O-Nobu was back from the front of the house a minute later with a letter in her hand.
“There was one! This might be from your father.”
As she spoke, she held the white envelope up to the bright light.
“It is. Just as I thought.”
“And it’s not registered?”
Taking the envelope from her hand, Tsuda opened it at once and read it through to the end. When he folded it to replace it in the envelope, his hands moved mechanically. He didn’t look down at them, or at O-Nobu’s face. Gazing vacantly at the pattern of broad stripes on her dressy crepe kimono, he muttered, as if talking to himself,
“Damn.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing to worry about.”
Acutely concerned with appearances, Tsuda was disinclined to reveal the content of the letter to his newlywed wife. At the same time, it was about something he was obliged to discuss with her.
* Fusuma are a substantial version of shoji, partitions consisting of a wooden framework papered on both sides.
* An engawa is a deck of highly polished wood that runs the length of the house, usually along the garden side, from which various rooms can be accessed.
[7]
“HE SAYS he can’t send money so we should manage on our own this month. That’s the thing about old people. He could have written earlier, but he has to wait until we’re just about to need some extra cash.”
“But why? Does he explain?”
Tsuda removed the letter he had replaced in the envelope and unrolled it on his lap.
“He says two of his rentals went vacant at the end of last month and he’s still waiting for the rent from others that are occupied. On top of that he has gardeners to pay, a fence to build, maintenance he hadn’t figured on, you name it — so this month is out of the question.”
He passed the unfurled letter across the brazier to O-Nobu. His wife accepted it in silence but made no attempt to read it. It was this coldness in her attitude that Tsuda had feared from the beginning.
“It’s not as though he needs that rent to manage his payment to us if he wanted to send it. And how much can a fence cost; he’s not building a brick wall.”
Tsuda was speaking the truth. His father may not have been wealthy, but neither were his circumstances such that covering the shortage in funds needed by his son and his young wife for monthly expenses would burden him. It was simply that he lived modestly. Tsuda might have called him plain and simple to a fault. To O-Nobu, far more inclined to extravagance than her husband, the old man appeared to be meaninglessly frugal.
“Your father probably thinks we love to throw money away on things we don’t need. I bet that’s exactly what he thinks.”
“The last time we were in Kyoto he did imply something like that. Old people remember how they lived when they were young, and they tend to think that young people today should behave just as they did when they were the same age. Thirty may be thirty no matter whose age it is, but we live in a completely different world. He once asked me what a ticket cost me when I went to a lecture, and when I told him five yen he looked horrified.”
Tsuda worried constantly that O-Nobu would feel contempt for his father. Even so, he couldn’t avoid speaking critically about him in her presence. And what he said was what he truly felt. By preempting O-Nobu’s own criticism, he was also proffering what amounted to an excuse for himself and his father.
“So whatever shall we do? We can’t make ends meet as it is, and now you’re going in for surgery and that has to cost something—”
Reluctant to criticize the old man out of consideration for her husband, O-Nobu shifted the subject to concrete issues. Tsuda was not ready with a reply. Presently he spoke as if to himself, his voice low.
“If Uncle Fujii had any money I’d go to him.”
O-Nobu gazed steadily into her husband’s face.
“Can’t you write back to Father? And mention your illness in passing?”
“I can always write, but I know he’ll come back at me with something or other and that’s such a nuisance. Once he clamps down it’s harder than hell to break away.”
“But what other options do we have?”
“I’m not saying I won’t write. I intend to do what I can to make our circumstances clear to them, but that won’t put money in our pocket in time.”
“I suppose—”
Tsuda looked O-Nobu squarely in the face. When he spoke, there was determination in his voice.
“How about going to the Okamotos and asking them for a small loan?”
[8]
“ABSOLUTELY NOT! I won’t!”
O-Nobu declined at once. There was no trace of hesitation in her voice. Her fluency, beyond all reserve or consideration, caught Tsuda off guard. The shock he received was as if an automobile traveling at considerable speed had suddenly braked to a stop. In advance of anger or resentment at his wife’s lack of sympathy for him was surprise. He gazed at her face.
“I won’t. I’m not going to the Okamotos with a story like that.”
O-Nobu repeated her refusal.
“Fine! I’m not going to ask you against your will. It’s just—”
These cold yet calmly delivered words O-Nobu scooped up and tossed aside.
“It’s so awkward for me. Every time I visit I’m told how fortunate I am to have married so well with no cares or troubles and no financial worries; I can imagine how they’d look at me if I showed up out of the blue with a sad story about money.”
This allowed Tsuda to satisfy himself that O-Nobu’s categorical rejection of his request was prompted less by a lack of sympathy for him than by her need to maintain appearances in front of the Okamotos. The cold light that had lodged in his eyes flickered out.
“You shouldn’t be carrying on as if we’re having such an easy time. It’s nice to have people think you’re doing better than you are, but there’s no guarantee the time won’t come when that will create its own problems.”
“If anyone’s carrying on it certainly isn’t me — they’ve decided how things are all by themselves.”
Tsuda chose not to pursue this. Nor could O-Nobu be troubled to explain further. For a moment their conversation seemed at an end; then they returned to practical matters. But Tsuda, who until now had suffered little pain as a result of his financial circumstances, had nothing useful to contribute. “Father is such a nuisance!” was all he had to say.
Abruptly O-Nobu shifted her gaze to the colorful kimono and obi as if noticing for the first time her overlooked clothing on the floor.
“Shall we do something with these?” Grasping the edge of the thick obi laced with gold thread, she held it up to the electric light for her husband to see.
“Do something?” Tsuda asked, unsure of what she meant.
“If I take this to a pawnshop, wouldn’t they lend us money on it?”
Tsuda was surprised. If his young bride so recently come to wife had known for years about something he had never once undertaken to do, contriving by one means or another to make ends meet, this surely was an unexpected and a valuable discovery.
“Have you ever pawned a kimono or anything else?”
“Of course not — never.”
Laughing, O-Nobu replied in the negative to her husband’s query as though disdainfully.
“So you have no idea what happens when you take something to a pawnshop.”