Ah! It was an unbearable topic of conversation for Kōji! What could he do to shut her up? He suddenly stood up, swung his arms around as if he was doing gymnastic exercises (the wrench, which had already cooled, repeatedly knocked against his chest), and then walked around and sat down on the back-to-back bench. This nonchalant reaction to what Yūko saw as a stolid conversation cut her deeply.
There was a moment of hot silence around the bench. The chirring of a cicada sounded from the hairy trunk of a hemp palm. Kōji felt the tip of one of the parasol’s spokes stick slightly in his hair, but he left it as it was. A little while later, Yūko stepped in front of him, and stared down at him, still holding the parasol. Her face appeared slightly pale due to the shadow it cast.
“Why are you angry? What do you want me to do? You’re so self-centered, what right have you got—”
“What right? Don’t talk nonsense. Why don’t you sit down?”
“I don’t want to. It’s so hot here.”
The protest sounded extremely childlike.
“Well, if that’s the case, please move out of the way. I’m trying to look at the view.”
“I’m going home.”
Yūko, however, did not go home. Feeling hurt by the certain knowledge this young nobody had of the hollow home to which she ought to return, Yūko, far from following her intentions, sat down beside Kōji on the scorching bench.
“Can’t you leave that subject alone?”
“I have, haven’t I?”
“It’s annoying when you talk about him all the time.”
“It’s an uncomfortable topic of conversation for me, too, you know. It’s not just you.”
“You mean you talk about him involuntarily?”
“It’s my song. Is it forbidden to hum a tune? It’s my song I tell you.”
“And you expect me to join in the chorus? You must be joking. It’s a timid, cowardly song with only a bone-like shell of self-respect remaining.”
Kōji’s boorish choice of words was unsubstantiated by the facts. It was unclear when he had begun to use such uncouth language and at what point Yūko had chosen to overlook it. And there was no doubt that she welcomed those too-familiar youthful words as if she were being pleasantly stung with a light and pliant whip. In any case, Kōji was caught in a dilemma between the choice of language—which was constrained by an excess of familiarity—and excessive behavior, which was compelled by his emotions. While he was looking closely at Yūko’s hot cheeks, there appeared to be between them, as always, a distance similar to that between the skin of a patient and her doctor.
It was a meaningless squabble that went round and round in circles. Yet, because it was an honest anger, their heartbeats quickened. And then the anger quietly lost direction and gave way to a sense of common purpose… Kōji later wondered why, despite this confrontation, the quiet serenity of the surrounding scenery had remained etched in his memory.
The grassy south-facing slope commanded a view of the immediate locality—the three sides of the town in the valley, surrounded by hills that were covered with rows of houses, and on the summit of the hills stood sparse clumps of trees reaching up and almost touching the sky.
Closely built houses—some old, some modern—basked in the westerly summer sun and produced an unattractive, stark stereoscopic effect. The yellowish buildings of a junior high school soared precipitously in the east, while to the west could be seen an automobile firm, above which an ad balloon—displaying the names of new models of cars—hung in the sky like a sagging stomach. It was quiet, without a single solitary human form; a weary scene engulfed in the vast summer light. There were graves, too. Close to the summit, a narrow cemetery containing no more than a dozen or so tombstones, closed in on the house rooftops from above, looking like a group of cornered, naked refugees about to face the firing squad—backs against the cliff wall, standing on tiptoe, trembling with fear, huddled together in a state of paralysis, unable to help themselves.
Then came the evening meal, where they hardly said a word to each other. And afterward, Kōji’s sudden victory and Yūko’s submission. From that evening until nightfall, everything seemed to slide down like the flow of a dirty waterfall. After dinner they had gone to a small basement drinking house. Yūko suddenly began to speak her mind, to which Kōji added strong rebuttals, and for the first time they quarreled to their hearts’ content, stinging each other to the quick. Kōji accused Yūko of being spineless.
“You’re just a weak-willed coward. You’re afraid of facing up to reality. Of course, you want to know the truth, but you refuse to look at it with your own two eyes.”
“That’s a lie. It’s just that the truth, when I do eventually face up to it, is bound to be worse than it is on paper. I would rather see Ippei lose his presence of mind. Seeing his impassive face, well, it would simply be the end.”
“Well, if it’s the end it’s the end, isn’t it?”
“What would a child like you know about it?”
Kōji became confused, losing track of where he was trying to lead Yūko. Was it not possible that in his passion he was trying to transform her into the woman Ippei desired her to be?
Even assuming it was so, he hated the monstrously grotesque reality of Yūko’s obstinate refusal to change. And if it were something he could break down, even if the result meant the success of Ippei’s stratagem, he would have to accept it.
“If that’s the case, do you hate my husband? Or is it that you really hate me?” said Yūko, at length, her tone challenging.
“Maybe both of you. But maybe I hate the boss the most.”
“You’re a strange one, aren’t you? Here I am, a lady of means and with a lover to boot, receiving a monthly allowance from my husband. Why can’t I stay as I am? Even if I carry on like this, you won’t suffer at all, will you?”
“It’s because you tell lies. That’s why we can’t go on like this. I can’t allow such lies, even if they are nothing to do with me.”
And in this way Kōji finally showed his bright, youthful colors. Twenty-one-year-old Kōji—wearing a red military uniform and blowing his trumpet. He was able to behold his own portrait without being the least bit ashamed. Being in a position to openly scrape off the dark, worldly confusion of others was a privilege of youth, and after all, who could stand in his way?
Yūko, despite having drunk a considerable amount, fixed her pellucid eyes on Kōji’s face. She looked like somebody who suddenly had thrust before them an incomprehensible picture or a map that was impossible to trace. She extended an elegant finger into the dusky light and, like a blind woman, reached out to touch his cheek, only to stop halfway. To Yūko, Kōji’s cheek appeared to suddenly harden like stone. Her head was bent forward and a green-tinged shadow fell across her cheek, and in a terribly cold, almost possessed tone of voice she said, “Today is Tuesday.”
What Kōji vividly remembered, more than the thirty-minute passage of time between eight thirty and nine o’clock that evening, was the stillness of the scene—almost as if it were a painting formed of living people.