Light and dark

[130]

O-HIDE’S DEFENSIVENESS surprised O-Nobu. And it was abrupt. She understood neither whence these words came nor their purpose. She was simply surprised. What could be lurking in the background of this O-Hide, revealed to her like a benefaction from the skies? O-Nobu attempted at once to penetrate the darkness. The third lie issued effortlessly from her lips.

“I understand that. And I know everything you’ve done and the spirit it was done in. So why not tell me what you know without holding anything back? Please!”

O-Nobu looked at O-Hide with every particle of charm she could summon sparkling in her small eyes. But if she expected this gesture to have the same effect as it had on men, she was mistaken. As though startled, O-Hide asked an unexpected question.

“Nobuko-san, were you at the clinic before you came here today?”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“But you came here from somewhere else?”

“I came straight from home.”

O-Hide appeared relieved. Unfortunately, relief left her with nothing more to say. But O-Nobu wasn’t ready to release the hand she was clinging with.

“For goodness sake, Hideko-san, won’t you talk to me?”

At that moment, a cruel light glinted in O-Hide’s cool eyes.

“How willful you are, Nobuko-san! Must you feel that you’re the only one being loved perfectly? You can’t be satisfied otherwise?”

“Of course not! That doesn’t matter to you?”

“With the husband I have?” O-Hide replied without a trace of self-pity.

“Hori-san doesn’t count. Let’s match each other truth for truth, leaving Hori-san out. I can’t imagine you’d be fond of a man with a roving eye.”

“But there’s not a husband alive who’s so devoted he behaves as if his wife is the only woman who exists.”

O-Hide, who relied on books and magazines for her knowledge, transformed abruptly at this moment into a conventional pragmatist. O-Nobu didn’t have time even to remark the contradiction.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Hideko-san! There must be men like that as long as there are men who deserve to be called husbands!”

“You don’t say? Where would you find such a wonderful man?”

O-Hide gazed again at O-Nobu with ridicule in her eye. O-Nobu lacked the courage to shout the name “Tsuda!” But she had to say something.

“That’s my ideal. I can’t accept anything less.”

If O-Hide had become a pragmatist, O-Nobu had also transformed along the way into a theorist. Their positions relative to each other until now had been reversed. Unaware of this, they were swept along by the natural flow of the conversation. From this point on their dialogue, neither theoretical nor pragmatic, became a contest between remarks traded like blows.

“That may be your ideal, but it’s unreasonable. The day your ideal was realized, every woman who wasn’t somebody’s wife would lose her qualifications as a woman.”

“But love has to go that far to be complete love. Otherwise you could live your whole life and never experience genuine love.”

“I don’t know about that, but to expect your husband to think of you as the only woman in the world simply doesn’t stand to reason.”

O-Hide’s remarks were beginning to sound like a personal attack. O-Nobu was undaunted.

“I don’t know about reason; I’m talking about feelings. As long as he feels I’m the only woman, that’s all I ask.”

“I understand you want him to feel that you’re the only woman for him. But if you’re also saying he mustn’t think of other women as women at all, that amounts to suicide. A husband who can go that far won’t be thinking of you as a woman either. Only the flower that blooms in his own garden is a true flower; all the rest are straw — is that what you expect?”

“Straw would be fine!”

“Fine for you. But to a man they aren’t straw, so you’re asking the impossible. Wouldn’t it be more satisfying for you if among the women in the world he loved, he loved you best? Because that would mean you were being loved in the truest sense.”

“I want to feel that I’m loved absolutely. I hate comparisons.”

A hint of disdain appeared in O-Hide’s face. It was easy enough to see that she was thinking “how dim this woman is!” Anger rose in O-Nobu.

“Anyhow, logic is too much for my poor brain.”

“Show me an actual example. Convince me that way if you can.”

O-Hide coldly terminated the conversation. O-Nobu could have stamped her feet with chagrin. All her efforts until now would avail her nothing more. Not realizing that a letter from Tsuda awaited her at home, she took her leave.