Light and dark

[89]

O-TOKI FORTUNATELY remained downstairs, enabling O-Nobu to cry unobserved. When she had cried to her heart’s content, her tears naturally abated.

Stuffing her wet handkerchief back into her sleeve, she abruptly opened the desk drawers. There were two of them. But a methodical examination of their contents turned up nothing new of any interest. That was to be expected: she had already rummaged through the same drawers two or three days earlier, when Tsuda had gone to the clinic, looking for the things he had wanted to take along. Removing what was left, envelopes, a ruler, receipts for lectures he had paid to attend, she carefully replaced them one by one. A small pamphlet advertising Panamas and other sorts of straw hats with lithographs of each recalled an early summer evening when they had gone shopping on the Ginza. Tsuda had brought the booklet of samples home from a store where they had gone to buy a summer hat; distant associations seemed to cling to the pages like the fragrance of past days, the fiery red azalea blossoms in Hibiya Park, the tall, luxuriant willow trees and the pale shadows they cast on one side of the boulevard leading to Kasumigaseki visible in the distance. O-Nobu sat for a while with the booklet open in front of her, deep in thought. Then, as though suddenly resigned, she slammed the drawers shut.

Alongside the desk was a Secession bookshelf in the same functional, rectilinear style. It also had two drawers, but as both slid open with no resistance when she tried the ring handles she felt disappointment in advance of examining them. A place so easily accessed was unlikely to reveal a new discovery. She riffled idly the pages of bound volumes like notebooks filled with writing from the past. Reading each page would be a task. Nor could she imagine that the things she wanted to know would be lurking in these jottings. She was well aware of her husband’s cautious nature. His extreme fastidiousness would not permit him to strew secrets about without placing them under lock and key.

Opening the doors of the cabinet, O-Nobu looked to see if there was anything locked. But it was empty. Sundry papers and booklets and other junk had been stacked carelessly on top of it. The space beneath was jammed with wooden storage boxes.

Turning back to the desk, O-Nobu selected from the rack on top of it a number of letters that had arrived addressed to Tsuda and began to examine them. She felt certain more or less that nothing suspicious would have been left in a place like this. Nonetheless, these letters, which she had noticed right away and refrained from touching, had continued to beckon her interest, drawing attention to themselves as requiring, after all, perusal before she was finished. Telling herself that this was just for the sake of thoroughness, she had finally felt obliged to reach for them.

One by one the envelopes were turned over and the letters unrolled in order as she came to them. Some were quarter sheets, some halves, the rest were full size, but all were read by O-Nobu in silence. When she was finished she returned them to their original places in the order in which she had read them.

Of a sudden, a flame of suspicion ignited in her breast. An image of Tsuda pouring oil on a packet of old letters and carefully incinerating them in the garden rose vividly to her mind. As scraps of blazing paper fluttered into the air, he had pinned them to the ground with a bamboo pole as if afraid they would get away. The cold wind of early autumn had just begun to knife into the skin. It was a Sunday morning. The scene had occurred not five minutes after they had finished breakfast, facing each other across their trays. Putting aside his chopsticks, Tsuda had gone straight upstairs and had returned carrying a package bound with narrow cord; by the time she noticed he had stepped into the garden, circling around by way of the kitchen, he had set the package on fire. The heavy wrapper was already charred when she stepped out to the engawa, the letters inside it just visible. O-Nobu had asked why he was burning the package. Because it was bulky and a nuisance to dispose of, he had replied. When she inquired why he didn’t save it for scrap paper that would be useful when she was putting up her hair and at other times, he hadn’t replied. Instead, he continued to jab away with the bamboo pole at the letters appearing from the bottom of the package. Each time he stabbed at the smoldering package, thick smoke obscured the end of the pole and the burning letters. Gasping, Tsuda had turned his face away from O-Nobu….

Until O-Toki came upstairs to urge her to come down to lunch, O-Nobu pursued these thoughts, sitting as motionlessly as a doll on a stand.