Light and dark

[43]

THE NURSE followed him out of the procedure room.

“How are you doing? You’re not feeling ill or anything?”

“No — do I look pale?”

Somewhat concerned himself, Tsuda couldn’t help asking. His wound had been stuffed with the maximum quantity of gauze that would fit inside it, and the feeling of oppressiveness it produced was beyond what anyone could have imagined. The best he could manage was a languid shuffle. Even so, climbing the stairs it felt as though the gauze and his torn flesh were rubbing abrasively.

O-Nobu was waiting at the head of the stairs. The minute she saw Tsuda, she called out.

“It’s over? How did you do?”

Tsuda entered the room without venturing a clear reply. As he had expected, a futon mattress wrapped in a white sheet had been unfolded on the floor to its full length, beckoning him to recline in comfort. Throwing off his kimono jacket, he stretched out on it. With a wan, deflated smile, O-Nobu, who had been holding up by the collar with both hands the silk jacket padded with gray flannel she had sewn for him with the intention of helping him into it from behind, folded it once again and placed it at the foot of his mattress.

“Is he taking any medicine?”

O-Nobu addressed the nurse, turning to her.

“Nothing orally. I’ll be bringing his meal in just a minute.”

The nurse turned to leave.

Tsuda abruptly broke his silence without getting up.

“O-Nobu — if you want something to eat you should tell the nurse.”

“Yes—” O-Nobu hesitated.

“I’m wondering what to do—”

“It’s already past noon.”

“Yes — it’s twelve-thirty. Your surgery took exactly twenty-eight minutes.”

Springing the lid on her watch and looking at its face, O-Nobu announced the time precisely. All the while that Tsuda had been submissively enduring, laid out like a fish on a chopping block, O-Nobu, above the ceiling at which he had been obliged to stare, had been keeping track of the time, eyeing her watch as if in a competition to see which would blink first.

Tsuda spoke again.

“There’s no point in going all the way home now.”

“I know—”

“Then why not have them bring some Western food and eat here?”

“I suppose I could—”

O-Nobu’s responses continued to lead nowhere satisfactory. Finally the nurse went back downstairs. Like a man who feels in his fatigue a desire to avoid the stimulus of light, Tsuda closed his eyes. But O-Nobu’s reaction was to call his name repeatedly just above his head, obliging him to open them again.

“Are you feeling poorly?”

“I’m fine.”

Having persisted, O-Nobu immediately added,

“The Okamotos send their best. They intend to drop in shortly, as soon as you feel up to a visit.”

“Is that so?”

Tsuda started to close his eyes again, but O-Nobu wouldn’t allow it. “They insisted I should come along to the theater — would that be all right?”

Little was lost on Tsuda. A light came on his mind that illuminated all of O-Nobu’s behavior since that morning: her choice of an outfit too bright and showy for a trip to the hospital, her protest that today was Sunday, her distraction after arriving at the hospital, and her eagerness to phone Okamoto — all of this he now saw as part of the excitement provoked by a single word, “theater.” Seen from that vantage, it was impossible not to discover a seed of suspicion even in her motive for tracking so meticulously the passage of time the surgery was taking. In silence, Tsuda turned aside. His eye fell on the books, the scissors, the envelopes and stationery neatly piled on the tatami mat in the alcove.

“I asked the nurse for a small desk to put your things on but she hasn’t brought it yet. I put them there for the time being — would you like something to read?”

O-Nobu rose quickly and picked up a book.