Light and dark

[150]

THE NOTION of a compromise may have seemed incongruous under the current circumstances, but it was a reasonable description of what Tsuda was feeling in his heart at that moment. He wanted a compromise in the most appropriate sense of that term. O-Nobu was quick to perceive the truth of this, and her mounting agitation was finally quieted. Tsuda, who had been secretly tormenting himself with worry that the tide of her emotionality would rise again, felt reprieved. In the next instant he recovered the presence of mind he needed to turn the force of her staunched emotion back upon itself. He set to work placating O-Nobu, deploying abundantly phrases likely to please her. Possessed of a calmness and composure he could marshal when necessary, he was inveterately adept at accommodating himself in the moment to his companion’s feelings. Small wonder that his efforts were not in vain. For the first time in a long while, O-Nobu beheld the Tsuda she had known before their marriage. Memories from the time of their engagement revived in her heart.

My husband hasn’t changed after all. He’s always been the man I knew from the old days.

This thought brought O-Nobu a satisfaction more than sufficient to rescue Tsuda from his predicament. The turbulence that was on the verge of becoming a violent storm subsided. As a couple, however, they had changed. Somewhere along the way through the turbulence, without realizing it, they had altered the nature of their connection.

As the storm was subsiding, Tsuda had an insight.

In the final analysis, a woman is easily consoled.

Embracing the confidence the upheaval had conferred on him, he secretly rejoiced. Until now, dealing with O-Nobu, he had never once escaped feeling in some way or other that she was more than he could handle. Even as he reminded himself that she was a mere woman, at some point every day there came a time when he was forced to taste a sickening sense of defeat. He hadn’t yet dissected this to discover whether it was attributable to her intuition, to the adroitness that might be seen as an active function of her intuition, or to something else entirely, but there was no question that it was a fact. It was, moreover, a fact that he had folded away inside himself and never yet revealed to anyone. In that sense, it was at once a fact and a secret. Why had he converted this undeniable fact into a secret? Put simply, because he wished to think as highly of himself as possible. No matter that in the war of love, which was how he viewed their relationship, he regularly found himself in the position of the defeated, he was nonetheless a proud man. To be sure he was vanquished, but since defeat was inevitable, out of his hands, he never truly surrendered. Not that he accepted his captivity to love with open arms; instead, invariably, he was caught off guard and felled. Much as O-Nobu, failing to notice that she was wounding his pride, experienced the only satisfaction she took from love in vanquishing him, Tsuda, who hated losing, gave in each time his strength failed him and she knocked him to the ground even as he lamented his surrender. Now that his manipulations had in the course of a single, painful evening inverted their unusual relationship, it was only natural that his attitude toward O-Nobu should change. Until now, he had never once beheld this woman called O-Nobu come at him so candidly and with such fierceness, highhanded yet deferential to the point of fawning, but without falsehood. Fleeing before her with his weaknesses in his arms, he had succeeded for the first time in defeating her. The result was clear. Now at last he was able to disdain her. At the same time, he was able to extend her more sympathy than before.

For her part, O-Nobu was also in the process of changing following the upheaval. Having confronted her husband in this manner for the first time, she had been so intent on striking at his weakness that she had finished by showing him a weakness of her own that she had never revealed until now, and this above all she regretted. Desiring nothing more than to be loved by Tsuda, she was accustomed to believing implicitly she could rely on her own skill. She was resolved that her wisdom in all things should prevail. Needless to say, her insight could not be called complex. It was hardly more than a stubborn determination not to indulge in unseemly behavior such as bowing her head in an appeal for pity no matter how essential to her existence her husband’s love may have been. It was a firm resolve to demonstrate, should her husband fail to love her as she desired, that she could free herself with the power of her own wits. Sustaining this determination had taken its toll in constant tension. It was inevitable that this extreme of tension must snap. When it did, all too clearly, she would be compelled to betray her own determination. Unaware of the contradiction, the unfortunate girl charged headlong. And finally she snapped. Afterward she was filled with regret. Happily the outcome was not as cruel as she might have thought. Even as she exposed her weakness, she received a kind of reward. Until now, no matter how flushed with victory she may have been, the effect on her husband had never once satisfied her, but this time there was a slight change. Tsuda, heading in the general direction of her satisfaction, took a step closer. Unmistakably he had used the word “compromise.” The choice of words amounted to a tacit confession of the existence under the rose of the secret she was laboring to spade up. Confession? She tested the notion on herself. And when she had confirmed to her own satisfaction that it was unmistakably a confession akin to a tacit acknowledgment, she felt at once chagrined and happy. She didn’t press her husband further. Just as Tsuda had felt sorry for her, she found herself able to feel sorry for him.