Light and dark

[70]

TSUGIKO’S ROOM was unchanged from the days before O-Nobu’s marriage to Tsuda, when it was also hers. The atmosphere from the past when they had sat here at neighboring desks remained in the walls and in the ceiling. The wooden dolls nicely arrayed atop the small cabinet with glass doors were as before. The pincushion embroidered with roses in its wicker basket was as before. The pair of single-stem vases in blue arabesque patterns they had purchased together at Mitsukoshi were as before.

Glancing around her, O-Nobu breathed in the aroma permeating everything of the virgin days she had spent here with Tsugiko. It was an aroma replete with saccharine reveries, and when those reveries had at last resolved themselves with Tsuda as their object, it was she who had danced jubilantly in front of feelings suddenly transformed into vivid flames. She who had assumed, because there was gas, even though it was invisible to her, that a flame had suddenly been lit. She who had concluded there was no need of discriminating in any way between the reverie and reality. Looking back, she saw that more than half a year had passed since that time. At some point it had begun to appear that reverie would, after all, stop at reverie. That reverie, no matter how far it went, was not to be realized. Or at best, that making it come true would prove exceedingly difficult. O-Nobu sighed faintly to herself.

Am I moving away little by little from my tangible self as though it were a pale dream from the past?

With these thoughts in mind, she looked at her cousin seated in front of her. This maiden’s destiny, which would take her down the same path she herself had followed or possibly bring her to a future even more contrary to expectations than her own, would be decided, in a matter of days, by the fall of the dice her uncle held in his hand.

O-Nobu smiled.

“Tsugiko-san, let me draw a lot for you today.”

“Why?

“No special reason. Just let me.”

“But there has to be a goal or it’s meaningless.”

“There does? Let’s choose one then — what would be good?”

“What would be good, how should I know? You have to choose for me.”

Tsugiko couldn’t bring herself to mention marriage. She even appeared troubled that O-Nobu might blurt it out. It was also perfectly clear that she wanted the subject indirectly broached. O-Nobu wanted to make her cousin happy. At the same time, she was unwilling to accept responsibility for something that might become a nuisance afterward.

“How about if I draw and you decide your own question? There has to be something in your heart you want most to know about — make it that, on your own, whatever you want it to be. Do you agree?”

O-Nobu reached for the gift she and Tsuda had bought her, in its usual place on top of Tsugiko’s desk. But Tsugiko moved quickly, gripping her hand.

“Don’t!”

O-Nobu couldn’t withdraw her hand.

“Why not? Let me try. I’ll draw one that will please you.”

O-Nobu, who was emotionally indifferent to the tallies, was possessed abruptly by a desire to play with Tsugiko. The impulse was like an intermediary, helping her recall her maidenly self in the days before her marriage. Employing the strength of her arm to take advantage of another’s weakness vitalized her in a manly way. Having wrested her hand from Tsugiko’s grip, she had already forgotten her original objective. She wanted only to seize the little box of tallies from her cousin’s desk. Or she wanted that merely as a pretext for vying with Tsugiko. They vied. Allowing themselves without embarrassment to cry out in the affected voices that seem to emerge instinctively from women, they lost themselves in playful battle. Finally they managed to upend one of the precious vases on display in front of the writing box. Tumbling offits rosewood stand, the vase fell to the tatami, spilling water as it rolled. The cousins finally released each other. Together in silence they observed the charming vase that had been suddenly dislodged from its natural place. Turning to face each other, as though suddenly gripped by an irresistible impulse, they laughed aloud in unison.