Light and dark

[27]

AT A time like this, if Tsuda had been able to volunteer to cover even half the expense, the Fujiis, who had looked after him one way or the other for years, would certainly have deemed that a satisfactory recompense. At present, however, the most he was capable of by way of demonstrating sympathy for his aunt and uncle was to purchase the kid-leather shoes Makoto longed to wear. Even that, in accordance with the dictates of his wallet, must be put aside for the time being and carefully considered. As for begging Kyoto for an accommodation and using it to add a degree of luster to their finances, this was a kindness he was not inclined to undertake. His reluctance was partly due to his certainty that explaining the circumstances to his father would no more move him to action than his uncle could be induced to accept a loan if one were offered. He was left bound up in his own impatience about the money order arriving from Kyoto and displayed no sign of feeling much moved by his aunt’s complaint. Whereupon she spoke again.

“Yoshio-san. What were you thinking then, when you took a wife?”

“I wasn’t joking, if that’s what you’re getting at. I may not be much, but you do me an injustice if you conclude I’m such a lightweight that my feet are floating above the ground.”

“I know you were serious. I don’t doubt you were being genuine, but there are degrees of genuineness—”

These words, which some might have taken as insulting, Tsuda attended with curiosity.

“Then why don’t you tell me how I seem to you. Please say what you really think.”

His aunt lowered her gaze and half smiled, fiddling with the unstitched kimono fabric. For some reason, possibly because she wasn’t looking him in the face, he felt suddenly uncomfortable. But he knew there was no danger of allowing his aunt to overwhelm him.

“You might be surprised how serious I can be when it’s necessary.”

“You’re a man after all. There must be a part of you that’s put together properly or you couldn’t survive at work every day. Even so—”

His aunt started to say something and, as if she had suddenly thought better of it, changed course.

“Enough of that. There’s no point in discussing it after all this time.”

Folding carefully the piece of red silk she had been ironing, she put it away in a thickly glazed paper wrapper. Seeing then the somehow deflated look on Tsuda’s face, an expression that managed to signal that he was feeling ungratified, she observed, as though having abruptly realized it for the first time, “Yoshio-san, in general you’re too extravagant.”

She had been scolding Tsuda about this implacably since the day he had graduated from college. He had never doubted that she was right. Nor had he ever considered it such a very bad thing.

“I’m a bit extravagant, yes—”

“Not just your clothes and food. You’re a showy, extravagant person at heart and that’s a problem. You’re like a man who constantly peers around the corner looking for the next delicious thing to eat and always wants more.”

“You make me sound like a beggar.”

“Not a beggar. But you do appear to be someone who isn’t naturally serious enough. It would be nice, admirable even, if you could learn to feel content with an ordinary portion of life.”

At that moment, Tsuda felt the shadow of his aunt’s daughters, cousins to him, graze his mind. Both were already married. The elder had accompanied her husband to Taiwan when they married four years ago and still resided there. The younger, who had become a bride just recently, around the time of his own wedding, had been taken off to Fukuoka immediately after the ceremony. Fujii’s firstborn son also happened to be in Fukuoka, where he had matriculated at Kyushu University just this year.

In Tsuda’s eyes, though he was in a position to have married easily either one he chose, neither of these cousins had been appropriate candidates for his wife. So he had moved on as though oblivious. Reviewing his attitude at the time in light of his aunt’s remarks, he could find nothing in particular to be guilty about, which allowed him to face her with equanimity. Just then she rose abruptly and, opening the lid of a Chinese trunk inside the armoire, put away the lacquered paper parcel of fabric.