Light and dark

[185]

HAD HIS companion been O-Nobu, the question of who would speak first would have been a foregone conclusion. She was a woman who left him no leeway. On the other hand, she was temperamentally incapable of reserving for herself even half that much room to relax. No matter when or where, she pursued with all her might the effect she desired. As a consequence, Tsuda was forced into a passive position. Standing up to her required a convulsive effort that was invariably accompanied by distress and a sense of constriction.

Placing Kiyoko in the picture instead created an entirely different atmosphere. The order of things was abruptly reversed. In the language of sumo wrestling, her charge was triggered by the sound of his voice. Installing her opposite him as an opponent had required him therefore to make the first move. Ten out of ten times that move had come easily to him.

He became sensible of this distinguishing characteristic only after they had been left alone together. With the discovery, his memory of how it had been with her in the past revived. Oddly enough, the feeling of awkwardness he had been anticipating abruptly vanished just as the awkward moment was arriving. Sitting across from her, he took his ease. The feeling was little different from what he had experienced in her presence in the past, before the incident had occurred. He was conscious of it being at least of a similar nature. And so, as in the past, when their conversation had trailed off, it was he who initiated a renewal. The fact that he was able to function with the same feeling as in the past was in itself an unexpected satisfaction.

“How is Seki-kun getting along? Working as hard as ever? I’m afraid I haven’t had a chance to see him at all since then.”

The remark was unconsidered. The wisdom of opening a conversation with an inquiry about Seki warranted reflection — was it in their mutual interest, appropriate in view of the continuing flux of feelings between them until now, or, for that matter, setting aside the personal bias in which those feelings were tangled, natural or unnatural? One thing was certain: in choosing Seki as a topic of conversation in a manner so unlike his habitual prudence, casually and without the slightest concern, Tsuda had quite forgotten the precautions he invariably took when dealing with O-Nobu.

But it was no longer O-Nobu he was dealing with. And it was immediately evident from Kiyoko’s reply that he needn’t worry about having forgotten his inveterate caution.

“He’s well, thank you,” she said, smiling. “Same as ever. We sometimes speak of you.”

“Is that so? I’m so busy all the time I’ve been neglecting everybody.”

“It’s the same at home, Yukio-san. These days it seems a man can’t afford any leisure time. So you sort of drift apart. There’s nothing to be done about it, it’s how life seems to go—”

“Isn’t that so!”

Tsuda wished that instead of replying “Isn’t that so” he had tried instead an inquiry, “Is that so?”

Is that so? You’ve become estranged just being busy? Are you telling me the truth? At that moment these questions, an interrogation, were already hiding silently inside him.

The Kiyoko sitting before him was the same, uncomplicated Kiyoko as ever, or at least a Kiyoko impossible to interpret as otherwise. Certainly she had all the latitude she needed to engage in a conversation between them about Seki. The degree of her simplicity was revealed in her ability to do this without distress. Tsuda had expected this was how it would be yet hadn’t managed to imagine it until now. The satisfaction he derived from encountering his heroine once again just as she had been in the past reached him together with dissatisfaction that she was able, with the same generosity of spirit he remembered, to speak about Seki in front of him so easily.

Why does that bother me?

Tsuda lacked the courage he needed to confront this question squarely. Since Seki was her husband in fact, he was obliged to acknowledge her attitude respectfully. But that was merely on the surface of things, an acknowledgment ventured by a stranger who happened to be passing by. But there was another, privileged point of view. Closer to home, someone altogether different from a casual passerby obstinately stood his ground. Loathe to identify that someone as himself, Tsuda preferred to think of him as a “special person.” By “special” he referred to the difference between a professional and an amateur. Between a savant and an ignoramus. Or between a connoisseur and a philistine. It seemed to him, accordingly, that he had the right to say more than an ordinary man in the street.

It was only a matter of time until his attitude toward Kiyoko, affirmative on the surface and critical underneath, should make an appearance.