O-Nobu felt unnerved. She had wanted O-Toki home again as soon as possible, but she hadn’t returned. Her only choice was to see if changing the subject might bring her some relief from this oppressiveness. She succeeded easily enough. And tumbled once again into an impossible situation.
[ 83 ]
THE EXTRAORDINARY trajectory of the conversation that followed was launched by O-Nobu.
“But I wonder if what you say is true?”
Predictably, Kobayashi surfaced from the melancholy in which he appeared to have been submerged until now. And he rejoined, as O-Nobu had hoped, with a question of his own.
“Whether what is? What I said just now?”
“No, not that—”
O-Nobu cleverly lured her companion down a byway.
“What you were saying before—that Tsuda has changed a lot recently.”
Kobayashi was obliged to return to where he had begun.
“I did say that. Because there’s no mistaking it.”
“He has changed so much?”
“Yes he has.”
O-Nobu examined Kobayashi’s face with dissatisfaction on her own. Kobayashi, looking very much as though he had some kind of evidence in hand, stared back. All the while they held each other’s eyes, the shadow of a faint smile played at the corners of his mouth. But in the end the shadow faded before it had the opportunity to bloom into a genuine smile. The steadiness of O-Nobu’s gaze made it clear that she was not about to be toyed with or mocked by the likes of Kobayashi.
“Mrs. T! You must have noticed something?”
It was Kobayashi’s turn to prompt. Unquestionably O-Nobu had noticed. But the change she had perceived in her husband was tending in precisely the opposite direction from the changes Kobayashi had in mind or at least was speaking of. It felt as if, in some unfocused way, it had been coming to light gradually since she and Tsuda had been together, a subtle transition that moved slowly through stages of color and texture that were difficult to distinguish. This was a change the essence of which would be incomprehensible to an observer peering in from the outside, no matter how sensitive he might be. And it was O-Nobu’s secret. An infinitesimal change in a person she loved as he readied himself to detach from her, or perhaps a change in feeling as he began at last to acknowledge the sad truth that he was already detached. And how should someone like Kobayashi know of this?
“I haven’t noticed anything. Is there something so different about the way he is?”
Kobayashi laughed aloud.
“The great pretender. I can’t believe it. I’m no match for you, Mrs. T.”
“You’re the one who’s pretending.”
“Fine, have it your way. In any event, I had no idea you were so gifted. Now I finally understand. It explains Tsuda changing the way he has. I thought it was strange.”
O-Nobu declined to engage. But neither did she betray distress in her face. She struggled to appear unruffled, amiable even. Kobayashi boldly advanced another step.
“The Fujiis are all surprised, too.”
“At what?”
At mention of Fujii, O-Nobu had immediately turned her small eyes on her companion. Knowing she was being lured into a trap, she was unable nevertheless not to respond with the question.
“At your skill. At the miraculous skill that allows you to you hold Tsuda in the palm of your hand and do with him as you wish.”
He was too blunt. But his bluntness appeared to be half playful. There was no amusement in O-Nobu’s reply.
“I see. Do I have such power? It never felt that way to me, but if Aunt and Uncle Fujii do me the honor of saying so, goodness, it must be true.”
“It is true. I can see it and so can anyone, because it’s really there.”
“You’re too kind.”
The words conveyed unmistakable derision and an echo of bitterness that appeared to be beyond anything Kobayashi was expecting. He spoke again at once as if to console her.
“I can imagine you’re not aware of your influence on Tsuda-kun because you didn’t know him before your marriage.”
“I certainly did know him before we were married.”
“But you didn’t know him before that.”
“Obviously not.”
“But I’ve known him all along.”
In this manner the conversation finally turned back to Tsuda’s past.
[ 84 ]
ACCESSING HER husband’s domain at a time when he was still unknown to her was hugely interesting to O-Nobu. She prepared eagerly to attend Kobayashi. But when he began to speak, his stories were inconclusive. And when they were heading toward something of importance, he abbreviated them. For example, he touched on a scene when the two of them had been stopped at a police checkpoint in the middle of the night but left blurred any account of where they might have been until that late hour. When O-Nobu inquired, he merely grinned at her knowingly. She couldn’t help wondering if this behavior might be calculated to irritate her.
O-Nobu had never taken Kobayashi seriously. Behind her contempt, based partly on the standard set by her husband’s evaluation and partly on a belief in her own intuition, was yet another determining factor she had never revealed to anyone. This was simply that Kobayashi was poor. That he had no social standing. In her eyes, editing a magazine with no readers could hardly be considered reputable employment. The Kobayashi she saw wandered aimlessly though life with the look of the outcast eternally on his face. As if in a panic, he lurched from place to place, whining like a vagrant and spewing abuse.
But this variety of contempt was always accompanied by a measure of suspicion. This was particularly so for a woman unaccustomed to this class of person, a young woman at that, with meager experience. In the event, this was how O-Nobu felt as she faced Kobayashi. It was by no means the case that she had never until now met people as poor as he. But the people who were in and out of Okamoto’s household knew their place; understanding that there were differences in rank and station, they dared to act only inside the sphere that was open to them. Never in her life had she had contact with a person as impudent as Kobayashi, who took such liberties, spoke with such self-importance though he had neither wealth nor position, vilified the upper class so vociferously—this was a first.
Abruptly something occurred to her.
Is it possible this fellow I’ve always considered a fool is actually a cunning scoundrel who can make a lot of trouble?
As the suspicion lurking behind her contempt stepped boldly forward, O-Nobu’s attitude abruptly changed. Whereupon Kobayashi, possibly as evidence that he had registered the change, and possibly in indifference, loudly guffawed.
“Mrs. T! There’s a lot more—things you’d like to know.”
“Is that so? I think I’ve heard enough for today. If you tell me everything at once I’ll have nothing to look forward to.”
“Maybe you’re right—shall we call it a day? If you have a fit because I’ve upset you, Tsuda-kun will hold me responsible.”
O-Nobu turned around. Behind her was a wall. She made a show of straining to hear evidence of O-Toki coming from that direction. But the kitchen, just beyond the sitting room, was quiet as before. O-Toki, who should have been back long ago, had not returned.
“Where could she be?”
“She’ll be back. She’s not about to get lost, so you needn’t worry.”
Kobayashi didn’t budge. With no other choice, O-Nobu used the empty teapot as an excuse to rise, but even here he intervened.
“Mrs. T! Since we have time I can continue where I left off; there’s plenty more to say. With a ne’er-do-well like me, talk is just as cheap as silence for killing time, so you don’t have to stand on ceremony. What do you say? I think there are plenty of things Tsuda-kun has kept from you in the name of, what shall I call it, propriety?”
“Perhaps—”
“He’s not as frank as he seems.”
O-Nobu shuddered. There was no way she could avoid secretly affirming Kobayashi??
?s assessment, and the fact that it was so precisely on the mark wounded her even more. How rude he was, she thought, looking at him, with no understanding of her own position. Heedlessly, Kobayashi repeated himself.
“Mrs. T! There’s a lot more that you don’t know.”
“What if there is?”
“Things you’d want to know.”
“I’m sure I don’t care.”
“Let me put it another way: what if I said things you really ought to know! You still don’t care?”
“That’s right, I don’t!”
[ 85 ]
CYNICISM EDDIED in Kobayashi’s face. His countenance proclaimed the certainty of victory in just a matter of time. His manner even suggested he would like to extend this moment of elation into the future so that he might live the rest of his life basking in it.
What a despicable man, O-Nobu thought to herself. For a time she returned his glare as though unwilling to be bested. It was Kobayashi who spoke up first.
“Mrs. T, there’s something I absolutely must tell you as proof that Tsuda-kun has changed, but you seem so defeated, I’ll save that for afterward and begin with an opposite example, for your reference, of how he hasn’t changed one bit. I’d like to insist that you listen to this no matter how disagreeable it is—may I proceed?”
“Do as you wish,” O-Nobu said coldly.
“Much obliged,” Kobayashi replied, laughing.
“Tsuda-kun has had contempt for me since the old days. It’s true what I said before about his big change. But his contempt for me is the one thing that’s the same now as always. Not changed in the slightest. It appears that even your power to reform him, clever as you are, hasn’t mattered. Not that either of you would necessarily feel there was anything unreasonable about his attitude—”
Interrupting himself, Kobayashi peered at the forced smile on O-Nobu’s face. Then he continued.
“Don’t get me wrong—I’m not saying I want him to change particularly. I have no intention of relying on your efforts in that regard, so you needn’t concern yourself. The truth is, Tsuda-kun isn’t the only one who has contempt for me. I’m a person who is held in contempt by everyone. Even cheap women have contempt for me. To paint the complete picture, the whole world is clamoring to hold me in contempt.”
Kobayashi’s eyes were glazed. There was nothing O-Nobu could say.
“Goodness!”
“It’s a fact. Can you tell me you’re not actually thinking the same thing?”
“I’ve never heard such silliness.”
“I know you have to say that.”
“It seems you’re feeling terribly persecuted.”
“Maybe so. But no matter how I’m feeling, a fact is a fact. But never mind. I’m a born good-for-nothing, so I can’t really complain about being disrespected. I have no right to resent anyone. Still, Mrs. T! Do you have any idea how it feels to have been treated with contempt by everyone with no letup?”
His eyes never leaving her face, Kobayashi waited for her reply. O-Nobu had nothing to say. How could she be concerned about the feelings of someone for whom she could find no sympathy? Besides, she had problems of her own to consider; she was simply unable to spread the wings of her imagination for his sake. Perceiving this in her demeanor, Kobayashi exclaimed, “Mrs. T! My reason for living is to be abhorred by others. I say and do things to make people abhor me. Otherwise I couldn’t endure the pain. I couldn’t go on living. I can’t make people recognize my existence. I’m worthless. No matter how people disdain me, I can’t strike a decent blow back at them. Since I have no options, I think to myself, at least I can try to be hated. I take that on myself.”
The psychological state that had been unfurled for O-Nobu belonged to a person from a different planet. To be loved by everyone, to see to it that she was loved by everyone, particularly where her husband was concerned—this desire was in the fiber of her being. Moreover, she had always believed implicitly that the same desire was alive and undeniable in everyone, close to a natural law.
“You seem surprised. I suppose you’ve never met such a person. But you should know that people come in many flavors.”
Kobayashi looked somewhat less dyspeptic, as though relieved.
“I can see you’ve been sick of me for a while now. You’re thinking, ‘If only he’d leave, if only he’d leave.’ But for some reason the maid hasn’t come back, so you’re stuck with keeping me company. I see that clearly. You’ve been thinking I’m a hateful sort, but you have no idea why I’ve become so hateful, what turned me into this. So I offered you a little explanation. Even I wasn’t born hateful, at least I don’t imagine so—”
Once again, Kobayashi laughed aloud.
[ 86 ]
IN THE presence of this unaccountable man, O-Nobu felt her mind whirl in confusion. First of all, she failed to comprehend him. Second, she felt no sympathy. Finally, she had doubts about his seriousness. Defiance, dread, contempt, suspicion, ridicule, disgust, curiosity—the tangle of sentiments intersecting in her breast rejected any attempt at organization. As a consequence they served only to unseat her. Finally, she framed a question.
“So you’re saying you came over here just to make me dislike you?”
“No, that wasn’t my purpose. My purpose was to pick up the overcoat.”
“So you came to get the coat, and as long as you were here you thought you might as well make me dislike you?”
“Not at all. It may surprise you to know that I consider myself a perfectly ingenuous person, a natural man. Compared with you, Mrs. T, I believe I’m guileless.”
“That’s beside the point, why won’t you answer directly?”
“But I have. I’ve told you I am without artifice, a natural man. And that’s what makes you dislike me.”
“And that’s your purpose?”
“But it isn’t a purpose—it may be a fundamental desire.”
“What’s the difference between a purpose and a desire?”
“Could they be the same?”
Hatred flashed in O-Nobu’s small eyes.. The glance that stabbed at Kobayashi read, “Don’t toy with me because I’m a woman.”
“Don’t get angry,” Kobayashi said. “I was just trying to explain that I’m not striking back at you for any trivial reasons of my own. I went out of my way to say what I did because I want you to understand that I have no choice, that Providence commands me to be a wretch and make people dislike me. I want you to recognize the fact that I have no evil objective. I want you to realize that I have no purpose and never have. Providence may have a purpose. And that purpose may be manipulating me. Being manipulated may even be what I desire.”
O-Nobu’s own thinking was insufficiently rigorous to uncover the lapses in Kobayashi’s anfractuous logic. Nor was her mind sufficiently trained to determine whether it should be unconditionally accepted or rejected. But she was more than quick-witted enough to grasp the essentials of the argument he had confronted her with, and she promptly demonstrated her swiftness.
“So on the one hand you admit to being nasty so that people will dislike you, and on the other hand you say that you’re not in any way responsible.”
“Exactly. That’s the gist of it.”
“That’s so cowardly.”
“It’s not cowardly. Where there’s no responsibility, there’s no cowardice.”
“Of course there is. In the first place, I don’t recall ever having done anything bad to you. If I have I’d like to hear about it.”
“Mrs. T! I’m a person the world treats like a vagabond.”
“What does that have to do with me and Tsuda?”
Kobayashi laughed, as if he had been waiting for the question.
“From where you both stand, probably nothing. But as I see it, more than plenty.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
This time, Kobayashi declined to reply. With an expression that seemed to say “You’ll understand if you think about it carefully,” he began smoking a ciga
rette in silence. O-Nobu felt even more distressed. She wanted to say she’d had enough and to ask him to leave. Kobayashi, as if he had read her mind and dismissed her feelings as insignificant, was unperturbed, an attitude that further infuriated her. Just then O-Toki returned, a moment she had been impatiently awaiting, and as a result her turmoil had to be dissipated before she had an opportunity to express it cogently.
[ 87 ]
SITTING ON the engawa, O-Toki slid open the shoji screen from the outside.
“I’m back. Sorry it took so long—I had to take the trolley all the way to the hospital.”
O-Nobu looked at O-Toki a little angrily.
“You didn’t phone?”
“Oh yes I did—”
“You couldn’t get through?”
As questions followed answers, O-Nobu gradually grasped the reason for O-Toki’s trip to the hospital. At first her call had not gone through, and even when it finally did she had been unable to communicate her purpose. She had asked for the nurse, thinking to request her to convey the message, but even this attempt had failed. The student apprentice or the pharmacist or whoever it was who had taken the call had said this and that, but nothing that made any sense. To begin with, the voice was indistinct, and even what she could hear clearly made no sense. When it began to seem that the man on the other end of the line had not taken her question to Tsuda, she had given up and left the telephone box. But she was loathe to return to the house with her errand unaccomplished and had hurried straight to the streetcar.
“I thought about coming home first and asking, but that would just take more time, and since I knew you had a visitor waiting—”
O-Toki’s explanation was reasonable. O-Nobu ought to have thanked her. But when she considered the suffering at Kobayashi’s hands her thoughtful maid had caused her, she felt all the more resentful.
Rising, she went into the sitting room and opened the bottom drawer of the tansu with shiny brass hinges installed just inside the door. Removing the overcoat in question from the bottom of the drawer, she placed it in front of Kobayashi.