Light and dark

[22]

“HOW’S YOUR father?”

“Dunno—”

“Same as usual?”

“I guess — I dunno.”

Tsuda had no memory of his own psychology at around the age of ten and was a little surprised by this response. He smiled uncomfortably and, aware of his own ignorance, said nothing. The child for his part was intent on the magician. The latter, whose outfit appeared to have been stitched together in a single night, was just proclaiming at the top of his lungs, “Watch carefully folks as we conjure up another.”

Pulling the bag through his fist as if to wring it out, he mimed deftly once again throwing something into it and proceeded to produce magnificently a second egg from the bottom. As if this weren’t enough, he turned the bag inside out and displayed, apparently without embarrassment, the filthy striped lining inside. Even so, a third egg was effortlessly manifested with the same gestures. Handling it gingerly as though it were a valuable object, he placed it carefully on the ground alongside the others.

“Folks, I can show you as many of these as I please. But that wouldn’t be much fun, so let’s see what we can do about a live chicken.”

Tsuda turned around to his uncle’s child.

“Let’s go, Makoto. Uncle Tsuda’s on his way to your place.”

To Makoto, a live chicken was more important than Tsuda.

“You go — I want to watch.”

“He’s lying — you won’t see any live chicken if you watch all day.”

“How come? He did all those eggs, didn’t he?”

“Eggs aren’t chickens. He says that to trick people into staying around.”

“What for?”

Tsuda didn’t know the answer himself. Impatient now, he turned to leave, but Makoto took hold of his kimono sleeve.

“Uncle. Buy me something.”

Tsuda, who customarily escaped with a promise of “next time” whenever the boy pestered him and invariably forgot his promise on the next visit, replied in the usual manner.

“I will—”

“A car!”

“A car’s too large!”

“A small one — seven yen, fifty sen.”

Seven yen, fifty was most certainly too large for Tsuda. Without replying, he began to walk away.

“You promised last time and the time before — you’re a worse liar than that egg man.”

“He can do eggs, but there’s no way he can do a live chicken.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do — he can’t produce a chicken.”

“And Uncle Tsuda can’t even buy a car.”

“Hmm — maybe not. I’ll buy you something else.”

“Kid-leather shoes, then.”

Surprised, Tsuda walked a few feet in silence. Lowering his gaze, he looked at Makoto’s feet. There was nothing so shameful about his shoes, but they were a curious color somehow, neither brown nor black exactly.

“They were red until Father dyed them.”

Tsuda laughed aloud. It amused him that Fujii had dyed his son’s red shoes black. His impulse was to construe comically his uncle’s solution in his straitened circumstances to having provided his son with red shoes in ignorance of school regulations. He stared at the outcome of this extreme measure with an uncomfortable expression on his face.