Light and dark

[131]

WHILE O-NOBU and O-Hide traded blows face to face, the clinic was the scene of another drama unfolding independently.

The visitor Tsuda had been eagerly awaiting arrived before the rickshaw man who had been sent off with his letter to O-Nobu had returned, just ten minutes or so after Kobayashi had departed. Hearing the nurse announce Madam Yoshikawa, Tsuda was above all thankful that a pitched battle in his cramped room between these two nearly alien creatures had been avoided. At that moment he had scarcely time to reflect that this good fortune had required him to make a material sacrifice.

As the lady entered the room he attempted to sit up on his mattress, but she waved him down. With a glance back at the flowerpot the nurse who had accompanied her was holding in both arms, she asked, “Where shall we put that?” as though seeking advice. Tsuda observed that the autumn leaves were beautiful against the white of the nurse’s chest. Not until the bonsai had been installed in the alcove — three stunted trunks looking cramped in the small pot with some small stones prettily arranged beneath them — did Madam take a seat.

“How are you feeling?”

At that moment Tsuda, who had been observing the lady carefully, was able to ascertain her attitude toward him for the first time. Goodly half of his concern about what she might be feeling was dispelled by this simple inquiry. She wasn’t as cheerful as usual. But neither was she as high-pitched. It appeared, in other words, that she had come to see him in a mood he had never observed in her until now. She seemed composed almost to a fault, and at the same time she appeared to be displaying her generosity and open-mindedness to a similarly extreme degree. Tsuda was surprised. But it was a pleasant surprise, and, precisely for that reason, he began to feel uncomfortable. Even assuming this attitude represented no antagonism toward him, he didn’t know what might lie behind it. Even if there were nothing fearsome lurking there, there was no way of knowing how her feelings might change in the course of their conversation. Accustomed to being an object of ingratiation, Madam Yoshikawa gave herself permission to change as much as she liked whenever it pleased her, and Tsuda’s position obliged him to accommodate the lady as if she were, at least in this sense, a female tyrant. He was obliged to attend, as in the classical Chinese expression, “her every frown and smile.” This was especially so today.

“Hideko-san dropped in this morning.”

The words were placed on the table as though O-Hide’s visit were the first item on an agenda. Tsuda was of course obliged to respond. He had been considering what he ought to say since before the lady had arrived. He had intended to pretend ignorance of O-Hide’s visit. That would spare him having to mention Kobayashi’s name when he was asked how he knew.

“You don’t say? I suppose she felt she’s been so out of touch that a brief visit was the least she could do?”

“No, that wasn’t it.”

Tsuda followed at once with his next lie.

“But she can’t have had business with you.”

“But she did.”

“You don’t say.”

Tsuda awaited what would follow.

“Try guessing what business she had.”

Feigning ignorance, Tsuda pretended to deliberate.

“Let me see — why come to you — I don’t really—”

“No idea?”

“I — it’s a tough riddle — you understand, we’re brother and sister, but we couldn’t be less alike.”

Tsuda here invoked inconsequently the sibling relationship. His purpose was to excuse himself in advance at a distance before anything should happen. He was also listening for some echo of the effect his words might have had on the lady.

“She seems proud of how logical she is.”

The minute he heard this, Tsuda sensed the match was his and leaped at the opening that had been revealed.

“Her so-called logic is unbearable even to me, and I’m her brother. No one can sit there listening and not run out of patience. That’s why I end up agreeing to whatever she says when we quarrel. And off she goes feeling good about herself, maybe thinking she’s won, and tells everyone she meets whatever it takes to make her look good.”

Madam Yoshikawa smiled. Tsuda interpreted the smile as sympathetic to him. Then she spoke, and her words betrayed his expectation.

“I very much doubt that’s how she is. In any event, she has a clear, consistent head on her shoulders, don’t you agree? I quite like her.”

Tsuda smiled stiffly.

“I doubt she’d pay you a visit and wave her real self around like a flag; she’s not that foolish.”

“I think she’s more honest, not less.”

More honest than whom, the lady didn’t say.