“Is that so? If there is such a person I’d like a peek at him.”
“I’d be happy to introduce you to one.”
“I’d be obliged.” The maid laughed again. “I reckon this is how you find them.” She brought her forefinger to the tip of her nose.
“You wouldn’t believe this gentleman’s nose. He sniffed his way straight to your room.”
“That’s nothing. I can guess your age, your hometown, where you’re registered, you name it. All with this sniffer.”
“That’s enough to give a person a fright. I’ve never met the likes of you, Sir.”
So saying, the maid rose. On her way out of the room, she took a parting shot at Tsuda.
“You must be wicked good at hunting.”
Left to themselves in the sunlit room, they were suddenly silent. Tsuda was facing into the sun. Kiyoko was turned away from the light, her back to the engawa. From where he sat, the folds of the mountains rising in the distance in heaping tiers allowed him to see so clearly he might have touched them the areas of sun and of shade. The autumn leaves blanketing the slopes also revealed, according to the luster or paleness of their colors, a brilliant mountainscape of light and dark. While Tsuda’s field of vision was panoramic, there was nothing at all for Kiyoko to see but the shoji on the northern side of the room partially obstructed by Tsuda’s figure. But her restricted field of vision didn’t appear to bother her. Despite circumstance that O-Nobu could not have refrained from correcting, she was, if anything, tranquil.
In contrast to the previous evening, her face was somewhat redder than what Tsuda knew to be her normal complexion. But that might be interpreted as the physiological effect of the strong autumn sunlight falling directly upon her. Such was Tsuda’s thought as he shifted his gaze away from the mountains to Kiyoko’s flushed earlobes. They were thin. The position of her head was such that the sun struck her ears from behind, and Tsuda had the feeling the light reaching him had been filtered through her bloodstream on its way.
[ 185 ]
HAD HIS companion been O-Nobu, the question of who would speak first would have been a foregone conclusion. She was a woman who left him no leeway. On the other hand, she was temperamentally incapable of reserving for herself even half that much room to relax. No matter when or where, she pursued with all her might the effect she desired. As a consequence, Tsuda was forced into a passive position. Standing up to her required a convulsive effort that was invariably accompanied by distress and a sense of constriction.
Placing Kiyoko in the picture instead created an entirely different atmosphere. The order of things was abruptly reversed. In the language of sumo wrestling, her charge was triggered by the sound of his voice. Installing her opposite him as an opponent had required him therefore to make the first move. Ten out of ten times that move had come easily to him.
He became sensible of this distinguishing characteristic only after they had been left alone together. With the discovery, his memory of how it had been with her in the past revived. Oddly enough, the feeling of awkwardness he had been anticipating abruptly vanished just as the awkward moment was arriving. Sitting across from her, he took his ease. The feeling was little different from what he had experienced in her presence in the past, before the incident had occurred. He was conscious of it being at least of a similar nature. And so, as in the past, when their conversation had trailed off, it was he who initiated a renewal. The fact that he was able to function with the same feeling as in the past was in itself an unexpected satisfaction.
“How is Seki-kun getting along? Working as hard as ever? I’m afraid I haven’t had a chance to see him at all since then.”
The remark was unconsidered. The wisdom of opening a conversation with an inquiry about Seki warranted reflection—was it in their mutual interest, appropriate in view of the continuing flux of feelings between them until now, or, for that matter, setting aside the personal bias in which those feelings were tangled, natural or unnatural? One thing was certain: in choosing Seki as a topic of conversation in a manner so unlike his habitual prudence, casually and without the slightest concern, Tsuda had quite forgotten the precautions he invariably took when dealing with O-Nobu.
But it was no longer O-Nobu he was dealing with. And it was immediately evident from Kiyoko’s reply that he needn’t worry about having forgotten his inveterate caution.
“He’s well, thank you,” she said, smiling. “Same as ever. We sometimes speak of you.”
“Is that so? I’m so busy all the time I’ve been neglecting everybody.”
“It’s the same at home, Yukio-san. These days it seems a man can’t afford any leisure time. So you sort of drift apart. There’s nothing to be done about it, it’s how life seems to go—”
“Isn’t that so!”
Tsuda wished that instead of replying “Isn’t that so” he had tried instead an inquiry, “Is that so?”
Is that so? You’ve become estranged just being busy? Are you telling me the truth? At that moment these questions, an interrogation, were already hiding silently inside him.
The Kiyoko sitting before him was the same, uncomplicated Kiyoko as ever, or at least a Kiyoko impossible to interpret as otherwise. Certainly she had all the latitude she needed to engage in a conversation between them about Seki. The degree of her simplicity was revealed in her ability to do this without distress. Tsuda had expected this was how it would be yet hadn’t managed to imagine it until now. The satisfaction he derived from encountering his heroine once again just as she had been in the past reached him together with dissatisfaction that she was able, with the same generosity of spirit he remembered, to speak about Seki in front of him so easily.
Why does that bother me?
Tsuda lacked the courage he needed to confront this question squarely. Since Seki was her husband in fact, he was obliged to acknowledge her attitude respectfully. But that was merely on the surface of things, an acknowledgment ventured by a stranger who happened to be passing by. But there was another, privileged point of view. Closer to home, someone altogether different from a casual passerby obstinately stood his ground. Loathe to identify that someone as himself, Tsuda preferred to think of him as a “special person.” By “special” he referred to the difference between a professional and an amateur. Between a savant and an ignoramus. Or between a connoisseur and a philistine. It seemed to him, accordingly, that he had the right to say more than an ordinary man in the street.
It was only a matter of time until his attitude toward Kiyoko, affirmative on the surface and critical underneath, should make an appearance.
[ 186 ]
“I APOLOGIZE for last night.”
Abruptly Tsuda tried this approach. He was curious about the effect it might have on her.
“I’m the one who should apologize.”
Her reply came easily. Detecting no discomfort in it gave Tsuda cause to wonder.
Can it be that the surprise she felt last night is already in the past for her this morning?
If she were no longer able to recall what she had felt, his mission, for better or for worse, had been reduced to insignificance.
“I felt sorry afterward for having startled you.”
“Why did you, then?”
“I didn’t mean to. I couldn’t help it because I didn’t know. I had no idea you were staying here.”
“But you came all the way from Tokyo with a present for me.”
“That’s true. But the fact is, I didn’t know. I ran into you by accident.”
“How can that be?”
Her response came as a surprise: clearly she was thinking his behavior had been intentional.
“Why would I have done that on purpose? Certainly not for my own amusement.”
“You seemed to have been standing there for quite a while.”
To be sure, he had been gazing at the water overflowing in the basin and peering at his reflection in the mirror. No question he had tarried, even combing his hair with the comb
that had been lying there.
“What are you supposed to do when you get lost and have no idea where you’re going? There’s nothing you can do.”
“I suppose. But that wasn’t how it seemed to me.”
“Are you thinking I was lying in wait? You can’t be serious. I may have a prodigy of a nose, but it didn’t tell me when you’d be going to the bath.”
“Of course not! That’s silly.”
Kiyoko’s “Of course not!” was articulated with such conviction that Tsuda couldn’t help laughing.
“Why would you even suspect such a thing?”
“You must know why.”
“I don’t, I have no idea.”
“Then it doesn’t matter. It’s something that shouldn’t need explaining.”
Tsuda could only try approaching from a different angle.
“But what reason would I have to lie in wait for you at the end of a hallway? Just tell me that.”
“I can’t say—”
“There’s no need to be polite—please tell me.”
“I’m not being polite. I can’t say what I can’t say.”
“But it’s something you’re thinking, isn’t it? So if you wanted to, you should be able to come out with it.”
“There’s nothing on my mind—not a thing.”
This simple remark thwarted Tsuda’s advance even as it intensified his persistence.
“Then where does your suspicion come from?”
“If it’s wrong to be suspicious, I apologize. And I won’t be anymore.”
“But you’ve already doubted me.”
“I can’t help that. It’s true I doubted you. And I’ve admitted it. All the apologizing in the world won’t change that.”
“But why can’t you just tell me what it is you’re doubting?”
“But I already have.”
“That was only half of it, a third of it—I want the whole truth.”
“Oh my god! I don’t know what to say!”
“It’s so simple. All you have to say is I doubted such-and-such about you for such-and-such a reason and you’d be finished in one breath.”
Apparently distressed until that moment, Kiyoko suddenly appeared persuaded.
“That’s what you want to hear?”
“Obviously. That’s precisely what I want to hear, which is why I’ve persisted in making you miserable. But you keep trying to conceal it.”
“If only you’d said so right away. That’s not something I have to conceal. There is no reason. It’s just that you’re a person who does that sort of thing.”
“Lies in wait?”
“Yes.”
“That’s absurd!”
“I’m sorry, but the person I’ve seen you be is that sort of person.”
“I see—”
Folding his arms, Tsuda lowered his head.
[ 187 ]
PRESENTLY HE looked up again.
“It feels as though we’re arguing. I didn’t come here to argue with you.”
Kiyoko replied.
“I certainly didn’t mean for that to happen. I got swept away somehow, it wasn’t on purpose.”
“I know it wasn’t. Maybe it’s my fault for grilling you.”
“Maybe so.”
Once again, Kiyoko smiled. Discovering in her smile the same easiness he had identified before, Tsuda could forbear no longer.
“As long as we seem to be doing questions and answers, would you answer just one more?”
“Of course. Anything.”
The reply issued from someone prepared to respond to whatever question Tsuda wished to pose. That in itself disappointed him not a little before he had spoken.
She’s already forgotten everything, this woman.
Even as the thought formed, he recognized that this was characteristic. He felt a need to confirm this.
“You went pale last night, didn’t you, at the top of the stairs?”
“I suppose so. I couldn’t see my own face so I don’t know, but if you say I did, I must have.”
“Really? So I’m still not a total liar in your eyes? I’m grateful for that. So you’ll accept the facts as I perceive them?”
“Whether I accept them or not, if I truly went pale what can I say?”
“Exactly—and I think you also tensed.”
“Yes, I could feel that myself. It was so bad I felt I might collapse if I stood there any longer.”
“In other words, you were shocked.”
“Yes, I was utterly surprised.”
“Which is why—” Interrupting himself, Tsuda looked down at Kiyoko’s hands as, bending slightly forward, she carefully peeled an apple. The transformation, the lusciously colored skin curling under the knife and dropping to reveal gradually the pale, juicy whiteness of the fruit, recalled for Tsuda a time that was already more than a year in the past.
Can this be the woman who used to peel an apple for me just this way, in this same posture, in those days?
The way she held the knife and moved her fingers, her elbows almost touching her knees and her long kimono sleeves flaring open, everything was a replica of how it had been except for a single difference he noticed right away. A beautiful twin-stone ring adorned her finger. Nothing separated them so incontrovertibly as the glittering brilliance of those small gems. Gazing at the pliant movement of her fingers, Tsuda was lulled into a reminiscence like a dream in the midst of which, rapt as he was, he couldn’t avoid acknowledging the bright flash of a warning.
He quickly looked away from Kiyoko’s hands and glanced at her hair. The hairstyle the maid had alleged to have helped her with that morning was the conventional “eaves,” hair gathered in a bun on either side of her head. There was nothing unusual about her darkly lustrous hair except that it retained the regular, vertical furrows left by the teeth of the comb.
Resolved, Tsuda began again where he had left off.
“Which is why I’m wondering—”
Kiyoko didn’t look up. Tsuda continued anyway, undaunted.
“I’m wondering, since you were shocked last night, how you’re able to be so composed this morning.”
Kiyoko responded without lifting her eyes.
“Why? Why does that matter?”
“I ask because I don’t understand what’s going on psychologically.”
Once again, Kiyoko replied without looking at Tsuda.
“I wouldn’t know about psychologically. Last night was last night, this morning is now. That’s all there is to it.”
“That’s the only explanation?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Tsuda felt inclined to heave a sigh at this point, but he lacked the courage to protest in this manner, and he was further impeded by his sense that theatrics would avail him nothing with this woman.
“But isn’t it true that you didn’t get up at your usual time today?”
“Goodness! How do you know that?”
“A little bird told me.”
Kiyoko glanced at Tsuda and quickly lowered her eyes again. As she spoke, she cut into slices the apple she had beautifully pared.
“Is it that magic nose of yours? It appears to be very keen after all.”
There was no telling whether this remark was intended mockingly or in earnest, and it made Tsuda wince.
Kiyoko finished slicing the apple and moved the plate toward him.
“Have some, Yoshio-san—apples are your favorite.”
[ 188 ]
TSUDA DIDN’T reach for the apple she had peeled for him.
“Help yourself. After all, Madam Yoshikawa sent this along especially for you.”
“And you came all this way to bring it to me. Not having any would feel like ignoring your kindness.”
Kiyoko took a piece of the apple from the plate between them. But before she lifted it to her mouth, she spoke again.
“But it’s odd when I think about it; how in the world could this have happened?
“What?”
&nbs
p; “I wasn’t expecting a gift from Mrs. Yoshikawa. And I certainly wasn’t expecting you to deliver it to me.”
Of course you weren’t. Even if I hadn’t thought of it.
Kiyoko peered intently at Tsuda’s face and her eyes were lit with her anticipation of a clear answer. He recalled special memories of that light.
Aah, I know those eyes.
Scenes from the past endlessly repeated between them appeared vividly before Tsuda’s eyes. In those days Kiyoko had believed in a man whose name was Tsuda. She had looked to him for all her knowledge. And for the resolution of all her doubts. Lifting her unknown future in her hands, she appeared to place it at his disposal. That explained the quietness in her eyes even when they moved. The light of trust and of peace shone in her questions to him. He had had the feeling he had been born with the unique right to be illuminated by that light. It had even occurred to him that those eyes of hers existed because he was there.
In the end they had separated. And now they had met again. Feeling as though he had been given to see that Kiyoko’s eyes since she had left him were after all the same eyes as he had known in the past, albeit in a different sense, he had been deeply moved.
That’s what’s beautiful about you. But must your beauty serve now only to break my heart? Speak to me!
Tsuda’s uncertainties and Kiyoko’s met briefly in the look they exchanged; Kiyoko was the first to avert her eyes. Tsuda, observing the manner in which she withdrew, recognized a different degree of eagerness between them. Kiyoko made no effort to advance. Looking elsewhere as if she were indifferent, she rested her gaze on the chrysanthemums arranged in a vase on the shelf in the alcove.
Since her eyes had fled, Tsuda was obliged to pursue her with words.
“I trust you’re not thinking the only reason I’m here is on an errand for Madam Yoshikawa.”
“Of course not, and that’s what’s odd.”
“There’s nothing odd about it! I was planning to come down independently when I met her and she told me you were already here, and that’s when she asked me to bring a gift for you.”
“I see. That’s how it must have been—otherwise it’s odd no matter how you think about it.”