Having said this much, O-Nobu looked at O-Hide and observed an extraordinary change in her face. From flushed she had gone slightly pale. In a rush of words that seemed excessive, she spoke as if to gainsay as quickly as possible what O-Nobu had said.
“As far as I’m concerned, I have nothing to feel ashamed of. I have only the best of intentions toward my brother and toward you. I have no ill will! Just so there’s no misunderstanding.”
[130]
O-HIDE’S DEFENSIVENESS surprised O-Nobu. And it was abrupt. She understood neither whence these words came nor their purpose. She was simply surprised. What could be lurking in the background of this O-Hide, revealed to her like a benefaction from the skies? O-Nobu attempted at once to penetrate the darkness. The third lie issued effortlessly from her lips.
“I understand that. And I know everything you’ve done and the spirit it was done in. So why not tell me what you know without holding anything back? Please!”
O-Nobu looked at O-Hide with every particle of charm she could summon sparkling in her small eyes. But if she expected this gesture to have the same effect as it had on men, she was mistaken. As though startled, O-Hide asked an unexpected question.
“Nobuko-san, were you at the clinic before you came here today?”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“But you came here from somewhere else?”
“I came straight from home.”
O-Hide appeared relieved. Unfortunately, relief left her with nothing more to say. But O-Nobu wasn’t ready to release the hand she was clinging with.
“For goodness sake, Hideko-san, won’t you talk to me?”
At that moment, a cruel light glinted in O-Hide’s cool eyes.
“How willful you are, Nobuko-san! Must you feel that you’re the only one being loved perfectly? You can’t be satisfied otherwise?”
“Of course not! That doesn’t matter to you?”
“With the husband I have?” O-Hide replied without a trace of self-pity.
“Hori-san doesn’t count. Let’s match each other truth for truth, leaving Hori-san out. I can’t imagine you’d be fond of a man with a roving eye.”
“But there’s not a husband alive who’s so devoted he behaves as if his wife is the only woman who exists.”
O-Hide, who relied on books and magazines for her knowledge, transformed abruptly at this moment into a conventional pragmatist. O-Nobu didn’t have time even to remark the contradiction.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Hideko-san! There must be men like that as long as there are men who deserve to be called husbands!”
“You don’t say? Where would you find such a wonderful man?”
O-Hide gazed again at O-Nobu with ridicule in her eye. O-Nobu lacked the courage to shout the name “Tsuda!” But she had to say something.
“That’s my ideal. I can’t accept anything less.”
If O-Hide had become a pragmatist, O-Nobu had also transformed along the way into a theorist. Their positions relative to each other until now had been reversed. Unaware of this, they were swept along by the natural flow of the conversation. From this point on their dialogue, neither theoretical nor pragmatic, became a contest between remarks traded like blows.
“That may be your ideal, but it’s unreasonable. The day your ideal was realized, every woman who wasn’t somebody’s wife would lose her qualifications as a woman.”
“But love has to go that far to be complete love. Otherwise you could live your whole life and never experience genuine love.”
“I don’t know about that, but to expect your husband to think of you as the only woman in the world simply doesn’t stand to reason.”
O-Hide’s remarks were beginning to sound like a personal attack. O-Nobu was undaunted.
“I don’t know about reason; I’m talking about feelings. As long as he feels I’m the only woman, that’s all I ask.”
“I understand you want him to feel that you’re the only woman for him. But if you’re also saying he mustn’t think of other women as women at all, that amounts to suicide. A husband who can go that far won’t be thinking of you as a woman either. Only the flower that blooms in his own garden is a true flower; all the rest are straw — is that what you expect?”
“Straw would be fine!”
“Fine for you. But to a man they aren’t straw, so you’re asking the impossible. Wouldn’t it be more satisfying for you if among the women in the world he loved, he loved you best? Because that would mean you were being loved in the truest sense.”
“I want to feel that I’m loved absolutely. I hate comparisons.”
A hint of disdain appeared in O-Hide’s face. It was easy enough to see that she was thinking “how dim this woman is!” Anger rose in O-Nobu.
“Anyhow, logic is too much for my poor brain.”
“Show me an actual example. Convince me that way if you can.”
O-Hide coldly terminated the conversation. O-Nobu could have stamped her feet with chagrin. All her efforts until now would avail her nothing more. Not realizing that a letter from Tsuda awaited her at home, she took her leave.
[131]
WHILE O-NOBU and O-Hide traded blows face to face, the clinic was the scene of another drama unfolding independently.
The visitor Tsuda had been eagerly awaiting arrived before the rickshaw man who had been sent off with his letter to O-Nobu had returned, just ten minutes or so after Kobayashi had departed. Hearing the nurse announce Madam Yoshikawa, Tsuda was above all thankful that a pitched battle in his cramped room between these two nearly alien creatures had been avoided. At that moment he had scarcely time to reflect that this good fortune had required him to make a material sacrifice.
As the lady entered the room he attempted to sit up on his mattress, but she waved him down. With a glance back at the flowerpot the nurse who had accompanied her was holding in both arms, she asked, “Where shall we put that?” as though seeking advice. Tsuda observed that the autumn leaves were beautiful against the white of the nurse’s chest. Not until the bonsai had been installed in the alcove — three stunted trunks looking cramped in the small pot with some small stones prettily arranged beneath them — did Madam take a seat.
“How are you feeling?”
At that moment Tsuda, who had been observing the lady carefully, was able to ascertain her attitude toward him for the first time. Goodly half of his concern about what she might be feeling was dispelled by this simple inquiry. She wasn’t as cheerful as usual. But neither was she as high-pitched. It appeared, in other words, that she had come to see him in a mood he had never observed in her until now. She seemed composed almost to a fault, and at the same time she appeared to be displaying her generosity and open-mindedness to a similarly extreme degree. Tsuda was surprised. But it was a pleasant surprise, and, precisely for that reason, he began to feel uncomfortable. Even assuming this attitude represented no antagonism toward him, he didn’t know what might lie behind it. Even if there were nothing fearsome lurking there, there was no way of knowing how her feelings might change in the course of their conversation. Accustomed to being an object of ingratiation, Madam Yoshikawa gave herself permission to change as much as she liked whenever it pleased her, and Tsuda’s position obliged him to accommodate the lady as if she were, at least in this sense, a female tyrant. He was obliged to attend, as in the classical Chinese expression, “her every frown and smile.” This was especially so today.