by Ogai Mori
During their talks Suezo would get her to speak for a time, usually on trivial and sentimental matters about the years she had lived alone with her father. In spite of himself, Suezo would listen with a smile, not so much to what she was saying but rather to the pleasant melody of her voice. It was as though he was hearing the pure tones of a bell-insect. Then Otama would suddenly become self-conscious, blush at having run on about herself, and dash off the rest of her sentence before lapsing into her usual silence. With his penetration Suezo could see that her speech and behavior were so totally innocent that she seemed as transparent as fresh water in the bottom of a flat vase. His delight in their conversation was equal to his own joy in soaking his limbs in an agreeably warm bath after an exhausting day at work. The experience of this delight, quite a new one for him, had been giving him unconsciously a sort of “culture” since the start of his visits to her. After all, a primitive beast can be subdued by sensitive hands.
But a number of days after she had moved in, he became aware of her increasing restlessness. When he took his place before the brazier, she would get up, find some unnecessary task to do, occupy her hands. From the beginning of their relationship, she had avoided his glance and had hesitated in answering his questions. On this occasion her conduct was so strange that there had to be some explanation for it.
“Come now,” he said, filling his pipe, “something's bothering you. What is it?”
“No,” said Otama, her eyes widening, “there's nothing wrong.”
She had pulled out one of the drawers from the frame of the brazier as if to arrange it, but she had already put it in order. She began to search for an item when obviously she had nothing to look for. Suezo could tell that her eyes could not keep very great secrets.
In spite of frowning unconsciously, he brightened instantly. “Come, Otama, you know you're worried. It's written all over your face. I can just make out the words. Let me see,” he said, looking at her sharply. “Oh yes! ‘I'm all confused. What'll I do? What'll I do?' ”
Otama was embarrassed, and for a while she sat in silence as though she did not know how to begin. Suezo could clearly perceive the motion of this delicate instrument.
“I—well—it's my father. I've been thinking about visiting him—one of these days. . . . And it's been long since . . . .”
Though a man may see the particular movement of a highly intricate machine, he may not necessarily understand its total operation. An insect that must always ward off persecution from the bigger and stronger of the species is given the gift of mimicry. A woman tells lies.
“What!” said Suezo, smiling in spite of his scolding tone. “You haven't visited him yet? His house right at Ike-no-hata? In front of your nose? Why, just think of Iwasaki's estate on the other side. It's almost as if the two of you were living in the same house. If you wish, we'll go now, though tomorrow would be better.”
“But—I've so many things to think of—to consider,” she said, poking the ashes with the charcoal tongs and stealing a glance at him.
“Nonsense!” he interrupted. “Such a simple thing doesn't require a reason! What an infant you are!” he said, his voice nevertheless tender.
The matter ended there. Later, he even said with humorous gallantry: “If it's so much trouble, I'll come around in the morning and take you. After all, it is several hundred yards!”
Lately Otama had tried to think of him in several ways. When she saw him in front of her with his reliable and considerate manner, even tenderness, she wondered why he had chosen a base profession. And she said to herself: “I may change him, make him find something else to do.” But she knew this was more than she could do. And yet she confessed to herself: “He's not detestable! Usurer or not, he's not detestable!”
As for Suezo, he had caught an image at the bottom of Otama's mind, had sounded her out regarding it, and had found it a childish trifle. But as he walked down Muenzaka after eleven that night, it seemed as though something were behind what he had already discovered. He was shrewd enough to locate part of the trouble. “Something,” he conjectured, “someone's told her something. Something about me. And she's holding it against me.”
But he did not know who had told what.
Chapter Eleven
WHEN OTAMA reached her father's house the next morning, he had just finished breakfast. She had never spent a great deal of time getting ready to go out, and she hurried along thinking that perhaps she had come too early, but the old man, not a late sleeper, had already swept the entrance to his house and had sprinkled water over the grounds. And after washing his hands and feet, he was just taking his lonely meal on the new mats.
A few doors from her father's house, some places where geishas entertained had recently been constructed, and on certain evenings the neighborhood was noisy. But the houses to the right and left of the old man's, like his own, kept their doors closed and were quiet, especially in the morning.
As the old man looked out of his low window, he could see though the branches of the parasol pine in his front garden the string-like willow trees faintly moving in the fresh breeze. Beyond them the lotus leaves covered the pond, their green color spotted here and there with light pink flowers blooming at that early hour. In the winter the old man's house would be cold since it faced north, but in the summer it was as good as any one could wish to find.
Ever since Otama had been old enough to think for herself, she had hoped that if the opportunity arose she would do one thing or another for her father. And when she saw the house he was living in, she couldn't restrain her joy, couldn't help feeling her prayers realized. But even the happiness she felt had its bitter ingredient, an awareness of her altered position. “If I could see my father without that,” she said to herself, “how happy I could be!”
She felt the frustration expressed in the proverb: “An unfulfilled wish is the world's way.”
The old man had put down his chopsticks and was taking his tea when he heard a noise at the front door. Since it had never been opened by a visitor, he was surprised. And setting aside his teacup, he kept his eyes in that direction. He could not see any one behind the folding screen of rush stalks, but when he heard his daughter call: “Otossan,” he had a difficult time remaining seated instead of jumping up and rushing over to meet her. Yet he sat where he was, his mind busily trying to find the words to use and thinking he would begin with “It's a wonder you still remember your father!” But when he saw Otama hurry toward him, her face radiant as though experiencing a relief from pain after the interval of their separation, he couldn't have said those words. Yet he was dissatisfied with his weakness in not being able to say even that much, and he stared at her face in silence.
Yes, he thought, she was beautiful. Even when he had been poor, he had insisted that this only source of pride should always look her best, and he had even refused to let her do heavy tasks. But now that he was seeing her for the first time after an absence of ten days, she seemed reborn. Compared to the present Otama, who was consciously grooming and polishing herself, the daughter he remembered was a precious stone in the rough. A parent who sees his own daughter or an old man who sees a young girl cannot deny the beauty of a beautiful object. And such men cannot be exempt from feeling the power that beauty has in easing the heart.
The old man had consciously remained silent, had intended to make her see that he was sullen, but he couldn't help himself and softened against his will. Even Otama, who had never known a day of separation from her father before this new arrangement and who had not seen him for ten days, was speechless for a moment. She had much to tell him, but all she could do was look at his face with pleasure.
“Are you finished?” asked the maid, her tone quick and her voice rising as she appeared suddenly at the entrance to the kitchen.
Otama couldn't catch the girl's words. And when the maid, her hair rolled up around a comb so that it was out of proportion to her fat face, saw Otama, she stared at the visitor rudely.
; “Take it away! And bring in fresh tea! Use the green on the shelf,” the old man said, pushing the tray forward for her to take it into the kitchen.
“Oh, you don't have to trouble her to make special tea for me.”
“What kind of nonsense is that! I've got some cake too.” He went over to the closet and, taking out a tin of egg-crackers, put some into a cake dish.
“There's a baker not too far from here who makes these. And guess what? You can buy Joen's cooked fish in soy sauce in an alley right next to it!”
“Ah, Joen! Do you remember, Otossan, when you took me to the music hall? And Joen was there? Talking about a feast he went to, saying the fish was as good as his own. And how we laughed! What a pleasingly plump man he was! Coming on stage and flinging up his kimono before sitting down. I could hardly keep myself from laughing out loud. I wish you'd get that fat!”
“What? Be as fat as him? Not me!” he said, putting the dish before her. Soon the maid brought the tea, and the father and daughter were talking as easily as if they had done the same thing yesterday and the day before.
“How are you getting along?” he asked suddenly, feeling the awkwardness of the question. “Does Suezo come dropping in every so often?”
“Yes—” she said, hesitating, not knowing what to reply. Suezo came not merely “often” but every night. If she had been Suezo's wife and someone had asked her how she was getting on with her husband, she would have said happily: “Wonderfully! Please don't worry about us.” But since she was his mistress, her conscience prevented her from revealing Suezo's nightly appearance.
“We're managing,” she said after a pause. “You shouldn't worry about me. Please don't.”
“Everything's all right then—” His daughter's reply had not quite satisfied him, and the two of them unconsciously began speaking as though their mouths were full of paste. They had never kept anything from each other, but now they were speaking with formality, like unrelated persons having secrets to conceal from each other. When the policeman had duped them and they had felt embarrassed in the presence of their neighbors, they still had the greatest confidence in one another, convinced as they were that what had happened was not their fault. Yet this situation was different, for after the desperate decision that had put them in comfortable positions, they became painfully aware of a barrier thrown across their former intimacy.
A few moments of silence followed. The old man wanted a more definite answer and approached the question in a new way. “What sort of man is he?”
“Let me see,” said Otama, inclining her head to the side almost as though she were speaking to herself. “I guess that after everything's said, he's not a bad man. He hasn't said anything cruel—though it's only been a few days.”
The old man looked puzzled. “Hum—why should he be a bad man?”
She looked at her father, her heartbeat increasing. She realized that she now had her chance to tell him what she had learned, yet it pained her to bring him any new problems. She had put him at ease now. He was comfortable. And she suddenly decided: “I won't tell him!” She would keep the matter to herself, an unopened secret behind the one they shared of her serving as a mistress, even though in doing this she was aware that the gap between them was widening.
She diverged from the point, saying: “It's just that I heard he made his money in a clever way by doing various things. And that made me anxious about the kind of man he was. Well, what should I say about him? Oh . . . he looks like a gentleman. I don't know whether he's really one or not. Still it seems to me that he tries to say and do things so that other people will think he is. And, Otossan, isn't it better to try to be that kind of man even if it's only a matter of trying?”
After this speech she looked up at her father. However honest a woman may be, she feels less hesitation than a man in keeping back what is really on her mind at the moment and speaking about other things. And it may be said that those women who speak the most at such times are the more honest of their sex.
“Well, you may be right. But you talk as though you don't trust him.”
“Ah, I'm getting smarter,” she said with a smile, “bit by bit. From now on I'm not going to be made a fool of. Don't you think I'm a brave woman?”
These pointed remarks of opposition directed at him from the daughter he thought invariably meek surprised the old man, and he gazed at her with misgivings.
“Well, Otama,” he said, “I've lived and been made a fool of all my life. But you know, you're better off being cheated than cheating. I don't care what situation a person's in, he has to pay back what he owes someone else. You've got to be faithful to your obligations.”
“You never have to worry about that, Otossan. How often you used to say: ‘Ta-bo's honest.' I know I am. But lately I've made up my mind, and I won't let myself be tricked again. I won't lie to anyone. I won't deceive anyone. But at the same time no one's going to deceive me either. I'll see to it that they don't.”
“All of this, I suppose, means that you don't trust Suezo?”
“Just that. He treats me as though I were an infant. I'm not surprised that this type takes that approach with me. He thinks he can go through somebody's eye and nose without being seen. But I'm not as much of a child as that.”
“You don't mean that he's lied to you?”
“Yes, he has. You remember, the go-between said he was a widower left with some children and that the woman he took under his care would be just like his wife though not in name. She said that it was only because of what the neighbors would say about our living in a poor district that he couldn't marry me. Well, he has a wife. He told me so himself. He didn't even hesitate. He didn't even feel ashamed. I was shocked.”
The old man was shocked too. “Is it true? Then—then what she said was only a matchmaker's trick?”
“So I must be kept strictly secret from his wife. Since he's lying to her, how can I trust him completely?”
Otama seemed to have risen in the old man's estimation, and he looked at her so absent-mindedly that he forgot to knock out the ashes in his pipe.
“I've got to go back now,” Otama said, as though she had suddenly remembered something. “Since I've found my way here once, it'll be easy to come again. From now on I'll visit almost every day. The reason I haven't been here sooner was that I didn't think it right to come until Suezo made the suggestion. But last night I finally told him that I wanted to visit you and got his consent. And so here I am today! My maid's really a child. She can't even prepare lunch without my help.”
“Well, if you got his permission, eat here.”
“No, I don't feel safe about my house. I'll come again—very soon. Goodbye, Otossan.”
When she stood up to leave, the maid rushed to the entrance to put her wooden clogs in the right direction. Even an ignorant woman has to make observations on any woman she comes across. A certain philosopher once said that one of that sex regards another she meets, if only on the street and for the first time, as a rival. And this country wench, who constantly put her thumb into a bowl of soup, seemed to have been eavesdropping on Otama, who was too beautiful to ignore.
“All right then,” said Otama's father, remaining seated on his cushion. “Come soon. And give my regards to Suezo.”
Otama took a small wallet from the layers of her black sash and gave the maid some money wrapped in paper, put on her low clogs, and left the house.
She had entered the gate with the intention of revealing her troubles to her father and gaining a partner in her misery, but she came out in high spirits that seemed strange even to herself. While she had talked to him, she was conscious of trying to appear strong and firm instead of adding any anxieties to the freedom he had found, and she sensed the release of some hidden quality in her. Previously she had depended on others, but now she knew the power of an unexpected self-reliance. And as she walked around the pond, she felt cheered.
Already high above Ueno Hill, the sun blazed with its heat and dyed the Benten
Shrine on the pond's inner island a deeper red. In spite of the hot glare Otama walked on without opening the small parasol that she carried.
Chapter Twelve
ONE NIGHT after his return from Muenzaka, Suezo found his wife, Otsune, sitting up alone after the children at her side had fallen asleep. Her usual practice was to doze off with them. On this occasion she knew her husband had come in under the mosquito net. She didn't turn her head toward him but kept it bent down.
His bed was laid out farther back near the wall and away from the other members of the family. A cushion, smoking set, and tea things had been arranged beside his pillow. He sat down, lit a cigarette over the charcoal fire in the smoking set, and said tenderly: “What's wrong? You're still awake?”
His wife said nothing.
Since she refused to accept this proposal of peace from him, he wouldn't make any further concessions. And deliberately ignoring her, he leaned back smoking.
“Where you been till now?” she asked, suddenly lifting her head and looking at him. Since they had hired a maid, her speech had gradually improved, but when alone with her husband, she lapsed into former vulgarities.
Suezo looked at her sharply, but remained silent. He realized that she had learned something, but since he couldn't measure its range, he could say nothing yet. He wasn't the kind of man who gives bait for the opposition's advantage.
“Now I know everything!” she cried, her voice shrill and trembling at the end of her words to the point of tears.
“You sound so mysterious. What do you know?” he said, like a man who is surprised by the unexpected but who still retains a gentle tone.
“You ask too much of a person! How can you pretend like that? Even without any shame!” Her husband's calm so excited her that her voice broke, and she was forced to wipe her eyes on the sleeve of her underwear.