Every time O-Nobu visited Hori, she was sensible of a dissonance between the house and herself. Often she felt this distance even after going inside. In her view, only Hori’s mother inhabited the house in perfect accord. Yet Hori’s mother was the woman in the house O-Nobu disliked most. Perhaps it was less dislike than a difficulty in relating. Or a difference in generations, or, more harshly, that the old woman was a living anachronism, or perhaps, if that failed to capture it precisely, personal incompatibility or the difference in backgrounds, there were any number of ways to describe the problem, but it reduced in the end to the same awkwardness.
Hori himself was another problem. In O-Nobu’s eyes, the master of the house appeared at once to fit in and not to fit in here. But to take this a step further, it was hardly more than saying that he appeared to fit in and not to fit in anywhere, so there was scarcely a point in making an issue of it. The same ambiguity was precisely reflected in O-Nobu’s feelings of affection and dislike for Hori. In truth, it was as if she both liked and disliked him.
When it came to the last member of the household, O-Hide, the essence of what O-Nobu felt could be simply represented. In her view, O-Hide’s upbringing had prepared her to fit in to the structure of this family least well of all. To translate her conclusion into psychological terms, adding a touch of pretension, there was no way in the world that O-Hide could ever assimilate into the ethos of this family. O-Hide and Hori’s mother—whenever O-Nobu tried aligning these two in her mind, she found herself confronting a contradiction. But it wasn’t easy to determine whether the result was tragic or comic.
When she considered the household and the individuals in it together in this way, one thing struck O-Nobu as odd.
Hori’s mother, more comfortable here than anyone, was the most trouble, and O-Hide, the least at home, seemed likely to cause her in another sense the most distress.
As she slid open the lattice at the entrance a bell jangled, activating the thoughts that were always at the back of her mind.
[ 124 ]
THE FACT that Hori’s mother had not yet returned from taking her grandchild to visit a relative in Yokohama provided an unexpected opportunity to O-Nobu, who had been ushered into the sitting room. Her absence, likely to be convenient or awkward depending on how it was viewed, spared O-Nobu an old woman she found difficult to talk to but at the same time obliged her to deal face to face and alone with her adversary of the moment, O-Hide.
As it happened, this unforeseen circumstance, which she couldn’t have known about in advance, had the effect of throwing her off her stride from the outset. Whereas normally Hori’s mother would emerge first of all with her hair in a tight bun and make a dutiful fuss over O-Nobu, today for the first time not only was O-Hide there from the beginning, but the old lady she was eagerly awaiting showed no sign of appearing at all, a deviation that upset her timing. The glance she cast in O-Hide’s direction at that moment was lightly touched with panic. It wasn’t a look of regret about what had happened or anything of the kind. It was awkwardness that followed hard on the self-satisfaction of having triumphed in yesterday’s battle. It was mild fear about the revenge that might be exacted against her. It was the turmoil of deliberation about how to get through the situation.
Even as she bent her gaze on O-Hide, O-Nobu sensed that she was being read by her antagonist. Too late, the revealing glance had arced suddenly as a bolt of lightning from some high source beyond the reach of her artifice. Lacking the authority to constrain this emergence from an unexpected darkness, she had little choice but to content herself with awaiting its effect.
The glance was not lost on O-Hide. But her response was unexpected. When the recent sequence of events was considered in light of the personality she consistently revealed to an observer, the breech in the wall of normality as she defined it, that is, and O-Nobu and Tsuda lunging at the breech and reveling in it, there was no reason to expect she would return to normal peacefully. Even O-Nobu, who placed considerable store in her own diplomacy, didn’t believe that this could be settled without provoking the next upheaval, be it large or small.
She was therefore surprised. When O-Hide had taken a seat and, contrary to her expectation, proceeded to greet her more warmly than ever, she had to wonder if she were dreaming. Queasily in her companion’s behavior she observed what appeared to be her determination to dispel any such doubts. Her surprise at this remarkable change gave way to uneasiness about its significance.
But O-Hide made no attempt to answer that crucial question. To the very end, she appeared disinclined to say one word about the unfortunate clash at the hospital the previous day.
Inasmuch as her companion intentionally avoided mentioning this sensitive subject, it would have been odd for O-Nobu to bring it up. There was no need to go out of her way to touch on a sore spot. That said, to what purpose had she dragged herself here today if not to put this somehow behind them and clear the air? But since it appeared that a reconciliation had been achieved without undergoing a process of resolution, it would have been foolish to air their differences.
O-Nobu was clever enough to feel outmaneuvered. As the conversation continued to glide smoothly forward as though over ice, she began to feel that something was lacking. Finally she decided to pierce her companion’s defenses and have a look inside. Adventurous as she was when it came to a sortie of this nature, she was not unaware that a failed assault in this case would expose her to danger. But she was bolstered by her confidence in her own prowess.
If circumstances permitted, she wanted to try touching O-Hide in a certain place above her heart. Percussing the patient in hopes of stimulating an echo of her genuine feelings was by no means an objective of the visit she had planned in consultation with Tsuda, but to O-Nobu it was a far more important mission than simply enabling a reconciliation.
This mission, which must be hidden from Tsuda, closely resembled in nature the incident that Tsuda had to keep secret from O-Nobu. Just as Tsuda was concerned about what Kobayashi had told her in his absence, so O-Nobu wanted to ascertain what O-Hide had said to Tsuda when she was not in the room.
After deliberating about how to create an opening, O-Nobu decided her only choice was to mention once again O-Hide’s visit to her house on her way home from the Fujiis’. On arriving she had opened with, “I’m so sorry I was at the bath when you stopped in”; this time, when she attempted to revive the subject with a question, “Was there something you wanted?” O-Hide replied with a simple “No!” and deftly turned her aside.
[ 125 ]
HER NEXT attempt to gain access was through Fujii. O-Hide’s acknowledgment that she had visited her uncle that morning provided a convenient means of moving the conversation in that direction. But O-Hide guarded her gate as vigilantly as she had before. When necessary she ventured outside the gate and engaged with O-Nobu amiably. O-Nobu knew that O-Hide had grown up under her uncle’s protection. She also understood that she had been influenced by him spiritually. This meant that her first task in the order of things was to remark on Uncle Fujii’s personality and lifestyle in a manner likely to please her. In fact, her words struck O-Hide’s ears as exaggerated, not to mention false: not only was she unable to discover in them anything to engage with seriousness, but as the same path was followed at length, she couldn’t help revealing in her countenance the displeasure and even disgust she was naturally feeling. Nimble as ever, O-Nobu drew back the instant she noticed that she had underestimated her companion. Whereupon O-Hide began to descant about Okamoto. As far as O-Hide was concerned, this uncle, who stood in the same relation to O-Nobu as Fujii did to herself, was a perfect stranger toward whom she felt neither intimacy nor anything else. Her words, accordingly, were smooth skin only with no flesh or blood beneath them. Even so, O-Nobu was obliged to swallow whole as if it were delicious the hand-cooked meal O-Hide had prepared in return for her own flattery.
When her turn came round again, O-Nobu was not so foolish as to heap a bowl with a second p
ortion of ingratiation and force it on O-Hide. This time, deftly seizing an opportune moment to shift the conversation, she tried stirring things up with Madam Yoshikawa. However, by merely lavishing praise as before, she was in danger of achieving a similarly dismal result. Accordingly she put aside considerations of good and bad and merely launched the name into the air between them. She was prepared to proceed gradually in accordance with the effect this had.
She knew that O-Hide had called at the house when she was at the bath on her way back from Fujii. It never occurred to her that she had already visited Madam Yoshikawa before going to see her uncle. Nor would she have dreamed that O-Hide would have taken herself to the Yoshikawas as a result of the upheaval that had occurred at the clinic the previous day. On this head, O-Nobu was naive to the same degree as her husband, and she was to be surprised by O-Hide to the same degree that Tsuda had been surprised by Kobayashi. The manner in which they were surprised, however, was different. Kobayashi reported undeniable facts. O-Hide resorted to silence that felt pregnant with meaning. And to a pale flush in her face that accompanied the silence.
When the lady’s name first escaped O-Nobu’s lips, she felt as if a single drop of miraculous medicine had fallen from the skies and landed between them. Its effect was immediately apparent right before her eyes. Unfortunately it was of no use to her. Or at least it was an effect she didn’t know how to make use of. Its unexpected nature was shocking to her merely. Even as she spoke the name, she wondered whether she ought to apologize at once for speaking out of turn.
The second surprise followed hard on the first. Observing O-Hide as she averted her face slightly, O-Nobu was obliged to amend the impression she had received at first. She understood now for the first time that the change in O-Hide’s complexion was not due to anger. Her expression, which could only be described as a simple awkwardness so commonly observed that one grows tired of seeing it, surprised O-Nobu even further. The meaning of the expression was clear to her. Accounting for it would have to await an explanation from O-Hide.
As O-Nobu wondered in confusion what to do, O-Hide abruptly changed the subject. The change, a leap inconsequent to everything that had preceded it, as if O-Hide had grafted bamboo onto a tree trunk, was more than sufficient to hand O-Nobu a third surprise. But she was confident. She stepped into the challenge with open arms.
[ 126 ]
O-NOBU WAS struck first by the word “love.”
If she felt ambushed by so commonplace a word, it was partly due to its abrupt appearance entirely out of context, but it was also the fact that such a word had never until now found its way into her conversations with O-Hide. Relative to O-Nobu, O-Hide was a logical woman. Arriving at that conclusion, however, required some explanation. O-Nobu was a woman who expressed her logic in her actions. If she didn’t normally argue, therefore, it wasn’t because she didn’t know how but because there was no need. In consequence, her store of knowledge, instilled in her by others, was small. Recently she rarely opened even the magazines she had enjoyed reading in her student days at a girls’ school. Even so, she had never once felt about herself that she was deprived. Vain as she was, she had never felt much moved to address her ignorance, not because she had little time to spare or lacked a conversation partner to compete with, but because she was insensible of anything lacking.
O-Hide, beginning with her education, was entirely different. Books in the main had made her who she was. At least she had been taught to think that was how things ought to be. Having been educated by her uncle Fujii, whose connection to books was profound, had had an odd effect on her in both a good and a bad sense. She had come to place more importance in books than in herself. But that didn’t exempt her from having to live the best life she could independently of books. The result, perforce, was that she and books had gradually diverged. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that she had fallen into the unfortunate habit of promoting arguments that were at odds with her own nature. In view of her limited capacity for self-reflection, however, she had a considerable way to go before she would recognize that arguing for argument’s sake was foolishness. If she was obstinate, it was due to her outsized ego. Plainly put, it came down to this: despite the fact that this self of hers was her true essence, she would go out of her way to extract logic that did not accord with her essential self from the books she revered, and would then proceed to defend such logic with the power of the language on the page. From time to time this resulted in a comic spectacle, as though she were brandishing a cannon in place of a dagger.
Not surprisingly, the issue that surfaced now had been lifted from a magazine. The question posed by O-Hide, who had read views on love held by various writers that appeared in a monthly magazine, was actually of no special interest to O-Nobu. But when she admitted she hadn’t seen the article, her curiosity was abruptly piqued. She resolved to find an application of this abstract question that she could use to her own benefit.
O-Nobu understood well enough her companion’s tendency to be swept away by empty theories. And there was no weakness more likely than this to present an obstacle to what she purposed to do: confront an actual issue of some gravity. Better not to begin at all if she was to be argued with for the sake of argument merely. She would have to anchor her companion to the ground by any means available. Unfortunately her partner had already ascended. The love O-Hide was speaking of was neither Tsuda’s love nor Hori’s nor O-Nobu’s nor O-Hide’s nor anything of the kind. This was a love floating aimlessly high in the sky. O-Nobu’s task, accordingly, was to pull back down to earth the suspended balloon of O-Hide’s reflections.
When she discovered that O-Hide, already the mother of two children and more domestic than herself in every way, was, in regard to love at least, less grounded by far, O-Nobu, while she continued to nod in approval at everything her companion was saying, began to feel impatient and even aggravated. She wanted to say, “Put aside your words, join me naked in the sumo ring and let’s test our actual strength against each other!” and she considered what it would take to strip the clothes from this incorrigible debater. Presently she felt the dawning inside her of a crucial discrimination. To make use of this issue, she now understood, it would be necessary to sacrifice either O-Hide or herself, or things would never go her way. Sacrificing O-Hide would be a matter of small difficulty; breaking through her weakness from one direction or another was all that would be necessary. Whether that weakness was actual or hypothetical was of no concern to O-Nobu. Examining for its validity the stimulus she would apply in hopes of producing the reaction that was her goal seemed an unnecessary consideration. This was accompanied, however, by a commensurate danger. O-Hide would certainly be angered. To be sure, making O-Hide angry was O-Nobu’s purpose, and again not her purpose. She couldn’t help feeling conflicted.
Finally she saw an opportunity and seized it. By that time she had already resolved to sacrifice herself.
[ 127 ]
“I DON’T know what to say—I’m in a fog about whether Tsuda loves me or not. But goodness. Aren’t you lucky. When it comes to being loved, you’ve had a guarantee from the beginning!”
O-Nobu had known even before she was together with Tsuda that O-Hide had been chosen for her beauty. To women in general, and especially to a woman like O-Nobu, this fact was certainly a cause for envy. When Tsuda mentioned it for the first time, before she had laid eyes on O-Hide, O-Nobu was aware of feeling mildly jealous. Later, understanding that this fact was insubstantial as paper, she had even experienced, in addition to mild derision, the pleasure of having had her revenge. Thereafter, her attitude toward O-Hide where the question of love was concerned was always contempt. She was careful to make it appear that the other’s views were mutual and a source of delight, but that was of course mere flattery. Put less generously, it was a variety of ridicule.
Happily, O-Hide didn’t notice. There was a good reason why. Talk aside, where the actual experience of love was concerned, O-Hide was certainly no matc
h for O-Nobu. With no experience of having loved ardently and no memory of having been the object of pure and unwavering love, she was a woman who remained ignorant of how large and powerful this gift could be at its grandest. She was at the same time a wife who was satisfied with her husband. In this regard at least, the maxim “ignorance is bliss” described her perfectly. Having accepted at the time of her marriage the stamp of love applied by her husband’s hand as a guarantee of her future and locked it away in her heart, her naiveté was such that she was able to accept O-Nobu’s appreciation at face value.