Light and dark

[133]

NOTWITHSTANDING HIS cleverness, he failed to grasp the nature of the relationship between Madam Yoshikawa and O-Nobu. In his presence the matron conducted herself with caution where O-Nobu was concerned, and O-Nobu felt constrained in her own way in front of him; as a consequence, the wisdom that would otherwise have allowed him to perceive their genuine sentiments was foiled. Unaware of this, Tsuda, who tended to discount somewhat steeply the value of what he heard women say, accepted Madam’s critique of O-Nobu word for word and, at the same time, never doubted what he heard O-Nobu remark about the other. Moreover, their assessments were mutually laudatory to a fault. It was only now, when the circumstances made it inevitable, that the subtle discord the two women had both been feeling and striving not to reveal was to be laid out for Tsuda to see.

Turning to the lady, he spoke.

“As a matter of fact, I don’t care that much for my wife, so you needn’t trouble yourself about that.”

“Apparently that’s not so. That’s not what the world says.”

Tsuda was taken back by the lady’s hyperbole. Madam felt obliged to explain.

“By ‘the world’ I mean everyone!”

Tsuda was unable to picture clearly whom she meant by “everyone.” But he had no trouble divining the significance of her exaggeration. It seemed she was determined to drive this point into his brain. He forced himself to laugh.

“I assume ‘everyone’ means O-Hide?”

“O-Hide-san among them, of course.”

“Among them and represents them all, I suppose?”

“Possibly.”

Tsuda laughed aloud again. He noticed at once as it rebounded on him the laugh’s unfortunate effect on the lady, but it was too late to recall it. Having perceived the advantage of accepting guilt and punishment without protest, he quickly reformed his stance.

“I’ll be careful from now on.”

But Madam wasn’t finished.

“Don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s only Hideko-san. Your uncle and aunt feel the same way, you should be aware of that.”

“I didn’t realize.”

Obviously, word of the Fujiis had reached the lady through O-Hide.

“And there are others,” Madam subjoined.

“I see,” Tsuda said simply, and in the instant he looked at his companion’s face, the words he had been expecting issued from her.

“To tell the truth, I’m of the same opinion as the others.”

Facing her as she declared herself as though definitively, Tsuda didn’t feel it necessary to hunt for the courage it would have taken to lift his voice in protest. He was silent, but he couldn’t help wondering if she was thinking more than she said. What accounts for this attitude all of a sudden? When she scolds me for treating O-Nobu too solicitously, is she also criticizing O-Nobu? This was a brand new suspicion. So new he had difficulty conceiving the process in his imagination whereby he had arrived at it. Before addressing his suspicion, he asked a question that remained in his mind.

“Does Okamoto-san feel the same way?”

“Okamoto is different. What Okamoto thinks is not my affair.”

This curt disclaimer was a surprise to Tsuda.

So you and Okamoto have nothing to do with each other? He was on the verge of asking this question, next in the natural order of things.

The truth was, he didn’t care for O-Nobu to the extent people assumed he did. Explaining to someone else how this partial misunderstanding had resulted would require time and effort, but he had his own lucid notion of the process and understood the pattern of facts with sufficient clarity to identify them one by one.

O-Nobu herself was principally responsible. It was O-Nobu who possessed the skill, and made full use of it unabashedly everywhere she went, to create, from the most complex possible angle, a reflection of how precious she was to Tsuda, and conversely of how much freedom she accorded him. The second responsible party was O-Hide. Her already distorted view of the situation was exacerbated by a kind of jealousy. Tsuda didn’t know whence her jealousy came. Having understood for the first time only after his marriage the meaning of a sister-in-law, he was unfortunately unable to apply what he had perceived and was left confounded. Fujii and his wife were third on the list. The villain here was neither hyperbole nor jealousy but rather an intemperate aversion to ostentation. Hence this, too, came down to a misunderstanding.