“Maybe so. But you can’t be thinking this was a good time to make O-Hide fighting mad.”
“Obviously not. No one would go out of his way to get into a fight with a hellcat like that.”
Kobayashi laughed even louder. With each outburst he became more voluble.
“There was no avoiding it, right? But that’s my line. I’m a man who doesn’t give a fig who I fight with. You’re looking at a human being who’s fallen so low he can’t possibly be harmed no matter whom he fights. Even if a fight has repercussions, they can’t touch me. I’ve never had anything that could be harmed. In other words, if a fight changes anything, the change is bound to be favorable to me—so I have good reasons for welcoming a scrap. But you’re different! Your fights are guaranteed not to benefit you. And there’s no one around who understands self-interest as well as you do. And not only understands; you live every day on the basis of that understanding. At least you believe that’s how you ought to be living. You see where I’m heading? So for such a man—”
Tsuda interrupted impatiently.
“I get it. I understand. You’re advising me not to collide with people. Since a collision with you in particular will only hurt me, you’re advising me to me to proceed as amicably as I can, isn’t that it?”
Kobayashi’s face was a picture of innocence.
“With me? I have no intention of fighting with you.”
“I told you I get it!”
“If you do, that’s fine. Let me just say to avoid any misunderstanding, I’ve been talking all the while about O-Hide-san.”
“I know that.”
“And you’re thinking about Kyoto, right? About the Kyoto situation ending badly?”
“Obviously.”
“But the trouble is, that isn’t all! There will be other repercussions. If you’re not careful.”
Kobayashi stared at Tsuda as if to ascertain the effect of his words. Tsuda, trying to remain unconcerned, failed.
[ 120 ]
KOBAYASHI SAW the moment and seized it.
“What you should know about O-Hide—” he began, taking Tsuda captive at once. “What you need to know is that she stopped somewhere else before she came to Sensei’s place. Can you imagine where she might have gone?”
Tsuda couldn’t imagine. Where this matter was concerned, there was no place she would have been likely to go other than Fujii.
“It’s not in Tokyo.”
“But it is.”
Tsuda was obliged to rummage in his mind. But no matter how he pondered, he could find nothing where there was nothing to find. When Kobayashi finally disclosed the name with a laugh, there was understandably surprise in Tsuda’s exclamation.
“Yoshikawa! Why would she go to see Yoshikawa-san? He has nothing to do with any of this.”
Tsuda couldn’t help thinking how odd this was.
Connecting Yoshikawa and Hori was accomplished easily enough without the help of a powerful imagination. At the time of his marriage, it would have been clear to everyone that the Yoshikawas, who had undertaken to serve as pro forma go-betweens, had established a social connection with Tsuda’s sister O-Hide and her husband, Hori. Even so, there was no apparent reason why that connection should have prompted O-Hide to appear at Yoshikawa’s door with this problem in her hand.
“She must have gone just to visit, to pay her respects.”
“Apparently not. Not by her own account.”
All of a sudden Tsuda wanted to hear his sister’s story. But instead of satisfying him, Kobayashi spoke reprovingly.
“For someone as cautious and well prepared as you appear to be, you can also be a real dunce. Maybe it’s because you work so blessed hard at being perfect there are places you just don’t get around to. What we have here is a good example. First of all, you had no call to make O-Hide angry, not in your position. And to rile her up and then let her race off to Yoshikawa was just plain dumb. But you’d convinced yourself she’d never go; from the beginning you’ve been underestimating her, and that was a mistake that seems very unlike you!”
In hindsight, based on the consequences, Kobayashi had an easy time uncovering Tsuda’s lapses.
“Your père is friends with Yoshikawa, correct? And your père asked Yoshikawa to look after you, correct? So it’s only natural that O-Hide would have gone straight to him.”
Tsuda recalled the gist of his employer’s warning in his office before he had checked into the hospital. Don’t be doing anything to worry your father. I know exactly what you’re doing in Tokyo. If anything irregular happens, you can count on me letting Kyoto know. So be careful. Even at this distance he could see that the admonition had been intended half in jest. Now it appeared that O-Hide was attempting to convert it into something altogether serious.
“The woman is a loose cannon!”
Tsuda’s assessment included a measure of surprise: imprudence wasn’t part of the family legacy.
“What the devil can she have said to Yoshikawa-san? If you take that one at her word, she’s the only one in the right and everyone else is wrong, and that’s a problem.”
Tsuda had a fleeting vision of serious consequences that lay beyond the immediate impact of what his sister might have said. His own credibility with Yoshikawa, the relationship between Yoshikawa and Okamoto, even Okamoto’s intimacy with O-Nobu—there was no telling how any of these connections might be deranged depending on what O-Hide chose to say.
“Women are all the same: shallow!”
At this Kobayashi suddenly laughed again, and his laughter this time, uproarious, made Tsuda shudder. For the first time he became aware of what he had said.
“But that doesn’t matter now—I assume you heard O-Hide telling Uncle Fujii what she said at the Yoshikawas—what was it?”
“She was talking a blue streak about something. Truth is, I didn’t pay much attention.”
Having come this far, to the critical juncture, Kobayashi went blank and drifted off. Tsuda was dismayed. He had been stewing in his disappointment for a while when Kobayashi returned to the matter at hand.
“But just be patient a little longer. You’ll hear all about it whether you want to or not.”
Tsuda couldn’t believe that O-Hide would show up again.
“I’m not talking about O-Hide. She won’t be coming. But Mrs. Yoshikawa will. I’m not lying, I heard her say so. O-Hide even told her what time she should visit. She’ll probably be here soon.”
O-Nobu’s prediction had come to pass. Tsuda had been wondering how to summon her, and now Madam Yoshikawa was on her way.
[ 121 ]
TWO THOUGHTS flickered in his mind in quick succession. The first was a presentiment that handling Madam Yoshikawa when she arrived would require skill. In view of the strategy he had planned, a visit on her own accord was what he most desired, but inasmuch as a new dimension had now been added to the significance of her visit, he would have to change his approach to their conversation. Imagining what her attitude was likely to be in this situation, he felt a certain uneasiness. It seemed reasonable to anticipate a perceptible difference in the lady before and after O-Hide had infused her with a negative bias. But he was also in possession of his customary self-confidence.
He felt prepared to overturn in a single interview whatever prejudice and antipathy she might bring along. To achieve less would be to jeopardize his own future. He awaited her visit with three parts of anxiety to seven parts of confidence in himself.
The second thought suggested he was well advised to alter for the moment his attitude toward O-Nobu. Earlier, in an excess of boredom, he had counted the minutes until she should arrive. Now he was feeling another sort of tension; he anticipated a difficulty of another sort entirely. O-Nobu was no longer needed. Perhaps it were better to say that a visit from her now would seriously incommode him. There were issues, a particular issue, Tsuda wanted to discuss privately with Madam Yoshikawa. He was determined to do what he could to prevent O-Nobu and that lady from running i
n to each other here.
A related concern was how to get rid of Kobayashi quickly. Though he had as much as said a minute ago that Madam Yoshikawa would appear, his friend gave no indication that he was ready to take his leave. This was not a man who troubled himself about being a nuisance. This was a person who, depending on the time and the circumstances, was not incapable of creating a nuisance intentionally. This was, moreover, an infuriating rogue who carried on exactly as he liked without vouchsafing any basis for judgment as to whether he was unaware that he was distressing others or fully conscious of what he was about.
Tsuda made a show of yawning. This action, utterly at odds with how he was feeling, divided him in two. In the midst of this agitated though apparently listless exchange with Kobayashi, he became aware of a frustrating sense of interruption. Kobayashi continued to appear oblivious. Tsuda lifted the wristwatch next to his pillow again, and as he put it down he asked the question he could no longer postpone.
“Did you have some business today?”
“In a way—but that can wait.”
Tsuda had a good idea of what Kobayashi was thinking. But he couldn’t bring himself to surrender yet. And he was even less in touch with the courage to repulse the attack. His only choice was to say nothing. Whereupon Kobayashi spoke up.
“I wonder if I should stay and meet Yoshikawa’s wife.”
“You must be joking!” Tsuda wanted to say.
“You have business with her?”
“You talk a lot about business, but business isn’t the only reason for meeting someone.”
“But you don’t even know her.”
“That’s why I’d like to meet her. Get an idea what she’s like. I’ve never even been inside a wealthy home, and I’ve certainly never had any dealings with the rich. So when an opportunity like this comes along, I can’t help feeling I’d like a peek at the genuine article.”
“It’s not as if she’s a circus act.”
“No, but I am curious. And I’ve got time to spare.”
Tsuda was flabbergasted. He shuddered at the thought of presenting the lady with evidence that he numbered among his friends a wretched creature such as this. If the time ever came when he incurred her contempt for associating with such a person, he believed the repercussions would extend into his future.
“Does anything ever inhibit you? You know perfectly well why Yoshikawa’s wife is coming here today.”
“I do—will I be in the way?”
Tsuda’s had no choice but to hand Kobayashi his walking papers
“Yes. You will be in the way. So please leave now before she gets here.”
Kobayashi didn’t seem particularly offended.
“If that’s how you feel, I don’t mind leaving. I don’t mind, but before I go I should explain why I came all this way in the first place.”
Annoyed, Tsuda finally spoke for Kobayashi.
“It’s about money, I’ll wager. If you have a request I can afford, I don’t mind listening. Which isn’t to say I won’t mind if you try to collect when I’m not home the way you did with that overcoat. But I don’t have a farthing with me.”
Kobayashi simpered, and the flush that rose to his face seemed to be asking, “Then what am I to do?” As Tsuda still had questions for him, it was in his interest to meet Kobayashi once again before his departure. But he worried that he might run into O-Nobu if he came here again. Designating a day and time and place where they should meet as if he were intending a farewell party, he finally got rid of his burdensome visitor.
[ 122 ]
TSUDA TURNED at once to the second preventative measure. From beneath the small toiletries box on the tatami, he removed the familiar stationery and matching lilac envelopes and began plying his fountain pen. In scarcely more than a minute he had scrawled a note requesting O-Nobu to put off her visit today because it was “a trifle inconvenient.” He was feeling in such a hurry that even reading the letter over seemed a waste of time. He sealed the envelope at once. He didn’t pause to consider the confusion the cryptic contents of the letter were likely to arouse in O-Nobu. The circumstances that had deprived him of his normal caution had not only made him careless but required him to act resolutely as a thought occurred. With the letter in hand, he went straight downstairs and summoned the nurse.
“Please give this to a rickshaw man and have him deliver it to my house right away, it’s urgent.”
“Of course,” the nurse said, accepting the letter and peering at the name as if hoping to determine the nature of this urgent matter. Tsuda, meanwhile, was thinking about the time it would take a rickshaw to reach its destination.
“Please have him take a trolley.”
Tsuda was worried the letter might not arrive in time. If O-Nobu had left for the hospital before receiving it, his effort would have been in vain.
Even after he had gone back upstairs, this continued to trouble him. The mere thought made him feel that O-Nobu had already left home, boarded a trolley, and was on her way. That possibility led him naturally to Kobayashi. Should his wife make her graceful appearance at the top of the stairs before he had accomplished his objective, he would know whom to blame. Having wasted precious time on Kobayashi, Tsuda had as good as sent him from the room, and even so, watching his back recede, he had been on the verge of entrusting him with his pressing errand. I know it’s a bother but I’d like you to stop off at my place and caution O-Nobu not to show up today. Surprised at himself, he had just managed to swallow the words before they left his mouth. If only this weren’t Kobayashi, he had thought to himself, how convenient it would be at a time like this!
While Tsuda waited with his nerves humming, in thrall to his prevision that Madam Yoshikawa was about to arrive at any minute, the letter to O-Nobu he had handed the nurse was on its way ineluctably to a fate he could never have imagined.
In accordance with his instructions, it had been handed to the rickshaw man without delay. In accordance with the nurse’s instructions, the rickshaw man had boarded a streetcar at once. He had alighted at the designated stop. Turning down the familiar side street a short distance away, he had easily identified a wooden plaque bearing the family name on the envelope in front of a small but attractive two-story house. Approaching the entrance, he had handed the letter to O-Toki, who had emerged to greet him.
To that point, everything had proceeded in the order Tsuda had imagined. The subsequent reality, however, had never occurred to him as he penned his note. The letter did not make its way into O-Nobu’s hands.
As Tsuda had feared, O-Nobu was not at home, but neither had she set out for the clinic as he had also feared. Her destination was otherwise, a choice arrived at nimbly and governed by her desire to deploy all her skill to take advantage of a perilous opportunity.
All morning, O-Nobu had been herself again. She had arisen as always and gone about her business as usual. Conducting herself in all respects no differently from when Tsuda was home, she nonetheless found herself with time on her hands, an excess that was an inevitable result of his absence, and had lounged the morning away. When she was finished with lunch she went to the public bath. Thinking to present herself at the clinic looking as attractive as possible she took her time, and when she returned feeling wonderfully refreshed, her skin glowing from the hot water, she was greeted by O-Toki with news she couldn’t help thinking must be a lie.
“Hori-san’s wife was here.”
O-Nobu was so surprised she couldn’t believe what the maid was saying. One day after a day like yesterday, O-Hide had come to see her. A visit so unexpected simply couldn’t be. Twice and a third time she confirmed what the maid was saying. She even felt compelled to ask the purpose of the visit. And why hadn’t O-Toki bid her wait? But the maid knew nothing. On her way out, O-Hide had told her only that she had stopped after visiting the Fujiis because it was on her way home.
O-Nobu instantly changed her agenda. Abandoning her visit to the clinic, she decided grimly that her only choice was t
o go to see O-Hide. This was, after all, one of the promises she and Tsuda had made to each other. The moment was at hand when she could make good on her promise without the need of an awkward pretext. O-Nobu left the house as though in pursuit of O-Hide.
[ 123 ]
HORI’S HOUSE lay in the same general direction as the clinic; alighting from the same streetcar two stops sooner and turning immediately to the right brought O-Nobu to the front gate five blocks or so down the street.
Unlike the Okamoto house or the Fujiis’, this residence was far from the suburbs and had no room in front for anything that could be called a garden. Needless to say, there was no driveway for rickshaws or carriages. Built virtually on the street, the two-story house was set back from the gate a mere fifteen feet. Since even this area had been cobbled with stones, the ground was nowhere visible.
In the process of urban renewal, the street had been long since cleared and was relatively wider than others. Even so, there was not a single shop in evidence. Instead, it was lined with lawyers’ and doctors’ offices, inns, and other such establishments and was consequently quiet at all hours in spite of the lively neighborhood that surrounded it.
Willow trees had been planted in regular rows on both sides of the street. Accordingly, in seasons when the weather was fine, even the drab urban wind created a certain charm as it stirred the luxuriant green branches. The largest willow, standing just at the corner of Hori’s wall, draped its long branches diagonally over the gate so charmingly that it might have appeared to an onlooker to have been transplanted there specifically to complement the house.
A second striking feature was the large, antique rainwater vessel made of iron in front of the main entrance. This sizable relic, which brought to mind the pawnshops in the old part of the city, also fit perfectly with the layout of the front entrance just beside it. In this relatively wide portal there were no doors, plain or decorative in the inlaid Chinese style, only a fine lattice.
Once this was seen to be an elegant townhouse, a glance at its exterior would have sufficed to make clear that its owners, at least in previous generations, had been prosperous merchants, though the present occupant would have to be styled an eccentric. Hori himself had never had any idea what sort of house he was living in. He lacked the disposition to trouble himself about such things and was utterly unconcerned with what others might have to say about his métier. Certainly he was a bon vivant but with a personality, unlike that of an uneducated man who was merely rich, such that a house like this, suitable for a flamboyant actor, might have been an inappropriate abode—this was a man with a very small ego. To put it less generously, Hori was a man who had lost his sense of self. There was about him an easygoing carelessness: he lived according to the customs and conventions of the world around him yet made no effort to amend the idiosyncrasies that were the family legacy. This allowed him to be satisfied to live in a house constructed, according to his father and mother, by ancestors in the manner of a sturdy warehouse that was at the same time imbued with a stylishness appropriate to a traditional showman. Assuming there was virtue in this, he would have to be commended for an attitude entirely innocent of self-congratulation. To be sure, he had no reason to gloat. His residence, as reflected in his eyes, was too antiquated to allow for gloating.