I wonder if I’m imagining things?
As O-Nobu pursued her thoughts, the lady shifted her attention back to her.
“Nobuko-san looks dismayed. Because I’m talking so much.”
Taken by surprise, O-Nobu felt overwhelmed. Heretofore she had never found herself at a loss for something appropriate to say to Tsuda, but at this moment her wisdom failed her. A hollow smile was all she could bring to filling the emptiness of the moment. But that was merely a display of counterfeit charm that served no purpose.
“Not at all. It’s been fascinating,” she said finally, realizing that the moment had come and gone. A bitter feeling of having bungled it again rose in her throat. She had told herself that today would be the day to restore herself in Mrs. Yoshikawa’s good graces; now her resolve withered. The lady in question, changing her tone so swiftly it seemed cruel, turned at once to Okamoto.
“Okamoto-san, it’s been some time, hasn’t it, since you returned from your travels in foreign countries.”
“Well, past history certainly.”
“When you say past history, what year are we talking about?”
“Let me think — in the Western calendar—”
Was it to be expected or just an accident? O-Nobu’s uncle deliberated pretentiously.
“Around the time of the Franco-Prussian War?”*
“Are you joking? I happen to remember taking your good husband here on a guided tour of London.”
“So you weren’t behind the barricades in Paris?”
“Certainly not.”
Having wound up at a suitable juncture Miyoshi’s exploits in foreign lands, Madam had quickly shifted the subject to another, closely related topic that obliged her husband to ally himself with Okamoto.
“At any rate, automobiles had just come out, and every time one rattled by people would turn and stare at it.”
“It was in the days when those beastly slow buses were popular.”
While beastly slow buses meant nothing to the others, who had never availed themselves of this mode of transportation, it appeared that the friends reminiscing about the past were vaguely stirred by the memory of them. Okamoto, looking from Tsugiko to Miyoshi, turned to Yoshikawa with a wry smile.
“We’ve aged, you and I. I don’t notice it normally, I carry on as if I were still young, but when I sit here beside my daughter it gets me thinking—”
“Then you should always be sitting at this child’s side.”
O-Nobu’s aunt turned at once to her uncle. And her uncle replied at once.
“You’re right. When I came back from Europe she was only—”
Pausing, he reflected and spoke again.
“How old was she, anyway?”
When O-Nobu’s aunt remained silent, the look on her face seeming to say that such a careless question didn’t merit a reply, Yoshikawa spoke up from the side.
“It won’t be long now until they’re calling you ‘the old man.’ You’d better watch out.”
Tsugiko colored and cast her eyes down. Madam immediately looked at her husband.
“But at least Okamoto-san is lucky enough to have a living watch that keeps track of his age. But you have no device for self-reflection, so you’re always acting up.”
“Maybe so, but the good news is I stay young forever.”
At this the table laughed aloud.
* The Franco-Prussian War was fought from 1870 to 1871.
[54]
OTHER DINERS, smaller groups than theirs and, accordingly, relatively quiet, glanced from time to time at O-Nobu’s table where, as though the theater had been entirely forgotten, an apparently relaxed conversation was proceeding. The moment arrived when those who had purposely ordered a light meal to save time were preparing to leave even before they had their coffee, and still one new dish after the other was being laid out in front of O-Nobu. They could hardly throw their napkins down in the middle of the meal. Nor, it appeared, were they inclined to rush. They took their time, feeling that they had come to the theater to enjoy themselves more than to see a play.
“Has it started?”
Having glanced around the dining room, suddenly quiet, Uncle Okamoto posed the question to a white-jacketed waiter.
“The curtain just went up.”
“Let it! Just now our mouths are more important than our eyes.”
O-Nobu’s uncle commenced at once an attack on a chicken thigh with the skin still on it. Across the table, Yoshikawa appeared largely unconcerned with what was happening on stage. Following Okamoto’s lead, ignoring the subject of the play, he spoke of food.
“You still revel in what you eat — Mrs. Okamoto, have you heard the story about your husband riding piggyback on a foreigner in the days when he ate more and was even fatter than he is now?”
O-Nobu’s aunt shook her head. Yoshikawa posed Tsugiko the same question. Tsugiko hadn’t heard either.
“I’m not surprised. It’s not exactly an admirable story, so I suppose he’s been hiding it.”
“What story?”
Looking up from his plate, Okamoto eyed his friend warily. Madam Yoshikawa spoke up from the sidelines.
“You must have been too heavy for the foreigner and crushed him.”
“At least that would have given him something to brag about. He was clinging to that big man’s shoulders for dear life, in the middle of a London crowd, with everybody staring at him with weird expressions on their faces. So he could see a parade.”
O-Nobu’s uncle had yet to crack a smile.
“What an imagination! When was this supposed to have happened?”
“At the coronation of Edward VII. You were standing in front of Mansion House to watch the parade, but since we weren’t in Japan everybody was taller than you, and you were so distressed you asked the proprietor of your boarding house who had come along with you if you could climb on his shoulders — that’s what I heard.”
“Balderdash! You’re confusing me with someone else. I know a fellow who did ride piggyback but it wasn’t me — it was that ‘Monkey.’”
Uncle Okamoto was unmistakably in earnest about his explanation; the sudden, vehement utterance of the word “Monkey” brought a laugh from everyone at once.
“Of course. Now I can see it. No matter how gigantic the English are, there was something not quite right about the picture with you in it. But Monkey was an absolute dwarf.”
Whether he was just pretending to be mistaken or had actually been ignorant of the facts, Yoshikawa sounded convinced at last, repeating the party in question’s nickname, Monkey, as a spur to the hilarity of the assembled company.
The question Madam Yoshikawa posed was part curiosity and part impatience.
“So who in the world was Monkey?”
“No one you would know.”
“Madam needn’t worry in the slightest. Even if he were here at the table he’s the sort of person who wouldn’t mind if we came right out and called him Monkey to his face. Besides, he’d be calling me Piggy in the same spirit.”