“Who said there’s anything wrong?”
“But everybody laughed.”
At just this point in the dialogue O-Kin returned; Aunt Fujii had Makoto’s mattress laid out and promptly sent him off to his bedroom. Tsuda’s uncle, thoroughly engaged, was just warming up.
“Not that true love didn’t exist in the old days; O-Asa can scowl all she wants, but it did. And there was an aspect even to that you’d never understand as a young person today; it’s a funny thing. In the old days women were smitten with men but never the other way round. Am I right, O-Asa, isn’t that how it was?”
“I have no idea.”
Sitting down in the place Makoto had vacated, Tsuda’s aunt helped herself to a bowl of matsutake rice and began to eat.
“There’s no point in getting huffy. There’s truth in what I’m saying, and there’s also a kind of philosophy. Let me expound the philosophy.”
“I think we’ve had quite enough expounding for tonight.”
“Then I’ll educate the young ones. Listen carefully Yoshio, and you, too, Kobayashi, for future reference. How do you fellows view another man’s daughter?”
“As a woman.”
Tsuda’s reply was an intentional gibe, designed to miss the point.
“Exactly. You think of her as just a woman, not a daughter. Right there is a major difference between you and us. We’ve never once looked at another man’s daughter as a woman independent of her mother and father. In our minds, whenever we’re introduced to a young lady, we conceive of her as a possession of her parents, tethered to them, so no matter how passionately we may feel, we have an obligation not to be smitten. Can you see why? Because to be smitten amounts to possessing that loved one. But only a thief would reach for someone who’s already been tagged as a possession. That’s why men of old with an immovable sense of duty never allowed themselves to be smitten. Women, yes. O-Asa, for example, sitting there with her mushroom rice, was smitten with me. But for my part, I can’t say I ever loved her.”
“Just as you say. But that ought to be enough for now. Let’s have some rice.”
Summoning O-Kin from Makoto’s room, Tsuda’s aunt directed her to fill the rice bowls. Tsuda was obliged to chew away at the gummy sandwich bread reserved for him.
[ 32 ]
THE AFTER-DINNER talk was already beyond reviving. Nor did it settle into an easy repose. As if the spine of a topic capable of commanding mutual interest had been broken, people voiced their own thoughts randomly and noticed the absence of anyone willing to integrate their remarks in a central conversation.
Leaning on the low table with both elbows, Tsuda’s uncle yawned drunkenly twice in a row. His aunt summoned the maid and had her take leftovers to the kitchen. Like clouds scudding across the moon, his uncle’s words that night cast from time to time a pale shadow over Tsuda’s heart. These words that, from another’s point of view, should have vanished like the foam on a glass of beer, Tsuda pursued and called back as if they were freighted with significance. Noticing this, he felt disgruntled in spite of himself.
At the same time, he couldn’t help recalling the words he had exchanged with his aunt. Throughout their squabble he had held himself in check, careful to conceal to the extent possible his true bias. It was pride he was hiding, but he knew from his mood now that some kind of unpleasantness was also lurking there.
From this overdue visit that had consumed half a day and which he measured on a monochromatic scale of pleasant and unpleasant, Tsuda turned to contrasting memories of the vibrant Madam Yoshikawa and her beautiful drawing room. In the next instant he beheld the face of his wife O-Nobu, who was at last doing her hair up in the large bun above her neck worn by married women.
Standing, he turned to Kobayashi.
“Are you staying?”
“No, I should be on my way, too.”
Kobayashi stuffed into the pocket of his trousers his pack of Shikijima cigarettes. They were on their way out when Uncle Fujii, as though coincidentally, inquired after O-Nobu.
“I keep thinking I’ll drop over, but you know what they say about a poor man’s work—give her our best. She must have time on her hands when you’re out; what does she do with herself?”
“What does she do? Nothing in particular, I suppose.”
This vapid reply Tsuda quickly, for whatever reason, promptly supplemented.
“She’ll offer to go to the hospital with me as agreeably as you could imagine, and the next minute she’s bossier than Auntie, ‘Get a haircut. Go to the bath.’ You name it.”
“That’s admirable. Who else do you know who’d tell a swell like you what you should do?”
“That’s good fortune I could do without.”
“How about the theater? Do you go?”
“Occasionally—we had an invitation from the Okamotos but unfortunately I have this illness to take care of.”
Tsuda glanced at his aunt.
“What do you say, Auntie—shall we go to the Imperial one of these days? A good play can be a tonic—perk you right up.”
“I suppose—”
“You don’t want to?”
“It’s not that—but I wouldn’t want to hold my breath waiting for an invitation from you.”
Though he knew his aunt didn’t care much for entertainment like the theater, Tsuda chose to take her at face value and made a show of scratching his head.
“If I’ve lost my credibility, I’m done for.”
His aunt snickered.
“Never mind the theater—what’s been going on with Kyoto since we spoke?”
“Have you heard something? Has Kyoto been in touch with you?”
Tsuda searched somewhat gravely the faces of his aunt and uncle, but neither replied.
“As a matter of fact, my father wrote to say he couldn’t send money this month so I should manage on my own. Just like that—pretty brutal, I’d say.”
His uncle merely smiled.
“Big brother must be angry.”
“It’s O-Hide; she shoots her mouth off and makes everything worse.”
Tsuda spoke his younger sister’s name with distaste.
“O-Hide’s not to blame. I bet you’ve been on the wrong side of this from the beginning, Yoshio-san.”
“Maybe so. But show me the country where a son returns money his dad has sent him like change out of a cash register.”
“Then you shouldn’t have promised to pay back like a cash register in the first place. Besides—”
“Enough, Aunt! I get it!”
Tsuda stood up. It was clear from his demeanor that he had stood all he could manage. He departed hastily, making sure, however, to brace himself up following his defeat by dragging Kobayashi out with him.
[ 33 ]
OUTSIDE, THERE was no wind. As they walked briskly along, the quiet air was chilly against their cheeks. It was as if an invisible dew were falling softly from the starry sky high above them. Tsuda stroked the shoulder of his overcoat. Sensing distinctly in his fingertips the chill that had seeped inside the coat, he looked back at Kobayashi.
“It’s warm enough during the day, but nights are getting cold.”
“Autumn is upon us. Overcoat weather.”
Kobayashi was wearing nothing over his three-piece suit. Clomping along in his American clodhoppers with their decidedly square toes as he brandished his walking stick affectedly, he might have been a demonstrator protesting the chilly air.
“What happened to that coat you had made when we were in school, the one you were so proud of?”
The question was abrupt and surprising. Tsuda couldn’t help recalling the days when he had worn the coat ostentatiously.
“I still have it.”
“You still wear it?”
“I may be strapped just now, but do you suppose I still parade around in a coat from my student days?”
“I guess not. Perfect. Give it to me.”
“You can have it if you want it.”
Tsuda
’s reply was on the chilly side. There was something contradictory about a man dressed in new clothes all the way to his socks and shoes wanting someone else’s worn-out overcoat. At the very least it was evidence of the unregulated ups and downs that lay along the path of Kobayashi’s material life.
“Why didn’t you order a coat along with the suit?” Tsuda asked presently.
“Don’t think about me as if I were you.”
“Fine, but how did you manage the suit and the shoes?”
“I resent your tone of voice. Things may be tough, but I haven’t started stealing, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Tsuda said no more.
They came to the top of a hill. The slope visible across the broad valley below extended into the darkness like a beast’s back. Here and there the lights in houses glimmered like points of warmth in the autumn night.
“Say! How about stopping for a drink?”
Before replying, Tsuda glanced at Kobayashi to assess his mood. On their right was a high embankment the length of which was covered by a dense stand of bamboo. There was no wind to make the bamboo murmur, but the tips of the broad leaves, which appeared to have fallen asleep, were more than adequate to produce in Tsuda a feeling of desolation appropriate to the season.
“This is some gloomy spot. It must have been the back of a daimyo estate and now they just let it go. They should clear it so it can be developed.”
With these remarks Tsuda hoped to dodge the invitation, but Kobayashi wasn’t to be diverted by a bamboo grove.
“C’mon—for old time’s sake.”
“You were just drinking; you need more already?”
“What we just had doesn’t count as drinking.”
“You said you’d had enough when Uncle offered you a good-night cup.”
“I couldn’t get drunk in front of Sensei and his wife so I had no choice. And having too little is poison, worse than nothing at all. If you’re not careful to get appropriately smashed afterward, chances are you’ll be sick.”
Propounding his arbitrary logic, Kobayashi insisted, making him a troublesome companion.
“Drinks on you?”
The question was half a taunt.
“I don’t mind—why not!”
“Where should we go?”
“Anywhere—how about an o-den shop?*
In silence they descended the hill.
* O-den is a stew, largely vegetarian, kept simmering in a bottomless pot filled with murky broth, and consumed with sake on chilly nights.
[ 34 ]
THE WAY home took Tsuda to the right and Kobayashi straight ahead, but as Tsuda bid the other a polite farewell, touching his hand to his hat, Kobayashi looked at him piercingly and said, “I’ll go your way.” In the direction they were heading, places to eat and drink lined the street for several blocks. Midway along they came upon an establishment that might have been a bar, with a glass door warmly illuminated from the inside, and Kobayashi abruptly stopped.
“This looks good. Let’s go in here.”
“Not me.”
“We won’t find the kind of classy place you’d like around here—let’s make do with this.”
“I happen to be ill.”
“I guarantee you’ll be fine so you don’t have to worry.”
“You can’t be serious—I’m not setting foot in there.”
“How about if I promise to make the excuses to Mrs. T. on your behalf?”
Fed up, Tsuda moved quickly away, leaving Kobayashi where he stood. But his friend fell in alongside him and continued in a more serious tone.
“Is having a drink with me so very disagreeable?”
It was exactly that, very disagreeable. At Kobayashi’s words Tsuda stopped at once; the decision he expressed was entirely opposite his inclination.
“Let’s have a drink, then.”
Opening the illuminated glass door, they stepped inside. There were only five or six customers, but the room was narrow and appeared crowded. Having chosen seats facing each other in a corner that seemed easy of access, they eyed their surroundings, waiting for the sake they had ordered, with a certain curious unfamiliarity.
Judging by the dress of the other customers, there was no one in the bar with any social standing. A fellow who appeared to be on his way home from the bath, a wet towel over the shoulder of his kimono jacket, and another in a cotton robe and plain obi with a piece of artificial jade thrust ostentatiously into the drawstring of his jacket represented, if anything, the fashionable end of things. Very much at the opposite end was someone who could only have been a ragman. Intermingled with the others was also a laborer in his smock and worker’s tights.
“It’s a nice proletarian atmosphere.” Kobayashi observed, filling Tsuda’s cup with sake. His flashy, three-piece suit obtruded in Tsuda’s vision as if in contradiction of his remark, but Kobayashi himself seemed oblivious.
“Unlike you, I always feel in sympathy with the working class.”
Looking very much as if he were surrounded by a band of brothers, Kobayashi surveyed the room.
“See for yourself. Those physiognomies are finer than anything you’d find among the upper crust.”
In lieu of looking around him, Tsuda, lacking the courage to respond, peered at Kobayashi, who pedaled back a step.
“You have to admit they’re appealingly tipsy.”
“The upper class doesn’t get tipsy?”
“Not appealingly.”
Tsuda declined defiantly to pursue the distinction.
Undaunted, Kobayashi poured one cup of sake after another.
“I know you hold these people in contempt. You look down on them as unworthy of your sympathy.”
No sooner than had he spoken, without waiting for Tsuda to respond, than he called out to a youngster who might have been a milkman, “Hey there, don’t you agree?”
The young man addressed in this manner twisted his head on a power ful neck and glanced at them, whereupon Kobayashi thrust a cup toward him.
“In any case, have a drink.”
The young man grinned. Unfortunately, a distance of some six feet separated him and Kobayashi; feeling no need of standing to accept the cup, he merely smiled and didn’t move. Even that seemed to satisfy Kobayashi. Withdrawing the cup and lifting it to his own lips, he spoke again to Tsuda. “You see how it is? There’s not a conceited soul in the room.”
[ 35 ]
AS A laborer in a smock and crew cut was leaving, a diminutive man in an Inverness coat came in and took a seat a little apart from them. Without removing his cap, the peak low on his brow, he surveyed the room once carefully and reached inside his coat. Removing a small, thin notebook, he opened it and stared intently at the page, reading or lost in thought. He made no move to take off his worn coat, and the cap remained on his head. But the notebook did not remain open long: replacing it carefully inside his coat, he peered surreptitiously at the faces of the other customers, this time sipping from his cup of sake. From time to time, extending one hand from the folds of his shabby coat, he stroked his wispy mustache.
Tsuda and Kobayashi had been observing the stranger for a while without drawing attention to themselves when abruptly their eyes met his and they turned sharply around to face each other. Kobayashi leaned forward slightly.
“You get it?”
Tsuda maintained his unbending posture; his tone suggested the question wasn’t worthy of a reply.
“Get what?”
Kobayashi lowered his voice further.
“That fellow is a detective.”
Tsuda did not reply. A stronger drinker than his companion, he was unruffled. He drained the cup in front of him in silence. Kobayashi filled it to the brim at once.
“See the look in those eyes?”
With a faint smile, Tsuda spoke at last.
“If you keep going out of your way to bad-mouth the upper class, you’ll get yourself mistaken for a socialist.”
“A socialist!”
> Kobayashi lifted his voice on purpose and glanced pointedly at the man in the Inverness.
“Don’t make me laugh. I may not be much, but I support the good citizens of the working class. Compared with me, elitists like you who pretend that things are as they should be are the bad guys. So which of us deserves to be hauled away by the police—think about it!”
The man in the cap was looking at his lap in silence, obliging Kobayashi to rail at Tsuda.
“Maybe it’s never occurred to you to treat laborers and ditch-diggers like this as human beings.”
Kobayashi paused and glanced around him, but unfortunately no ditch-diggers or laborers were in evidence. Supremely unconcerned, he continued his tirade:
“Yet they’re possessed by nature of a sublime humanity people like you and that detective can’t even imagine. It’s just that the beauty of their humanity is covered in the grime of poverty and tribulation. In other words, they’re soiled because they’re not able to bathe. So have some respect for them.”
Kobayashi seemed in his vehemence to be defending himself more than the poverty-stricken. Tsuda was, however, cautious of engaging energetically lest his own stance be compromised, and so he avoided an argument. But Kobayashi pursued him.
“You’re silent, but I know you don’t believe what I say. I can see it plainly in your face. Well, let me explain—you must have read the Russian novelists?”
Tsuda, who hadn’t, not one, said nothing.
“Anyone who has read Dostoevsky in particular will know this: no matter how lowly a man is, or how uneducated, there are times when sentiments so pure and genuine and entirely undaunted they make you want to weep with gratitude will usher forth from him like a crystal spring. You think that’s fiction?”
“I haven’t read Dostoevsky, so I wouldn’t know.”
“If you ask Fujii sensei, he’ll tell you it’s a lie. He’ll say it’s merely a literary device imitated by lots of writers who came after Dostoevsky because he was so popular, a stratagem for getting readers worked up sentimentally by serving them sublime feelings in a vulgar bowl. I don’t agree. It makes me mad when I hear Sensei talk that way. Sensei doesn’t understand Dostoevsky. No matter how old he gets, he’ll never be any wiser about books. I may be young but—”