“I’m not prompting. I just want to plan a farewell party.”
Tsuda’s unstated reason for proposing a party was to create as a precaution a second opportunity in the event he should be unable to learn all he needed to know from Kobayashi today.
[118]
INASMUCH AS, intentionally or as it happened, Kobayashi wouldn’t be led in the direction Tsuda wanted, this precaution may have been necessary. Throughout, while appearing to respond to Tsuda’s inquiries, Kobayashi was actually deflecting them. And from start to finish, he clung pertinaciously to topics that concerned himself. Since what he had to say related, however indirectly, to what Tsuda wanted to hear he listened, if impatiently and with annoyance. He had the feeling that he was being shaken down in a roundabout way.
“I was wondering if Yoshikawa and Okamoto were related,” Kobayashi said inconsequently.
“They’re not relatives, just friends. I told you that the last time you asked.”
“You did? They have so little to do with me I must have forgotten. They may be friends, but they must be more.”
“What does that mean?”
Tsuda wanted to add, “Idiot!”
“I just mean they must be special friends — you needn’t get so angry about it.”
The relationship between Yoshikawa and Okamoto was just as Kobayashi imagined it. The simple truth was simply that. But it was easily possible to observe both sides of that reality, front and back as it were, by installing Tsuda and O-Nobu just behind it.
“You’re a lucky man,” Kobayashi said. “All you have to do is care for O-Nobu-san.”
“I do care for her. I don’t need you pointing out how important that is.”
“Really?”
There it was again! Every time Kobayashi repeated his sanctimonious “Really?” Tsuda felt that he was being threatened.
“But unlike me, you’re a clever one. I suppose you know that everybody thinks you’ve surrendered completely to O-Nobu-san.”
“Who’s everybody?”
“Sensei. His missus—”
It had already occurred to Tsuda that his Aunt and Uncle Fujii held such a view of him.
“I have surrendered, so I can’t help if that’s how it looks.”
“Really? — I’ll say this, an honest John like me can’t hope to emulate you. You’re a class act.”
“You’re honest and I’m a fake, is that what you’re saying? But the fake is admirable and the honest John’s a fool? Since when is that your philosophy?”
“It’s been a while now. And I’m getting ready to go public with it, on the occasion of my departure to Korea.”
An odd premonition flickered in Tsuda’s head.
“Do you have your travel expenses?”
“I don’t think that will be a problem.”
“The company has decided to pay?”
“By no means. I decided to borrow some money from Sensei.”
“Did you? How convenient!”
“There’s nothing convenient about it. You might not think so, but it makes me sick that I have to rely on Sensei.”
This was the man who had no trouble asking Uncle Fujii to see to his younger sister’s marriage.
“I may be a shameless wretch, but I feel terrible about bothering Sensei about money on top of everything else.”
Tsuda didn’t reply. Kobayashi’s next remark sounded genuine enough.
“Isn’t there anyone you can put some pressure on?”
“Not really,” Tsuda snapped, pointedly looking away.
“No one at all? There must be someone somewhere?”
“There isn’t. Business is bad recently.”
“How about you? The world may be in a slump, but you always seem to be doing well enough.”
“Don’t be an ass.”
Having handed over to O-Nobu both the check from Okamoto and the parcel O-Hide had left, Tsuda’s wallet was as good as empty. But on this occasion, with or without assets, he didn’t feel like making a financial sacrifice for Kobayashi’s sake. So long as circumstances left him any choice, he felt no need of accommodating his companion.
Oddly, Kobayashi didn’t press him further. He did, however, turn the conversation abruptly in a curious direction that came as a surprise.
At Fujii’s house that morning, having been served lunch as always, he had already spent considerable time editing a manuscript when the lattice door at the entrance had opened and he had gone out himself to greet whomever was there. The figure standing in the doorway turned out to be O-Hide.
Damn her! Tsuda cried out to himself. She’s beaten me to the punch!
But that wasn’t the end of it. Kobayashi had more surprises in store.
[119]
HE DELIVERED his surprises in stages in his own singular way. He began by chaffing Tsuda.
“She told us she’s been fighting with you. She went on about it and Sensei was pretty upset, your aunt, too.”
“And you were just listening on the sidelines?”
Kobayashi scratched his head, smiling awkwardly.
“It’s not as if I was trying to listen! I couldn’t help hearing. Anyway, O-Hide talked and Sensei did the listening.”
It was partly O-Hide’s nature to be willful and single-minded. When this predilection was stimulated in some way, her normal composure evaporated and she was capable of displaying a sudden and surprising fierceness that was foreign to anything in Tsuda’s own temperament. Uncle Fujii was no slouch himself, a man who was never satisfied until he had plumbed a situation to the bottom of the well without caring how that was to be achieved. His attitude toward a companion at a time like this was to insist to the bitter end, even if only in words, that all things must be aligned and consecutive in a context that made sense. Putting his thoughts in order on the page had become a habit that was reflected in his approach to daily life, and its impact was visible in his tenacity. In an argument he granted the other side unlimited opportunity to speak. In return he asked an unlimited number of questions. Past a certain point, it was frequently the case that the nature of his questions transformed into interrogation.
Tsuda pictured his uncle and his sister sitting across from each other. He couldn’t help worrying that their exchange might have provoked yet another upheaval. In Kobayashi’s presence, however, he strove to appear, on the surface at least, insouciant.
“She must have had a grand time cutting me to pieces.”
Kobayashi’s response, after laughing loudly, was to say,
“It’s unlike you to fight with O-Hide.”
“She picked the fight because it was me! You can bet she’d be more careful in front of Hori.”
“Maybe so — you hear a lot about a lover’s spat, but I wonder if a sibling quarrel isn’t more common. I’ve never had a wife so I don’t know a thing about that department, but even I have a younger sister, so if we’re talking about a sibling quarrel I can understand what that might be like. But you know what? I may not be much of a big brother, but I don’t think I’ve ever quarreled with my kid sister.”
“Kid sisters aren’t all alike.”
“But it must have something to do with the brother.”
“Even a big brother gets mad sometimes.”
Kobayashi grinned.
“Maybe so. But you can’t be thinking this was a good time to make O-Hide fighting mad.”
“Obviously not. No one would go out of his way to get into a fight with a hellcat like that.”
Kobayashi laughed even louder. With each outburst he became more voluble.
“There was no avoiding it, right? But that’s my line. I’m a man who doesn’t give a fig who I fight with. You’re looking at a human being who’s fallen so low he can’t possibly be harmed no matter whom he fights. Even if a fight has repercussions, they can’t touch me. I’ve never had anything that could be harmed. In other words, if a fight changes anything, the change is bound to be favorable to me — so I have good reasons for welcoming a scrap. But you’re different! Your fights are guaranteed not to benefit you. And there’s no one around who understands self-interest as well as you do. And not only understands; you live every day on the basis of that understanding. At least you believe that’s how you ought to be living. You see where I’m heading? So for such a man—”