Tsuda couldn’t reach a conclusion either way. And the inevitable consequence of letting everything be determined by the outcome was that, in the moment when he began to question that outcome, he would have already bound himself helplessly hand and foot.
From the beginning there had been only three paths open to him. Just three and no others. The first was to stew forever without a resolution while preserving his current freedom; the second was to advance without caring if he played the fool; the third, the route he had his eye on, was to obtain a resolution that satisfied him without playing the fool.
He had set out from Tokyo with only the third path in mind. But having rattled along on a train and swayed down the road in a carriage, been chilled in the mountain air and soaked in a steaming tub, he had finally discovered that the person he sought was actually within reach, and as he perceived that the moment had at last arrived when, as early as the next day, he would begin to execute his plan, the first path had appeared to him. Then, before he knew it, the second was also there, beckoning him with a wan smile. They had showed up abruptly. But not clamorously. The haze that had obscured his field of vision had blown away with no sound of the dispelling wind, and his sight was of a sudden assured and reasonable.
Unexpectedly romantic, Tsuda was also unexpectedly staid. And he was unaware of the opposition between these two aspects of himself. There was accordingly no reason the contradiction should trouble him. He need only decide. But before he could reach a decision, he had to go to battle with himself. Play the fool and pay no mind? No, he hated being a fool. But there was no need. His resolve had been won in battle; now it must break down once again into three parts and come tumbling all the way down before he could rise to his full height.
Alone in the large tub, Tsuda splashed and scrubbed himself in the clean water from the hot spring.
[174]
JUST THEN, oblivious of his surroundings, his gaze directed inwardly, he was startled by the sound of the glass door rattling open. Without thinking, he lifted his head and glanced at the entrance. When he made out through the steam the figure of a woman just partly revealed in the doorway, his heart rang like an alarm bell. But this instant of presentiment faded in the next. This was not the woman who had come to surprise him in the true sense.
Appearing to be ready for bed, this young woman, whom Tsuda couldn’t recall ever having seen, appeared before him clothed in a manner that would have drawn disapproval in broad daylight for insufficient modesty. Her long slip, normally an undergarment entirely hidden beneath the kimono, confronted him unabashedly with its garish colors.
Seeing Tsuda squatting naked in the steam like a beggar, the woman immediately drew back.
“Oh. Sorry!”
Tsuda felt he had been beaten to an apology he should have offered himself. Just then he heard again the sound of slippers coming down the stairs. No sooner had the slippers halted outside the glass door than a conversation between a man and woman commenced.
“What’s going on?”
“There’s someone in there.”
“What about it. As long as it’s not crowded.”
“But—”
“Let’s use a private one, then. They’re probably empty.”
“Where’s Katsu-san, I wonder?”
Tsuda was inclined to finish quickly so the couple could come in. At the same time, something he detected in the woman’s attitude, an insistence that no other tub would do but the one he was using, annoyed him. If you want to bathe in here come ahead, no need to stand on ceremony, he thought to himself, screwing up his courage, and lowered his body into the tub again.
He was a tall man. Extending his long legs luxuriously, he moved them up and down and took pleasure in observing the flesh of his lower limbs rise and sink in the limpid water.
Abruptly a second man spoke, evidently the Katsu-san the woman had been looking for.
“Good evening. You’re so early today.”
It was the man who replied.
“We’re bored, so we thought we might as well go to bed early.”
“Is that so? Have you finished practicing?”
“I wouldn’t say finished exactly.”
The next words were the woman’s.
“Katsu-san, there’s someone in there.”
“There is?”
“Isn’t there a fresh tub?”
“Of course — it might be a little hot yet.”
From down the hall came the sound of another door opening, presumably to the bath Katsu had led them to. Almost at once the door at the entrance to Tsuda’s tub rattled open again.
“Good evening.”
So saying, a small man with a square face entered the room.
“Shall I do your back, Boss?”
Stepping down at once to the sink, he filled a small bucket with hot water from the springs. Tsuda was obliged to present his back to him.
“You must be Katsu-san?”
“One and the same, Boss — how did you know?”
“I heard you mentioned just now.”
“I see. I don’t recollect I’ve seen you down here before.”
“I just got here.”
“Ah!” Katsu exclaimed again and laughed.
“From Tokyo?”
“Right.”
Using words like “inbound” and “outbound,” Katsu pursued a more precise answer. He followed with other questions — Had he come alone? Why hadn’t he brought his wife along? — and provided sundry information: the couple just now were silk-thread dealers from Yokohama; evenings, the wife gave her husband a lesson in puppet theater recitation; his own old lady was a skilled singer of traditional songs. Having been told more than he needed to hear, it seemed to Tsuda that Katsu-san had touched on every subject but one. That subject was of course Ki-yoko. This was more than a little disappointing. But he wasn’t equipped with a means of coaching the man, and in any event before there was time Katsu-san, having run on about this and that, had finished washing and rinsing his back.
“Please take your time.”
Watching Katsu leave the bath, Tsuda felt no need to stay longer. He toweled himself dry and stepped outside. But when he had climbed the stairs with the wet towel in his hand, passed the sink and the mirror at the top, and turned once down a corridor, he realized, as he had feared, that he had lost his way back to his room.
[175]
AT FIRST he had walked along scarcely noticing. He wasn’t even certain whether he had passed this way before with the maid; the blurred memory was part of a pale d ream. But when he had failed to arr ive anywhere that seemed even vaguely to resemble his room, notwithstanding the distance he had traveled down one hallway after another, he stopped short.
Hold on. Can I have passed it? Or is it just ahead?
The halls were brightly lit. He was able to proceed in any direction he liked. But there was no sound of footsteps to be heard anywhere. There were no maids to be seen hurrying back and forth. Putting down his towel and soap, he tried clapping his hands as he did in his study at home when he wished to summon O-Nobu. But there was no response from any direction. Unfamiliar with the premises, he had no idea in which direction he might find the maids’ room. As he had come in through an entrance at the back of a thickly planted garden, indistinguishable from the front entrance of a private residence, the locations of the front desk or the kitchen or the service entrance were as good as secrets from him.
When he had tried clapping several times and confirmed that no one was responding, he retrieved his towel and soap with a faint smile. He began to feel amused. Perhaps circling around and around until in the end he came to his room was a kind of adventure. In the spirit of someone intentionally savoring an experience he had never had at an inn, he began to walk again.