“Nee-san,” said Koroku as he tore away the old paper, starting on the sitting-room panels, “you have to be extremely cautious when you repaper shoji or you’ll make a mess of it. You absolutely must not soak them.”
The garden just below this veranda was bordered on the right by the wall of the six-mat room that Koroku was using and by the vestibule, which jutted out on the left. These borders, along with the veranda and the outer hedge that ran parallel to it, formed what was in effect a square enclosure. On dew-laden mornings the couple would take great pleasure in this enclosed garden, which in the summer months was covered with cosmos plants and adorned with morning glories curled about the slender bamboo stakes that they had placed at the base of the hedge. Sometimes, as soon as they had gotten up, they excitedly counted the number of blossoms that had opened that day. But from the autumn through the winter all shrubs and flowers here would wither completely, leaving what resembled a small desert, so barren as to elicit pity.
With his back to this square plot, where a thick layer of frost had formed, Koroku energetically stripped the old paper off the shoji. He was assailed by sporadic gusts of cold wind that whipped about his neck and close-cropped head. With each gust he felt the urge to retreat from the exposed veranda into his six-mat room. He worked silently, his hands red, wringing out a rag in a bucket of water and wiping the shoji slats clean.
“You must be cold, you poor thing. And we certainly didn’t need this chilly drizzle.” Oyone was all sympathy as she poured a steady trickle of hot water from the kettle to soften up the glue prepared the night before.
Inwardly Koroku despised doing chores like this. He wielded his rag in a spirit verging on self-mortification—a spirit rooted in the position to which circumstances had recently reduced him. In the past, he recalled, when it had fallen to him to perform this very same task at his uncle’s, it had been a far from unpleasant diversion. This time around, however, he felt coerced; those around him regarded him as unqualified for any other type of work. The cold out on the veranda only added insult to injury.
Koroku, then, could not manage even some simple, good-natured reply to his sister-in-law. What flashed across his mind at this moment was the time he had been out for a stroll with a law student who lived in the same boardinghouse as he did. They had stopped off at Shiseido, where the housemate proceeded to splurge close to five yen on nothing but three bars of imported soaps and some toothpaste. It had struck him then that there was no good reason in the world why he in particular should find himself in such straitened circumstances. He could only pity his brother and sister-in-law for being content to live out their lives in penury. From Koroku’s point of view there was something terribly supine about a lifestyle in which one had to worry over something like whether to buy Mino paper[33] or settle for something less strong.
“This stuff tears easily,” said Koroku as he unfurled a foot’s length of the shoji paper, held it up to the light, and gave it two or three slaps, good and hard.
“Oh?” Oyone replied, gently dabbing glue on the shoji slats with her brush. “But since we don’t have children it will probably hold up.”
The two of them took hold of a length of paper that had been spliced together, one on each end, and tried stretching it out so as to leave no slack. But from time to time Koroku’s face would register annoyance, at which Oyone would grow hesitant and, razor in hand, end up trimming her end unevenly. As a result, there were a number of conspicuous bulges in the already completed portions. Oyone mournfully surveyed one newly repapered shoji propped up against the shutter case. If only she could have worked with her husband instead of with Koroku, she thought.
“There seem to be a few wrinkles,” she said.
“I’m afraid I don’t have the knack for this.”
“Don’t be silly. Your brother is no better, and besides, he’s a lot lazier than you.”
Koroku did not reply. Taking a cup of water that Kiyo had brought from the kitchen, he stood in front of the propped-up shoji and blew a fine mist on the paper until the whole surface was moist. By the time they were repapering the second panel, the one he had sprayed was nearly dry and most of the wrinkles smoothed out. When they had finished a third panel, Koroku announced that his back was bothering him. Oyone, meanwhile, had had a headache since the early morning.
“Let’s do one more and finish with the sitting room before we take a break,” she said.
By the time they were done with the sitting room it was past noon. They sat down to lunch together. During these past several days, with Sōsuke away at the office, Oyone had not failed to keep Koroku company at the lunch table. This was the first time since she and Sōsuke joined their lives together that she’d had a companion for lunch other than her husband. All these years, whenever her husband was absent, it was her habit to eat alone. To sit here face-to-face with her brother-in-law, then, making conversation as she served the rice, was most discomfiting. It was hard enough when the maid was on duty in the kitchen, but now, with Kiyo neither to be seen nor heard, Oyone felt all the more constrained. True, Oyone was much the older of the two, and the character of their relationship in the past could hardly be expected to engender that peculiar erotic tension bound to arise when two people of the opposite sex are thrown together in a similarly novel situation; still, she wondered to herself if she would ever lose this sensation of being stifled by Koroku’s presence, which was all the more perturbing for being so unexpected. All she could do was to keep up a steady conversation throughout the meal in order to avoid uneasy silences. Unfortunately, in his present state of mind, Koroku could summon neither the composure nor the discernment to engage his sister-in-law’s gracious manner with any enthusiasm.
“So, Koroku-san, was the food at your boardinghouse any good?”
To such questions he could no longer respond, as he did when he was still at the boardinghouse and paying them a visit, with some ready, off-the-cuff quip. And when, at a loss for a reply, he would confine himself to something like “No, not particularly,” his words struck Oyone as vague and unforthcoming, and she would worry that she was not being welcoming enough. In turn, her reaction, though unspoken, would communicate itself in some fashion to Koroku.
Today, however, with her headache, Oyone felt incapable of making the usual effort with her brother-in-law as they sat together at the table, and she was especially loath to do so only to be rebuffed. And so they finished their lunch having exchanged even fewer words than while they had been busy with the repapering.
And yet thanks, perhaps, to the experience they had acquired, the work in the afternoon progressed more smoothly than in the morning. They nevertheless felt further apart than they had before lunch. They were both much oppressed by the cold. When they first arose that morning the weather was so fine that the sky appeared to be moving away from them, carrying the sun along with it; yet just when it took on its deepest hue, clouds suddenly began to form and block out every ray, as if poised to blanket the darkening landscape with powdery snow. The two of them took turns warming their hands over the charcoal brazier.
“I gather that my brother will be getting a raise in the New Year?” Koroku suddenly asked Oyone.
Oyone, in the midst of wiping glue off her hands with some scraps of paper strewn across the tatami, looked dumbfounded.
“Whatever gave you that idea . . . ?”
“Well, it said in the paper, you know, that next year there’s to be an across-the-board salary increase for civil servants.”
It was not until Koroku went on to explain in some detail that Oyone, who had not heard a word of this, became convinced it must be true.
“Well it’s about time,” she said. “We can’t get by on what they’re paying now—no one can. Why, since we came to Tokyo the price of a fish fillet alone has doubled.”
It was Koroku’s turn to be dumbfounded, not having been at all aware of the price of fish until hearing Oyone’s comment. The rate of inflation simply astounded him.
<
br /> Now that Koroku’s curiosity had been somewhat piqued, the conversation began to flow more smoothly. Oyone repeated an account by their landlord, as related to her by Sōsuke, of how cheap things had been when he was still in his late teens. A heaping bowl of plain noodles had cost eight rin; a bowl with one topping or another, two and a half sen.[34] A full portion of ordinary beef was four sen; of choice beef, six sen. An afternoon at a vaudeville performance cost only three or four sen. An average student lifestyle then could be maintained on a seven-yen-per-month allowance from home, while a ten-yen allowance would have afforded considerable luxury.
“In those days even you could have gone through college without any worries,” said Oyone.
“Yes, and you and my brother could’ve lived very well then, couldn’t you?” replied Koroku.
By the time they had finished repapering the parlor shoji it was after three. It would not be long before Sōsuke came home, and there were preparations to be made for dinner. Having decided to call it a day, they put away the glue, razors, and other things. Koroku gave his body a single, vigorous stretch and his head a good pounding with his fist.
“Thank you so much. You must be exhausted,” said Oyone solicitously. But it was not so much fatigue as dull pangs of hunger that Koroku felt. He ate some sweets that Oyone took down from a shelf after explaining that the Sakais had sent them in thanks for returning the writing box. Then she made him some tea.
“Is this Sakai a university graduate?” Koroku asked.
“Yes. Or so I gather.”
Koroku sipped his tea, puffed on a cigarette, then asked, “Hasn’t my brother said anything to you about his raise?”
“Not a word,” said Oyone.
“It must be nice to be like him—not worrying about anything.”
Oyone made no attempt at a reply.
Koroku stood up and wandered off to his room but soon came back, charcoal brazier in hand, saying that the fire had died out. Imposing on the hospitality of his brother and sister-in-law and still officially on a leave of absence from school, he put much stock in Yasunosuke’s assurances that soon he would be able to help him, and viewed these arrangements as only temporary.
9
FROM THE seed of the writing box’s recovery an unlikely relationship had sprouted between Sōsuke and his landlord. Previously, their dealings having been confined to the monthly dispatching of Kiyo with the rent payment and the subsequent delivery of a receipt, any semblance of neighborly friendliness had been as absent as if a family from abroad had dwelled up there.
On the afternoon of the day that Sōsuke returned the box, a detective turned up, as Sakai had predicted, to examine the area behind the couple’s house, at the foot of the embankment. The detective was accompanied by Sakai, giving Oyone her first look at the man she had heard so much about. In addition to the mustache that she had originally been led not to expect, she was mildly surprised by the uncommonly polite manner in which he spoke, even when addressing her.
“Sakai-san actually does have a mustache, doesn’t he,” she noted to Sōsuke with some emphasis when they were alone again.
Two days later a maid descended on them, bearing a magnificent basket of treats and Sakai’s calling card. She thanked them for their kindness, adding as she took her leave, “The master hopes to call on you himself in due time . . .”
That evening Sōsuke opened the basket and stuffed his mouth with one of the toasted sweet dumplings he found inside.
“Giving presents like this—well, he can’t be all that stingy. Whoever told you he wouldn’t let other children play on the swing must have been lying.”
“Yes, that can’t be right,” Oyone agreed.
Despite this new level of cordiality in the couple’s relations with their landlord since the burglary, neither Sōsuke nor Oyone entertained any notion of pursuing greater familiarity in this quarter. They were not so bold as to put themselves forward in the name of sociability or affability, and were not the sort to engage in calculations of potential self-interest arising from such a relationship. By their lights, then, it was only to be expected that in the natural course of things time would slip by quickly, with no efforts made by them to tend this new relationship, which would soon enough revert to the same footing on which the two parties had been before: the Sakais atop the embankment, Sōsuke and Oyone below, as far apart emotionally as they were topographically.
But three days later, around sundown, Sakai unexpectedly showed up at the couple’s door wrapped in a warm-looking cloak with an otter-skin collar. Not used to having guests simply drop by in the evening, they at first reacted with near consternation. When Sakai had taken a seat in the parlor he proceeded to express sincere gratitude for their recent help, and, unchaining his gold-encased pocket watch from his white crepe sash for them to see, said, “Thanks to you, the stolen item was recovered.”
Since it was the law, he had reported the theft to the police, but the watch was an old one, making it easier for him to accept the loss. Then suddenly yesterday a small package arrived, bearing no return address and containing the stolen watch, neatly wrapped.
“The thief must have found it too hot to handle, or not worth the risk for the money he could get for it, and so decided that he had no choice but to give it back—whatever the case, definitely unusual,” said Sakai with a laugh. “But for me, at any rate, it was the writing box that was of real value.” Then, by way of an explanation, he confided, “You see, it was bestowed on my grandmother when she was in attendance at court, so it’s a kind of family heirloom.”
Steering the conversation this way and that, Sakai stayed on that evening for almost two hours. Neither Sōsuke, who sat with him, nor Oyone, who listened in from the sitting room, could fail to be impressed by the range of topics he touched on.
“He certainly gets around,” Oyone commented after he had left.
“He’s got all the time in the world on his hands,” Sōsuke replied.
The next day, on his way home from work, Sōsuke got off the streetcar and was walking down the side street near the furniture store when he caught a glimpse of Sakai’s overcoat with the familiar otter-skin collar attached. Sakai, standing in a position that presented his profile to Sōsuke, was engaged in conversation with the proprietor, who was peering up at Sakai through large spectacles he had not paused to remove. Just as Sōsuke, not wishing to interrupt, was about to pass by in silence, Sakai shifted his gaze toward the street.
“Well, hello! Thanks for last night. On your way home now?”
Addressed by the landlord in this hail-fellow-well-met manner, Sōsuke could not simply forge ahead with a token nod; slackening his pace, he doffed his hat. At which Sakai, his business evidently concluded, advanced from the storefront.
“Out for a bit of shopping?” asked Sōsuke.
“Hardly,” Sakai replied dismissively as he fell in step with Sōsuke for the walk home. After they had gone forty or fifty feet Sakai declared, “That geezer is a real crook. I was just giving him a piece of my mind for trying to pass off a fake Kazan[35] on me.”
This was the first indication Sōsuke had received that Sakai shared the pastime common among the well-to-do of dabbling in rare objects. It then crossed his mind that he really should have showed the recently sold Hōitsu to someone like him before putting it on the market.
“Does that dealer know a lot about calligraphy and painting?” Sōsuke asked.
“Not really—in fact he’s downright ignorant about the lot. All you have to do is take a glance around his shop: You won’t find anything that smacks of an antique. As it is he’s come a long way, seeing as he started off as a junkman.” Sakai apparently knew a great deal about the man’s background.
The Sakai family, according to the local greengrocer, had ranked sufficiently high under the Tokugawa regime to be accorded some titular governorship[36] and had the most impressive family pedigree in the area. They had not followed the last shogun to Sunpu[37] at the time of the old r
egime’s collapse—or had they gone off only to reemerge soon from exile? Sōsuke had been told the details, but he could no longer recollect them.
Sakai went on to dredge up tales involving the junkman from their boyhood days. “Even as a kid he was a troublemaker, you know. He was the local bully and was always picking fights.”
But how on earth, Sōsuke wondered aloud, had the man imagined he could foist a fake Kazan on Sakai?
“Well, since we’ve given his family some business from my father’s time on, once in a while he’ll just turn up with some odd item,” Sakai explained with a chuckle. “He more than makes up for his lack of taste with a huge capacity for greed. He’s a real piece of work. On top of that, his appetite was whetted when he got me to buy a Hōitsu screen.”
Sōsuke was startled but, not wanting to interrupt, held his tongue. Sakai went on about how, emboldened by this one sale, the furniture dealer had shown up regularly with scrolls and paintings that he himself made no pretense of knowing anything about, and how, under the misapprehension that it was real, he prominently displayed a “medieval Korean” ceramic bowl that had in fact been made in Osaka. “Except maybe for a dining table or, say, one of those factory-made iron kettles, I wouldn’t buy anything in that shop,” he cautioned.
They had reached the top of the slope. From here Sakai would be turning right, while Sōsuke had to proceed down the other side. Sōsuke wanted to accompany Sakai a little farther in order to ask him more about the screen. But going out of his way like that would appear odd, he realized, and so he took his leave.
“Would you mind if I paid you a visit sometime soon?” Sōsuke asked.