CHAPTER 86
But there was more. Something had changed in Ojōsan’s attitude, I noticed. Both Okusan and Ojōsan set about providing us with the female care and attention that we needed to regain normalcy after our journey, but it seemed to me that Ojōsan was far more attentive to me than to K. If it had been blatant, it might have made me uncomfortable, even irritated. But I was delighted at how decorously she behaved. She devoted the greater part of her innate kindness to me in a way that only I would notice. K therefore remained oblivious and unconcerned. A gleeful song of victory sang in my heart.
Summer ended at last, and mid-September arrived, the time when lectures would resume. Our schedules meant that once more we came and went from the house at different hours. Three times a week I returned later than K, but I never detected any sign of Ojōsan’s presence in his room. K went back to turning as I entered and remarking, “Just back, are you?” and I answered with my usual mechanical and meaningless response.
It would have been the middle of October. I had overslept and rushed off to classes without changing out of the Japanese clothing I wore around the house; rather than waste time with laced shoes, I hastily slipped on a pair of straw sandals. Our schedules meant that I would get back home before K did.
When I arrived, I flung open the lattice door, assuming he wouldn’t be there—and caught the sound of his voice within. I also heard Ojōsan’s laughter. Not needing to spend time unlacing my shoes at the door as usual, I stepped straight out of my sandals and into the house and opened the sliding doors to our rooms. My eyes took in the sight of K, seated as usual at his desk. Ojōsan, however, was no longer in the room. All I caught was a glimpse of her retreating form, obviously making a hasty exit.
I asked K why he had returned early. He had stayed home that day because he felt unwell, he replied.
No sooner was I back in my room and seated than Ojōsan appeared with tea, and now at last she greeted me. I was not the sort of person who could ask with an easy laugh why she had run away just then; instead, the matter nagged at my mind. She stood up and went off down the veranda, but she paused a moment before K’s room and exchanged a few words with him. They seemed to be a continuation of their previous talk, but as I had not heard what had gone before, I could make no sense of them.
Over time Ojōsan grew increasingly nonchalant. Even when we were both at home, she would go to K’s room via the veranda and call his name. Then she would go in and make herself at home. Sometimes, of course, she was bringing him mail or delivering his washing, the kind of interaction that could only be considered normal for those living under the same roof, but my fierce and single-minded desire to have her all to myself drove me to read more into it. At times I felt she was going out of her way to avoid my room and visit only his.
So why, you may ask, did I not ask K to leave the house? But that would have defeated the very purpose for bringing him there in the first place. It was beyond me to do it.
CHAPTER 87
It was a cold, rainy day in November. Sodden in my overcoat, I made my way as usual past the fierce Enma image that stands in Genkaku Temple1 and up the hill to the house. K’s room was deserted, but his charcoal brazier was newly lit. I hurriedly opened the doors through to my room, eager to warm my chilled hands at my own glowing charcoal. But my brazier held only the cold white ash of its earlier fire; even the embers were dead. My mood quickly shifted to one of displeasure.
Okusan had heard me arrive and came to greet me. Seeing me standing silent in the middle of the room, she sympathetically helped me out of my coat and into my casual household kimono. I complained of the cold, and she obligingly carried in K’s brazier from next door. Was K home yet? I asked. He had returned and then gone out again, she told me. This puzzled me, as it was a day when his class schedule meant he came home later than I. He probably had some business to attend to, Okusan said.
I sat for a while reading. The house was still and hushed, there was no sound of any voice, and after a while the early winter chill, combined with the desolate silence, began to penetrate me. Seized by a sudden urge to be among a bustling throng of people, I put my book down and rose to my feet. The rain seemed to have lifted at last, but the sky still hung heavily chill and leaden, so to be on the safe side, as I went out I slung an oil-paper umbrella over my shoulder. I set off east down the hill, following the earthen wall that ran along the rear of the Arsenal.
In those days the roads were not yet improved, and the slope was a lot steeper than it is today. The street was narrower and not straight as now. As you descended into the valley, high buildings blocked the sun, and because drainage was poor, it was damp and muddy underfoot. The worst section was between the narrow stone bridge and the street of Yanagi-chō. Even in high rain clogs or rubber boots, you had to tread carefully to avoid the mud. Everyone was forced to pick their way gingerly along the long thin rut that had formed in the middle of the road. It was a mere foot or two wide, so it was a bit like walking along a kimono sash that had been casually unrolled down the center of the road. People made their way cautiously, in single file.
I was negotiating this narrow strip when I ran abruptly into K. Concentrating on where I was putting my feet, I was unaware of him until we were face-to-face. Only when I raised my eyes on impulse to see what was suddenly blocking my way did I discover him there.
Where had he been? I asked. He had just stepped out for a bit, he said. His reply was typically brief and unresponsive. We maneuvered past each other on the narrow strip of navigable road, and as we did, I saw that a young woman was behind him. Short-sighted as I was, I had not seen her until now, but once K had passed me, my eyes fell on her face, and I was astonished to discover that it was Ojōsan.
She greeted me, her cheeks slightly flushed. In those days, fashionable girls wore their hair swept straight back from the forehead and coiled on top of the head. For a long moment I stared blankly at this twist of hair. Then I became conscious of the fact that one of us would have to make way for the other. Resolutely, I stepped aside, putting one foot into the mud and so leaving a space for her to pass me with relative ease.
When I arrived at Yanagi-chō, I could not think where to go. All possibilities now felt equally bleak. For a while I tramped despairingly along through the sludge, oblivious to the splashes, then went home again.
CHAPTER 88
I asked K if he and Ojōsan had left the house together. No, he replied. They had come across each other in Masago-chō,1 he explained, so they came home together. I could not really question him further, but over dinner I felt an urge to ask Ojōsan the same question. Her response was to laugh in that way I so disliked, then to challenge me to guess where she’d been. In those days I had a quick temper, and I felt a sudden surge of anger at being treated so flippantly. Okusan was the only person at the table to notice, however. K remained oblivious.
I was uncertain whether Ojōsan was being intentionally teasing or only innocently playful. As young women went, she was very astute, but I had to admit that certain aspects of her were typical of the things about other girls that annoyed me. It was since K’s arrival in the house that I had begun to notice these irritating traits. I was unsure whether to put this down to my own jealousy of K or to her artfulness in relation to me. I am not inclined even now to dismiss my jealousy. As I have said many times, I was well aware that jealousy was at work below my love for Ojōsan. The smallest trifle, something that would be quite insignificant to anyone else, could set it off.
To digress for a moment, it seems to me that this kind of jealousy is perhaps a necessary part of love. Since my marriage, I have been aware that my jealous impulses have slowly faded; at the same time, I no longer feel that early fierce passion of love.
Hesitant as my heart had been, I now knew I had to gather my courage and fling it down before her. By her I mean Okusan, not Ojōsan. My plan was to set marriage discussions in motion by coming straight out and asking for Ojōsan’s hand. Yet though my decision
was made, I still held back from day to day. I know this makes me seem terribly irresolute—I don’t mind that it does. But my inability to act did not stem from lack of willpower. Before K had appeared on the scene, any move I felt the urge to make was blocked by my abhorrence of falling into a trap as I had done once before; after K’s arrival, my suspicion that she might be more attracted to him held me back. If she did indeed favor him, I had decided, then there was no value in declaring my own love.
It was not so much that the thought of the shame was painful to me; it was rather that, no matter how I loved her, I hated the thought of marrying a woman who secretly longed for another. Many men are perfectly happy to marry the girl they love whether she returns the feelings or not, but in those days I considered such men to be more worldly and cynical than we were, or else more obtuse to the workings of love. I was much too ardent to have any truck with the notion that once you marry you somehow simply settle down. In a word, I had a romantic faith in the nobility of love, while simultaneously practicing a devious form of it.
Naturally, during all our long time together there had been occasions when I could have confessed myself directly to Ojōsan and asked for her hand, but I had purposely chosen not to. I was very conscious of the fact that Japanese convention forbade such things, but it was not really this alone that restrained me. I assumed that in such a situation Japanese, and particularly Japanese girls, lacked the courage to be frank and honest, so I could not hope for a candid response from her.
CHAPTER 89
Thus I found myself at a standstill, unable to move in either direction. Maybe you know the feeling of lying there snoozing, perhaps when you are ill, and suddenly you find that your limbs are paralyzed, although you are perfectly aware of everything around you. This was how it sometimes felt to me then, unknown to those around me.
The year ended, and spring came. One day Okusan suggested to K that he invite some friends over so we could play the New Year game of poem cards.1 She was astonished when K responded that he had no friends. Indeed it was true, no one in K’s life really fit the description. He had a number of acquaintances who would pass the time of day with him when they came across each other, but they were hardly the kind of people to ask over for a game of cards. Okusan then turned to me and asked if I knew of anyone to invite, but I was not in the mood for such jolly games, so I gave a noncommittal reply.
When evening came, however, Ojōsan dragged us both off to play. With just the four of us, it was a very subdued game. Unused to such frivolities as he was, moreover, K remained reserved and standoffish. I demanded to know whether he even knew the Hyakunin isshū poems. “Not really,” he replied. Ojōsan apparently took my words to be contemptuous, for she then began to lend him her obvious support, and in the end the two of them were more or less aligned against me. With any encouragement the situation could easily have escalated into a quarrel as far as I was concerned, but luckily K steadfastly maintained his earlier aloof indifference. I could detect not the slightest hint of triumph in him, so I managed to finish the game without incident.
It would have been two or three days later that Okusan and Ojōsan set off in the morning to visit some relatives in Ichigaya. Classes had not yet started, so K and I were in effect left to look after the house for the day. I felt no urge either to read or to take a walk and instead settled beside the brazier, chin propped on elbow, daydreaming. Next door K was equally quiet. Such silence reigned that for each of us, the other could as well not have been there. There was nothing unusual in this silence, of course, and I paid it no particular attention.
Around ten o’clock K suddenly opened the doors between our rooms and stood in the doorway. What was I thinking? he asked. I had not really been thinking anything, or if I had, then I was probably mulling over the usual problem of Ojōsan. Okusan was a necessary part of my conundrum, of course, but lately K’s inseparable involvement had complicated it further. He had been vaguely present in my mind as a kind of obstacle, but now that I was face-to-face with him, I couldn’t come out and say so. I simply looked at him silently. K then strode into my room and sat down in front of my brazier. I took my elbows off the edge and pushed the brazier slightly toward him.
K began to talk in a way that was quite out of character. To which part of Ichigaya had Okusan and Ojōsan gone? he asked. I said I believed they went to the aunt’s house. Who is she? he asked. I told him she was the wife of a military officer. Why had they gone out so early in the year, when the round of New Year visits traditionally did not begin for women until after the fifteenth of January? I could only reply that I did not know.
CHAPTER 90
K persisted with his questions about Okusan and Ojōsan. Eventually he began to ask the kind of personal question that I had no way of answering. I was not so much annoyed as astonished. There was a glaring contrast between his indifference whenever I had brought up the subject of these two on previous occasions, and his very different attitude now. Finally I asked why he was suddenly so obsessed with the subject today. He instantly fell silent, but his closed mouth twitched tremulously. He never spoke much, and when he did, he had the habit of first working his mouth around. The weight of his utterances was no doubt evidenced in the way the lips resisted his will and opened only reluctantly. The voice that finally broke through was twice as strong as that of an average man.
Seeing his mouth working now, I knew that something was coming, but I had no clue what was in store. You can imagine my amazement when K launched into a ponderous confession of his agonized love for Ojōsan. I froze, as if his words were a magic wand that turned me instantly to stone. My mouth failed to so much as twitch in an effort to respond.
My whole being was reduced to a single concentrated point—of terror, of pain. I stiffened instantaneously from head to foot, like stone or steel. So rigid was I that I almost lost the power of breath. Luckily, however, this state quickly passed. A moment later I had returned to human feelings. And now a bitter regret swept over me. He had beaten me to it.
I had no idea what my next move should be, however. I was too distressed, I suppose, to think coherently. I simply remained frozen, uncomfortably aware of the nasty sweat that was soaking the armpits of my shirt. K, meanwhile, was continuing the faltering confession of his love, pausing from time to time to grope for words. I was in agony. My distress must have been written on my face as blatantly as some advertising poster, I thought. Even K must surely notice it. But it seemed in fact that his attention was too deeply focused on himself to register my expression. His confession never varied in tone. There was a heavy dullness to it, it seemed to me, and a kind of unyielding inertia. While part of me listened to this faltering declaration, my heart was seething with the question What shall I do, oh, what shall I do? so that I scarcely comprehended the details of what K was saying. The overall tone of his words, however, struck me to the core. So my pain was now mixed with a kind of terror—the beginnings of a horrified recognition that he was stronger than I.
When K finished, I could say nothing. I was not struck dumb by any internal debate about whether it would be wiser to make the same confession to him or to keep my secret to myself. It was simply that I could not speak. Nor did I wish to.
At lunch K and I faced each other across the table. Served by the maid, we ate what seemed to me an unusually tasteless meal. We spoke barely a word during the meal. We had no idea when Okusan and Ojōsan would return.
CHAPTER 91
We returned to our separate rooms and did not see each other again. K was as silent as he’d been that morning. I too sat quietly, deep in thought.
It seemed clear to me that I should reveal my heart to K, but I also felt that my chance had already passed. My silence had been a terrible mistake, it seemed to me now; I should have cut across his words with a counteroffensive; at the very least, I would have been wiser to follow his confession by frankly telling him my own feelings. At this stage, no matter how I looked at it, with K’s confession over and done
with it would be awkward to come back to the subject and express my own feelings. I could see no way to bring it up naturally. I felt dizzy with remorse.
If only he would open the sliding doors that separated us and charge into the room again, I thought. Earlier, he had caught me off guard, quite unprepared to cope with him. My underlying impulse now was to somehow regain the advantage I had lost that morning. From time to time I raised my eyes expectantly to the sliding doors. But the doors stayed closed. And beyond them K remained quiet.
After a while this hush started to unnerve me. What would he be thinking in there? No sooner had the question entered my head than it began to obsess me. It was perfectly normal for us to maintain separate silences on either side of the doors, and usually the quieter K was, the more likely I was to forget he was there. In my present state, however, I was clearly a bit mad. Yet despite my urgent need to confront him, I could not take the offensive and open the doors myself. Having missed my chance to speak, I now could only wait for his next move.
At length I could stay still no more. The longer I forced myself to remain motionless, the more urgently I longed to leap up and burst into K’s room. There was nothing for it but to get up and go out onto the veranda. From there I moved on into the sitting room, where I absently poured myself a cup of hot water from the kettle and drank it. Then I went out to the entrance hall, and from there, having carefully avoided K’s room, I found myself out in the road. Needless to say, I had no destination in mind. I simply needed to keep moving. I wandered aimlessly through streets that were bright with New Year decorations. Walk as I might, K continued to fill my mind. In fact, I was not even attempting to rid myself of such thoughts by walking. As I prowled the streets, my mind was intent on chewing over and digesting the image of him that hung before me.