Light and dark

[155]

THE PLACE he was meeting Kobayashi was down a side street to the right midway along the busiest thoroughfare in Tokyo. To avoid the unpleasantness of having the man call for him at his home and to save himself the trouble of going to his lodgings, Tsuda had designated a restaurant and set the time.

That time had come and gone while he was on the streetcar. But his lateness, the result of having changed kimonos, received the money from O-Nobu, and sat briefly with her chatting, didn’t concern him. To speak plainly, he didn’t want his behavior toward Kobayashi to reflect a scrupulously proper attitude. On the contrary, he intended, by arriving late, to tweak his self-indulgence and complacency. Whether it was deemed a farewell party or not, inasmuch as this was actually an occasion at which one person was providing money and the other accepting it, Tsuda was unquestionably in charge. His best policy, therefore, using his superior status to optimal advantage, was to install himself in advance as the host to Kobayashi as the guest and thereby to nip his companion’s arrogance in the bud. Quite apart from arithmetic considerations of loss and gain, this also seemed to be an amusing way of simply getting even.

Inside the rattling streetcar Tsuda glanced at his watch and wondered if even now, late as he was, he might still be too early for his presumptuous guest. Assuming that was so, he considered frustrating Kobayashi’s inflexible expectations a little more by spending some time browsing in the night shops.

When he alighted from the trolley at a stop on the Ginza, the pell-mell flashing of lights all around him was more than adequate to convey dizzyingly the frenetic activity of the capital of the night. Standing there, he debated whether to spend ten minutes or so wandering among the lights before turning down the side street toward his destination. However, as he surveyed his surroundings, turning away from the evening paper a newsboy thrust in his face, he received a sudden shock.

The man whom he had assumed by this time would be tired to death of waiting was standing just across the street. Because he was standing at the far corner of the intersection where Tsuda had alighted, their sightlines fortunately didn’t intersect, and the night and the crowds and the flashing lights helped prevent Kobayashi from identifying him. Moreover, he was facing away, engaged in conversation with a young man Tsuda didn’t recognize. As only two-thirds of the youth’s face and perhaps one-third of Kobayashi’s were visible from where he stood, he was able to observe them attentively with virtually no risk of revealing himself. Their eyes never strayed. They were standing face to face, and as Tsuda continued to watch he could see clearly from their attitudes that they were discussing something serious.

There was a wall just behind them, but unfortunately it was windowless so there was no light on them. Just then, however, an automobile turned the corner noisily from the south and both men were caught in its large headlights. For the first time Tsuda was able to make out the young man’s features plainly. He was struck by a wan complexion and unkempt hair that looked uncut for months and hung from his peaked cap down both sides of his face. As the car passed, Tsuda turned smartly around and walked off in the opposite direction.

He had nothing in mind to do. The brightly lit shops were cosmopolitan and beautiful, but that was all. He discovered nothing complex about their appeal except the transformation in the merchandise as the business changed from one to the next. There were nonetheless sights that pleased his eye wherever he looked. When he came upon a stylish necktie displayed in front of a foreign haberdashery he went inside, selected the item he thought he wanted, and turned it over in his hands.

When he felt he had probably taken long enough, he retraced his steps. Not surprisingly, Kobayashi and his companion were no longer to be seen. He quickened his step a little. From the window of the establishment he had chosen, warm light was spilling into the street. The window was high in the brick wall of the building, and because the band of light that issued from it merged with the night indirectly, filtered through a patterned, yoke-yellow awning, Tsuda, looking up as he passed, imagined a serene dining room appointed with a gas fireplace.

Reposing in what might be described as dignified silence at the far end of a long block, the restaurant wasn’t large. Tsuda had only recently learned about it. Except for the fact that he had dined there four or five times, having heard from his friend that the proprietor had served as cook for many years to an attaché at the Japanese embassy in France, he had no reason for inviting Kobayashi there.

Pushing through the doors resolutely, he stepped inside. As expected, Kobayashi was waiting. Looking a little at a loss for what to do with himself, he was peering gravely at what must have been the evening paper.