Light and dark

[53]

FOR A while the table was engrossed in stories about travel abroad that centered on Miyoshi. Whenever there was a lull, Madam provided an opportunity for someone to pick up the thread of the conversation, and O-Nobu, observing her skillfully at work, saw through to the effort she was making to push the unknown young man into the center of attention. Miyoshi, more taciturn than merely placid and unaware that he was being borne aloft on the fluency of someone kindly disposed toward him, was presenting himself to the others in his most appealing light.

There was no room for O-Nobu to put in a single word of her own. Nonetheless, while the natural course of the conversation consigned her to the position of attentive listener, her critical faculty was actively engaged. Perceiving that Madam’s technique included a blend of frankness and presumption, and seeing clearly each step of the procedure by which she moved her strategy toward success, O-Nobu had to acknowledge that a vast distance separated Madam Yoshikawa’s temperament and her own. But she sensed that this was not a matter of superior and inferior, but a distance across a flat surface. That was far from meaning, however, that there was nothing to fear from it. Quite apart from her imperiousness, which seemed to come from the privileged status she enjoyed, there was, O-Nobu sensed uneasily, something dangerous about Madam’s skill, as if a time might come when it would be accompanied by a frightening power of destruction.

I wonder if I’m imagining things?

As O-Nobu pursued her thoughts, the lady shifted her attention back to her.

“Nobuko-san looks dismayed. Because I’m talking so much.”

Taken by surprise, O-Nobu felt overwhelmed. Heretofore she had never found herself at a loss for something appropriate to say to Tsuda, but at this moment her wisdom failed her. A hollow smile was all she could bring to filling the emptiness of the moment. But that was merely a display of counterfeit charm that served no purpose.

“Not at all. It’s been fascinating,” she said finally, realizing that the moment had come and gone. A bitter feeling of having bungled it again rose in her throat. She had told herself that today would be the day to restore herself in Mrs. Yoshikawa’s good graces; now her resolve withered. The lady in question, changing her tone so swiftly it seemed cruel, turned at once to Okamoto.

“Okamoto-san, it’s been some time, hasn’t it, since you returned from your travels in foreign countries.”

“Well, past history certainly.”

“When you say past history, what year are we talking about?”

“Let me think — in the Western calendar—”

Was it to be expected or just an accident? O-Nobu’s uncle deliberated pretentiously.

“Around the time of the Franco-Prussian War?”*

“Are you joking? I happen to remember taking your good husband here on a guided tour of London.”

“So you weren’t behind the barricades in Paris?”

“Certainly not.”

Having wound up at a suitable juncture Miyoshi’s exploits in foreign lands, Madam had quickly shifted the subject to another, closely related topic that obliged her husband to ally himself with Okamoto.

“At any rate, automobiles had just come out, and every time one rattled by people would turn and stare at it.”

“It was in the days when those beastly slow buses were popular.”

While beastly slow buses meant nothing to the others, who had never availed themselves of this mode of transportation, it appeared that the friends reminiscing about the past were vaguely stirred by the memory of them. Okamoto, looking from Tsugiko to Miyoshi, turned to Yoshikawa with a wry smile.

“We’ve aged, you and I. I don’t notice it normally, I carry on as if I were still young, but when I sit here beside my daughter it gets me thinking—”

“Then you should always be sitting at this child’s side.”

O-Nobu’s aunt turned at once to her uncle. And her uncle replied at once.

“You’re right. When I came back from Europe she was only—”

Pausing, he reflected and spoke again.

“How old was she, anyway?”

When O-Nobu’s aunt remained silent, the look on her face seeming to say that such a careless question didn’t merit a reply, Yoshikawa spoke up from the side.

“It won’t be long now until they’re calling you ‘the old man.’ You’d better watch out.”

Tsugiko colored and cast her eyes down. Madam immediately looked at her husband.

“But at least Okamoto-san is lucky enough to have a living watch that keeps track of his age. But you have no device for self-reflection, so you’re always acting up.”

“Maybe so, but the good news is I stay young forever.”

At this the table laughed aloud.

* The Franco-Prussian War was fought from 1870 to 1871.