Having turned toward the door as one man when the bell rang, they withdrew into themselves as one man after a single glance. All silent, they sat in an attitude that might have been deep thought. They appeared to be taking no notice of Tsuda, or was it, more likely perhaps, that they were avoiding being noticed by him? It wasn’t only Tsuda; it appeared they kept their eyes lowered, looking away, in fear of the pain of noticing one another.
The members of this gloomy band shared, almost without exception, a largely identical past. As they sat waiting their turn in this somber waiting room, a fragment of that past that was if anything brilliantly colored cast its shadow abruptly over each of them. Lacking the courage to turn toward the light, they had halted inside the darkness of the shadow and locked themselves in.
Resting one arm on the armrest of the couch, Tsuda lifted his hand to his brow. In this attitude, as though he were offering to god a silent prayer, he was led to memories of two men he had encountered unexpectedly in this doctor’s house since the end of last year.
One was actually none other than his sister’s husband. Recognizing his figure in this dark room, Tsuda was astonished. Normally easygoing about such things, if not entirely unconcerned, his brother-in-law had seemed nonplussed, as if the intensity of Tsuda’s surprise had reverberated in him.
The other man was a friend. Supposing that Tsuda was afflicted with the same sort of illness as his own, he had spoken up without any hesitation or reserve, as if to do so were perfectly natural. Exiting the doctor’s gate together, they had engaged over dinner in a complex debate about sex and love.
Whereas the encounter with his brother-in-law amounted to little more than momentary surprise and had resulted in no repercussions, his conversation with his friend, which he had expected would be a one-time-only event not to be resumed, had later produced a rift between them. Obliged to reflect on his friend’s words in the past and their connection to his circumstances in the present, Tsuda shuttered his eyes open and dropped his hand from his brow as if he had received a sudden shock.
Just then, a man in a dark blue serge suit who appeared to be about thirty emerged from the examination room and walked to the prescription window. He was paying his bill when the nurse appeared in the open doorway. Tsuda had seen her before; when she had announced the next patient’s name and was about to withdraw into the examination room again, he called out to her.
“I’d rather not wait for a turn; could you just ask the doctor if I could come for my surgery tomorrow or the day after?”
The nurse stepped inside, and her white presence reappeared in the doorway to the dark room almost at once.
“The second floor happens to be vacant so you’re welcome to come when it’s convenient.”
Tsuda left the dark room as though escaping from it. He stepped into his shoes quickly, and as he pushed the large frosted-glass door open, the waiting room, pitch dark until now, lit up.
[18]
THOUGH TSUDA’S return home was slightly earlier than yesterday, the sun was already low in the western sky, the autumn days having grown abruptly shorter of late, and it was just the hour when the last chilly light, which until minutes ago had illuminated at least the open street, was swiftly fading as if swept away.
Naturally enough, the second floor was dark. But so was the front entrance, pitch-black. Having just now passed the lights shining brightly in the eaves of the rickshaw shop at the corner, Tsuda was mildly disappointed by the darkness shrouding his own house. He rattled open the lattice. But O-Nobu did not emerge. He had not been entirely pleased the night before when she had startled him at this same hour by seeming to lie in wait, but now, obliged to stand alone at the pitch-dark entrance with no one to greet him, he had the feeling somewhere in his chest that what had befallen him last night was in fact less unpleasant. Standing where he was, he called out, “O-Nobu! O-Nobu!” Whereupon his wife replied, “Coming!” from, unexpectedly, the second floor, and he heard her footsteps on the stairs as she descended. At the same time the maid came running from the direction of the kitchen.
“What’s going on?”
A measure of dissatisfaction echoed in Tsuda’s voice. O-Nobu did not reply. However, glancing up at her face, he couldn’t avoid noticing the subtle smile she customarily deployed to beguile him in her silence. It was first of all her white teeth that seized and held his gaze.
“It’s pitch dark up there.”
“I know — I was letting my mind wander and I didn’t realize you were home—”
“You were asleep.”
“Don’t be silly.”
The maid let out a whoop of laughter, and their conversation broke off.
Tsuda was on his way to the public bath, having received from O-Nobu’s hand as always a bar of soap and a towel, when she asked him to wait a minute. Turning her back, she took from the bottom drawer of the tansu a padded flannel jacket edged with silk and laid it in front of him.
“Try it on — it may not be properly flattened yet.”*
With a bemused look on his face, Tsuda stared at the quilted jacket with its broad vertical stripes and black silk collar. This was something he had neither purchased nor bespoken.
“What’s all this?”
“I sewed it. For when you go to the hospital; you have to be careful what you wear in a place like that so as not to make a bad impression.”
“You’ve been working on this?”
It had been only two or three days since he had told O-Nobu that he needed surgery and would have to be away for a week. Moreover, from that day until this moment he hadn’t once noticed his wife sitting at her pattern-cutting board with her needle in hand. He was struck by the oddness of this. O-Nobu on her part observed her husband’s surprise as if it were a reward for her diligence. Accordingly, she provided no explanation.
“Did you buy the cloth?”
“No, I brought this with me — I planned to use it this winter so I just washed and boarded it and put it away for later.”
He saw now that the pattern was decidedly for a young woman: not only were the stripes broad, but the blend of colors was, if anything, on the edge of gaudy. Slipping his arms through the sleeves and flinging them wide open in imitation of a workman kite, Tsuda regarded his own image uncomfortably.
“I arranged to go in tomorrow or the day after,” he said a minute later.
“I see — what about me?”
“About you?”
“Can’t I go with you — to the hospital?”
O-Nobu appeared to be utterly untroubled by the money issue.
* A newly sewn kimono or, as in this case, kimono jacket had to be flattened, usually by placing it beneath the mattress and sleeping on it for a night or two.
[19]
THE NEXT morning Tsuda woke up much later than usual. The house was hushed, as though it had already been put in order. Moving past the front entrance from the tatami drawing room to the sitting room, he slid open the shoji and discovered his wife sitting erectly alongside the brazier with the newspaper in her hand. The sound issuing from the bubbling kettle seemed to bespeak a tranquil household.