Light and dark

[95]

ACCORDING TO O-Hide’s account of their mother’s letter, his father was angrier than he had expected. It was one thing if Tsuda were to handle the insufficiency at the end of the month; if, however, he insisted that even that was too much for him, his father was apparently deliberating whether to punish him by withholding future remittances as well for at least the time being. If that were true, it would have to mean that his recent references to repairing a fence or delinquent rental payments had been lies. Even if they weren’t exactly lies, they would need be considered glib excuses. But why had his father found it necessary to put him off with transparent excuses as if he were a stranger? If he were angry, why not scold him like a man?

Tsuda sank into thought. His father’s face and his goatee, his expression reflecting his tendency to pretension in all things, his mother’s hair invariably piled in a bun atop her head because of her meaningless aversion to hairdos — the only way she would ever wear it — trivial details such as these were no help in interpreting the current situation.

“It’s your fault, Brother, for not keeping your promise.”

These words, repeated endlessly by O-Hide since the incident, were the last thing Tsuda wanted to hear. As if he needed a lesson from his little sister to know that breaking a promise was wrong! It was simply that he hadn’t acknowledged the necessity of keeping his word this time. And he had hoped that others would affirm his position.

“But that’s so unreasonable!” O-Hide declared. “A promise is a promise even between a father and son. Maybe it wouldn’t matter so much if it concerned only you and Father.”

For O-Hide the most serious problem was her husband Hori’s involvement.

“When a letter like that arrives from Mother, it’s difficult for Hori, too.”

It was Hori who had persuaded his father to compromise his view that once a man had graduated from school, secured a substantial job, and placed himself at the head of a new household, he was obliged by hook or by crook to support himself independently without help from his parents. Acting without hesitation on a request from Tsuda, Hori had talked his parsimonious father-in-law down from his pedestal with a variety of effective arguments arbitrarily selected — inflation, the necessity of professional entertainment, changing times, the distinction between Tokyo and the provinces. He had furthermore proposed the arrangement according to which Tsuda in turn was to put aside the lion’s share of the bonuses he received in midsummer and at year’s end for use in paying back in a lump sum a portion of the monthly help he had been receiving. The responsibility that came along with the acceptance of his plan was of small concern to this insouciant man. Not only had he placed little importance from the outset on the question of making good on the agreement, but by the time the obligation was due he had forgotten all about it. In fact, the entire proceedings had receded to such a distant place in his thoughts that he was surprised when he received from Tsuda’s father a letter close to a reprimand. But Tsuda had expended the money to the last penny and there was nothing he could do. Ever an optimist, he wrote a letter of apology in reply and considered the matter closed. But the fact that society wasn’t constructed to accord with his carelessness was a lesson he was obliged to learn from Tsuda’s father, who had treated him as a guarantor ever since.

Meanwhile, a ring so splendid it appeared to be beyond Tsuda’s means had begun to sparkle on O-Nobu’s finger. The first to notice was O-Hide. Her curiosity as a fellow member of the female sisterhood made her acutely conscious. She praised O-Nobu’s ring. In the process, she sought to determine the time and place of its purchase. Ignorant of the agreement between Tsuda and his father that had been guaranteed by Hori, O-Nobu, in spite of her normal wariness, was completely naive where the ring was concerned. Her desire to demonstrate to O-Hide the degree to which she was loved by Tsuda overcame entirely her normal discretion. She related the story of the purchase exactly as it had happened.

O-Hide, who had been critical all along of what she considered O-Nobu’s extravagance, passed the details on to Kyoto. Moreover, she represented in her letter that it was O-Nobu who had provoked her husband into spending money that might otherwise have been returned even though she knew about his promise regarding summer and year-end bonuses. O-Hide had decided arbitrarily that the vanity toward his wife that had in truth prevented Tsuda from revealing the family circumstances to O-Nobu was instead O-Nobu’s own vanity. And she had conveyed her misunderstanding to Kyoto as if it were the truth. Even now she was unable to put aside her misapprehension. As a consequence, her resentment about the ring was directed not at her elder brother but at her sister-in-law.

“I’m wondering what in the world Sister intends to do about all this.”

“This has nothing to do with O-Nobu. I haven’t told her a thing.”

“Really! How fortunate for her that she’s not involved.”

O-Hide’s smile was ironic. Tsuda vividly recalled O-Nobu asking, the evening before she had gone to the theater, if she might pawn her obi as she held the thick, shining cloth up to the light.