Light and dark

[25]

TSUDA HEARD his uncle’s voice in conversation with someone in the formal drawing room and, noticing through the lattice bars a pair of visitor’s shoes, turned away from the main entrance at once, without opening the front door, and made his way around the house toward the sitting room. The garden that might have been at one time a nursery was neither protected by a wooden gate nor enclosed inside a bamboo fence, so one had only to circumvent the kitchen entrance to a rental house that recently had been erected on the same property to reach the far end of the engawa that ran the length of the house on this side. Passing two or three tall tea bushes that were nonetheless a bit low to afford privacy, and beneath the persimmon tree that remained always vivid in his memory, he discerned his aunt’s figure in its customary place. As a reflection of her profile appeared in the glass set into the shoji, he called to her from outside.

“Hello, Auntie.”

His aunt slid back the shoji at once.

“What happened today?”

Without a word of thanks for the air gun he had bought for her son, she eyed Tsuda doubtfully. This was a woman who could never be accused of affability. On the other hand, depending on the time and the occasion, she was capable of a naturalness that far exceeded the bounds of normal reserve. There were times when her thorough-going naturalness, her innocence of affect, made her seem genderless. Tsuda was constantly comparing his aunt to Madam Yoshikawa. And he was invariably surprised by the difference between them. He marveled at how two women roughly the same age — his aunt had left forty behind three or four years ago — could convey to others such an entirely different feeling.

“I see you’re as charming as ever today.”

“Charming? What do you expect at my age?”

Tsuda sat down on the edge of the engawa. Without inviting him to step up, his aunt continued smoothing the red silk fabric across her lap with a light charcoal iron. Just then the maid, O-Kin, came in from the room next door with a kimono that had been unstitched and bowed to Tsuda, who addressed her at once.

“O-Kin-san, has your engagement been settled? If not, I could introduce you to someone promising—”

O-Kin colored slightly, smiling and nodding her head good-naturedly, and moved toward the engawa with a cushion for Tsuda. Halting her with a wave of his hand, he stepped up and into the room without waiting to be invited.

“Right, Auntie?”

“I suppose,” his aunt murmured absently; as O-Kin poured for Tsuda the obligatory cup of green tea, she looked up.

“O-Kin, you should ask Yoshio to do what he can; this is a good man and he means what he says.”

Unable to flee, O-Kin remained uncomfortably where she was. Tsuda felt obliged to say something more.

“I wasn’t flattering you — I meant it.”

His aunt appeared disinclined to continue the conversation. Just then the sound of Makoto firing his air gun rang out from the rear of the house and she turned toward the noise.

“O-Kin. You’d better go have a look. If he’s using buckshot it could be dangerous.”

Her expression conveyed her disapproval of Tsuda’s unnecessary purchase.

“You needn’t worry; I made sure he knows what not to do.”

“That’s not reassuring. You can bet that child will think it’s amusing to shoot at the chickens next door. Please take the pellets away no matter what he says.”

O-Kin took advantage of the moment to disappear from the sitting room. His aunt pulled the iron from the brazier where she had thrust it to heat up. Tsuda watched idly as the wrinkled silk fabric smoothed and extended on her lap while snatches of the conversation reached his ear from the drawing room.

“By the way, who’s the visitor?”

His aunt looked up as though surprised.

“You’re just noticing now; your hearing must be off. That voice is easy to recognize even from in here.”