Light and dark

[168]

BY THE time he had removed the newspaper O-Nobu had thought to put in his overcoat pocket and begun reading it more attentively than usual, the weather outside the window was worse. It had been drizzling; now it had begun to rain heavily, and the water streaming from the sky, inundating the space visible through the wide window of the train, appeared the more torrential.

Higher up was a thick layer of clouds. On the periphery of the panorama framed by the window, low-hanging clouds like walls hemming in the rain were also visible. Feeling oppressed by the seamless merger of clouds and rain, Tsuda compared the bleakness of the scene outside the window with the comfort inside the pleasantly appointed car. He believed that physical ease and comfort were special prerogatives of civilized man; imagining how it would feel in the afternoon when he would have to venture outside in the pelting rain, he hunched his shoulders in anticipated discomfort. Just then the passenger next to him, a man who appeared to be around forty who had been gazing vacantly at the rain breaking into droplets as it drove against the window and streamed down the glass in rivulets, leaned forward and addressed his companion, facing him with his legs crossed under him on the seat. The sound of the rain on top of the rattling of the train appeared to prevent his friend from catching everything he said.

“It’s pouring. If this keeps up, the tracks on the narrow gauge might loosen up again.”

He had no choice but to speak in a voice so loud that Tsuda could hear him, too.

“I wouldn’t worry any. Mebbe it’s narrow gauge, but it’s not a damn toy you can’t use in the rain — how’d that be for a blessed catastrophe!”

The speaker was an older man, sixty or so perhaps, in a long, woolen Japanese coat. On his head he wore an odd hat without a brim, an exotic article that looked as though it must have been special-ordered at the sort of shop that displayed in its window an artful array of tobacco pouches, Madras fragments, and antique batiks; its owner, judging by the evidence offered mistakably by his speech, had been born and bred in Tokyo. The elder’s vitality belied his outfit, surprising Tsuda, who also found his language, close to the “cockney” argot of downtown workers, unexpected.

The term “narrow gauge,” which had come up in passing, held special significance for Tsuda. He was a convalescent who would be spending a number of hours that afternoon lurching along on the narrow gauge. Thinking that these two might well be heading in the same direction on a vacation, he began eavesdropping. Since there was no room to change seats and they were obliged to lean forward uncomfortably and speak in loud voices, he heard every word.

“I didn’t imagine the weather would turn this bad. It would have been easier if we’d postponed for a day.”

The self-possessed man in the fedora and camel-hair coat had this to say, to which the elder replied at once.

“What’s a dribble of rain? So long as you’re prepared to get wet, it don’t mean a thing.”

“But the luggage is a problem. I hate to think of it on the narrow gauge, outside on the baggage car.”

“Then how about we stay out in the rain and have them put the luggage in our seats?”

They both laughed aloud. Then the elder spoke again.

“Course there was that ruckus a while back. When the boiler blew and we got stuck — talk about this old heart sinking.”

“I forget what happened — how’d you manage to get out?”

“We waited in the mountains for a train a-coming the other way.

Then we used their boiler to pull us up and over.”

“What about the train they pulled the boiler out of?”

“What about it? It wasn’t going nowhere, that’s what.”

“That’s what I’m asking — I can’t imagine they left it there to rust after it rescued you?”

“Now I think about it, I know what you’re saying. At the time we couldn’t be thinking about that other train. It was getting dark, and cold as a blessed knife. I was shivering.”

Gradually a detailed picture formed in Tsuda’s mind. He was even able to predict that the men would be visiting one or another of the three hot springs on the left and right of the narrow-gauge tracks. In the event, if the train he was about to ride for two hours or possibly three was the unreliable hazard they were describing, there was no guarantee, in this rain, that some sort of calamity wouldn’t occur. On the other hand, their account was likely to be colored by the exaggeration that was bred into all Tokyoites. On the verge of inquiring whether the train was the disaster they made it out to be, he remembered this and, with a wry smile, saved himself the trouble of asking a question. Thoughts about the train led him abruptly to Kiyoko. Thinking Even a woman can travel there and back by herself, he paid no further heed to the aimless conversation.