She was therefore surprised. When O-Hide had taken a seat and, contrary to her expectation, proceeded to greet her more warmly than ever, she had to wonder if she were dreaming. Queasily in her companion’s behavior she observed what appeared to be her determination to dispel any such doubts. Her surprise at this remarkable change gave way to uneasiness about its significance.
But O-Hide made no attempt to answer that crucial question. To the very end, she appeared disinclined to say one word about the unfortunate clash at the hospital the previous day.
Inasmuch as her companion intentionally avoided mentioning this sensitive subject, it would have been odd for O-Nobu to bring it up. There was no need to go out of her way to touch on a sore spot. That said, to what purpose had she dragged herself here today if not to put this somehow behind them and clear the air? But since it appeared that a reconciliation had been achieved without undergoing a process of resolution, it would have been foolish to air their differences.
O-Nobu was clever enough to feel outmaneuvered. As the conversation continued to glide smoothly forward as though over ice, she began to feel that something was lacking. Finally she decided to pierce her companion’s defenses and have a look inside. Adventurous as she was when it came to a sortie of this nature, she was not unaware that a failed assault in this case would expose her to danger. But she was bolstered by her confidence in her own prowess.
If circumstances permitted, she wanted to try touching O-Hide in a certain place above her heart. Percussing the patient in hopes of stimulating an echo of her genuine feelings was by no means an objective of the visit she had planned in consultation with Tsuda, but to O-Nobu it was a far more important mission than simply enabling a reconciliation.
This mission, which must be hidden from Tsuda, closely resembled in nature the incident that Tsuda had to keep secret from O-Nobu. Just as Tsuda was concerned about what Kobayashi had told her in his absence, so O-Nobu wanted to ascertain what O-Hide had said to Tsuda when she was not in the room.
After deliberating about how to create an opening, O-Nobu decided her only choice was to mention once again O-Hide’s visit to her house on her way home from the Fujiis’. On arriving she had opened with, “I’m so sorry I was at the bath when you stopped in”; this time, when she attempted to revive the subject with a question, “Was there something you wanted?” O-Hide replied with a simple “No!” and deftly turned her aside.
[125]
HER NEXT attempt to gain access was through Fujii. O-Hide’s acknowledgment that she had visited her uncle that morning provided a convenient means of moving the conversation in that direction. But O-Hide guarded her gate as vigilantly as she had before. When necessary she ventured outside the gate and engaged with O-Nobu amiably. O-Nobu knew that O-Hide had grown up under her uncle’s protection. She also understood that she had been influenced by him spiritually. This meant that her first task in the order of things was to remark on Uncle Fujii’s personality and lifestyle in a manner likely to please her. In fact, her words struck O-Hide’s ears as exaggerated, not to mention false: not only was she unable to discover in them anything to engage with seriousness, but as the same path was followed at length, she couldn’t help revealing in her countenance the displeasure and even disgust she was naturally feeling. Nimble as ever, O-Nobu drew back the instant she noticed that she had underestimated her companion. Whereupon O-Hide began to descant about Okamoto. As far as O-Hide was concerned, this uncle, who stood in the same relation to O-Nobu as Fujii did to herself, was a perfect stranger toward whom she felt neither intimacy nor anything else. Her words, accordingly, were smooth skin only with no flesh or blood beneath them. Even so, O-Nobu was obliged to swallow whole as if it were delicious the hand-cooked meal O-Hide had prepared in return for her own flattery.
When her turn came round again, O-Nobu was not so foolish as to heap a bowl with a second portion of ingratiation and force it on O-Hide. This time, deftly seizing an opportune moment to shift the conversation, she tried stirring things up with Madam Yoshikawa. However, by merely lavishing praise as before, she was in danger of achieving a similarly dismal result. Accordingly she put aside considerations of good and bad and merely launched the name into the air between them. She was prepared to proceed gradually in accordance with the effect this had.
She knew that O-Hide had called at the house when she was at the bath on her way back from Fujii. It never occurred to her that she had already visited Madam Yoshikawa before going to see her uncle. Nor would she have dreamed that O-Hide would have taken herself to the Yoshikawas as a result of the upheaval that had occurred at the clinic the previous day. On this head, O-Nobu was naive to the same degree as her husband, and she was to be surprised by O-Hide to the same degree that Tsuda had been surprised by Kobayashi. The manner in which they were surprised, however, was different. Kobayashi reported undeniable facts. O-Hide resorted to silence that felt pregnant with meaning. And to a pale flush in her face that accompanied the silence.
When the lady’s name first escaped O-Nobu’s lips, she felt as if a single drop of miraculous medicine had fallen from the skies and landed between them. Its effect was immediately apparent right before her eyes. Unfortunately it was of no use to her. Or at least it was an effect she didn’t know how to make use of. Its unexpected nature was shocking to her merely. Even as she spoke the name, she wondered whether she ought to apologize at once for speaking out of turn.
The second surprise followed hard on the first. Observing O-Hide as she averted her face slightly, O-Nobu was obliged to amend the impression she had received at first. She understood now for the first time that the change in O-Hide’s complexion was not due to anger. Her expression, which could only be described as a simple awkwardness so commonly observed that one grows tired of seeing it, surprised O-Nobu even further. The meaning of the expression was clear to her. Accounting for it would have to await an explanation from O-Hide.
As O-Nobu wondered in confusion what to do, O-Hide abruptly changed the subject. The change, a leap inconsequent to everything that had preceded it, as if O-Hide had grafted bamboo onto a tree trunk, was more than sufficient to hand O-Nobu a third surprise. But she was confident. She stepped into the challenge with open arms.
[126]
O-NOBU WAS struck first by the word “love.”
If she felt ambushed by so commonplace a word, it was partly due to its abrupt appearance entirely out of context, but it was also the fact that such a word had never until now found its way into her conversations with O-Hide. Relative to O-Nobu, O-Hide was a logical woman. Arriving at that conclusion, however, required some explanation. O-Nobu was a woman who expressed her logic in her actions. If she didn’t normally argue, therefore, it wasn’t because she didn’t know how but because there was no need. In consequence, her store of knowledge, instilled in her by others, was small. Recently she rarely opened even the magazines she had enjoyed reading in her student days at a girls’ school. Even so, she had never once felt about herself that she was deprived. Vain as she was, she had never felt much moved to address her ignorance, not because she had little time to spare or lacked a conversation partner to compete with, but because she was insensible of anything lacking.