Light and dark

[163]

THE OTHER two began an animated conversation about painting that excluded him. The talk was full of Western terms — some, like “Cubism” and “Futurism,” that he had heard before and others that were exotic-sounding and unfamiliar. There was no need to expel him from the conversation: finding nothing of any interest in what he heard, he had left through the gate on his own accord. But even where he stood, he felt a boredom that exceeded the ordinary, in addition to which there was something irking him more aggressively than boredom. From the beginning he had considered these two, Kobayashi in particular, dilettantes eager to wave the banners of new art. Observing them flaunt their sophistication confirmed his prejudice. When it began to appear to him that their objective might be expressly to make him regret his own ignorance on this head, he gave over the effort he had made to sit patiently and ventured to take his leave. Kobayashi detained him yet again.

“Another few minutes. I’ll leave with you.”

“No, it’s getting late.”

“I don’t see why you have to make anyone feel embarrassed. Or are you saying that waiting for Hara-kun to finish eating will reflect poorly on your status as a gentleman?”

Hara, who had placed some ham on top of a shredded lettuce salad and was just digging in with his fork, paused.

“Don’t trouble yourself about me.”

Tsuda responded appropriately and was rising from his chair when Kobayashi spoke as if to himself.

“What can he be thinking this occasion is for? He invites a man to something he calls a farewell dinner and then insults the guest of honor by leaving him alone at the table and going home — with people like this in the world, no wonder life is miserable.”

“That’s not what I intended.”

“Then stay for a while.”

“There’s something I have to do.”

“I have a little something, too.”

“If it’s the painting, forget it.”

“I’m not twisting your arm to buy it. Don’t be such a cheapskate!”

“Then whatever it is, get on with it.”

“Not with you standing over me. Sit down like a gentleman.”

Obliged to take his seat again, Tsuda took a cigarette from the pack in his kimono sleeve and lit it. Glancing at the ashtray, he saw that it was already full of Shikishima butts. He reflected briefly that there could be no more fitting memorial to this evening. Like the others, the cigarette he was about to smoke would be reduced in under three minutes to ash and smoke and a butt that would end up cold and useless in the ashtray — somehow, the thought was dispiriting.

“So what is your little something? I assume you’re not looking for another handout?”

“There you go again, sounding like a cheapskate.”

Gripping the right front of his jacket with his right hand, Kobayashi reached inside his pocket with his left. As though groping for something he fumbled in the pocket, his eyes never leaving Tsuda’s face. Out of nowhere, an outlandish question framed itself in Tsuda’s mind, a bizarre delusion wispy as the smoke from his cigarette.

Is this scoundrel going to take a pistol from his jacket? Does he intend to stick it in my face?

A minute foreboding whispered through him, his nerves trembling like slender branches in an invisible wind. At the same time, regarding as a spectator the scene in the melodrama he had perversely imagined, his mind dismissed it as absurd.

“What are you looking for?”

“There are a lot of things in here; I can’t just pull something out until I know it’s what I want.”

“It would be awkward if it turned out to be the money you stuffed in there before.”

“There’s no mistaking the money. The money isn’t dead paper, it’s alive. It jumps like a fish when I touch it.”

Talking nonsensically the while, he withdrew an empty hand.

“I can’t find it — how weird.”

Kobayashi thrust his right hand into his left vest pocket but produced only a soiled handkerchief.

“You’re planning to do magic tricks with that?”

Kobayashi paid no attention. With a serious look on his face, he stood, patted both hips at once, and then exclaimed “Here it is.”

From his hip pocket he withdrew a letter.

“I’d like you to read this. And since we won’t be seeing each other for a while, it has to be tonight. Please have a look while I wrap up with Hara-kun. It’s a bit long, but it shouldn’t be much of a bother.”

Extending his hand mechanically, Tsuda took the letter.