by Naoya Shiga
He went downstairs. In the dark rear annex hardly made lighter by the flickering taper on the miniature family shrine, the madam was busily engaged in her morning devotions. She was offering a hundred prayers—walking back and forth, to and from the shrine, a hundred times. “Good morning,” she said cheerfully with a little bow as she caught sight of him on one of her trips away from the shrine. He was about to ask her where the telephone was when she turned on her heel and headed toward the shrine again. He found the maid in the kitchen, and asked her. On the telephone he was told that Nobuyuki was still asleep. What he wanted to say to him was not very important. All the same, he put down the receiver with reluctance.
Yutaka was fast asleep, still in a sitting position but bent forward, her head on one of the small tea tables. Beside her sat Tokiko, quietly picking the strings of her samisen. Gradually the street got busier. The men were going home, and Kensaku wished he was too. But if he could not leave soon, then he wished at least that the two women would go.
Tatsuoka and Sakaguchi were snoring lightly. Tokiko went downstairs, came back with a pair of coverlets, and put them over the two men. She bowed to Kensaku, then shook Yutaka gently by the shoulder. In a stupor Yutaka stood up, bowed, and tottered toward the door.
“Don’t forget your present,” Tokiko said, and handed her the thick package of Haibara’s decorated paper. Sometime in the course of the night Tatsuoka had given it to Yutaka.
It was nine when the three men, sharing the two oil-paper umbrellas given them by the establishment, at last walked out into the gently falling autumn rain.
3
Kensaku reached home at noon, thoroughly tired. He was about to enter the front gate when he heard the kid that he had started keeping about a week before bleating at the back of the house. It sounded like a child crying. Instead of going in he went around to the little enclosure next to the storage shed. The kid was delighted to see him and began stamping its dainty feet. Its legs, Kensaku thought, were like a little boy’s in long trousers. It came over and put its front feet up high on the wire fence.
Kensaku picked up a few of the leaves, wet and flat from the night’s rain, that had fallen beside the wall from his neighbor’s cherry tree. “Hello, silly fellow,” he said, and walked into the enclosure. With light, busy steps the kid followed him from corner to corner, waiting to be given the leaves, and nuzzled at his chest when he squatted down. “Here you are, silly fellow,” he said, and gave it a leaf. Contentedly the kid worked its lower jaw from side to side, and the leaf gradually disappeared behind the lips. Kensaku gave it another leaf, and when that disappeared, yet another. There was utter satisfaction in the way the kid stood still, just munching. And as Kensaku watched, that part of him which he thought had deserted him the night before seemed slowly to return. “It’s all finished,” he said cheerfully, and holding the kid’s head with both hands, pulled it toward him. Suprised, the kid at first tried to resist; but soon it became docile and allowed itself to be fondled. On its head where eventually the horns would grow, there were already lumps. Only a couple of days before, Kensaku remembered, when a neighbor’s puppy was being much too playful, the kid had struck the puppy’s side hard with its head.
“So it was you,” Oei said from the back door. “I wondered who it was talking back here.”
“Have you given it any bean curd yet?”
“No. I’ve just sent the maid out for some.”
Together they went into the morning room. “Have you had breakfast?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“Would you like a cup of coffee then? Or tea?”
“I really don’t feel like any right now.”
“Were you at Mr. Tatsuoka’s last night?”
“No. We went to a rather funny place, as a matter of fact. We spent the night at one of those teahouses in Yoshiwara.”
“Did you now. I suppose it was Mr. Sakaguchi who took you there.”
Kensaku told her simply what they had done since they left the house. “It was the first time I ever went to such a place,” he added, “but somehow it didn’t feel like it.”
“That’s because it wasn’t the first time. We once went with your grandfather, don’t you remember? Wasn’t it when we went to see the procession of the geisha, the year the National Assembly was established?”
“It couldn’t have been. I was only three or four when the assembly got started.”
“Really? Then perhaps it was one of those times we went cherry-viewing in Yoshiwara. Do you remember those comic plays they used to put on then?”
Kensaku thought he could dimly remember seeing something of the kind as a child.
He asked Oei to lay out his bed for him in his room upstairs. Very soon he was fast asleep.
He was still asleep when Nobuyuki dropped in that evening. Kensaku quickly went downstairs to receive him, and found him standing in the entryway. He must have come straight from the office, for he was carrying a large, brown leather briefcase.
“Asleep, were you?”
“Yes.”
“Come out and have dinner with me somewhere.”
“All right. But come in for a minute.”
“No thanks, I can’t be bothered to take my shoes off. I hear you telephoned this morning.”
“It wasn’t about anything in particular.”
Oei then appeared and tried to persuade Nobuyuki to come in, but he wouldn’t listen. Instead he tried a little persuasion of his own. “Why don’t you come out with us?” he said. “It’ll do you good.” He took Kensaku to a rather neat little restaurant in Nihonbashi specializing in Osaka cuisine. There Kensaku told him about his visit to Yoshiwara.
“So you met Tokiko, eh? She’s a fine geisha. I met her a couple of times, you know, when she was still an apprentice. Now, that one you can take anywhere with you without feeling in the least bit ashamed.” He paused, then suddenly said: “You aren’t by any chance thinking of having an affair with her, are you?”
Kensaku wasn’t quite prepared for the question. Blushing, he said, “I haven’t the slightest idea of how to go about such a thing.”
Nobuyuki burst into laughter. “It’ll cost you a lot of money, you know,” he said.
Ever since his student days Nobuyuki had been a connoisseur of such matters. And there was a time, Kensaku remembered, when it used to be rumored that he was keeping a geisha. He was even now a bachelor, with expensive tastes that were a constant strain on his finances.
As they were about to part outside the restaurant, Nobuyuki said he had a message for Kensaku from their sister Sakiko: could he please take her and their other sister, Taeko, to the matinee performance at the Imperial Theatre the next day? The play was to have actresses in it, so it would not be pure kabuki.
At noon the next day the two young girls—Sakiko was sixteen, Taeko twelve—duly appeared at Kensaku’s house. It was an unpleasant day, with a nasty wind blowing.
At the theatre Kensaku found himself being ceaselessly distracted by jejune thoughts of Tokiko and utterly unable to keep his mind on what was happening on the stage. It was tempting to think she might even be there watching the play, and at each intermission he dragged his sisters out into the lobby and the corridors, and wandered about in the hope of seeing her. The search was in vain of course; all he saw were three or four male acquaintances.
In the tearoom during one of the intermissions he came across Ishimoto. “There’s something I want to talk to you about,” Ishimoto said. “If you are taking your sisters home, we could perhaps meet later this evening.”
He was Nobuyuki’s friend rather than Kensaku’s. When Nobuyuki was about to go away to college in Sendai, he had asked Ishimoto to take care of Kensaku. Kensaku was then in his third year at high school, which, in Nobuyuki’s opinion, was a crucial period for a boy. While the others in Kensaku’s immediate family had been indifferent, Nobuyuki for some reason had always shown deep concern for his welfare. Ishimoto for his part was at that age when such responsibilit
ies were a welcome challenge; besides, he was genuinely well-disposed toward Kensaku; so that all in all he took very good care of him. Once, when he discovered that Kensaku was not sufficiently prepared for a coming examination in algebra, he had stayed up all night coaching him, putting aside his own studying for the examinations.
Their relationship had continued ever since, quite unchanged—Ishimoto forever the senior, keeping a watchful eye on his ward. The fact of his having still to acknowledge Ishimoto’s seniority, Kensaku did not particularly mind; but it was true that he was finding Ishimoto’s hovering about like a grandmother increasingly tiresome. Unlike Nobuyuki, who was at once more easygoing and more generally sensitive, Ishimoto was constantly trying to teach him something. He meant well, of course; but knowing this did not prevent Kensaku from getting quite angry sometimes. He had until recently been a cabinet minister’s private secretary, but the change in the cabinet had left him temporarily without a job and with rather a lot of time on his hands.
The girls insisted they could go home by themselves, so Kensaku and Ishimoto accompanied them as far as the streetcar stop. When they had gone, Ishimoto said, “Let’s not go to a restaurant. We can be more relaxed in a teahouse, don’t you think?”
They walked through Ginza to Tsukiji, and there Ishimoto led Kensaku into a large house. “We’ve come here to talk,” he said to the maid, “so just give us something to eat, and don’t bother to call anyone.”
They were shown into a secluded eight-mat room. It was somber-colored, without a touch of fussiness, and overlooked a tasteful little garden. It was altogether a pleasant room, quite unlike the one in Yoshiwara. On the wall in the alcove hung a picture of Mount Inari, done by a certain Kyoto painter whom Kensaku had always disliked heartily. But in the present surroundings the picture looked not at all bad. The mountain paths depicted on it, Kensaku thought, went rather well with the autumn flowers in the vase below.
What Ishimoto wanted to talk about was finding a wife for Kensaku. “It’s really Nobuyuki’s idea,” he said, “but being a bachelor himself, he didn’t think he would be quite the right person to bring the subject up. At any rate, if you are interested, we’ll do whatever we can to help you find someone nice. Would you like us to start looking?”
“I think not, but thanks all the same.”
“Why not?”
“I simply don’t want that sort of help.”
“But why?”
“I just don’t, that’s all.”
Kensaku turned his face away from Ishimoto’s gaze and looked at the garden. He knew he had been unnecessarily abrupt, and wondered why he always behaved like a spoiled child when he was with Ishimoto. “You do behave like an old granny, you know,” he added.
“Well, if that’s the way you feel, I won’t say any more,” Ishimoto said in a frosty tone. Silence fell, but only for a little while, for soon Ishimoto was talking again. This time he droned on and on, and when Kensaku tried to interrupt, he said, “Just wait a minute and let me finish,” and continued his monologue. Impatiently Kensaku sat and listened until he could bear it no longer. “Please stop,” he implored, “I really have had enough.” In the look he gave Ishimoto, there was now open antagonism.
Ishimoto suddenly started laughing; and in a moment Kensaku found himself laughing with him.
His nerves were in a rather bad state, Kensaku explained; he had of late become very suspicious of other people, and it was no time for him to be thinking of getting married, especially to someone who had been found for him.
Though he had no desire to, he talked also about Aiko, for he felt sure that had it not been for the Aiko affair, Nobuyuki and Ishimoto would not have been so anxious to bring up the subject of marriage. “You know,” he said, “I am now trying to write something about what happened to Aiko and me. But the fact of the matter is I really don’t understand her.”
Kensaku then thanked Ishimoto for his concern; but, he added, his private life was his own to take care of, and he didn’t want others to interfere.
Ishimoto looked a little disheartened, and said nothing. At that point the maid came in with the food. As they ate, they talked of less solemn matters; and in time the mood seemed to become lighter.
Kensaku said, “Would you be interested in meeting someone who looks like your wife?” This was a question he had been waiting to ask for some time. Partly, he wanted simply to talk about Tokiko; and partly, he hoped to use Ishimoto as an excuse for visiting her again. “Not particularly,” Ishimoto answered. “Who is she, anyway?” Kensaku told him all about Tokiko. Then he said again, “She really looks very much like your wife.”
“You must introduce us sometime,” Ishimoto said, but he was only being polite.
Kensaku walked home. On the way he remembered something Ishimoto had said—he claimed he was quoting someone—before they parted: “To think that love between two young people will last throughout their lives is like thinking that a candle will burn forever.” Skeptic that he had become, Kensaku at the time had thought the remark not at all unreasonable. But as he now thought of the way his maternal grandparents had lived together, he began to wonder whether it was indeed true. From the time they married until the very end, they had loved each other. Of them at least, something like this would have been much truer: “The first candle will, of course, burn out in time. But before this happens, the light from it will be passed on to another candle, and then to another, so that though the candles may change, the light will burn forever, like the light on a Buddhist altar. As the candles change, so will the way in which two people love each other; yet their love, like the light, need never go out.” Yes, he decided, he rather liked that; and he wished he had said it to Ishimoto. Then his imagination took a nonsensical turn. “But don’t you see,” he heard Ishimoto saying, “I’m speaking of European candles. With those, you can’t pass the light on from one to the next.” To which he quickly replied, “But the people I’m talking about were pure Japanese candles!”
He smiled to himself, amused by the ludicrous exchange of his own imagining. And he walked on, his mind now filled with nostalgic memories of his dead grandparents.
4
Three days had passed since that unpleasant night in Yoshiwara. Kensaku still thought constantly of Tokiko, and he would recall with a strange sense of disquiet those moments when she sat near him. Once he went so far as to hold one of his fingers, in a vain attempt to gauge the sensation first of holding a finger and then of having one’s finger held. All the time, however, he was suspicious of his own state of mind. That he truly wanted to start a serious affair with her, he could not bring himself to believe. Perhaps his desire to see her amounted to little more than a reluctance to allow his present mood to dissipate. But if he indeed had no intention of becoming involved, would it not be very callous of him to go and see her, even if she were only a geisha?
At any rate, if he was to pay her another visit he would have to have some ostensible reason for doing so. And as far as he could see, only Ishimoto could provide that.
He sat down immediately to write him a postcard. He knew he was trying to use his friend, and this made him self-conscious. Somehow he seemed unable to find quite the right words. He wasted several postcards, rewriting his message this way and that to hit just the right note of nonchalance. Finally he gave up trying and went out to telephone.
“I’m thinking of going to see her tomorrow. Would you like to come?” At last he had got it off his chest.
“All right,” said Ishimoto simply, to Kensaku’s relief. “When you are ready to go tomorrow, give me a ring again.”
Now he had to raise some money. The regular allowance he received from his father was sufficient to take care of his basic daily needs; indeed, it enabled him to buy what books he needed and to travel occasionally. But this did not mean that he had much in the way of pocket money. Whenever he wanted some he would go to Oei, just as he had done as a boy, and be given some such modest sum as three or four yen. To go to he
r for the kind of money he needed now was clearly out of the question.
He sat down once more to write a postcard, this time to a bookseller of his acquaintance in Kanda, asking him to drop in before noon the following day.
Besides books he had a fair collection of ukiyo prints. He might as well sell all those too, he decided. There were some of Hiroshige’s “Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō,” Shikitei Sanba’s compilations of portraits by the first Toyokuni and Kunimasa, scrolls by Utamaro, Koryūsai and Shunchō—all these, together with some worthless pieces he had, made up a sizeable bundle. Carrying it under his arm he walked over to an antique shop nearby.
“I was at two hotels this morning, seeing customers,” said the dealer before Kensaku could say anything. “And do you know what one of those damned foreigners said to me when I showed him a Shonzui? ‘That’s a fake,’ that’s what he said.”
Taken aback by the crudeness of this shopkeeper who was obviously no connoisseur, Kensaku felt a sudden reluctance to show him his collection. Here was the sort of dealer who relied entirely on his own brazenness, who bought things indiscriminately and then went about trying to palm them off on foreigners. Nevertheless when the man said, “What do you have there,” and put out his hand, Kensaku docilely handed over the bundle.
With a knowing air and deliberate casualness the dealer looked at each print, making meaningless, noncommittal sounds all the while. By his silly antics the man was trying to convey the impression that he thought very little of the collection. What a fool, Kensaku thought, as he watched him in silence. When the inspection was over, Kensaku had him wrap up the prints again and without another word walked out of the shop.
Back in the house he found Tatsuoka waiting for him. “Here’s a going-away present for you,” Kensaku said and put the prints, still in the wrapping, in front of Tatsuoka.