Just a little.”
Tsuda failed to understand the signific
ance of the bleeding and so the significance of the reply was also lost on him. Choosing arbitrarily to interpret it to mean he had recovered, he was pleased.
But the facts were not exactly as he wished them to be. His brief dialogue with the doctor made that clear enough.
“What would happen if this doesn’t heal?”
“Another resection. But the lesion would be less pronounced than before.”
“That’s discouraging.”
“Shouldn’t be. I’m telling you, your chances of recovery are eight or nine out of ten.”
“Does that mean I still have a way to go?”
“Another three weeks maybe, four at most.”
“And when can I go home?”
“You should be ready by the day after tomorrow.”
Tsuda was thankful. He resolved to leave for the hot springs as soon as he was released. Thinking it was better not to mention this to the doctor even in passing in case he should advise against the trip, he said nothing. The rashness of this was entirely unlike him. Even as he resolved to follow his imprudent impulse no matter what, he was aware of the contradiction, and it made him uneasy. Perhaps to divert himself, he posed the doctor an irrelevant question.
“You said you cut around the sphincter, so I’m wondering why the gauze is packed from below?”
“The sphincter isn’t at the entrance to the wound; it’s recessed a good two centimeters. But there’s a place where we shaved a centimeter or so diagonally from underneath.”
That evening Tsuda began eating rice gruel. Having endured for days a diet of bread alone, the taste of the watery rice was refreshing. He may have lacked the sensibility to appreciate “gruel on a cold night” as poetry,* but sipping the thin gruel he relished, more than an ordinary haiku poet would, its warmth in contrast to the autumn chill.
He was constipated from the surgery, and to help him move his bowels he had once again to drink a mild laxative. His stomach hadn’t bothered him so much but, as it emptied, his mood seemed to lighten. Sprawled on his mattress, physically more comfortable, he spent his time waiting for the day when he was to be released.
Once the night had passed, that day came quickly. O-Nobu had come to pick him up in a rickshaw; the minute he saw her, he spoke.
“So I can finally go home. I’m thankful.”
“But not that thankful, I imagine.”
“I absolutely am.”
“Compared with being in a hospital, I suppose you’d say?”
“Something like that.”
Having replied in his usual style, Tsuda quickly added, as if he had suddenly remembered something, “That jacket you made for me really came in handy. It feels wonderful to wear; maybe it’s the new cotton padding.”
Laughing, O-Nobu chaffed her husband.
“Gracious! You’re so good at flattery all of a sudden. But I’m afraid that you’re mistaken.”
As she folded the jacket in question, O-Nobu confessed to her husband that she hadn’t used only new cotton for the padding. Tsuda was changing his kimono. What was important to him at that moment was wrapping a silk obi with a tie-dyed pattern around and around his hips. He had paid scant attention to the lining in his jacket, nor was he moved to respond affably to O-Nobu’s honest revelation.
“Is that so?” he said merely, and added nothing.
“If it’s comfortable, why not take it with you?”
“I suppose it would put me in mind of your kindness once in a while.”
“Except if the jacket they have for you at the spa turns out to be much nicer, you’ll feel so embarrassed—to wear mine.”
“That would never happen.”
“It could. If something isn’t well made, it’s better not to have it. At a time like that. Because whatever kindness was intended flies out the window.”
O-Nobu’s innocent words conveyed more to Tsuda’s ears than the simple meaning she intended. He heard in what she said the vibration of a certain irony. It was possible to interpret the jacket as a symbol of something. Feeling uncomfortable, Tsuda tied a simple knot in his masculine obi with his back still turned to O-Nobu.
A few minutes later, accompanied by the nurse, they emerged in the street and immediately seated themselves in the waiting rickshaw.
“Sayonara.”
With this single word, the curtain finally fell on an eventful week of hospital life.
* Gruel and the chill of night are not uncommonly linked in the first or third line of a three-line haiku.
[ 154 ]
BEFORE TSUDA could leave for the hot springs, the first item of business on his agenda was meeting Kobayashi. On the designated day, having received from O-Nobu the money he would need, he turned back to her, smiling.
“It’s too bad he has to cost us so much.”
“Then you shouldn’t give it to him.”
“Believe me, I don’t want to.”
“Then why ever would you? Shall I go instead and turn him down?”
“I certainly wouldn’t mind.”
“Where are you meeting him? Just tell me and I’ll be happy to go.”
Tsuda wasn’t sure if O-Nobu was serious. But it was easy enough to imagine that encouraging something like this as if it were a harmless joke was not unlikely to backfire and leave him with an unmanageable problem. O-Nobu was a woman who acted on her word to the letter when the chips were down. It made no difference that this would entail breaking a promise; there was no guaranteeing she wouldn’t willingly undertake to reject Kobayashi in his stead. As a precaution against entering a danger zone, he purposely diverted the conversation in a frivolous direction.
“Such unexpected courage for a woman.”
“I believe I do have courage. But it’s never been tested so I don’t know how far it actually goes.”
“Let’s not put you to the test. I know it’s there and that’s quite enough. It can be awkward for a man when his wife starts throwing her courage around.”
“It shouldn’t be the least bit awkward. Not if a woman is being courageous for her husband’s sake.”
“I suppose there are occasions when a man might have cause to feel grateful,” Tsuda remarked with no intention of engaging in a serious dialogue. “But I can’t say I’ve seen you display any courage that’s worthy of admiration so far.”
“Of course you haven’t. Because I haven’t let anything out, nothing at all. Try having a look inside. Because it happens I’m not as placid as you think.”
Tsuda didn’t reply. But O-Nobu didn’t stop there.
“Do I appear to be so easygoing?”
“You do. Immensely.”
This unconsidered, vapid exchange brought from O-Nobu a faint sigh before she spoke.
“It’s so unrewarding, being a woman. Why did I have to be born a woman?”
“It’s no use haggling about that with me. You should hold your mother and father responsible and complain to them.”
O-Nobu smiled uncomfortably but had more to say.
“Just you wait!”
“For what?”
Tsuda was a little surprised.
“Just you wait and see.”
“I’m waiting, what the devil will I see?”
“I can’t say until something actually happens.”
“You can’t say meaning you don’t know yourself?”
“That’s right.”
“What a joke! Then your prediction is like grasping at clouds.”
“And I’m saying you just watch because my prediction will definitely come true any time now.”
Tsuda snorted. O-Nobu’s attitude, conversely, was gradually turning grave.
“I’m serious. I don’t know the details, but I’ve been thinking for a while now that the day was coming when I’d have to summon up my courage at a certain moment all at once.”
“At a certain moment all at once? Sounds like a fantasy.”
“I’m not talking about sometime in my whole life. I mean soon. A certain moment all at once that�
��s coming soon.”
“It’s sounding worse and worse. In the near future a day is coming when I’ll be subjected to a show of reckless courage from my wife—how am I to handle that?”
“I’ll be doing it for you. Just as I said before, this will be courage for my husband’s sake.”
Observing O-Nobu’s earnestness in her face, Tsuda was drawn in little by little. In his temperament there was no poetry equal to hers. In its place, somewhat distasteful facts oppressed him from a distance. Gradually O-Nobu’s poetry, what he had called her fantasy, became active in him. He had been toying with the wings of a bird thinking it was dead; when the wings began abruptly to move, it gave him an odd feeling and he wound up the conversation at once.
Removing a watch from his obi, he glanced at it.
“It’s time. I’d better be on my way.”
Standing, he moved to the front entrance followed by O-Nobu, who took a brown fedora from the hat rack and put it into his hands.
“Hurry back. Don’t forget to tell Kobayashi-san that O-Nobu sends her regards.”
Without turning around, Tsuda stepped into the chilly evening air.
[ 155 ]
THE PLACE he was meeting Kobayashi was down a side street to the right midway along the busiest thoroughfare in Tokyo. To avoid the unpleasantness of having the man call for him at his home and to save himself the trouble of going to his lodgings, Tsuda had designated a restaurant and set the time.
That time had come and gone while he was on the streetcar. But his lateness, the result of having changed kimonos, received the money from O-Nobu, and sat briefly with her chatting, didn’t concern him. To speak plainly, he didn’t want his behavior toward Kobayashi to reflect a scrupulously proper attitude. On the contrary, he intended, by arriving late, to tweak his self-indulgence and complacency. Whether it was deemed a farewell party or not, inasmuch as this was actually an occasion at which one person was providing money and the other accepting it, Tsuda was unquestionably in charge. His best policy, therefore, using his superior status to optimal advantage, was to install himself in advance as the host to Kobayashi as the guest and thereby to nip his companion’s arrogance in the bud. Quite apart from arithmetic considerations of loss and gain, this also seemed to be an amusing way of simply getting even.
Light and Darkness Page 39