Light and dark

[3]

TURNING THE corner and entering a narrow street, Tsuda recognized the figure of his wife standing in front of the gate to their house. She was looking in his direction. But as he rounded the corner she turned back to the street in front of her. Lifting her slender, white hand as if to shadow her brow, she appeared to be looking up at something. She maintained the stance until Tsuda had moved to her side.

“What are you looking at?”

As if surprised by his voice, Tsuda’s wife quickly turned to face him.

“You startled me — welcome home.”

As she spoke, she turned her sparkling eyes on him and drenched him in their light. Then, bending forward slightly she dipped her head in a casual greeting. Tsuda halted where he stood, half responding to the coquette in her and half hesitating.

“What are you doing standing here?”

“I was waiting — for you to come home.”

“But you were staring at something.”

“A sparrow. You can see the sparrow nesting under the eaves across the street.”

Tsuda glanced up at the roof of the house. But there was no visible sign of anything that appeared to be a sparrow. His wife abruptly extended her hand toward him.

“What?”

“Your stick.”

As if he had just noticed it, Tsuda handed the cane to his wife. Taking it, she slid open the lattice door at the entrance and moved aside for her husband to enter. Close behind him, she stepped up to the wooden floor from the concrete slab for shoes.

When she had helped him change out of his kimono, she brought from the kitchen a soap dish wrapped in a towel as he was sitting down in front of the charcoal brazier.

“Go and have a quick bath now. Once you get comfortable there you won’t feel like going out.”

Tsuda had no choice but to reach out and take the towel. But he didn’t stand right away.

“I might skip a bath today.”

“Why? You’ll feel refreshed. And dinner will be ready as soon as you get back.”

Tsuda stood up again as he was told. On his way out of the room he turned back toward his wife.

“I stopped in at Kobayashi’s on the way home from work and had him take a look.”

“Goodness! What did he say? By now you must be mostly better?”

“I’m not — it’s worse than before.”

Without giving his wife a chance to question him further, he left the room.

It wasn’t until early that evening, after dinner and before he had withdrawn to his study, that the couple returned to the subject.

“I can’t believe it, surgery is horrible; it scares me. Couldn’t you just ignore it as you’ve been doing?”

“The doctor says that would be dangerous.”

“But it’s so hateful, what if he makes a mistake?”

His wife looked at him, bunching slightly her thick, well-formed eyebrows. Tsuda smiled, declining to engage her. Her next question seemed to have occurred to her abruptly.

“If you do have surgery won’t it have to be on Sunday?”

On the coming Sunday his wife had made a date with relatives to see a play and bring Tsuda along.

“They haven’t bought tickets yet so you needn’t worry about canceling.”

“But wouldn’t that be rude? After they were kind enough to invite us along?”

“Not at all. Not under the circumstances.”

“But I want to go!”

“Then do.”

“And you come too, won’t you? Won’t you, please?”

Tsuda looked at his wife and forced a smile.