“Hajime-san, Makoto is your classmate, right?”
Hajime grunted affirmatively and proceeded to satisfy O-Nobu’s curiosity. His account, which could only have been delivered by a child, abounded in observations, interpretation, and facts. For a while the power of his narrative enlivened the table.
Among the episodes that had everyone laughing was something like the following.
One day on their way home from school, Hajime and Makoto had peered into a deep hole. Dug by the department of public works smack in the middle of the road, the hole was bridged by a cedar plank. Hajime offered Makoto 100 yen if he walked across the plank. Whereupon the reckless Makoto, exacting a promise, had started across the narrow, slippery-looking plank in those same shoes of shaggy dog hair, his knapsack on his back. At first it looked to Hajime as if his friend would fall, but as he watched him slowly approach the opposite side, step after careful step, he began to worry. Abandoning his companion teetering above the deep hole, he ran. Makoto, who was obliged to keep his eyes on his feet, had no idea until he was all the way across that Hajime had disappeared. When he had accomplished his feat and at last raised his eyes, thinking to receive his 100 yen, his friend was nowhere in sight, so the story went.
“It appears that Hajime outsmarted his friend in this case,” Uncle observed.
“It appears that Fujii-san hasn’t been over to play much recently,” said Auntie.
[75]
BEYOND THE fact that the children were classmates, O-Nobu’s presence in the picture added a distinctive coloring to the recent interaction between the two families. The prospect of having to gather in the future willy-nilly at auspicious and inauspicious moments required both sides, to the extent that circumstances permitted, to arrange opportunities to socialize on a regular basis. Okamoto, who represented the bride’s in terests, was, even more than Fujii, in a position that placed him under this obligation. Furthermore, Uncle Okamoto was possessed of a kind of tactfulness that is often found in successful people. He was also inherently optimistic and generous. But he was a nervous man and feared misunderstandings. He was particularly afraid of being seen as arrogant, a quality people relatively less fortunate were prone to impute mistakenly to those leading lives of ease. Recently, having taken a step back to a somewhat quiet place, an attempt to restore his health after long years of too much work and study, he also enjoyed an abundance of free time and took pleasure in filling the emptiness of his leisure hours with a mosaic of things that accorded with his tastes. This included developing an interest in gradually approaching people he had neglected until now as having no connection to himself.
This tangle of reasons prompted him from time to time to set out for Fujii’s house. Fujii, who appeared to be reclusive, made no effort to repay Okamoto’s visits formally, but neither did he seem displeased by the intrusion. On the contrary, the men took pleasure in their conversations. And while they never managed to reveal themselves to each other in any depth, they found it interesting to exchange glimpses of their respective worlds. These worlds were oddly incongruent. Something that appeared coarse and slapdash to one seemed highly refined to the other; vulgarity from one point of view was of practical interest from the other, and in the space created by the disparity between them, unexpected discoveries abruptly emerged.
“I suppose you’d call him a critic, a fellow like that. But I don’t see what kind of work he could do.”
O-Nobu wasn’t sure what her uncle meant by a critic. Someone who was useless in any practical way, she supposed, obliged to pull the wool over people’s eyes by saying things that sounded momentous.
A man with no occupation who simply plays with logic — what use would society have for such a person? Isn’t it to be expected that a man like that would be in trouble because he was unable to earn a respectable living?
Unable to advance beyond this, O-Nobu smiled at her uncle.
“Have you been to Fujii-san’s recently?”
“I stopped off on my way back from a walk the other day. That house is in a perfect spot to stop when I’m feeling tired and need a rest.”
“Did he have interesting things to say again?”
“He has odd thoughts as always, that one. Last time we talked all about men attracting women and women attracting men.”
“Goodness!”
“Such nonsense, at his age!”
O-Nobu and her aunt expressed their respective dismay, and Tsugiko looked away.
“It’s a funny thing. You have to admire him for considering things as carefully as he does. According to the sensei, in every household the male child will inevitably desire the mother and the female child will desire the father. And when you think about it, of course he’s right.”
O-Nobu, who preferred her uncle in-law to her real aunt, turned a little serious.
“And what about it?”
“It goes like this: if men and women aren’t constantly attracting one another, they can’t become complete people. In other words, there’s an inadequate place inside each of us that we can’t complement on our own.”
O-Nobu’s interest quickly waned. Her uncle’s observation was no more than a fact she had known for a long time.
“That’s just the male-female principle. Opposites attract.”
“Yes, the attraction part is essential, but what’s interesting is that the opposite is essential too — discord instead of harmony.”
“Why?”
“It’s like this: the male and the female are attracted because they have their respective differences. As I said—”
“And?”
“Well, the different part isn’t you. It’s something different from yourself.”
“I don’t—”
“Follow along. If it’s different from yourself, there’s no way you can come together with it. All you can do, forever and ever, is remain apart. It’s clear as day.”
Her uncle cackled as though he had vanquished O-Nobu. O-Nobu refused to cry uncle.
“That’s just theoretical.”
“Of course it is. It’s logic that will hold up splendidly no matter how you look at it.”
“It isn’t. It’s zany. It’s just the kind of false logic that Uncle Fujii throws around.”
O-Nobu was unable to talk her uncle down. But she couldn’t bring herself to believe in what he was saying. No matter what, she didn’t want to believe.
[76]
UNCLE OKAMOTO ran on about a variety of things that happened to interest him.
As a man achieves enlightenment encountering a woman, so a woman achieves enlightenment encountering a man. But this is a truth limited to pious Buddhists before marriage. The minute the principals enter into a relationship as a couple, the truth turns in its sleep and presents us with a different face, its diametrical opposite. To wit, a man cannot achieve enlightenment without separating from his woman and vice versa. The power of attraction that has obtained until now instantly transforms into a repellant force. From that moment on, we are obliged to acknowledge the truth of the old saw: a man belongs, when all is said and done, in the company of men, a woman, in the company of other women. In other words, the male-female principle, the state of harmony that exists between them, is merely a step on the road to realizing the principle of male-female disharmony that is imminently on its way….
O-Nobu wasn’t sure whether these were original thoughts or a repackaging of Fujii, nor could she be certain what portion was intended seriously and what was in jest. Her uncle, who was useless with a pen, was terrifyingly agile when it came to talking. He was the sort of man who could dress up a simple thought with hand-sewn kimonos beyond counting. Wisdom packaged as proverbs rolled off his tongue ceaselessly. Objections from O-Nobu only added fat to the fire, feeding his fluency until there was no stopping it. In the end she was obliged to cut short the conversation.