Light and dark

[87]

SITTING ON the engawa, O-Toki slid open the shoji screen from the outside.

“I’m back. Sorry it took so long — I had to take the trolley all the way to the hospital.”

O-Nobu looked at O-Toki a little angrily.

“You didn’t phone?”

“Oh yes I did—”

“You couldn’t get through?”

As questions followed answers, O-Nobu gradually grasped the reason for O-Toki’s trip to the hospital. At first her call had not gone through, and even when it finally did she had been unable to communicate her purpose. She had asked for the nurse, thinking to request her to convey the message, but even this attempt had failed. The student apprentice or the pharmacist or whoever it was who had taken the call had said this and that, but nothing that made any sense. To begin with, the voice was indistinct, and even what she could hear clearly made no sense. When it began to seem that the man on the other end of the line had not taken her question to Tsuda, she had given up and left the telephone box. But she was loathe to return to the house with her errand unaccomplished and had hurried straight to the streetcar.

“I thought about coming home first and asking, but that would just take more time, and since I knew you had a visitor waiting—”

O-Toki’s explanation was reasonable. O-Nobu ought to have thanked her. But when she considered the suffering at Kobayashi’s hands her thoughtful maid had caused her, she felt all the more resentful.

Rising, she went into the sitting room and opened the bottom drawer of the tansu with shiny brass hinges installed just inside the door. Removing the overcoat in question from the bottom of the drawer, she placed it in front of Kobayashi.

“You mean this?”

“Yes indeed.” Kobayashi reached for the coat at once and flipped it over, examining it with the eye of a dealer in second-hand clothing.

“I didn’t expect it to be so worn—”

“It’s plenty good enough for you!” O-Nobu wanted to say, peering at the coat in silence. As Kobayashi had observed, it was somewhat faded. This was conspicuously evident when the collar was folded back and the cloth beneath it was compared with the rest.

“I suppose I can’t expect too much since I’m getting it for nothing.”

“If it doesn’t suit you feel free to—”

“Are you suggesting I should leave it?”

“Yes.”

As expected, Kobayashi retained his hold on the coat. O-Nobu was thrilled.

“Mrs. T — would it be all right if I just tried it on?”

“Go right ahead.”

O-Nobu’s reply was intentionally the opposite of what she was thinking. Sitting where she was, she watched cynically as Kobayashi struggled to force his arms through sleeves that appeared too tight.

“How does it look?” Kobayashi turned his back to O-Nobu. The multiple creases where the garment had been folded were unsightly. Once again, instead of suggesting, as she should have, that the coat needed ironing, O-Nobu moved in the opposite direction.

“It seems perfect.”

As there was no one else in the room, O-Nobu felt deprived of the chance to exchange eye-to-eye with someone a smile at the ludicrous figure of a back that had been offered her as an opportunity for ridicule.

Just then Kobayashi turned smartly around and, still wearing the coat, sat himself heavily down facing O-Nobu with his legs crossed.

“Mrs. T! People may make fun of me because I’m wearing something odd, but it’s still good to be alive.”

“Is that so?”

O-Nobu fell stubbornly silent.

“That’s maybe hard to understand for someone like yourself who’s never known hardship.”

“Is that so? Personally I’d prefer to be dead than have people laughing at me while I’m alive.”

Kobayashi did not reply. Then suddenly he spoke.

“I thank you. Thanks to you I’ll manage to stay alive this winter.”

He stood up. O-Nobu also rose.

But as they were about to follow each other out to the engawa, Kobayashi wheeled around.

“Mrs. T! If that’s how you feel, you’d better take care never to be laughed at!”