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[1] FINISHED WITH his probe, the doctor helped Tsuda down from the examination table. “It appears the lesion extends all the way to the intestine. Last time I felt the ridge of a scar and assumed it stopped there, but when I scraped away just now to help it drain, I see it’s deeper.” “To the intestine?” “Yes. What I thought was less than two centimeters appears to be more than three.” A flush of disappointment rose faintly to Tsuda’s face beneath his strained smile. The doctor shook his head, his hands clasped in front of him against his baggy white smock. “It’s too bad but it’s the reality we have to face,” he might have been saying. “A doctor can’t compromise professional standards with a lie.” Tsuda retied his obi in silence and turned again to face the doctor, lifting his hakama* from the back of a chair where he had dropped it. “If it’s all the way to the intestine there’s no way it’ll heal?” “There’s no reason to think that.” The doctor’s denial was emphatic and unhesitating, as if to invalidate Tsuda’s mood at the same time. “It does suggest we’ll have to do more than just clean the canal as we’ve been doing. Since that won’t get us any new tissue our only option is a more fundamental approach.” “Meaning?”
*A hakama is a frontal skirt, not unlike chaps, worn over the male kimono.
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“Surgery. We’ll resect a portion of the canal and connect it to the intestine. That will allow the resected ends to knit naturally and you’ll be, well, almost as good as new.” Tsuda nodded without speaking. Next to where he stood, a microscope sat on a table that had been installed beneath a window facing south. Entering the examination room earlier, his curiosity had prompted him to ask the doctor, with whom he was on familiar terms, if he could have a look. What he had seen through the 850-power lens were grapeshaped bacteria as vividly colored as if they had been photographed. Fastening his hakama, Tsuda reached for the leather wallet he had placed on the same table and abruptly recalled the bacteria. The association was a breath of uneasiness. Having inserted the wallet inside his kimono in preparation to leave, he was on his way out when he hesitated. “If it’s tuberculosis, I suppose it wouldn’t heal even if you performed what you call fundamental surgery?” “If it were tubercular, no. In that case it would burrow straight in toward the intestine so that just treating the opening would be ineffective.” Tsuda winced involuntarily. “But mine isn’t tubercular?” “That’s right.” Tsuda looked hard at the doctor for an instant, as if to determine the degree of truth in what he was saying. The doctor didn’t move. “How do you know? You can tell from just an examination?” “That’s right—from how it looks.” Just then the nurse, standing at the entrance to the room, called the name of the next patient, who had been waiting for his turn and immediately appeared in the doorway. Tsuda was obliged to exit quickly. “So when can I have this surgery?” “Any time. Whenever it suits you.” Promising to pick a date after thinking it over, Tsuda stepped outside.
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[2] ON THE streetcar home, he was feeling low. Wedged into the crowded car with no room to move, gripping the overhead strap, he directed his thoughts inward. Last year’s screeching pain rose vividly to the stage of his memory. He saw distinctly his own pathetic figure laid out on the white bed. He heard clearly his own moaning, a sound that might have issued from a dog unable to break its chain and run away. And then the glitter of the cold blade, the metallic clink of scalpel against speculum, a pressure so powerful that it squeezed the air out of both his lungs in a single gasp, and a riotous agony that felt as if it could only have come from the impossibility of expressing the air as it was being compressed— these impressions assaulted his memory all at once. He felt miserable. Shifting his focus abruptly, he cast an eye around him. The passengers near him were impassive, not even aware of his existence. He turned his thoughts back on himself. Why did I have such an agonizing experience? On his way home from viewing cherry blossoms at the Arakawa Wharf, the pain had struck with no warning, its cause a mystery to him. It wasn’t strange so much as terrifying. There’s no guarantee that a change won’t occur in this body of mine at any hour of any given day. For that matter, some sort of change could be taking place even now. And I myself have no idea. Terrifying! Having proceeded this far, his mind was unable to stop. With the force of a powerful blow to the back it jolted him forward. Abruptly he called out silently inside himself: It’s the same with the mind. Exactly the same. There’s no knowing when or how it will change. I’ve witnessed such a change with my own eyes. Pursing his lips, he glanced around him with the eyes of a man whose self-esteem has been injured. But the other passengers were oblivious of what was happening inside him and paid no heed to the look in his eyes. Like the streetcar he was riding, his mind merely moved forward on its own tracks. He recalled what his friend had told him a few days ago about Poincarré. Having explained “probability” for his benefit, his friend had turned to him and spoken as follows:
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“So you see, what you commonly hear described as chance, an accident, a chance occurrence, is really just a case where the actual cause is too complex to grasp. For a Napoleon to be born, an extraordinary sperm must unite with an extraordinary egg; but when you start considering the circumstances that were required to create that necessary union it boggles the imagination.” He was unable to dismiss his friend’s words as merely a fragment of new knowledge that had been imparted to him. Thinking about how closely they fit his own circumstances, he seemed to become aware of a dark, imponderable force pushing him left when he meant to go right or pulling him back when he meant to go forward. Until that moment, he would have felt certain that his actions had never been subject to restraint by others. He had been certain that he did whatever he did of his own accord, that everything he said he intended to say. Why would she have married him? Because she chose to, no doubt. But she couldn’t possibly have wanted that. And what of me, why did I marry the woman who is my wife? No doubt our marriage happened because I chose to take her. But I have never once felt that I wanted her. Chance? Poincarré’s so-called zenith of complexity? I have no idea. Alighting from the streetcar, he walked ruminatively home.
[3] TURNING THE corner and entering a narrow street, Tsuda recognized the figure of his wife standing in front of the gate to their house. She was looking in his direction. But as he rounded the corner she turned back to the street in front of her. Lifting her slender, white hand as if to shadow her brow, she appeared to be looking up at something. She maintained the stance until Tsuda had moved to her side. “What are you looking at?” As if surprised by his voice, Tsuda’s wife quickly turned to face him. “You startled me—welcome home.” As she spoke, she turned her sparkling eyes on him and drenched him in their light. Then, bending forward slightly she dipped her head in a
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casual greeting. Tsuda halted where he stood, half responding to the coquette in her and half hesitating. “What are you doing standing here?” “I was waiting—for you to come home.” “But you were staring at something.” “A sparrow. You can see the sparrow nesting under the eaves across the street.” Tsuda glanced up at the roof of the house. But there was no visible sign of anything that appeared to be a sparrow. His wife abruptly extended her hand toward him. “What?” “Your stick.” As if he had just noticed it, Tsuda handed the cane to his wife. Taking it, she slid open the lattice door at the entrance and moved aside for her husband to enter. Close behind him, she stepped up to the wooden floor from the concrete slab for shoes. When she had helped him change out of his kimono, she brought from the kitchen a soap dish wrapped in a towel as he was sitting down in front of the charcoal brazier. “Go and have a quick bath now. Once you get comfortable there you won’t feel like going out.” Tsuda had no choice but to reach out and take the towel. But he didn’t stand right away. “I might skip a bath today.” “Why? You’ll feel refreshed. And dinner will be ready as soon as you get back.” Tsuda stood up again as he was told. On his way out of the room he turned back toward his wife. “I stopped in at Kobayashi’s on the way home from work and had him take a look.” “Goodness! What did he say? By now you must be mostly better?” “I’m not—it’s worse than before.” Without giving his wife a chance to question him further, he left the room. It wasn’t until early that evening, after dinner and before he had withdrawn to his study, that the couple returned to the subject. “I can’t believe it, surgery is horrible; it scares me. Couldn’t you just ignore it as you’ve been doing?”
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“The doctor says that would be dangerous.” “But it’s so hateful, what if he makes a mistake?” His wife looked at him, bunching slightly her thick, well-formed eyebrows. Tsuda smiled, declining to engage her. Her next question seemed to have occurred to her abruptly. “If you do have surgery won’t it have to be on Sunday?” On the coming Sunday his wife had made a date with relatives to see a play and bring Tsuda along. “They haven’t bought tickets yet so you needn’t worry about canceling.” “But wouldn’t that be rude? After they were kind enough to invite us along?” “Not at all. Not under the circumstances.” “But I want to go!” “Then do.” “And you come too, won’t you? Won’t you, please?” Tsuda looked at his wife and forced a smile.
[4] AGAINST THE fairness of her complexion her well-formed eyebrows stood out strikingly, and it was her habit, almost a tic, to arch them frequently. Regretfully, her eyes were too small and her single eyelids were unappealing. But the shining pupils beneath those single lids were ink black and, for that reason, very effective. At times her eyes could be expressive to a degree that might be called overbearing. Tsuda had experienced feeling helplessly drawn in by the light that emanated from those small eyes. Not as if there weren’t also moments when abruptly and for no reason the same light repelled him. Glancing up abruptly at his wife’s face, he beheld for an instant an eerie power resident in her eyes. It was an odd brilliancy utterly inconsonant with the sweet words that had been issuing from her lips until now. His intention to respond was impeded a little by her gaze. In that moment she smiled, exposing her beautiful teeth, and the look in her eyes vanished without a trace. 30
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“It’s not so. I don’t care a bit about going to the theater. I was just being spoiled.” Tsuda was silent, unable for a while longer to take his eyes off his wife. “Why are you frowning at me that way? I’m not going to the play so please have your surgery on Sunday, won’t you? I’ll send the Okamotos a postcard or drop in and tell them we can’t come.” “Go if you want to, they were nice enough to invite us.” “I’d rather not—your health is more important than a play.” Tsuda felt obliged to tell his wife in more detail about the surgery in store for him. “This isn’t a simple matter of draining the pus out of a boil. I have to flush out my colon with a laxative before the doctor goes to work with his scalpel, and apparently there’s a danger of hemorrhaging after the incision is made so I’ll have to lie still in bed five or six days with the wound packed with gauze. But that means, on the other hand, I could postpone until Monday or Tuesday or even move the date up to tomorrow or the day after and it wouldn’t make much difference—in that sense it’s an accommodating condition.” “It doesn’t sound so accommodating to me, having to lie in bed for a week without moving.” His wife arched her eyebrows again. As if indifferent to this display, Tsuda, lost in thought, leaned his right elbow against the brazier between them and gazed at the lid on the iron kettle atop it. Beneath the russet bronze lid the water in the kettle was boiling loudly. “I suppose you’ll have to take a whole week off?” “I’m thinking I won’t pick a date until I’ve had a chance to let Yoshikawa-san know what’s happening. I could just stay home without saying anything but that wouldn’t feel right.” “I think you should talk to him. He’s always been so kind to us.” “If I do say something he might tell me to check in to the hospital right away.” At the word “hospital,” his wife’s small eyes appeared suddenly to widen. “Hospital? It’s not as if you’ll be going to a hospital.” “It’s the same thing—” “But you said once that Dr. Kobayashi’s place isn’t a hospital—it’s only for out-patients.” “I suppose it’s more of a clinic, but the second floor is available for staying over.” LIGHT AND DARK
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“Is it clean?” Tsuda forced a smile. “Maybe cleaner than our place—” It was his wife’s turn to smile stiffly.
[5] TSUDA, WHOSE custom it was to spend an hour or two at his desk before going to bed, presently rose. His wife remained where she was, leaning comfortably against the brazier, and looked up at her husband. “Study time again?” This wasn’t the first time she had asked the question as he stood up. And there was always something in her tone that sounded to him like dissatisfaction. Sometimes he attempted to mollify her. At other times he felt rebellious and wanted to escape. In either case he was always aware, at the back of his consciousness, of a feeling that amounted to a disparagement: I can’t be wasting all my time with a woman like you—I have things to do for myself. Sliding open the paper door to the adjoining room in silence, he was on his way out when his wife spoke to his back. “So the theater is off? And I’m to decline the Okamotos’ invitation?” Tsuda paused, turning around. “You should go if you like. The way things are, I can’t make any promises.” His wife’s eyes remained on her lap. Nor did she reply. Tsuda turned and climbed the steep stairs to the second floor, the steps creaking under his feet. A Western tome was waiting on top of his desk. He sat down and, opening the book to the bookmark, began at once to read. But the context eluded him, the price of having abandoned the book for a number of days. As recalling where he had left off would require rereading the preceding section, he merely riffled the pages guiltily and regarded the volume as though oppressed by its thickness. A spontaneous feeling that the road ahead was endless took possession of him. 32
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He recalled having acquired the book during the first three or four months of his marriage. And it struck him that, although more than two months had passed, he had succeeded in making his way through less than two-thirds of it. Against the common practice of most men, beneath contempt as he put it, of leaving books behind when they embarked on their careers, he had frequently inveighed in front of his wife. And sufficient hours had been expended on the second floor to oblige her, accustomed to hearing him carry on about others, to acknowledge that he was indeed an avid student. Together with his sense that the road ahead was endless, a feeling of humiliation emerged from somewhere and nibbled perversely at his self-esteem. However, the knowledge he was struggling to absorb from the book that was open in front of him was of no quotidian consequence to his life at work. It was too specialized, and again too refined. It might have been styled as utterly irrelevant to an occupation such that even the knowledge he had obtained from college lectures had almost never availed him. This was knowledge he wanted to store away as a source of a certain strength that derived from self-confidence. He also wished to acquire it as an ornament for attracting the attention of others. Now, as he became sensible in a vague way of how difficult that was likely to be, he framed a question inwardly to his vanity: Will this be tougher than I thought? He smoked a cigarette in silence. Then, as if suddenly noticing it, he turned the book face down and stood up from his desk. With quick steps that caused the stairs to creak again he went back downstairs.
[6] “O-NOBU!” “O-NOBU!” Calling his wife’s name through the fusuma,* he slid open the patterned paper door and stood in the threshold of the sitting room. Instantly his vision filled with the colors of the beautiful obi and kimono she had at some *Fusuma are a substantial version of shoji, partitions consisting of a wooden framework papered on both sides.
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point spread in front of her as she sat alongside the brazier. They appeared, as he peered at them in the lighted room from the dark hallway, more strikingly vibrant than usual, and for a long moment he stood there, glancing from his wife’s face to the dazzling patterns and back again. “Why take all that out at this hour?” With one end of a thick obi woven in an iris pattern across her knee, O-Nobu looked at her husband as if across a great distance. “I felt like it—I haven’t worn this obi even once.” “I suppose that’s the outfit you’re planning to wear for your big day at the theater?” In Tsuda’s voice was the coldness that accompanies an ironic jab. ONobu cast her eyes down without speaking. In her wonted manner she arched her dark eyebrows. There were times when this singular gesture excited him in an odd way, while at other times he felt curiously aggravated. In silence he stepped out onto the engawa* and opened the door to the lavatory. Thence he moved back to the stairs. This time it was his wife who called him back. “Yoshio-san. Wait.” As she spoke she rose and approached him. “Is there something you need?” she asked, stepping between him and the stairs. What he needed that minute was related to a matter of more importance than an obi or a long under-robe. “Still no letter from my father?” “Not yet—when it arrives I’ll put it on your desk as usual.” Tsuda had bothered to come back downstairs because the letter he was expecting wasn’t waiting on his desk. “Shall I have O-Toki look in the mailbox?” “It’ll come registered; they won’t just toss it into the mailbox.” “Perhaps not, but let’s have a look just to be sure.” O-Nobu slid open the shoji at the front entrance and stepped down onto the concrete. “I’m telling you. There’s no point looking in the mailbox for a registered letter.” “But maybe it wasn’t registered; wait just a minute while I have a look.” *An engawa is a deck of highly polished wood that runs the length of the house, usually along the garden side, from which various rooms can be accessed.
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Tsuda withdrew to the sitting room and sat down with his legs crossed in front of him on the cushion he had used at dinner, still in place alongside the brazier. His gaze came to rest on the brilliant profusion of scattered color, the glowing animals and flowers in a yuzen pattern. O-Nobu was back from the front of the house a minute later with a letter in her hand. “There was one! This might be from your father.” As she spoke, she held the white envelope up to the bright light. “It is. Just as I thought.” “And it’s not registered?” Taking the envelope from her hand, Tsuda opened it at once and read it through to the end. When he folded it to replace it in the envelope, his hands moved mechanically. He didn’t look down at them, or at O-Nobu’s face. Gazing vacantly at the pattern of broad stripes on her dressy crepe kimono, he muttered, as if talking to himself, “Damn.” “What’s wrong?” “Nothing to worry about.” Acutely concerned with appearances, Tsuda was disinclined to reveal the content of the letter to his newlywed wife. At the same time, it was about something he was obliged to discuss with her.
[7] “HE SAYS he can’t send money so we should manage on our own this month. That’s the thing about old people. He could have written earlier, but he has to wait until we’re just about to need some extra cash.” “But why? Does he explain?” Tsuda removed the letter he had replaced in the envelope and unrolled it on his lap. “He says two of his rentals went vacant at the end of last month and he’s still waiting for the rent from others that are occupied. On top of that he has gardeners to pay, a fence to build, maintenance he hadn’t figured on, you name it—so this month is out of the question.” LIGHT AND DARK
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He passed the unfurled letter across the brazier to O-Nobu. His wife accepted it in silence but made no attempt to read it. It was this coldness in her attitude that Tsuda had feared from the beginning. “It’s not as though he needs that rent to manage his payment to us if he wanted to send it. And how much can a fence cost; he’s not building a brick wall.” Tsuda was speaking the truth. His father may not have been wealthy, but neither were his circumstances such that covering the shortage in funds needed by his son and his young wife for monthly expenses would burden him. It was simply that he lived modestly. Tsuda might have called him plain and simple to a fault. To O-Nobu, far more inclined to extravagance than her husband, the old man appeared to be meaninglessly frugal. “Your father probably thinks we love to throw money away on things we don’t need. I bet that’s exactly what he thinks.” “The last time we were in Kyoto he did imply something like that. Old people remember how they lived when they were young, and they tend to think that young people today should behave just as they did when they were the same age. Thirty may be thirty no matter whose age it is, but we live in a completely different world. He once asked me what a ticket cost me when I went to a lecture, and when I told him five yen he looked horrified.” Tsuda worried constantly that O-Nobu would feel contempt for his father. Even so, he couldn’t avoid speaking critically about him in her presence. And what he said was what he truly felt. By preempting O-Nobu’s own criticism, he was also proffering what amounted to an excuse for himself and his father. “So whatever shall we do? We can’t make ends meet as it is, and now you’re going in for surgery and that has to cost something—” Reluctant to criticize the old man out of consideration for her husband, O-Nobu shifted the subject to concrete issues. Tsuda was not ready with a reply. Presently he spoke as if to himself, his voice low. “If Uncle Fujii had any money I’d go to him.” O-Nobu gazed steadily into her husband’s face. “Can’t you write back to Father? And mention your illness in passing?” “I can always write, but I know he’ll come back at me with something or other and that’s such a nuisance. Once he clamps down it’s harder than hell to break away.”
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“But what other options do we have?” “I’m not saying I won’t write. I intend to do what I can to make our circumstances clear to them, but that won’t put money in our pocket in time.” “I suppose—” Tsuda looked O-Nobu squarely in the face. When he spoke, there was determination in his voice. “How about going to the Okamotos and asking them for a small loan?”
[8] “ABSOLUTELY NOT! I won’t!” O-Nobu declined at once. There was no trace of hesitation in her voice. Her fluency, beyond all reserve or consideration, caught Tsuda off guard. The shock he received was as if an automobile traveling at considerable speed had suddenly braked to a stop. In advance of anger or resentment at his wife’s lack of sympathy for him was surprise. He gazed at her face. “I won’t. I’m not going to the Okamotos with a story like that.” O-Nobu repeated her refusal. “Fine! I’m not going to ask you against your will. It’s just—” These cold yet calmly delivered words O-Nobu scooped up and tossed aside. “It’s so awkward for me. Every time I visit I’m told how fortunate I am to have married so well with no cares or troubles and no financial worries; I can imagine how they’d look at me if I showed up out of the blue with a sad story about money.” This allowed Tsuda to satisfy himself that O-Nobu’s categorical rejection of his request was prompted less by a lack of sympathy for him than by her need to maintain appearances in front of the Okamotos. The cold light that had lodged in his eyes flickered out. “You shouldn’t be carrying on as if we’re having such an easy time. It’s nice to have people think you’re doing better than you are, but there’s no guarantee the time won’t come when that will create its own problems.”
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“If anyone’s carrying on it certainly isn’t me—they’ve decided how things are all by themselves.” Tsuda chose not to pursue this. Nor could O-Nobu be troubled to explain further. For a moment their conversation seemed at an end; then they returned to practical matters. But Tsuda, who until now had suffered little pain as a result of his financial circumstances, had nothing useful to contribute. “Father is such a nuisance!” was all he had to say. Abruptly O-Nobu shifted her gaze to the colorful kimono and obi as if noticing for the first time her overlooked clothing on the floor. “Shall we do something with these?” Grasping the edge of the thick obi laced with gold thread, she held it up to the electric light for her husband to see. “Do something?” Tsuda asked, unsure of what she meant. “If I take this to a pawnshop, wouldn’t they lend us money on it?” Tsuda was surprised. If his young bride so recently come to wife had known for years about something he had never once undertaken to do, contriving by one means or another to make ends meet, this surely was an unexpected and a valuable discovery. “Have you ever pawned a kimono or anything else?” “Of course not—never.” Laughing, O-Nobu replied in the negative to her husband’s query as though disdainfully. “So you have no idea what happens when you take something to a pawnshop.” “No, but I don’t see how that matters—once we’ve decided to do it.” Short of an emergency, Tsuda would have preferred not to allow his wife to have anything to do with such disreputable behavior. O-Nobu defended her own suggestion. “Toki knows all about it. When she was living with us at the Okamotos, she was always going to the pawnshop on errands with a parcel wrapped in a furoshiki.* These days she tells me all she has to do is send a postcard and they come to the house to pick up whatever she has.” It pleased Tsuda to think that his wife was willing to sacrifice her precious kimono and obi for his sake. But allowing her to make the sacrifice
*A furoshiki is a large, silk cloth used to wrap parcels for carrying.
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could only be described as painful. More than feeling sorry for her, it was the wound to his pride as a husband that gave him pause. “Let’s give it some thought.” Without arriving at any financial solution, he returned to his study on the second floor.
[9] THE NEXT day he went to work as usual. Mid-morning he ran into Yoshikawa on the stairs. But since he was starting down as his employer was on his way up, he merely bowed politely and said nothing. Shortly before it was time for lunch, he knocked softly at Yoshikawa’s door and peeked into the room hesitantly. Yoshikawa, smoking a cigarette, was conversing with a visitor. The visitor was of course unknown to Tsuda. As he opened the door halfway their conversation, which seemed to be in full swing, abruptly ceased, and both host and visitor turned in his direction. “What is it?” Addressed before he had a chance to speak, Tsuda halted in the doorway. “Just a word—” “Personal?” Tsuda wasn’t someone who came in and out of this office in the course of normal business. The awkwardness he was feeling showed in his face as he replied. “Just briefly—” “I’m in the middle of something. This isn’t the time.” “Of course—please forgive the interruption.” Closing the door as quietly as he could, Tsuda went back to his desk. In the afternoon he returned twice to stand in front of the same door. There was no sign of Yoshikawa either time. “Has he gone out?” The question was addressed to the office boy he encountered at the bottom of the stairs on his way out. The youth had perfect eyes and mouth; he was attempting to summon a brown, long-haired dog from LIGHT AND DARK
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where it reclined beneath a stone step by whistling at it as though magically, extending his arm in the animal’s direction. “He left a while ago with a visitor—he might not be back today.” Since all day long his sole concern was attending to the comings and goings of the people in the office, the boy’s predictions were apt to be more reliable than Tsuda’s. Leaving behind the brown dog, whose owner was undetermined, and the office boy at pains to make friends with the animal, Tsuda returned yet again to his desk, where he continued working as usual until the end of the day. When it was time to leave he lagged slightly behind the others as they exited the large building. On the way to his usual trolley stop, as though abruptly recalling something, he took his watch from his vest pocket and glanced at it. It was less the precise time he wanted than a determination of which direction to take. It was very much as if he were conferring meaningfully with the watch whether to stop at Yoshikawa’s house on the way home or abandon the idea. In the end, he jumped aboard a streetcar that ran in the opposite direction to his own house. He well knew that Yoshikawa was often not at home and didn’t expect that dropping in would guarantee a meeting. He also understood that even if his employer chanced to be there, he might be turned away if his timing happened to be inconvenient. Nevertheless, he felt it was necessary from time to time to pass through Yoshikawa’s gate. This was out of courtesy. It was also an obligation. It was furthermore in his best interest. Finally, it was simple vanity. Tsuda’s acquaintance with Yoshikawa is privileged. There were times when he felt like bearing this truth on his back. When he wished to shoulder his burden in plain view of everyone. But without in the least compromising his habitual self-respect. The psychology that had brought him to the entrance to Yoshikawa’s house was akin to that of a man who, even as he secludes things as deeply inside himself as possible, wants to reveal his hiding place to others. His interpretation to himself was that he had come all this way on an errand and for no other reason.
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