Light and dark

[47]

UNEXPECTEDLY, O-NOBU found herself thinking about Tsuda as a self-centered man. Despite the fact that she extended to him from morning to night what she intended to be the fullest extent of kindness and consideration she was capable of, was there no limit to the sacrifice her husband required? The question that nagged at her perennially now broke into her thoughts in vivid color. Aware that the sole responsible party capable of addressing this doubt was at that moment right in front of her eyes, she looked at Okamoto’s wife. With her parents residing far away, Aunt Okamoto was the only person in all of Tokyo on whom she could rely.

Is a husband nothing more than a sponge who exists solely to soak up a wife’s tenderness?

This was the question she had long wanted to ask her aunt face to face. Unfortunately, she carried within herself inherently a variety of pride. And this hauteur, as it were, which might be interpreted, depending on the viewpoint, as either grim forbearance or simple vanity, constrained her powerfully when it came to this matter. In a relationship between husband and wife that was in a certain sense like two sumo wrestlers facing each other daily in the arena, the woman observed from inside by the two combatants was invariably her husband’s opponent and sometimes even his enemy, but when presenting to the outside, it was O-Nobu’s nature to feel painfully embarrassed, as if she were exposing the weakness of a couple who had been decorously united in the eyes of the world, unless she appeared to take her husband’s side in all things. Accordingly, even when she felt the need to reveal something that was tormenting her, in the presence of this aunt, who, after all, from the couple’s point of view, belonged in the category of others, she was reluctant, fearing in her tremulous way what it might lead her to think about herself and her husband, to speak up. In addition, she worried constantly that her husband’s failure to requite her kindness with the kindness she expected of him might be interpreted as a consequence of her own inadequacy. Among all the rumors about her that might circulate, she most feared, as if it were fire, being labeled “thick.”

There are young women about who hold men far more difficult than Tsuda in the palm of their hands, and here you are, twenty-three years old and unable to tame your husband — it’s because you lack the wisdom.

For O-Nobu, who held that wisdom and virtue were as good as identical, words like these coming from her aunt would have been more painful than anything. To confess as a woman that she had no skill with a man would be no less demeaning, wounding her self-esteem, than the confession that she was a human being unable to function as one. An intensely personal conversation of this sort was impossible at the theater, but even at a different time and place, O-Nobu would have had no choice but to hold her tongue. Having looked at her aunt expectantly, she quickly averted her eyes.

The curtain on front of the stage rippled, and someone peered out into the audience through the narrow opening between the seams. O-Nobu, feeling as if the eyes were looking in her direction, shifted her gaze yet again.

The audience came murmuringly to life all at once as people left their seats or returned to them or moved back and forth in the aisles. The majority, who remained seated, shifted their positions in every direction, incessantly moving: the countless dark heads below them appeared to eddy. Some were dressed gaily, and the shifting panorama of bright color revealed glimpses of a restless pleasure.

Taking her eyes off the orchestra, O-Nobu began to inspect the seats across the pit on the far side of the house. Just then, Yuriko turned around and spoke unexpectedly.

“Mrs. Yoshikawa is sitting over there — do you see her?”

Directing a somewhat surprised glance in the direction Yuriko was indicating, O-Nobu easily identified a figure that seemed to be Madam Yoshikawa.

“Yuriko-san, you have eyes like a hawk — when did you notice her?”

“I didn’t have to notice — I knew she was here.”

“Did Auntie and Tsugiko-san know too?”

“We all did.”

As she continued to stare from behind Tsugiko in Mrs. Yoshikawa’s direction, realizing that only she hadn’t known, the binoculars in the matron’s hand were abruptly turned on her, accidentally or on purpose, she couldn’t say.

“I hate being looked at that way.”

O-Nobu shrank into herself as if to hide. Even so, the binoculars across the theater remained trained on her.

“Fine. I’ll just run away.”

As if in pursuit of Tsugiko, O-Nobu stepped into the corridor.