Light and dark

[29]

TSUDA’S AUNT reappeared from the kitchen, where she had withdrawn at some point to rattle plates and bowls with help from O-Kin and the scullery maid.

“Yoshio-san, please stay for dinner, it’s been such a long time.”

Tsuda declined on grounds that he was going in for treatment in the morning and rose to leave.

“We were expecting only Kobayashi so there may not be a ton of food to go around, but you should stay and keep us company.”

Unused to being spoken to this way by his uncle, Tsuda felt strangely moved and sat back down to stay.

“Is something going on today?”

“Not exactly…. Kobayashi here—”

Uncle Fujii stopped and looked at Kobayashi, who grinned as if pleased with himself.

“Has something happened to you?”

“I wouldn’t say happened — in any event, when things are settled I’ll come over to your place and explain in detail.”

“As you know, I’ll be in the hospital beginning tomorrow.”

“Not a problem. I’ll make it a sick call while I’m at it.”

Kobayashi persisted, asking for the location of the hospital and the doctor’s name very much as if this were knowledge he crucially required. Learning that the doctor’s name was the same as his own, Kobayashi, he remarked “Oh! He must be Hori-san’s—” and abruptly fell silent. Hori was Tsuda’s brother-in-law. Kobayashi was aware that he had recently been to see this doctor in the neighborhood for an ailment of a very particular nature.

Tsuda felt he wouldn’t mind hearing the details Kobayashi had referred to. It seemed likely they had to do with O-Kin’s marriage, to which his aunt had alluded. And it seemed possible they might not. Though Kobayashi’s pointed vagueness had somewhat aroused Tsuda’s curiosity, in the end he didn’t extend an explicit invitation to visit him at the hospital.

When, on grounds that he was going in for surgery, he refrained from touching the dishes his aunt had specially prepared, meat and fish and even the rice steamed with mushrooms he was usually so fond of, even she appeared uncharacteristically to feel sorry for him and sent O-Kin out for the bread and milk he was allowed to have. Tsuda winced to himself at the thought of the doughy bread made locally, which stuck in the spaces between his teeth as if held there by glue, but fearing a little to be labeled extravagant yet again, he merely gazed docilely at O-Kin’s back as she left the room. When she was gone, his aunt said to his uncle in front of everyone,

“It would be so wonderful if that child’s engagement were resolved this time.”

“It will be.” Fujii’s response was unhesitating.

“Things seem extremely promising.”

Kobayashi’s comment was also buoyant. Only Tsuda and Makoto remained silent.

When Tsuda heard the suitor’s name, he had the feeling he had met him once or twice at his uncle’s house, but he retained no memory of him.

“Does O-Kin-san know him?”

“She knows what he looks like. She’s never spoken to him.”

“So he’s never spoken to her either—”

“Of course not.”

“It’s amazing a marriage can happen that way.”

Tsuda was confident that his logic was irrefragable; as a demonstration of his confidence to the others, he assumed an expression more confounded than aghast.

“How should it happen? You think everyone must behave just as you did when you were married?”

His uncle’s tone of voice as he turned to Tsuda suggested his mood had soured a little. Tsuda felt some regret; his response had been directed to his aunt.

“That’s not it at all. I didn’t mean to suggest there was anything unfortunate about a marriage being decided under those circumstances. As long as things are settled, the circumstances make no difference.”