Light and dark

[94]

“THE USUAL again, I suppose?”

It was all Tsuda could think of to say after a brief pause. But his countenance was already declaring as always that he had no desire to hear. O-Hide was angrily aware of this contradiction.

“I said we could talk about it some other time. Then you go out of your way to prompt me and it makes me feel like talking now!”

“Then say what’s on your mind. That’s what you’re here for.”

“But you look so annoyed.”

O-Hide wasn’t a woman to be given pause by a simple look of displeasure, not in front of her brother at any rate. There was accordingly no reason for Tsuda to feel sorry for her. On the contrary, it struck him that this was a creature capable of criticizing him excessively despite the fact that she was his younger sister. Without engaging her in an argument, he leaped ahead.

“Has Kyoto said something again?”

“You might say that.”

Since the almost invariable pattern was that news from Kyoto arrived in duplicate, his letter from their father and hers from their mother, he saw no need of confirming the author of the letter to her. However, in view of current circumstances, he was unable to feel indifferent about its contents. Since he had sent off his second request to Kyoto, the question of whether money would be coming had been constantly on his mind. Despite how careful he was not to talk about the incident they now referred to as “the usual,” he understood better than O-Hide the circumstances that entangled the question with his urgent concern about expenses at the end of the month and the cost of hospitalization in a manner that made it difficult to separate them. And so he felt obliged to step forward with an explicit inquiry.

“What did Mother say?”

“Father must have written to you.”

“He did. You must have a pretty good idea of what that was all about.”

This O-Hide neither affirmed nor denied. She merely allowed the shadow of a faint smile to play about her pretty mouth. It irked Tsuda that the smile appeared tinted by a hint of self-satisfaction at having bested him. At times like this and no other, O-Hide’s beauty, which normally he failed even to notice because it was in the family, affected him uncomfortably. Not for the first time he found himself wondering whether his sister’s uncommon attractiveness mightn’t enhance her ability to make others feel bad. Frequently he wanted to say admonitorily, “I suppose you intend to live your whole life patting yourself on the back for having been chosen for your looks?”

Presently O-Hide turned to Tsuda with her perfectly symmetrical face composed.

“And have you done anything about it?”

“What is there to do?”

“You haven’t said a word to Father?”

Tsuda was silent for a while. His reply seemed hopeless.

“I wrote back.”

“And?”

“And nothing. No reply. There might be something waiting at home, but I won’t know until O-Nobu gets here.”

“But you have some notion of the sort of reply Father is likely to send?”

Tsuda didn’t answer. Groping with one hand beneath the silk collar of the quilted jacket O-Nobu had sewn for him, he withdrew a toothpick and began digging in his front teeth. When O-Hide saw that he was not inclined to break his silence, she tried a different approach to asking the same question.

“Do you think Father will send money?”

“I don’t know.”

Tsuda replied brusquely. And there was anger in his voice as he continued.

“That’s why I’m asking you to tell me what Mother wrote in her letter.”

Averting her eyes, O-Hide looked out at the engawa. This was merely a way to avoid sighing in front of him.

“It’s not as if I’m holding anything back. I’ve been thinking all along it would turn out this way.”