Having completed his errand, he was rising from his chair when his hostess spoke up.
“I hope you won’t cry and moan like a baby again, a big brute like you.”
Tsuda involuntarily recalled his agony the previous year.
“Last time it was more than I could bear. Every time the door slid open or shut I felt it in the incision and my whole body went into spasm. This time I’ll be fine.”
“Truly? You have a guarantee? It sounds iffy to me. When you sound so confident it makes me feel I’d better look in on you.”
“It’s not the sort of place I could allow you to visit. It’s cramped and not that clean—it’s a nasty room.”
“I couldn’t care less.”
It wasn’t clear from her tone whether the matron was serious or teasing again. About to explain that his doctor’s specialty was in an area somewhat tangential to his particular illness and that as such his offices were not the sort of place that ladies would find inviting, Tsuda, at a loss how to begin, faltered. Mrs. Yoshikawa seized the opportunity his hesitation afforded to bear down.
“I’ll definitely look in on you. I have something I’d like to discuss that’s hard to talk about in front of O-Nobu.”
“Then why don’t I drop over again.”
Tsuda rose as if to flee, and Madam Yoshikawa, laughing, saw him out of the room.
[ 13 ]
EMERGING ONTO the main street, Tsuda gradually put distance between the Yoshikawa house and himself. His mind, however, was unable to leave behind as quickly as his feet the drawing room where he had just been. As he made his way through the dusk of the relatively deserted neighborhood, pictures of the bright interior flashed in front of him. The chilly gleam of the cloisonné vase, the colors of the bright pattern splashed across its glossy surface, the silver-plated tray that had been brought to the table, the sugar and milk bowls of the same color, the heavy drapes, blue-black with a lighter pattern in brown of Chinese grasses, the table-top album with gilt-edged pages—the strong impressions created by these objects, already distant from the night lamps in the room, unfurled randomly across his vision in the gloom of the street.
He was of course unable to forget as well the phantom of his hostess sitting amid this whorl of colors. Walking along, he recalled bits and pieces of their conversation. And when he came upon a certain portion of it he sampled its flavor, chewing, as if it were a mouthful of toasted soybeans.
It might just be that she still has a mind to say something to me about the incident. The truth is, I don’t want to hear it. Yet I’m eager to hear.
Instantly, proclaiming to himself both tenets of the contradiction, he colored in the middle of the dark street, like a man who has exposed his own weakness. Hoping to get beyond his red face, he forced himself to proceed.
Assuming the lady does have something to say to me, I wonder what her point will be.
For the moment, he was unable to resolve his own question.
Does she intend to mock me?
He couldn’t say. She had always been a woman who enjoyed needling others. And their relationship provided her with an abundance of the freedom she needed for that activity. Beyond that, she had become over time, without noticing, a result of social privilege, imprudent. To sample the simple pleasure it gave her to aggravate him, she might well overstep the boundaries of decorum.
And if not that, could it be sympathy? Or because she makes me too much a favorite?
Another question he couldn’t answer. Until now she had been truly kind to him and, more than kind, a patron.
Coming to a thoroughfare, he boarded a streetcar. Outside the window glass as it proceeded along the moat, there was only dark water and a dark embankment with a darker tangle of pine trees atop it.
Taking a seat in a corner of the car, he glanced momentarily at the chilly scenery in the autumn night and had at once to return to other thoughts. Last night he had set aside the irksome subject of money, but his circumstances required that he raise some one way or another. His thoughts returned to Yoshikawa’s wife.
It would have been so easy if I’d revealed my situation to her when I had the chance.
He began to regret having come away so quickly, thinking that was the tactful thing to do. Even so, he lacked the courage to return now with nothing but this errand in hand.
Alighting from the streetcar, he was crossing a bridge when he saw a beggar squatting in the darkness beneath the railing. Like a moving shadow, the beggar bowed darkly as he passed. Tsuda was wearing a light overcoat. He had moreover just left the warming flame in a gas heater that was, if anything, still early for the season. Yet there was no room in his head for appreciating the gap between himself and the beggar. He felt like a man caught in a vice. It was a terrible inconvenience that his father hadn’t remitted his regular monthly stipend.
[ 14 ]
HE ARRIVED home in the same mood. He reached for the lattice in his front gate, and before it opened the shoji slid quietly back and he became aware that the figure of O-Nobu had appeared before him. He gazed at her profile, lightly made up, as though in surprise.
Since his marriage he had often been surprised by his wife in this way. Her actions were capable of making him feel preempted, but there were times when her swiftness proved extremely useful. Sometimes as she went about the business of daily life, he observed her movements, which manifested this special agility of hers, as if he were watching the glinting of a knife as it passed before his eyes. The feeling was of something small but acute that was at the same time somehow repellant.
At this particular moment it occurred to Tsuda that some power of O-Nobu’s had enabled her to foreknow his return. But he couldn’t bring himself to ask how this could be. To request an explanation and be turned aside with a laugh would feel like a defeat for the husband.
He went inside as if he hadn’t noticed and changed out of his kimono at once. In front of the brazier in the sitting room, a black lacquer tray with feet attached had been covered with a cloth as though awaiting his arrival.
“You stopped off somewhere again today?”
It was a question O-Nobu could be counted on to ask if Tsuda failed to return at the expected hour. He was obliged accordingly to offer something in reply. Since it wasn’t necessarily the case that he had been delayed by an errand, there were times when his response was oddly vague. At such times he avoided looking at O-Nobu, who would have put on makeup for him.
“Shall I guess?”
“Go ahead.”
This time, Tsuda had nothing to worry about.
“The Yoshikawas.”
“How did you know?”
“I can usually tell by how you seem.”
“Is that so? Not that it was hard to figure out today—I said last night that I intended to set the date for surgery after speaking with Yoshikawa-san.”
“I would have guessed even if you hadn’t said anything.”
“Really? You’re so clever.”
Tsuda related to O-Nobu only the gist of his conversation with Yoshikawa’s wife.
“And when are you planning to go in?”
“It seems I can go anytime.”
Tsuda didn’t mention the oppressive urgency he was feeling to do something about money before he had his surgery. It wasn’t by any means a large sum. But for precisely that reason a simple solution to raising it was evading him and causing additional aggravation. Briefly his thoughts turned to his younger sister in Kanda, but he had no heart for presenting himself at her door. In consideration of swollen household expenses since his marriage, his father had been helping make ends meet by sending money from Kyoto every month with the understanding that Tsuda would repay a portion of the loan out of his year-end and summer bonuses. This summer, circumstances had prevented him from keeping his end of the bargain, and as a consequence his father was already in a disagreeable mood. His sister, who knew all about this, tended to sympathize with their father. From the beginning, in consideration of her husb
and, he had felt that broaching money matters to his sister was somehow unseemly; now he was more than ever put off by the thought. It appeared, assuming it couldn’t be avoided, that the only thing to do, as O-Nobu had urged, was to write again to his father with an appeal. It occurred to him that including a somewhat exaggerated description of his illness would be a good tactic. Embellishing the reality to a degree that wouldn’t worry his parents excessively was a manipulation that ought to be manageable without suffering the pangs of conscience.
“I think I’ll take your suggestion last night and write my father again.”
“I see. But don’t—”
O-Nobu stopped and looked at her husband. Paying no heed, Tsuda went upstairs and sat down at his desk.
[ 15 ]
TAKING FROM his desk drawer the Western-style stationery he normally used, lavender paper and matching envelope, he had written several lines absently with his fountain pen when a thought occurred abruptly. His father didn’t normally expect, nor was he likely to be pleased to receive, a letter from his son scrawled with a fountain pen in colloquial Japanese. Conjuring his father’s face halfway across the country, he put down his pen with an uncomfortable smile. Once again he was struck by the feeling that sending a letter would accomplish nothing. On a scrap of thick, scratchy parchment similar to charcoal paper, he sketched carelessly his father’s long, narrow face complete with goatee and considered what to do.
Presently he rose resolutely, slid open the fusuma, and called down to his wife from the head of the stairs.
“O-Nobu. Do you have any Japanese paper and an envelope?”
“Japanese?”
To O-Nobu the adjective sounded oddly comic.
“Do you mind ladies’?”
Tsuda unscrolled across his desk the rice paper imprinted with a stylish flower pattern.
“I wonder if he’ll like this.”
“As long as the letter is clearly written so he can understand, I don’t think the paper matters.”
“You’re wrong about that. You might not think so, but he can very particular.”
Tsuda peered intently at the narrow page, his face serious. The hint of a smile appeared at the corners of O-Nobu’s mouth.
“Shall I send Toki out for something better?”
Tsuda grunted distractedly. It wasn’t as if plain rice paper and an unpatterned envelope would ensure the success of his request.
“She’ll be only a minute.”
O-Nobu went directly downstairs. A minute later Tsuda heard the maid’s footsteps leaving the house. Until the required articles reached him, he waited idly, smoking a cigarette at his desk.
There was therefore nothing to distract him from thoughts of his father. Born and raised in Tokyo, he had never missed an opportunity to denigrate the Kyoto area until one day he had moved there, intending to settle permanently. When Tsuda had ventured to express mild disapproval, knowing that his mother was not fond of the region, his father had asked, pointing to the house he had built on land he had purchased, “What will you do with all this?” Even younger than he was now, he had failed to grasp what his father meant. Handling the property wouldn’t be a problem, he had thought. From time to time his father would turn to him and say, “This isn’t for anyone else, it’s all for you,” or again, “You might not realize its value to you now, but once I’m dead and gone you’ll know to be grateful.” Tsuda replayed in his mind these words and the old man’s attitude when he had spoken them. Inflated with confidence that he had single-handedly provided for his son’s future happiness, his father had seemed unapproachable, an awe-inspiring oracle. Tsuda wanted to say, turning to the father in his imagination, Instead of feeling overwhelmed with gratitude when you die, I’d much prefer feeling grateful regularly each month a little at a time.
It was some ten minutes later that he began to indite, in formal epistolary Japanese on rice paper unlikely to offend his father, the phrases and flourishes that seemed most likely to coax some money out of him. When, feeling awkward and unnatural, he had finally completed the letter, he reread what he had written and was appalled by his own artless calligraphy. Never mind the text, the characters it was written in seemed to him to preclude any possibility of success. And what if he should succeed; the money couldn’t possibly arrive in time for when he needed it. When he had sent the maid to the post office, he burrowed under the covers and said to himself,
I’ll worry about tomorrow tomorrow.
[ 16 ]
THE FOLLOWING afternoon Tsuda stood before Yoshikawa, summoned by him.
“I hear you came to the house yesterday.”
“I stopped in briefly and said hello to Mrs. Yoshikawa.”
“So you’re sick again?”
“A little—”
“That’s no good—every five minutes.”
“This isn’t new—I’m still recovering from last time.”
His face registering mild surprise, Yoshikawa spat out his after-lunch toothpick. From his vest pocket he removed his cigar case. Tsuda struck one of the matches on top of the ashtray. In his eagerness to appear alert, he moved too quickly and the match went out before it could be of use. Flustered, he struck a second and lifted it with care to the tip of Yoshikawa’s nose.
“At any rate, if you’re sick, you’re sick. You’d better take some time off to pull yourself together.”
Tsuda thanked his boss and started from the room. Yoshikawa spoke to him through the smoke.
“I assume you’ve let Sasaki know.”
“I spoke to Sasaki-san and to some others and arranged for them to cover me.”
Tsuda reported to Sasaki.
“If you’re going to be taking off anyway there’s no reason to put it off. Do what you have to, recover as soon as you can, and get back to work.”
Yoshikawa’s words were a limpid reflection of his temperament.
“Start tomorrow if you can arrange it.”
“As you say—”
Now Tsuda felt he had no choice but to check in to the clinic the very next day. He was halfway out the door when once again he was detained by a voice at his back.
“By the way, how’s your father doing? Full of piss and vinegar as always?”
The rich fragrance of cigar smoke abruptly assailed Tsuda’s nose as he turned back.
“He’s well—thank you for inquiring.”
“I suppose he’s writing his poetry, taking it good and easy—what a life! I ran into Okamoto on the town last night and he was talking about your father. He was envious as hell. He’s come into some leisure time himself recently, but he’s no match for your old man—”
It had never occurred to Tsuda for a minute that his father was an object of envy among this crowd. Should someone offer to exchange their circumstances for his father’s, he had felt certain they would smile stiffly and beg to be left just as they were for at least another ten years. This was of course merely an assumption he had extrapolated from his own personality. At the same time, it was based on what he understood of Yoshikawa’s temperament and that of his cronies.
“My father is behind the times so he has no choice but to live the way he does.”
Little by little Tsuda had returned to the center of the room and was now standing where he had first entered.
“You’ve got it backward—he can live that kind of life because he’s ahead of the times.”
Tsuda felt tongue-tied. His lack of fluency in comparison to his boss felt like a burden. At an awkward loss for words, he gazed at the slowly dissipating cloud of cigar smoke.
“Be careful not to cause your father any worry. I know all about everything that’s going on with you, and if you take a wrong turn, I promise you I’ll make sure your old man knows about it, you take my meaning?”
These words, as though spoken to a child, might have been in jest or an admonishment; when Tsuda had listened to them, he finally fled the room.
[ 17 ]
ON HIS way home that day, Tsuda alighted f
rom the streetcar before his stop and made his way a few blocks along the busy thoroughfare before turning into a side street. Midway down the narrow, winding street past the awning on a pawnshop and a go parlor and modest houses that might have been home to a neighborhood fire chief or a master carpenter, he pushed open a door inset with frosted glass and stepped inside. As the bell fastened to the upper part of the door jangled, four or five pairs of eyes glimmered at him from the cramped room just down the hall from the entrance. The room was not merely cramped; it was truly dark. To Tsuda, having stepped abruptly inside from the bright street, it felt like nothing so much as a cave. Huddling in one corner of the chilly couch, he returned the gaze of the glittering eyes, which just now had turned toward him in the darkness. Most of the men had seated themselves near the large ceramic brazier that had been installed in the center of the room. Two with folded arms, two more with one hand each on the edge of the brazier, another, apart, his face lowered to the newspaper scattered about as if to lick the print, and the last, in a corner of the room opposite the couch where he had seated himself, his body slightly atilt, in Western trousers, one leg over the other.
Having turned toward the door as one man when the bell rang, they withdrew into themselves as one man after a single glance. All silent, they sat in an attitude that might have been deep thought. They appeared to be taking no notice of Tsuda, or was it, more likely perhaps, that they were avoiding being noticed by him? It wasn’t only Tsuda; it appeared they kept their eyes lowered, looking away, in fear of the pain of noticing one another.
The members of this gloomy band shared, almost without exception, a largely identical past. As they sat waiting their turn in this somber waiting room, a fragment of that past that was if anything brilliantly colored cast its shadow abruptly over each of them. Lacking the courage to turn toward the light, they had halted inside the darkness of the shadow and locked themselves in.