From the beginning there had been only three paths open to him. Just three and no others. The first was to stew forever without a resolution while preserving his current freedom; the second was to advance without caring if he played the fool; the third, the route he had his eye on, was to obtain a resolution that satisfied him without playing the fool.
He had set out from Tokyo with only the third path in mind. But having rattled along on a train and swayed down the road in a carriage, been chilled in the mountain air and soaked in a steaming tub, he had finally discovered that the person he sought was actually within reach, and as he perceived that the moment had at last arrived when, as early as the next day, he would begin to execute his plan, the first path had appeared to him. Then, before he knew it, the second was also there, beckoning him with a wan smile. They had showed up abruptly. But not clamorously. The haze that had obscured his field of vision had blown away with no sound of the dispelling wind, and his sight was of a sudden assured and reasonable.
Unexpectedly romantic, Tsuda was also unexpectedly staid. And he was unaware of the opposition between these two aspects of himself. There was accordingly no reason the contradiction should trouble him. He need only decide. But before he could reach a decision, he had to go to battle with himself. Play the fool and pay no mind? No, he hated being a fool. But there was no need. His resolve had been won in battle; now it must break down once again into three parts and come tumbling all the way down before he could rise to his full height.
Alone in the large tub, Tsuda splashed and scrubbed himself in the clean water from the hot spring.
[ 174 ]
JUST THEN, oblivious of his surroundings, his gaze directed inwardly, he was startled by the sound of the glass door rattling open. Without thinking, he lifted his head and glanced at the entrance. When he made out through the steam the figure of a woman just partly revealed in the doorway, his heart rang like an alarm bell. But this instant of presentiment faded in the next. This was not the woman who had come to surprise him in the true sense.
Appearing to be ready for bed, this young woman, whom Tsuda couldn’t recall ever having seen, appeared before him clothed in a manner that would have drawn disapproval in broad daylight for insufficient modesty. Her long slip, normally an undergarment entirely hidden beneath the kimono, confronted him unabashedly with its garish colors.
Seeing Tsuda squatting naked in the steam like a beggar, the woman immediately drew back.
“Oh. Sorry!”
Tsuda felt he had been beaten to an apology he should have offered himself. Just then he heard again the sound of slippers coming down the stairs. No sooner had the slippers halted outside the glass door than a conversation between a man and woman commenced.
“What’s going on?”
“There’s someone in there.”
“What about it. As long as it’s not crowded.”
“But—”
“Let’s use a private one, then. They’re probably empty.”
“Where’s Katsu-san, I wonder?”
Tsuda was inclined to finish quickly so the couple could come in. At the same time, something he detected in the woman’s attitude, an insistence that no other tub would do but the one he was using, annoyed him. If you want to bathe in here come ahead, no need to stand on ceremony, he thought to himself, screwing up his courage, and lowered his body into the tub again.
He was a tall man. Extending his long legs luxuriously, he moved them up and down and took pleasure in observing the flesh of his lower limbs rise and sink in the limpid water.
Abruptly a second man spoke, evidently the Katsu-san the woman had been looking for.
“Good evening. You’re so early today.”
It was the man who replied.
“We’re bored, so we thought we might as well go to bed early.”
“Is that so? Have you finished practicing?”
“I wouldn’t say finished exactly.”
The next words were the woman’s.
“Katsu-san, there’s someone in there.”
“There is?”
“Isn’t there a fresh tub?”
“Of course—it might be a little hot yet.”
From down the hall came the sound of another door opening, presumably to the bath Katsu had led them to. Almost at once the door at the entrance to Tsuda’s tub rattled open again.
“Good evening.”
So saying, a small man with a square face entered the room.
“Shall I do your back, Boss?”
Stepping down at once to the sink, he filled a small bucket with hot water from the springs. Tsuda was obliged to present his back to him.
“You must be Katsu-san?”
“One and the same, Boss—how did you know?”
“I heard you mentioned just now.”
“I see. I don’t recollect I’ve seen you down here before.”
“I just got here.”
“Ah!” Katsu exclaimed again and laughed.
“From Tokyo?”
“Right.”
Using words like “inbound” and “outbound,” Katsu pursued a more precise answer. He followed with other questions—Had he come alone? Why hadn’t he brought his wife along?—and provided sundry information: the couple just now were silk-thread dealers from Yokohama; evenings, the wife gave her husband a lesson in puppet theater recitation; his own old lady was a skilled singer of traditional songs. Having been told more than he needed to hear, it seemed to Tsuda that Katsu-san had touched on every subject but one. That subject was of course Ki-yoko. This was more than a little disappointing. But he wasn’t equipped with a means of coaching the man, and in any event before there was time Katsu-san, having run on about this and that, had finished washing and rinsing his back.
“Please take your time.”
Watching Katsu leave the bath, Tsuda felt no need to stay longer. He toweled himself dry and stepped outside. But when he had climbed the stairs with the wet towel in his hand, passed the sink and the mirror at the top, and turned once down a corridor, he realized, as he had feared, that he had lost his way back to his room.
[ 175 ]
AT FIRST he had walked along scarcely noticing. He wasn’t even certain whether he had passed this way before with the maid; the blurred memory was part of a pale d ream. But when he had failed to arr ive anywhere that seemed even vaguely to resemble his room, notwithstanding the distance he had traveled down one hallway after another, he stopped short.
Hold on. Can I have passed it? Or is it just ahead?
The halls were brightly lit. He was able to proceed in any direction he liked. But there was no sound of footsteps to be heard anywhere. There were no maids to be seen hurrying back and forth. Putting down his towel and soap, he tried clapping his hands as he did in his study at home when he wished to summon O-Nobu. But there was no response from any direction. Unfamiliar with the premises, he had no idea in which direction he might find the maids’ room. As he had come in through an entrance at the back of a thickly planted garden, indistinguishable from the front entrance of a private residence, the locations of the front desk or the kitchen or the service entrance were as good as secrets from him.
When he had tried clapping several times and confirmed that no one was responding, he retrieved his towel and soap with a faint smile. He began to feel amused. Perhaps circling around and around until in the end he came to his room was a kind of adventure. In the spirit of someone intentionally savoring an experience he had never had at an inn, he began to walk again.
The hallway came abruptly to an end; up two or three steps at an angle were more sinks. Into four glittering metal basins in a row, water that was piped either from the mountain or directly from the hot spring was running in an uninterrupted stream from nickel-plated faucets; not only were the basins full, but a thin film of overflow like colorful crystal was constantly running down the sides. The surface of the water in the basins, subtly agitated by the incoming stream, trembled minutely.
/> Tsuda was accustomed to using tap water, and his eyes quickly tricked him into forgetting where he was. His only thought was that water was being wasted. He was on the verge of turning the faucets off when he became aware of his own misapprehension. At the same time he felt strangely stirred by the irregular eddying on the surface of the water in the white enamel basins.
How quiet it was! Just as the maid had said as she served him his supper. More precisely, the reality itself affirmed her words, though in fact it was far quieter than he had imagined at the time. It wasn’t simply a matter of thinking it odd that no guests were in evidence; one had to wonder if the place were deserted. In the silence the electric lights illuminated every corner. But this was merely light; there was neither sound nor movement. Only the water in the basins moved. It circled like an eddy, rippling across the surface and folding in on itself as he watched, as if it were breathing.
He looked away from the water and encountered abruptly the figure of another person. Startled, he narrowed his gaze and peered. But it was only an image of himself, reflected in a mirror hanging alongside the sinks. It wasn’t full length, but it was large, at least as long as the mirrors in a barber shop. It was also, like a barber’s mirror, due to the space it occupied, perpendicular: not only his head but his shoulders and trunk and hips as well were reflected back at him in the same plane as he was standing. Even after he had recognized that he was facing an image of himself, he was unable to avert his eyes. Though he was fresh from the hot bath, he looked pale. He couldn’t understand how that could be. His hair, badly in need of a haircut and disheveled, covered his head like a mop. Having just been soaked in the tub, it glistened like lacquer. For some reason it put him in mind of a garden in the aftermath of a violent storm.
He was handsome, with regular features. The skin of his face had a silky abundance that was wasted on a man. He was inveterately confi-dent about his looks. He couldn’t remember ever glancing in a mirror and failing to confirm his confidence. He was therefore a little surprised to observe something in this refection that struck him as less than satisfying. Before he had determined that the image was himself, he was assailed by the feeling that he was looking at his own ghost. Horrified, he resisted. He widened his eyes and studied the reflection even more closely. Stepping closer, he picked up the comb in front of the mirror. He combed his hair carefully, composing himself.
When he finished with the comb and threw it down, the spell was broken; he was looking for his room as before. Glancing up the stairs facing the sinks, he perceived something distinctively different about them. The steps were a third wider than usual. And they were built so sturdily it seemed they wouldn’t creak even if an elephant ascended them. Moreover, unlike ordinary stairs, they were thickly varnished as if they belonged in an imitation Western building.
No matter how inattentive he may have been, Tsuda was certain he had not come down these stairs on his way to the baths. Realizing that ascending them was not the way back and resolved to retrace his steps once again, he turned away from the mirror.
[ 176 ]
JUST THEN he heard a shoji door being slid open and closed again on the second floor. Judging from the imposing stairway, the rooms upstairs in this large building seemed likely to number more than two or three, yet the sound had reached Tsuda with a distinct immediacy that allowed him to gauge the distance of the room from where he stood. Immediately at the top of the stairs there appeared to be the sort of sizable room with a wood floor commonly seen in restaurants and other similar establishments. He couldn’t determine its width from below, but judging by the wall at the back it appeared easily deep enough to accommodate the long side of a tatami mat, about six feet. Without ascending the stairs, there was no telling whether the hall twisted in three directions or simply moved down either side of the room, but it seemed certain that the sound of the shoji must have issued from the room immediately behind the wall and accordingly closest to the stairs.
Hearing this sound suddenly in the silence that had resumed, Tsuda understood for the first time that there were also guests upstairs. More precisely, he became aware finally of the existence of another human being. Until this moment his attention had been intently focused elsewhere, in a different direction, and he was surprised. It was of course mild surprise. But in its nature it was akin to surprise at seeing someone thought dead coming suddenly back to life. Tsuda wanted to flee. The impulse had partly to do with his reluctance to reveal the witless-ness that had kept him wandering the halls in search of his own room; moreover, truth be told, he was ashamed to expose the ugliness he sensed in himself for allowing his surprise to unseat him even a little.
But the natural course of the event didn’t allow for simple flight. As he turned on his heel a thought occurred.
It could very well be the maid.
This newly considered possibility restored his courage at once. Having transcended his surprise, he found that he was no longer concerned in the least if it was a guest or otherwise.
I don’t care who it is, when she comes down I’ll ask the way to my room.
Resolved, he peered up the stairway from where he stood alongside the mirror. As he did so, he heard soft footsteps coming from just behind the wall as he had imagined. The steps were quiet, so quiet he wouldn’t have detected them but for the slapping of the slipper against the heel. At that moment something in his heart lurched.
This is a woman. But she’s not a maid. For all I know…
Even as the thought passed, the very person he had supposed it might be appeared above him ineluctably; in the grip of surprise ten times more powerful than a minute ago he stopped, rooted to the spot. Not even his eyes moved.
A similar emotion seemed to have assaulted Kiyoko with even more virulence. As she reached the wooden floor and halted there, she became for Tsuda a kind of painting. The impression he received would remain engraved on his heart.
Lowering her gaze innocently enough from the top of the stairs and recognizing Tsuda appeared to occur at once and yet were not truly simultaneous. Not at least as Tsuda perceived them. Between oblivion and discovery, time elapsed. There was a progression of feelings from surprise past amazement to disbelief before she finally stiffened. Brought up short in her tracks, she stood there so rigidly it appeared that a single finger thrust at her shoulder from the side might topple her as if she were a clay figurine.
Apparently intending like most guests staying here for treatment to warm herself with a quick bath before going to bed, she was carrying a small towel. Like Tsuda, she also had with her a nickel soap holder with no cover. Later, revisiting the moment, Tsuda would remember wondering why, standing there so rigidly, she hadn’t dropped it to the floor.
Kiyoko wasn’t dressed as carelessly as the woman he had encountered at the bath a while ago. She had, however, availed herself of the freedom guests at a place like this tacitly agree to allow one another. She wasn’t wearing a proper obi. Instead, she had wrapped around her waist a brightly colored sash of pretty red and yellow stripes. She had stepped into a pair of thin wool slippers, and the long undergarment she was wearing beneath her night dress brushed the tops of her naked feet.
As her body stiffened, the muscles in her face also tensed. And the color in her cheeks and forehead visibly drained. In the midst of observing this distinct transformation, Tsuda snapped out of his trance.
I’d better do something! She looks ready to faint!
He resolved to call out to her. But just then she came to life. Whirling around, she moved away. No sooner had she disappeared down the hall, leaving Tsuda below, than the light at the top of the stairs that had brightly illuminated her suddenly went out. Tsuda heard again what must have been the shoji door being opened in the dark. At the same time, in a small room he hadn’t noticed next to where he was standing, a guest bell rang ear-splittingly.
A minute later, he heard the sound of footsteps hurrying lightly down a distant hall. It was a maid responding to a summons from Kiyok
o. Intercepting her, Tsuda asked for directions to his room.
[ 177 ]
THAT NIGHT he had trouble sleeping. He was bothered by the sound of water, an incessant plash and patter outside the rain shutters. Unable to shut it out, he wondered what it was. Had it begun to rain? Was a mountain stream running past the building? But if it were rain he would be hearing it on the eaves, and the sound was too gentle to be the rushing of a stream—even as he considered possibilities, his mind was troubled by a more important question.
Discovering that the provident maid had taken quick advantage of his absence to lay out his mattress and bedding, he had burrowed under the covers at once and submerged in thoughts about his accidental adventure. Looking back, it seemed to him that he had been very nearly sleepwalking. It was as if he had spent the time wandering the inn without purpose. His behavior at the bottom of the stairs in particular, observing the water eddy in the basin in the stillness and studying the uncomfortable image of himself in the mirror appeared, even at a distance of only a brief hour, to have been a function of what would have to be called an abnormal mental state. Unused to being abandoned by common sense, Tsuda, lying comfortably in his bedding, reflected on what for him had been an anomalous moment and felt embarrassed. Aside from how bad this might have looked to others, he was unable to explain to himself how he had come to feel as he had.
Whatever the answer to that question, when he moved on to wondering how he had managed to forget about Kiyoko’s existence at that time, he couldn’t avoid being struck by an odd feeling.
Can it be that I’m indifferent to her?
He was confident it wasn’t so. He had inquired of the maid where she was staying in the inn before he had finished his supper.
Nevertheless, old boy, you weren’t thinking about her.