3
BY THE time Sōsuke and Koroku returned from the neighborhood bathhouse, towels in hand, the various dishes Oyone had prepared were arranged with care on a perfectly square table placed in the middle of the parlor. The flames in the charcoal brazier burned with a deeper hue than before, and the lamp shone brightly. When Sōsuke had seated himself comfortably on his cushion, which he had moved closer to his desk, Oyone, having collected the soap and towels, asked, “Did you enjoy your baths?”
“Uh-huh.”
Sōsuke’s reply was not so much brusque as simply indicative of post-bath languor.
“Yes, very much!” said Koroku in an agreeable tone as he turned to face Oyone.
“The place was mobbed, though—simply unbearable,” added Sōsuke wearily, his elbow propped on the edge of the desk. Usually he went to the baths after his return from work, at twilight, just before the dinner hour, when other customers came pouring in. For two or three months now he had not enjoyed even a glimpse of clear bathwater shimmering in the sunlight. Still worse, it had reached the point where three or four days would go by without his setting foot in a bathhouse. He had it constantly in mind to wait for Sunday, when he would get up early and waste no time going off to steep himself up to the neck in pristine hot water. Come Sunday, however, he would awake with the thought that this was after all the only day he could stay in bed as long as he liked, and as he lay there indolently the hours would mercilessly slip away, until at length he would change his mind: No, it was too much trouble; he’d skip it today and go next Sunday—a pattern that repeated itself again and again through force of inertia.
“I really do want to take an early-morning bath, you know,” he announced.
“So you keep saying,” his wife replied teasingly, “but on the days when you could go early you always sleep late—it never fails.”
Koroku was privately of the opinion that all this dithering stemmed from an inborn flaw in his brother’s character. Being a student, he could not comprehend how precious his brother’s Sundays were to him, how many hopes and wishes had been vested in these twenty-four hours out of a need to counteract six days of dark musings with the balm of a single day. There was always too much that Sōsuke wanted to do on this one day, and he could never accomplish even two or three out of the ten things he had proposed for himself. On the contrary, whenever he set out to follow through on just those two or three, he quickly came to begrudge the expenditure of time required and, hesitating to act, would just sit there until before he knew it the day drew to a close. With circumstances thus dictating that he deprive himself of his peace of mind, well-being, and various pleasures, Sōsuke’s failure to tend to Koroku’s needs had nothing to do with any disinclination but rather with a sheer lack of mental energy—such was Sōsuke’s argument, anyway. Yet this was something Koroku could not fathom. He viewed his brother as a man who simply did as he pleased without regard for others, who chose to spend what leisure time he had in strolling about alone or just sitting around with his wife, who was utterly unreliable and unhelpful and fundamentally lacking in empathy.
Yet it was only quite recently that Koroku had come to this view of his brother—indeed, only since the issue of negotiating with the Saeki household had arisen. With his youthful impatience in all things, Koroku, when he needed a favor from his brother, fully expected that it would be done, if not this very day, then by tomorrow. That his brother had been unable to bring the matter in question to a resolution, indeed, had not so much as paid a visit to the Saekis, was a source of no small discontent.
Nevertheless, today, as soon as Sōsuke and the waiting Koroku were reunited they became two brothers again, behaving toward each other with a certain warmth that was evident in their complete lack of affectation, and refraining for the moment from blurting out what was uppermost in their minds. And so they had headed off together to the bathhouse and soon settled into a relaxed, casual conversation.
The brothers continued to be at ease as they sat down to dinner. Oyone did not hesitate to join them, occupying her own side of the table.[10] Sōsuke and Koroku each drained two or three cups of saké.
“Oh, yes, I came across something interesting!” Sōsuke announced before the rice was served, whereupon he produced from his kimono sleeve the Daruma balloon he had bought and blew it up to its full size. After placing it on his covered soup bowl he lectured them on its properties. Oyone and Koroku, their curiosity piqued, watched the fluttery balloon. After a while Koroku took a deep breath and blew at the Daruma figure; it fell from the table to the floor, nonetheless returning to sit upright on the tatami.
“Just look at that,” said Sōsuke.
In typical womanly fashion, Oyone obliged by laughing out loud; but then, removing the lid from the rice container and filling her husband’s bowl, she turned to Koroku and said somewhat protectively, “You see what a free spirit your brother is.” Without a word in his own defense, Sōsuke took the bowl from his wife and began to eat. At this, Koroku ceremoniously picked up his chopsticks.
There was no more talk of the Daruma balloon, but it set the tone for the innocuous conversation that flowed smoothly for the duration of the meal. After his last bite, however, Koroku departed from this tenor.
“By the way, wasn’t that shocking about Mr. Itō!”[11]
Five or six days earlier, Sōsuke, after having looked over the extra devoted to Lord Itō’s assassination, took it into the kitchen and laid it on top of Oyone’s apron. “Terrible news—Mr. Itō has been killed,” he said, then went to his desk. His tone of voice, however, was so perfectly calm that Oyone made a point of remarking, half teasingly, “ ‘Terrible,’ you say, but you don’t sound the least bit terrified.” Every day after that, the paper unfailingly devoted five or six columns to Itō’s assassination, but Sōsuke appeared so indifferent on the subject that it was unclear whether he even glanced at them. When she asked her husband, home from work, in the midst of her dinner preparations, “Was there anything more about Mr. Itō in the paper today?” he would merely reply, “Uh-huh, quite a lot . . .” And so unless she later extracted the folded paper from his coat pocket, she had no way of learning the latest news. Yet her main concern had been to have a topic to discuss with her husband when he came home, and she no longer saw any reason to go to such lengths in order to drag him into a discussion of matters that held no interest for him. From the day when the extra was published up until Koroku’s remark at dinner, this public event that had sent shock waves throughout the nation created scarcely a ripple in the couple’s life together.
“But how did he . . . well, get himself killed?” Oyone asked, turning toward Koroku and repeating the same question she had put to Sōsuke when the news first broke.
“It was a couple of quick pistol shots—bang, bang!” Koroku answered in all seriousness.
“Yes, but I mean, well, how could he have gotten himself killed?”
Utter incomprehension was written on Koroku’s face.
“That was surely his destiny,” Sōsuke offered, his voice calm, sipping his tea with relish.
Clearly still not satisfied, Oyone asked, “But why did he go to Manchuria?”
“Yes, why did he . . .” Sōsuke mused, looking sated and complacent.
“I hear that he was on a secret mission to the Russians,” Koroku ventured, an earnest look on his face.
“Oh, but still, it’s awful, his being killed,” said Oyone.
“When an ordinary drudge like me gets killed, yes, it’s awful,” said Sōsuke, at last warming to the topic. “A man like Mr. Itō, though—it’s much better for him to go off to Harbin and be killed.”
“Gracious, what do you mean?”
“What I mean is, it’s precisely because Mr. Itō was assassinated that he can become a great figure in history. If he’d simply died on his own it would never have turned out that way.”
“Well yes, I suppose there’s some truth to that,” said Koroku, who appeared only partially convinced.
After a pause, he added, “At any rate, Manchuria, Harbin—these places seem to be pretty rough-and-tumble. To me, they just spell danger, somehow.”
“That’s because all sorts of people are thrown together there.”
Oyone registered her husband’s remark with a look of dismay. Her expression was not lost on Sōsuke, who then prompted her: “Well, I guess it’s time to clear the table.” Scooping up the balloon from the tatami, he let it rest on his index finger. “Marvelous, isn’t it,” he said. “To think someone could make a thing like this, so that it works just right.”
After Kiyo had come in from the kitchen and taken away the dirty dishes, along with the table itself, and with Oyone over in the next room preparing fresh tea, only the brothers remained in the parlor, sitting face-to-face.
“That’s better, all the clutter’s gone,” said Sōsuke, clearly relieved to be rid of the table. “There’s something nasty about the dregs of a meal.” In the kitchen Kiyo kept laughing to herself. Then Oyone could be heard through the shoji asking her what was so funny, to which Kiyo murmured noncommittally and burst out laughing again. The two brothers sat in silence, their ears half inclined to the maid’s laughter. Presently Oyone reappeared carrying a plate of cakes in one hand, a tea tray in the other. From a large pot with a wisteria-vine pattern she poured the tea, of a coarse-leaf variety unlikely to overstimulate, into bowl-size cups and placed them in front of the two men.
“What’s she laughing about?” asked Sōsuke. Not looking up at his wife, he trained his eyes on the cakes.
“Well, here you are with that balloon you went and bought, balanced on your fingertip,” she said. “It’s not as if there were any children in the house . . .”
Sōsuke appeared unfazed. “I see,” he replied. Then, rather deliberately, and with an air of ruminating his words, he finally glanced up at his wife and added, “That may be so, but there were children here once upon a time, weren’t there?” His eyes were not without warmth. Oyone immediately fell silent.
Presently she turned to Koroku and asked him if he would be having a second cake, but when he said yes she paid no attention and quickly withdrew to the sitting room.
The brothers found themselves alone again.
The evening was still young, yet here in the recesses of the hilly neighborhoods that ring the city’s west side, some twenty minutes on foot from the end of the streetcar line, the streets were quiet. From time to time the clatter of worn-down clogs sounded sharply out front; the night air grew steadily colder. His folded arms tucked in his sleeves, Sōsuke said, “The days are warm enough but it cools down quickly at night. Have they turned on the steam heat in your dormitory yet?”
“No, not yet. The school won’t turn it on till it gets seriously cold.”
“Really? Then it must be freezing.”
“Yes. But the cold—well, that’s something I can put up with,” said Koroku, who, momentarily at a loss for words, finally found the resolve to continue. “But tell me, please, whatever has become of the business with the Saekis? I heard from Nee-san that you sent them a letter . . . ?”
“Oh yes, I mailed it. I expect they’ll answer in the next couple of days. Depending on how they respond, I’ll go over there, or do whatever else is necessary.”
Koroku silently took in his brother’s nonchalant reply. He found it wanting, and yet he could detect nothing in Sōsuke’s manner meant to give offense, much less a defensive tone that smacked of some base motive, and so he was not moved to go on the attack. Instead, he simply sought confirmation of the true state of things when he asked, “Then up until today nothing else got done?”
“No, I’m sorry, nothing. It was all I could do to get that letter off today,” Sōsuke said, now sounding serious. “Lately I’ve been plagued by a case of nerves.”
Koroku smiled mirthlessly. “Well, if this doesn’t work out, I could quit school. In fact, I’ve been thinking about going abroad, to Manchuria or Korea, and the sooner the better.”
“Manchuria? Korea? Now that would be a drastic move, to burn your bridges like that. But didn’t you just say awhile ago that you didn’t care for the rough-and-tumble of Manchuria?”
Their discussion of the business with the Saekis twisted this way and that without finding any resolution. Sōsuke had the final word. “All right, don’t worry so much—things will work out somehow. At any rate, I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve received a reply. Then we can talk it over some more.” With that, the conversation came to a close.
Peeking into the sitting room on his way out, Koroku found Oyone leaning idly against the long charcoal brazier. Only when he called out to say good night to her did she get to her feet, with a murmur of surprise, to see him off.
4
THE REPLY from the Saekis, the focus of so much agitation on Koroku’s part, arrived as hoped a couple of days later. Exceedingly simple though it was—a mere note in their aunt’s hand that could have been sent as a postcard—it came fastidiously encased in an envelope complete with a three-sen stamp. On returning home from work Sōsuke had removed the close-fitting jacket he wore to the office and sat down by the brazier when the envelope, placed in a drawer so as to stick out an inch or so, caught his eye. After a single sip of the tea Oyone had poured out for him, he cut it open.
“Hmm . . . It seems that Yasu-san has gone to Kobe,” he said while reading along in the letter.
“When?” asked Oyone, who had not stirred since serving the tea.
“It doesn’t say exactly, but she writes here, ‘Inasmuch as he is expected to return to the capital in the not distant future,’ so I suppose he’ll be back any day now.”
“‘In the not distant future,’ et cetera—yes, that is your aunt’s style.”
Sōsuke expressed neither agreement nor disagreement with his wife’s critique. He rolled the letter up and tossed it aside; then, with a look of foreboding, he stroked the four or five days’ growth on his chin.
Oyone quickly picked up the letter but showed no impulse to read it. Leaving it on her lap, she studied her husband’s expression and asked, “ ‘Inasmuch as he is expected . . . in the not distant future’—what’s that all about?”
“‘I shall confer with Yasunosuke upon his return, and we will undertake to pay our respects then’—that’s what she says.”
“But this ‘not distant future’ is so vague! Doesn’t she say when he is coming back?”
“That’s enough about that.”
Wanting to see for herself, Oyone now opened the letter in her lap and scanned it. Then, after rolling it up again, she stretched out her hand. “The envelope, please.” Sōsuke picked up the blue envelope that lay at his side by the brazier and handed it to his wife. Oyone opened it with a puff of air and reinserted the letter. She then went out to the kitchen.
Sōsuke gave no further thought to the letter after that. He recalled the remarks of a colleague that day at the office about a sighting, just outside Shimbashi terminal, of Field Marshal Kitchener,[12] who was visiting from England. Yes, here was a man who created a great stir wherever he went the world over—indeed, someone quite possibly born to create such a stir. When Sōsuke compared his own life—the dreary lot he dragged along with him from the past and the destiny likely to unfold before him in the years to come—to the life of Kitchener, the two hardly seemed to belong to members of the same human race.
Lost in these thoughts, Sōsuke incessantly puffed smoke into the air. Outside, the wind that had come up earlier in the evening now sounded as though, taking aim from afar, it were determined to descend upon them with real force. From time to time it would die down for a while, and these lulls, in their utter stillness, were more desolating than the stormy gusts. Sōsuke folded his arms against his chest. It’s almost here, he thought, the season when fire bells would clang, announcing outbreaks throughout the city.
He went over by the kitchen and looked in at Oyone standing over a red-hot stove, grilling fish fillets. Kiyo was bent over the sink
rinsing pickled vegetables. Each performed the task at hand without speaking to the other. For a while Sōsuke stood at the open shoji listening to the hiss of oil dripping from the fish, then closed the shoji without a word and returned to his seat. His wife had not taken her eyes off the fish for a moment.
When dinner was over and the couple sat facing each other over the brazier, Oyone started in again. “This business with the Saekis is getting nowhere.”
“Well, there’s nothing to be done about it. We have no choice but to wait until Yasu-san is back from Kobe.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if you met with your aunt before that and had a chat with her first?”
“No, it wouldn’t. They’ll get in touch soon enough, one way or another. In the meantime we’ll just leave well enough alone.”
“Koroku is upset. That doesn’t bother you?” Oyone smiled even as she made her point. Eyes lowered, Sōsuke stuck the toothpick he had in his hand into the collar of his kimono.
Two days later Sōsuke got around to informing Koroku by letter of their aunt’s reply, adding a characteristic postscript to the effect that everything would turn out all right sooner or later. This done, he felt that for the time being he was off the hook where this business was concerned. He acted as though the best approach, which also happened to be the least bother, was just to forget about it—at least until, in the natural course of things, the matter was once again shoved under his nose—and so he let nothing disturb his daily routine of commuting between home and office. It was generally late when he got home, and once there he hardly ever went to the trouble of going out again. The couple almost never received guests. If Kiyo was finished with her chores, they even sent her off to bed before ten o’clock. Every night after dinner the couple sat in the same place, facing each other across the brazier, and talked for about an hour. The topics of their conversation were tailored to the mundane circumstances of their lives. If no issue so pressing as how to pay this month’s rice bill ever passed their lips, neither was there to be heard the high-spirited banter that often bubbles up, like will-o’-the-wisps, in a conversation between a man and a woman, let alone a discussion of literary matters. Young though they were, they appeared to have gone beyond this stage and become the sort of couple who naturally grows more retiring with each passing day. One might even assume them to have been the sort who, lackluster and thoroughly ordinary to begin with, had gravitated toward each other simply for the sake of conforming to the custom of marriage.
The Gate Page 4