by Taeko Kono
A girl stepped out of line to count the people in front of her. “Twenty-one,” she told her companion. “We should be all right.” Well, Hideko thought, I should be too. She unfolded the woman’s newspaper, now quite damp, and started to read it.
“That’s where they’ll sell the tickets,” somebody said, and Hideko looked up. At the front of the line, two men were setting up desks. Another two brought a screen to use as a partition, and put up a notice: One ticket per person, except for seats in special classes and section A. Hideko looked at her watch. Fifteen more minutes to go.
As she glanced through the newspaper, Hideko cast her eye occasionally on the young woman. Always standing in the same position, both hands thrust inside her raincoat pockets, she was carelessly leaning against the dirty wall. To judge from her profile, as she gazed at a spot on the opposite wall just below waist level, she was either lost in reverie or thinking about nothing at all.
The line began, very slowly, to move forward. Hideko saw people emerge from the partition and walk past, either putting their glossy tickets into the white envelopes embossed with the ticket agency’s name, or taking them out to check them. But every so often, the line would come to a complete halt. In front of the screen an official stood admitting individuals or couples to the desk in a way that allowed people to take their time choosing seats.
Hideko gradually neared the partition — the young woman in front of her was allowed in. Reappearing with her ticket, she asked an official: “Is it all right if I get back in line, at the end?” People laughed. He chuckled awkwardly, replying, “I’m not sure what I should tell you.” Then he beckoned to Hideko. “Next, please.”
Hideko was sure she heard the young woman’s pace quicken as she walked away.
The seat for Carmen that Hideko purchased that day turned out to be on the third tier, and one away from the aisle. When she’d taken her place, she looked around and recognized several people, now in their finery, searching for their seats — people whose faces in line she had grown tired of looking at two months before. Of course, no one gave a sign of remembering any of the others.
“Here’s one of our seats,” a voice said above Hideko’s head. She looked up at the young woman who had stood in front of her in line. Noticing Hideko, she nodded a greeting — she remembered the incident with the newspaper — and Hideko nodded in return.
“Which would you like?” The young woman held out two tickets to someone standing beside her. Her companion did not reply, but brushed past her and dropped himself down next to Hideko, in the aisle seat. The young woman, going back, pulled down a seat two rows back, directly behind Hideko. Having made sure of where the woman sat, Hideko turned and discreetly scrutinized the man seated beside her.
He was a hunchback. This unusual aspect of his appearance made guessing his age difficult, but he seemed no older than the young woman, or, for that matter, Hideko herself.
Perched uncomfortably in his seat, his jacket pulling across the heavy-looking hump, the man slowly ran a rather undersized hand through his soft hair. He had a dark and fleshy face, with well-defined features, and eyes that glanced around fiercely.
“Shall I buy a program?” came the woman’s voice from behind.
The man took a cloth wallet from an inside jacket pocket and, without turning around, held it above his head. The woman reached over for it. After a while, she came back down the aisle and meekly placed the program, with his wallet on it, on his knee. The hunchback put his wallet away, and flicked quickly, without pausing once, through the program and then thrust it into the air. Again the woman’s hand reached over.
She, however, perused it no more thoroughly, and very soon, the corner of the program was tapping at the man’s shoulder. He glanced at it, and looked slowly around.
“Keep it,” he ordered.
As he was turning back, Hideko caught his eye. “I could switch,” she offered, unable to resist.
“Really?” he said. “Well, that’s very nice.”
During the first intermission, as Hideko sat staring vacantly into space, she felt a hand touch her shoulder. The young woman, who had slipped up behind her along the empty row of seats, asked: “Would you care to join us for a cup of tea?”
They went out into the lobby, where the hunchback waited—having either gone out first, or having sent the woman back to invite Hideko.
“Thanks for giving us your seat,” he said, bowing awkwardly, his small arms hanging down.
“Yes, we really are most obliged,” the young woman echoed, bowing deeply.
“So we can get refreshments around here?” asked the hunchback, already walking away. “We don’t have to go downstairs?”
“I think there’s a place over there,” the woman said, pointing to one end of the lobby. So, Hideko thought, the woman had suggested inviting her out for tea.
Hideko could not help falling back half a pace to study the twosome as they crossed the lobby.
The clothes the woman was wearing tonight were just as threadbare as those Hideko had seen when they met. Her faded tan-colored dress of some soft material, which looked as if it had been washed a hundred times, was decorated with a brooch at the neck, and above it all she wore a dark brown hat that seemed to accentuate the brooding quality in her expression. Despite the touch of shabbiness, however, with her slender figure, and in those same stiletto shoes, all in all, she was quite a beauty.
The hunchback by her side barely reached her shoulders, but his clothing was obviously brand-new. Over his hump he wore a very dark blue jacket, almost black, with extremely fine green pinstripes. Though it didn’t fit well, his outfit was clearly of a much finer quality than his companion’s.
“Can you give me some money?” the woman asked at the entrance to the lounge. “What would you like?”
“Just see to it,” the hunchback ordered, handing her his wallet, and leading Hideko inside.
In a short while the woman rejoined them. She placed three order coupons on the tabletop. The hunchback put away his wallet, glancing at the coupons: “What? You mean you ordered coffee?”
“I’m sorry. Was that wrong?”
“It’s too late now, isn’t it,” he said and changed the subject. “That woman singing Carmen tonight, she’s overdoing it, I’d say — she’s a total hysteric.” He blinked two or three times, and broke into a grin. “Her understudy is probably better, after all! What a pity for all of us!”
The beauty was silent, staring at the coupons, shifting them around on the tabletop. Was she upset, Hideko wondered, because coffee had not met with the hunchback’s approval? Or was she just fidgeting as she listened to him?
Hideko couldn’t puzzle out what connected this strange couple. Judging from how rude the hunchback was to the woman, she couldn’t be his lover or mistress. But he was too aggressive with her to be her brother — and besides, there was no family resemblance. Nor did they seem to be husband and wife. For a couple roughly of the same age, and of their generation, the woman seemed far too subservient. And surely no wife would wear such high heels, only to accentuate how small her husband was. . . . No, Hideko decided, he must be a handicapped person who’d hired a beautiful chaperone.
Just then, the hunchback jerked his chin toward the coupons. “Well, why don’t you call the waiter?”
. . . And tonight, the hunchback was attending Rigoletto alone.
At the end of the first act the lights came up, and people around Hideko started leaving their seats. She realized she had gone over into that other world, faraway, and she tried to savor the last moments of pleasure.
Mrs. Yamashita turned and said something to her. Hideko, however, who had just seen the figure of the hunchback loom up abruptly from his seat, did not reply.
The hunchback was seated three rows down, so he was bound to pass her on his way up the aisle. This was precisely what happened; and a
s he proceeded toward her, the spectators on either side of the aisle gaped in horror. No one had looked at him twice on the evening of Carmen, but tonight he was stealing the show.
As she saw what was happening, Hideko had an overwhelming desire to be by his side.
Mrs. Yamashita inquired, as if sensing her tension, “See someone you know?”
Hideko, unfortunately quite a few seats from the aisle, didn’t bother to reply. Disregarding Mrs. Yamashita, she rose and hurried to get out of the row, squeezing as fast as she could past those who were still seated, apologizing, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” as she went. The hunchback, however, passed her row of seats before she was free of it, and so she lunged forward, calling out: “Excuse me!”
The man lifted his head, and looked around.
“Well!” he called, catching sight of her: “We meet again!” He was about to continue walking, but stopped as he saw her trying to get out to reach him.
Hideko’s haste was hardly discreet, and the person she so eagerly sought cut such a bizarre figure that many curious glances followed them as they struck up a conversation. Hideko wondered if he were uncomfortable. As she stood opposite him, she was hugely excited to be the object of so many stares.
“Where is your companion?” she inquired.
“Oh, the wife? She couldn’t make it,” he said, and then added, vaguely, as if the thought had just occurred to him: “Won’t you come and visit us at home?” He handed her his card. On it she saw his name, Oshima Ken’ichi, and an address in an old section of Tokyo, but no indication of his profession. Hideko did not have a card herself — she had no use for such things. She apologized and told him her name, but he didn’t seem to take it in.
“Do come,” he repeated. “We’re both home Sundays. My wife would be so pleased.” With that, he pulled in his chin, lowered his head, and walked away.
After the performance of Rigoletto, not two weeks elapsed before Hideko took up his invitation to visit their house.
Hideko’s home was still the suburban apartment which she had shared with her husband prior to his departure for West Germany. Between the apartment building and the row of shops by the station, there was a medium-sized plot of land, now overgrown with weeds, which Sugino had bought for them to build a house on. It pained Hideko to see it every day, which was one more reason for her recent lengthy stays with her brother.
Her brother’s family consisted of just three members: husband, wife, and child, a boy of primary school age. Hideko had always been on good terms with them. They didn’t treat this adult baby sister who came home for such long stretches as a nuisance — or even as a guest; and she, for her part, was completely at ease in their company. What was more, though they probably sensed the state of her marriage — which was clear even to someone like Mrs. Yamashita — they never dreamed of asking awkward questions.
As she helped her sister-in-law with the housework, food shopping, or in supervising her nephew’s homework, or as they all sat together in front of the television, Hideko often imagined that Sugino had gone to West Germany on a permanent visit, and she herself had come home for a permanent visit. She wouldn’t have minded — in fact she would have preferred it. It was the state of being a divorcée, not divorce itself, that Hideko dreaded.
She received a monthly letter from Sugino, but hardly what one would expect from a forty-year-old man to his wife: they were “Essays from West Germany,” written coldly and tastefully, like textbook compositions. His communications usually took the form of a stiff picture postcard, its horizontal lines filled with details of the weather, the countryside, his extremely heavy workload, his vacation in Italy, and the skiing there. Occasionally he added a word about a concert, or about cooking. He told her he hated having to cook for himself. Not as if he were longing for the dishes she used to prepare, but out of regret for the time he lost for studying.
To Hideko, these uninspired letters captured the spirit of the writer and his lack of imagination. Yet she could also sense an ulterior motive; their real intention seemed to be to advertise his orderly but varied life, and his great satisfaction with it: there was nothing more he could desire. But she also knew she was no longer in any position to demand more news from her husband — news, that is, with the slightest smell or shadow of him. And anyway, Hideko had come to like his impersonal letters. She liked them just the way they were.
Hideko set out from her brother’s home that Sunday — a rare day for outings, especially when she was staying there.
Having met the hunchback only twice, and then briefly, Hideko didn’t know what his profession might be, or even if he had a job at all. They’d both be home on Sundays, he’d said: so it was likely that one of them commuted to work during the week. Or they might be free every day, but the hunchback preferred to stay home Sundays because of all the crowds — this possibility seemed the most likely to Hideko, recalling the hunchback’s words: “My wife would be so pleased.” Doubtless he worried about his wife having to keep him company from morning to night, with nothing to amuse her except the occasional visit to the opera.
In any case, as she’d savored the pleasure of standing beside him, Hideko hadn’t felt at all put off by the tender way he referred to his wife (despite being so harsh to her face), or by the way his we had subtly stressed that they were a couple. No, if anything, she was all the more intrigued. Was she impressed that a hunchback could have such a good-looking wife? Or was it the erotic appeal of the woman, heightened by the contrast with him? Perhaps it was the painfully sweet jealousy she felt toward both of them.
An old section of the city, a hilly area with prewar dwellings — here was a short row of two-floor tenements: this must be the one. Having asked the way in a shop where she purchased fruit to take as a gift, Hideko finally located their house. It had a perfunctory gate with latticework at the top. Peeping through this, she saw a narrow garden with a path of five or six stone slabs leading to a glass-paneled door, and sure enough, a plaque with the name “Oshima.”
She went up the path and, sliding open the door, saw a tiny strip of corridor and a wooden door on the left.
“Hello!” she called, eagerly. “Anybody home?”
“Just a minute!” a voice replied, and as the wooden door rattled open, a woman stuck her head out. It was the beauty.
“Well, how nice!” she said, coming forward when she discovered it was Hideko. “Welcome to our home. My husband said that you might come. I’m glad you made it so soon.” Turning to the archway at the foot of the stairs, she called up: “She’s come, dear! The lady who was so nice the other evening at the opera.”
Today the woman’s outfit consisted of a dark-red woolen kimono, so dark that it looked almost black, and a narrow, bright yellow sash.
“Do come in,” she said, ushering Hideko inside. The room was small, four and a half tatami mats, with a tea cabinet and a sewing machine against one wall. The adjoining room was larger, six mats in size. Here, the young woman set down a low table that had been standing up in a corner.
The hunchback made his entrance, dressed in a jacket, and nodded informally to Hideko. Just then came a sudden, violent crash: while removing cushions from the cupboard, the beauty had knocked down a ceramic footwarmer.
“Idiot!” the man snapped. “Watch what you’re doing!”
“I’m sorry.” The woman blushed.
The hunchback sat down at the table.
“Oshima Ken’ichi. Pleased to meet you,” he blurted out. He scraped back the shock of hair hanging over his forehead. “Wait a moment,” he added, “I gave you my name card, didn’t I? That’s how you got here.” He beamed. “And your name is?”
“Hideko — Sugino Hideko. I’m very pleased to meet you.”
“The pleasure is all ours,” the man said, bobbing forward. The beauty bowed formally by his side.
“Shall we ask for her address?�
�� He turned to his wife: “Get some paper.”
She rose, picking up the fruit Hideko had given her a moment before.
“Of course, you don’t need to go if you think you can remember it by heart,” the hunchback teased, as, raising her hand to the door, the beauty smiled and went into the next room. When she returned, she brought a teapot, cups, and a piece of scrap paper.
“Oh, so these are the characters you use,” the hunchback said, eyeing Hideko’s name, which she wrote alongside her brother’s address. “My wife’s name is Haru, you know, short for Haruko — written with the second character of ‘Meiji,’ ‘enlightened rule.’ People always told her father that with that name she’d never find a decent husband. That worried him terribly — he was a doctor with a practice, you understand. I was his patient at one time. Haruko was in medical school when she decided she wanted to marry me. That didn’t please him at all — he kept reminding her about her name, telling her she should be careful. Well, he was worried about my hump, that’s obvious. Haru was quite determined, though. ‘In that case, change your name!’ was what he told her. I didn’t let her. Not that I’m all that crazy about it myself, you know, but . . .”
The hunchback had struck Hideko as a difficult man, but he was turning out to be quite amusing. The next moment, however, he cast a threatening look at the beauty as she sat beside him preparing tea. “Happy you married me, Missus?” he asked. “What do you say?”
“Hmmm?” she asked, continuing with her task. “Oh, yes. Very happy.”
The man rolled his eyes. “ ‘Happy,’ ” he sniggered. “Say, Hide,” he continued (she felt a flutter of excitement at his familiarity), “I bet you’re surprised by our house, aren’t you? You don’t find many houses this old nowadays.”
“Have you been here long?”
“I have — ever since I was born. My father was a minor bureaucrat who rented the place. Even now I pay next to nothing. My parents have died, and my sister is married — she isn’t a hunchback like myself, of course. Haru and I have only each other for company. So you must visit us as often as you can.”