Light and dark

[187]

PRESENTLY HE looked up again.

“It feels as though we’re arguing. I didn’t come here to argue with you.”

Kiyoko replied.

“I certainly didn’t mean for that to happen. I got swept away somehow, it wasn’t on purpose.”

“I know it wasn’t. Maybe it’s my fault for grilling you.”

“Maybe so.”

Once again, Kiyoko smiled. Discovering in her smile the same easiness he had identified before, Tsuda could forbear no longer.

“As long as we seem to be doing questions and answers, would you answer just one more?”

“Of course. Anything.”

The reply issued from someone prepared to respond to whatever question Tsuda wished to pose. That in itself disappointed him not a little before he had spoken.

She’s already forgotten everything, this woman.

Even as the thought formed, he recognized that this was characteristic. He felt a need to confirm this.

“You went pale last night, didn’t you, at the top of the stairs?”

“I suppose so. I couldn’t see my own face so I don’t know, but if you say I did, I must have.”

“Really? So I’m still not a total liar in your eyes? I’m grateful for that. So you’ll accept the facts as I perceive them?”

“Whether I accept them or not, if I truly went pale what can I say?”

“Exactly — and I think you also tensed.”

“Yes, I could feel that myself. It was so bad I felt I might collapse if I stood there any longer.”

“In other words, you were shocked.”

“Yes, I was utterly surprised.”

“Which is why—” Interrupting himself, Tsuda looked down at Kiyoko’s hands as, bending slightly forward, she carefully peeled an apple. The transformation, the lusciously colored skin curling under the knife and dropping to reveal gradually the pale, juicy whiteness of the fruit, recalled for Tsuda a time that was already more than a year in the past.

Can this be the woman who used to peel an apple for me just this way, in this same posture, in those days?

The way she held the knife and moved her fingers, her elbows almost touching her knees and her long kimono sleeves flaring open, everything was a replica of how it had been except for a single difference he noticed right away. A beautiful twin-stone ring adorned her finger. Nothing separated them so incontrovertibly as the glittering brilliance of those small gems. Gazing at the pliant movement of her fingers, Tsuda was lulled into a reminiscence like a dream in the midst of which, rapt as he was, he couldn’t avoid acknowledging the bright flash of a warning.

He quickly looked away from Kiyoko’s hands and glanced at her hair. The hairstyle the maid had alleged to have helped her with that morning was the conventional “eaves,” hair gathered in a bun on either side of her head. There was nothing unusual about her darkly lustrous hair except that it retained the regular, vertical furrows left by the teeth of the comb.

Resolved, Tsuda began again where he had left off.

“Which is why I’m wondering—”

Kiyoko didn’t look up. Tsuda continued anyway, undaunted.

“I’m wondering, since you were shocked last night, how you’re able to be so composed this morning.”

Kiyoko responded without lifting her eyes.

“Why? Why does that matter?”

“I ask because I don’t understand what’s going on psychologically.”

Once again, Kiyoko replied without looking at Tsuda.

“I wouldn’t know about psychologically. Last night was last night, this morning is now. That’s all there is to it.”

“That’s the only explanation?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Tsuda felt inclined to heave a sigh at this point, but he lacked the courage to protest in this manner, and he was further impeded by his sense that theatrics would avail him nothing with this woman.

“But isn’t it true that you didn’t get up at your usual time today?”

“Goodness! How do you know that?”

“A little bird told me.”

Kiyoko glanced at Tsuda and quickly lowered her eyes again. As she spoke, she cut into slices the apple she had beautifully pared.

“Is it that magic nose of yours? It appears to be very keen after all.”

There was no telling whether this remark was intended mockingly or in earnest, and it made Tsuda wince.

Kiyoko finished slicing the apple and moved the plate toward him.

“Have some, Yoshio-san — apples are your favorite.”