“Thanks. I’d like to be borrowing this, but I suppose you’re intending it as a gift. Given the contempt in which you hold me, you must have told yourself from the beginning I won’t have the means to pay you back or the desire either.”
Tsuda replied.
“Of course I’m giving it to you. I assume you’ll notice the contradiction in accepting it.”
“What contradiction? I’m not aware of any contradiction. Is accepting money from you a contradiction?”
“You don’t see that?” Tsuda condescended. “Think about it. Until just now, that money was in my wallet. And in the twinkling of an eye it moved to your suit pocket. If that sounds too much like a novel, let me put it another way: Who transferred the right to that money from me to you so quickly? Answer me that.”
“You of course. You gave it to me.”
“Wrong. It wasn’t me!”
“You’re sounding like a Zen monk. Who was it then?”
“It wasn’t anyone. It was latitude — that same latitude you’ve been denigrating gave it to you. So accepting it without a word amounts to dipping your head to latitude even as you hack it to pieces. What’s that if not a contradiction?”
Kobayashi blinked rapidly before he spoke.
“You may have a point there — it’s funny, though. I don’t feel as though I’m bowing to latitude.”
“Then give the money back.”
Tsuda thrust his hand in Kobayashi’s face. The palm appeared to be as smooth as a woman’s.
“Like hell I will. Latitude isn’t telling me to give it back.”
Smiling, Tsuda withdrew his hand.
“I rest my case.”
“What case? It appears you’re not getting my meaning when I say latitude hasn’t told me to give it back. Poor Little Lord Fauntleroy!”
Turning aside, Kobayashi glanced toward the entrance as he spoke.
“He should be here by now.”
Tsuda, who had been observing him closely, was a little surprised.
“Who’s coming?”
“Nobody; someone with even less latitude than I.”
Kobayashi made a show of tapping the pocket where he had stuffed the money.
“The latitude that transferred this money from you to me isn’t saying return it to you. It’s commanding me to pass it along to someone even more deficient in latitude. Latitude is like water. It runs downhill, but it doesn’t flow back up.”
Tsuda understood Kobayashi’s drift as a concept. But he was unable to see how it actually applied. This unsettled him, and he withdrew into rumination. Kobayashi’s subsequent words came marching through the haze like an invading army.
“I will bow down to latitude. I’ll acknowledge my contradiction. I’ll affirm your illogical assertions. I’ll do anything. I thank you. I’m grateful.”
Abruptly, large tears began spilling from his eyes. This radical transformation left Tsuda, already surprised, feeling all the more uneasy. Unable to avoid recalling the recent scene at the bar where he had been placed in an awkward situation, he frowned, realizing at the same moment that now was the time to manipulate his companion.
“Why would I expect gratitude from you? You’re the one who’s forgotten the past. I’m doing now what I’ve always done, in the same spirit, but you stand everything on its head, which just makes associating with you more and more a bother. For example, you go to my house when I’m away and say something to my wife while you’re there—”
Having said this much, Tsuda tried assessing its effect on his companion without seeming to. But Kobayashi was looking down, and Tsuda was unable to read his mood to see whether it might have changed.
“Did you have to go out your way to see if you could drive a wedge between your friend and his wife for the fun of it?”
“I don’t recall saying anything about you.”
“But just a minute ago—”
“That was a joke. You were taunting me so I taunted back.”
“I don’t know who started the taunting, but that hardly matters. I just don’t see why you can’t tell me the truth.”
“But I have. I’ve said over and over again I don’t recall saying anything about you. Try questioning your wife and you’ll see.”
“O-Nobu won’t—”
“What’d she say?”
“Nothing, that’s the problem. If she’s thinking something without saying it, I can’t defend myself or explain; I’m the only one who’s left in the dark.”
“I didn’t say anything. The question is what you’ll do now; are you up to behaving like a husband or not?”
“I don’t—”
As Tsuda began to speak, footsteps signaled the arrival at the table of a third party.
[162]
TSUDA SAW at once that it was the young man with long hair with whom Kobayashi had been conversing on the street corner, and he was further surprised. But not entirely: it was as if at the same time he had been expecting the youth. The fleeting feeling was a contradiction, a certainty amounting to a conclusion that no one like this would appear, and a presentiment that if anyone were to appear, it would have to be this young man.
The face illuminated in the headlight of the car as it turned the corner had struck him as odd. As he shifted his interior gaze from himself to Kobayashi and from Kobayashi to the young man, he had been sensible of the distance separating them in social standing, philosophy, profession, even dress. This required him to observe the young man as though from afar. But as he regarded him, however distantly, a vivid impression had burned into his mind.
So this is the sort of fellow Kobayashi keeps company with!
Reflecting at that moment on his own circumstances, which did not require him to associate with such people, and having felt, all in all, fortunate, Tsuda’s attitude toward the newcomer was unambiguous. The look on his face suggested he had been abruptly introduced to a disreputable character.
Holding his rumpled cap in his hand, the young man took a seat next to Kobayashi. He appeared to be feeling uneasy in Tsuda’s presence. The odd light in his eyes reflected nervously a tangle of hostility and fear and the untempered self-regard of someone unaccustomed to being in company. Tsuda felt increasingly repelled. Kobayashi turned to the young man.
“Take off your coat.”
The youth stood up again in silence. Throwing off the long mantle favored by art and music students, he threw it over the back of his chair.
“This is my friend.”
Kobayashi introduced the youth to Tsuda, who learned subsequently that his surname was Hara and that he was a painter.
“What happened? How did it go?”
This was Kobayashi’s next question. Before the artist could reply he immediately added, “No luck, right? How could it go well with a dullard like that? It would be an insult to you if he appreciated your work. Oh, well, relax and have something to eat.”
Kobayashi pounded on the table with the handle of his knife.
“Hey. Let’s get this man something to eat.”
In due course, the glass in front of Hara was filled with beer.
Tsuda had been observing in silence; finally he realized that the matter of business that had brought him here had been concluded. Just then Kobayashi suddenly turned to him.
“His paintings are wonderful. Why don’t you buy one? He’s having a tough time right now. How about it? Why not have him bring some work to show you on Sunday?”
Tsuda was surprised.
“I don’t appreciate paintings much.”
“I don’t believe that, do you, Hara? Anyway, take some work and show him.”
“Certainly, if it’s not a bother.”
It was, of course.
“I’m someone with no appreciation for paintings and sculpture and that sort of thing. So if you don’t mind—”