Light and dark

[8]

“ABSOLUTELY NOT! I won’t!”

O-Nobu declined at once. There was no trace of hesitation in her voice. Her fluency, beyond all reserve or consideration, caught Tsuda off guard. The shock he received was as if an automobile traveling at considerable speed had suddenly braked to a stop. In advance of anger or resentment at his wife’s lack of sympathy for him was surprise. He gazed at her face.

“I won’t. I’m not going to the Okamotos with a story like that.”

O-Nobu repeated her refusal.

“Fine! I’m not going to ask you against your will. It’s just—”

These cold yet calmly delivered words O-Nobu scooped up and tossed aside.

“It’s so awkward for me. Every time I visit I’m told how fortunate I am to have married so well with no cares or troubles and no financial worries; I can imagine how they’d look at me if I showed up out of the blue with a sad story about money.”

This allowed Tsuda to satisfy himself that O-Nobu’s categorical rejection of his request was prompted less by a lack of sympathy for him than by her need to maintain appearances in front of the Okamotos. The cold light that had lodged in his eyes flickered out.

“You shouldn’t be carrying on as if we’re having such an easy time. It’s nice to have people think you’re doing better than you are, but there’s no guarantee the time won’t come when that will create its own problems.”

“If anyone’s carrying on it certainly isn’t me — they’ve decided how things are all by themselves.”

Tsuda chose not to pursue this. Nor could O-Nobu be troubled to explain further. For a moment their conversation seemed at an end; then they returned to practical matters. But Tsuda, who until now had suffered little pain as a result of his financial circumstances, had nothing useful to contribute. “Father is such a nuisance!” was all he had to say.

Abruptly O-Nobu shifted her gaze to the colorful kimono and obi as if noticing for the first time her overlooked clothing on the floor.

“Shall we do something with these?” Grasping the edge of the thick obi laced with gold thread, she held it up to the electric light for her husband to see.

“Do something?” Tsuda asked, unsure of what she meant.

“If I take this to a pawnshop, wouldn’t they lend us money on it?”

Tsuda was surprised. If his young bride so recently come to wife had known for years about something he had never once undertaken to do, contriving by one means or another to make ends meet, this surely was an unexpected and a valuable discovery.

“Have you ever pawned a kimono or anything else?”

“Of course not — never.”

Laughing, O-Nobu replied in the negative to her husband’s query as though disdainfully.

“So you have no idea what happens when you take something to a pawnshop.”

“No, but I don’t see how that matters — once we’ve decided to do it.”

Short of an emergency, Tsuda would have preferred not to allow his wife to have anything to do with such disreputable behavior. O-Nobu defended her own suggestion.

“Toki knows all about it. When she was living with us at the Okamotos, she was always going to the pawnshop on errands with a parcel wrapped in a furoshiki.* These days she tells me all she has to do is send a postcard and they come to the house to pick up whatever she has.”

It pleased Tsuda to think that his wife was willing to sacrifice her precious kimono and obi for his sake. But allowing her to make the sacrifice could only be described as painful. More than feeling sorry for her, it was the wound to his pride as a husband that gave him pause.

“Let’s give it some thought.”

Without arriving at any financial solution, he returned to his study on the second floor.

* A furoshiki is a large, silk cloth used to wrap parcels for carrying.