Light and dark

[174]

JUST THEN, oblivious of his surroundings, his gaze directed inwardly, he was startled by the sound of the glass door rattling open. Without thinking, he lifted his head and glanced at the entrance. When he made out through the steam the figure of a woman just partly revealed in the doorway, his heart rang like an alarm bell. But this instant of presentiment faded in the next. This was not the woman who had come to surprise him in the true sense.

Appearing to be ready for bed, this young woman, whom Tsuda couldn’t recall ever having seen, appeared before him clothed in a manner that would have drawn disapproval in broad daylight for insufficient modesty. Her long slip, normally an undergarment entirely hidden beneath the kimono, confronted him unabashedly with its garish colors.

Seeing Tsuda squatting naked in the steam like a beggar, the woman immediately drew back.

“Oh. Sorry!”

Tsuda felt he had been beaten to an apology he should have offered himself. Just then he heard again the sound of slippers coming down the stairs. No sooner had the slippers halted outside the glass door than a conversation between a man and woman commenced.

“What’s going on?”

“There’s someone in there.”

“What about it. As long as it’s not crowded.”

“But—”

“Let’s use a private one, then. They’re probably empty.”

“Where’s Katsu-san, I wonder?”

Tsuda was inclined to finish quickly so the couple could come in. At the same time, something he detected in the woman’s attitude, an insistence that no other tub would do but the one he was using, annoyed him. If you want to bathe in here come ahead, no need to stand on ceremony, he thought to himself, screwing up his courage, and lowered his body into the tub again.

He was a tall man. Extending his long legs luxuriously, he moved them up and down and took pleasure in observing the flesh of his lower limbs rise and sink in the limpid water.

Abruptly a second man spoke, evidently the Katsu-san the woman had been looking for.

“Good evening. You’re so early today.”

It was the man who replied.

“We’re bored, so we thought we might as well go to bed early.”

“Is that so? Have you finished practicing?”

“I wouldn’t say finished exactly.”

The next words were the woman’s.

“Katsu-san, there’s someone in there.”

“There is?”

“Isn’t there a fresh tub?”

“Of course — it might be a little hot yet.”

From down the hall came the sound of another door opening, presumably to the bath Katsu had led them to. Almost at once the door at the entrance to Tsuda’s tub rattled open again.

“Good evening.”

So saying, a small man with a square face entered the room.

“Shall I do your back, Boss?”

Stepping down at once to the sink, he filled a small bucket with hot water from the springs. Tsuda was obliged to present his back to him.

“You must be Katsu-san?”

“One and the same, Boss — how did you know?”

“I heard you mentioned just now.”

“I see. I don’t recollect I’ve seen you down here before.”

“I just got here.”

“Ah!” Katsu exclaimed again and laughed.

“From Tokyo?”

“Right.”

Using words like “inbound” and “outbound,” Katsu pursued a more precise answer. He followed with other questions — Had he come alone? Why hadn’t he brought his wife along? — and provided sundry information: the couple just now were silk-thread dealers from Yokohama; evenings, the wife gave her husband a lesson in puppet theater recitation; his own old lady was a skilled singer of traditional songs. Having been told more than he needed to hear, it seemed to Tsuda that Katsu-san had touched on every subject but one. That subject was of course Ki-yoko. This was more than a little disappointing. But he wasn’t equipped with a means of coaching the man, and in any event before there was time Katsu-san, having run on about this and that, had finished washing and rinsing his back.

“Please take your time.”

Watching Katsu leave the bath, Tsuda felt no need to stay longer. He toweled himself dry and stepped outside. But when he had climbed the stairs with the wet towel in his hand, passed the sink and the mirror at the top, and turned once down a corridor, he realized, as he had feared, that he had lost his way back to his room.