From start to finish, O-Nobu was unable to secure for herself a portion of this meandering conversation that should have been her due as a member of the party. An opportunity to recommend herself to Madam Yoshikawa failed to present itself no matter how long she waited. Madam paid no attention to her. More properly, she avoided her. It was to Tsugiko in particular, seated two places away, that she addressed herself. Her efforts to draw her out for even just a minute were distinctly visible. Tsugiko, unable to take advantage of these attempts, appeared annoyed rather than grateful, and each time she displayed her annoyance openly to the table, O-Nobu, always inclined to compare herself with her cousin, felt a ripple of envy in her heart.
If I were in her position …
The thought occurred to her frequently during the meal. Afterward, she secretly lamented Tsugiko’s lack of worldliness. In the end, as always, thinking how pitiful she was, she felt disdain.
[55]
BY THE time they left the table, an inch or so of white ash had accumulated on the men’s postprandial cigars. The words from someone’s mouth, “What time is it getting to be?” had the incidental effect of producing at that moment a change in O-Nobu’s position. Seizing an opportunity in the instant just before they rose, Madam Yoshikawa suddenly addressed her.
“And how is Tsuda-san doing?”
Without waiting for O-Nobu’s reply, she continued at once.
“I’ve been meaning to ask ever since we sat down, but I got so caught up in my own prattling—”
O-Nobu judged this excuse to be false. Her doubt had not arisen from the lady’s manner of speaking just now. O-Nobu would have said that her surmise was based on more substantial evidence. She remembered distinctly her own words of greeting to the lady on first entering the dining room. She had spoken less for herself than on behalf of her husband. Dipping her head respectfully, she had said, “Thank you so much for all you’ve done for Tsuda.” At that moment, however, Madam had said nothing about Tsuda. Since O-Nobu was the last member of the party to exchange greetings with her, there would have been ample time to speak, yet Madam had turned immediately away. She appeared to have forgotten entirely the visit she had received from Tsuda just days before.
O-Nobu didn’t interpret this conduct to signify merely that she was disliked. She believed there was something else at work in addition. Otherwise, she felt certain, even Madam Yoshikawa would have no reason to go out of her way to avoid mentioning Tsuda to the woman to whom he was married. She was well aware that the lady was very fond of her husband. But why should the fact that she was a patron of sorts create reluctance to introduce him into a conversation with his wife?
O-Nobu didn’t understand. During dinner she had hoped to display in front of Madam Yoshikawa her singular charm as a woman, natural gifts that were impossible not to appreciate, and her failure to launch herself from a platform provided by Tsuda, who seemed to represent the only common ground between them, was due in part to this clot in her understanding. To have the subject broached at last by the other party just as they were rising from the table left O-Nobu doubting more than simply Madam Yoshikawa’s excuse for having waited too long. She wondered if something more than mere social convention might not be lurking beneath the lady’s decision to express concern about her husband’s illness only now.
“Thank you so much — he’s doing nicely.”
“He’s had his operation?”
“Today.”
“Just today? How extraordinary that you were able to get away for something like this!”
“He really isn’t very ill.”
“But he is in bed?”
“Yes. He’s resting.”
Madam appeared to be thinking “And that doesn’t concern you?” At least in her silence that was how she appeared to O-Nobu. She had the feeling that Madam Yoshikawa, who comported herself in other company with a masculine absence of reserve, emerged as an entirely different person when dealing with her.
“He’s in the hospital?”
“It’s not really a hospital — the second floor above the doctor’s office happens to be available, and they’re letting him stay there to rest for five or six days.”
Madam asked for the doctor’s name and the address. Though she said nothing about intending to pay a visit, O-Nobu, who suspected she had brought Tsuda up with that purpose in mind, felt that she had some notion of what the lady was about for the first time.
Yoshikawa, who, unlike his wife, had given no indication that Tsuda was particularly in his thoughts, now mentioned him abruptly.
“When we spoke, he said he was suffering from the same thing as last year. Young as he is, it’s terrible that he’s sick so much. There’s no reason he should limit himself to five or six days, tell him he should take as long as he needs to recover.”
O-Nobu thanked him.
In the corridor outside the dining room, the party of seven separated into two groups.
[56]
THE REST of the time O-Nobu spent with her aunt’s family was unperturbing. A phantom picture of her husband lying abed in his night clothes and quilted jacket did, however, take shape in her mind as she raptly followed the play. The phantom she imagined had put down a book he had been reading and appeared to be observing her from the distance as she sat here in the theater. This made her happy; but in the instant when she essayed to meet his gaze, his eyes flashed a message at her: Don’t fool yourself. I was just taking a peek out of curiosity — you won’t find me having anything to say to a woman like you.
For allowing herself to be deceived, O-Nobu felt foolish. Whereupon the phantom Tsuda vanished like a ghost. At his second appearance, it was O-Nobu who declared, I’m not going to think about a person like you any longer! When Tsuda floated before her eyes a third time, she was inclined to dismiss him with a tsk of her tongue. Since her husband hadn’t entered her thoughts even once before she went to the dining room, O-Nobu would have said that she was experiencing this relentless activity in her mind after dinner for the first time. She tried comparing these two different versions of herself. And she was unable to avoid silently naming Madam Yoshikawa as the party responsible for the dramatic change. Somewhere in her mind she felt certain that this troubling phantom would not have materialized had they not dined tonight at the same table. However, asked to identify what it was about the lady that had acted as a fermenting agent in brewing this bitter liquor, or in what manner it had made its way into her brain, O-Nobu would have been helpless to provide cogent answers. Her data were simply unclear. Nonetheless she had reached a comparatively clear conclusion. Undaunted by the insufficiency of her data, she saw no reason to suspect that her conclusion might be flawed. She firmly believed that Madam Yoshikawa was at fault.
O-Nobu feared encountering Madam again when the play ended and they gathered once again at the teahouse. But she also felt inclined to probe deeper. Though she was resigned to the fact that no opportunity would present itself in that brief moment of milling confusion when everyone was hurrying away, her curiosity peeked out from the shadow of her desire to avoid another meeting.
Happily, the Yoshikawas had chosen a different teahouse, and there was no sign of Madam Yoshikawa. As Uncle Okamoto wrapped himself in a heavy-looking cloak with a fur collar, he turned back to O-Nobu, who was pulling on her own coat.
“Why not stay with us tonight?”
“Oh — that’s kind of you.”