Uncle Fujii stopped and looked at Kobayashi, who grinned as if pleased with himself.
“Has something happened to you?”
“I wouldn’t say happened — in any event, when things are settled I’ll come over to your place and explain in detail.”
“As you know, I’ll be in the hospital beginning tomorrow.”
“Not a problem. I’ll make it a sick call while I’m at it.”
Kobayashi persisted, asking for the location of the hospital and the doctor’s name very much as if this were knowledge he crucially required. Learning that the doctor’s name was the same as his own, Kobayashi, he remarked “Oh! He must be Hori-san’s—” and abruptly fell silent. Hori was Tsuda’s brother-in-law. Kobayashi was aware that he had recently been to see this doctor in the neighborhood for an ailment of a very particular nature.
Tsuda felt he wouldn’t mind hearing the details Kobayashi had referred to. It seemed likely they had to do with O-Kin’s marriage, to which his aunt had alluded. And it seemed possible they might not. Though Kobayashi’s pointed vagueness had somewhat aroused Tsuda’s curiosity, in the end he didn’t extend an explicit invitation to visit him at the hospital.
When, on grounds that he was going in for surgery, he refrained from touching the dishes his aunt had specially prepared, meat and fish and even the rice steamed with mushrooms he was usually so fond of, even she appeared uncharacteristically to feel sorry for him and sent O-Kin out for the bread and milk he was allowed to have. Tsuda winced to himself at the thought of the doughy bread made locally, which stuck in the spaces between his teeth as if held there by glue, but fearing a little to be labeled extravagant yet again, he merely gazed docilely at O-Kin’s back as she left the room. When she was gone, his aunt said to his uncle in front of everyone,
“It would be so wonderful if that child’s engagement were resolved this time.”
“It will be.” Fujii’s response was unhesitating.
“Things seem extremely promising.”
Kobayashi’s comment was also buoyant. Only Tsuda and Makoto remained silent.
When Tsuda heard the suitor’s name, he had the feeling he had met him once or twice at his uncle’s house, but he retained no memory of him.
“Does O-Kin-san know him?”
“She knows what he looks like. She’s never spoken to him.”
“So he’s never spoken to her either—”
“Of course not.”
“It’s amazing a marriage can happen that way.”
Tsuda was confident that his logic was irrefragable; as a demonstration of his confidence to the others, he assumed an expression more confounded than aghast.
“How should it happen? You think everyone must behave just as you did when you were married?”
His uncle’s tone of voice as he turned to Tsuda suggested his mood had soured a little. Tsuda felt some regret; his response had been directed to his aunt.
“That’s not it at all. I didn’t mean to suggest there was anything unfortunate about a marriage being decided under those circumstances. As long as things are settled, the circumstances make no difference.”
[30]
BUT THE mood in the room had already gone flat. The conversation had flowed along pleasantly enough until now, but following Tsuda’s remark there occurred a cessation, as if a dam had been suddenly closed, and no one ventured to pick up where it had left off. Kobayashi, pointing at the beer glass in front of him, spoke to Makoto at his side in a conspiratorial whisper.
“Makoto-san, shall I pour you a glass? Have a little drink.”
“I hate bitter stuff.”
Makoto kicked aside the invitation, drawing a chortle from Kobayashi, who hadn’t intended serving him in the first place. Perhaps the child believed he had made a friend; he spoke up to Kobayashi abruptly.
“I have a one-yen, fifty-sen air gun — want to see it?”
Standing at once, Makoto ran to the room at the rear of the house; when he returned a minute later with his new toy, Kobayashi felt obliged under the circumstances to admire the shiny weapon. It was also necessary that Tsuda’s aunt and uncle profess an obligatory word of endearment for their exuberant child.
“He’s always pestering his impoverished old man to buy him something, a watch, a fountain pen, whatever. I’ll say one thing, it seems he’s recently given up on a horse and that takes some pressure off.”
“Actually, horses are surprisingly inexpensive. If you go to Hokkaido you can pick one up for five or six yen.”
“As if you’d been there.”
Thanks to the air gun, tongues loosened and the conversation ranged. The subject of marriage surfaced yet again. This was unquestionably the sequel to the earlier discussion that had broken off. However, the participants’ remarks were governed by their moods, which had changed little by little from before.
“It’s a curious business. Just because two people who know nothing about each other get together, there’s no guarantee they’ll end up estranged, and by the same token who’s to say that a couple who prefer each other above everyone else will live in harmony forever after?”
There was no way but this to summarize honestly the reality his aunt had experienced all her life. And her desire to install O-Kin’s marriage out of harm’s way in one corner of this large truth was less a defense than an explanation. In Tsuda’s view, however, this explanation was supremely incomplete and supremely unreassuring. And while his aunt had expressed doubts about his sincerity where marriage was concerned, he couldn’t help thinking that, on this head, it was she who lacked fundamental seriousness.
“Those are the words of a privileged man,” she snapped at him defensively. “You talk about courting and engagements and whatnot, but can the likes of us afford luxuries like that? As long as there’s a taker, or someone to come into our family, we have to be thankful for that, that’s all we can hope for.”
In deference to all present, Tsuda was disinclined to comment on O-Kin’s particular situation. The matter neither concerned nor interested him sufficiently to comment; it was simply that he felt constrained, in order to paint over his aunt’s doubts about his own seriousness, to point out the superficiality of her position, and was thus unable to keep silent. Inclining his head to one side as though deep in thought, he spoke.
“I have no desire to say anything critical about O-Kin’s situation. I just wonder if it’s acceptable to think about marriage in general quite so simply. That strikes me as not adequately serious, that’s all—”
“But, Yoshio-san, if the bride decides to go to wife seriously, and the husband becomes serious about accepting her, where is there room for anything less than serious to be involved?”
“I just wonder if it’s so easy to become serious all of a sudden.”
“I’m proof that it is. Otherwise why would I have married into a house like this and worked as hard as I do to be a good wife?”
“I’m sure that’s true for you, Auntie, but young people these days…”
“People are no different now than they were in the past. Everything depends on your own determination.”
“If that’s your conclusion, there’s nothing to discuss.”
“There’s no need for a discussion. If you look at the facts, I win and you lose. There’s no way of knowing that a man who marries his bride after careful picking and choosing is one bit more serious than a man who hasn’t chosen yet and can’t feel sure.”
Like a man who has decided that the time has come for him to enter the fray, Tsuda’s uncle, who had been picking at the meat, lifted his eyes from his plate.
[31]
“YOU TWO are at each other; this doesn’t sound like a debate between aunt and nephew.”