Light and dark

[184]

AT THAT point Kiyoko held the basket out to the maid. Not knowing what she was to do with it, the maid extended her hand mechanically and took it, saying nothing. While this simple interaction occurred between them, Tsuda had to stand where he was. But instead of the awkwardness that such a moment would normally have created, he felt at ease, untroubled in any way. He interpreted what he saw as merely a continuation of the languid behavior that was consonant with the Kiyoko he knew. Accordingly the confusion he was feeling about what he remembered of the night before doubled in intensity. Why had this imperturbable woman paled? Why had she gone rigid? No matter how he thought about it, there was no reconciling the extremity of her surprise then and her composure now. He felt like a person who has awakened for the first time in his life to the difference between night and day.

Without waiting to be asked, he sat down on the cushion that had been provided. He then turned his gaze on Kiyoko who, still on her feet, was instructing the maid to arrange the fruit on a plate.

“Thank you for the lovely gift.”

These were her first words to him. The subject shifted perforce from the bearer of the gift to the kindness of the person who had provided it. Having resolved to lie from the moment he used Madam Yoshikawa’s name, Tsuda was no longer even conscious that he was misrepresenting.

“I almost gave the tangerines to an old fellow I met along the way.”

“For heaven’s sake, why?”

It mattered little to Tsuda how he replied.

“The basket was a nuisance, heavy as a piece of luggage.”

“You were carrying it the whole way?”

To Tsuda, this sounded like the brand of naiveté that was typical of Kiyoko.

“Don’t be silly. Unlike you, I’d hardly go to the trouble of lugging something like that out to the engawa and back again and the devil knows where else.”

Kiyoko merely smiled. Her smile offered no justification. In fact, it conveyed a certain nonchalance. Tsuda, having begun with a lie, felt increasingly unconstrained.

“As usual, you look as though you haven’t a care in the world. How wonderful!”

“Thank you.”

“You haven’t changed one bit.”

“Of course not — I’m the same person.”

Hearing this, Tsuda abruptly wanted to say something ironic. Just then the maid, who had been transferring the tangerines to a plate, laughed aloud.

“Why do you laugh?”

“I can’t help it — what Missus said is funny.” Seeing the serious expression on Tsuda’s face, she felt obliged to add a more concrete explanation.

“It just tickled me to think that’s really how it is — everyone stays the same person while they’re alive, and unless they’re reborn, no one changes into anyone else.”

“You’re wrong about that. There are any number of people who are reborn even while they’re still alive.”

“Is that so? If there is such a person I’d like a peek at him.”

“I’d be happy to introduce you to one.”

“I’d be obliged.” The maid laughed again. “I reckon this is how you find them.” She brought her forefinger to the tip of her nose.

“You wouldn’t believe this gentleman’s nose. He sniffed his way straight to your room.”

“That’s nothing. I can guess your age, your hometown, where you’re registered, you name it. All with this sniffer.”

“That’s enough to give a person a fright. I’ve never met the likes of you, Sir.”

So saying, the maid rose. On her way out of the room, she took a parting shot at Tsuda.

“You must be wicked good at hunting.”

Left to themselves in the sunlit room, they were suddenly silent. Tsuda was facing into the sun. Kiyoko was turned away from the light, her back to the engawa. From where he sat, the folds of the mountains rising in the distance in heaping tiers allowed him to see so clearly he might have touched them the areas of sun and of shade. The autumn leaves blanketing the slopes also revealed, according to the luster or paleness of their colors, a brilliant mountainscape of light and dark. While Tsuda’s field of vision was panoramic, there was nothing at all for Kiyoko to see but the shoji on the northern side of the room partially obstructed by Tsuda’s figure. But her restricted field of vision didn’t appear to bother her. Despite circumstance that O-Nobu could not have refrained from correcting, she was, if anything, tranquil.

In contrast to the previous evening, her face was somewhat redder than what Tsuda knew to be her normal complexion. But that might be interpreted as the physiological effect of the strong autumn sunlight falling directly upon her. Such was Tsuda’s thought as he shifted his gaze away from the mountains to Kiyoko’s flushed earlobes. They were thin. The position of her head was such that the sun struck her ears from behind, and Tsuda had the feeling the light reaching him had been filtered through her bloodstream on its way.