Turning to the lady, he spoke.
“As a matter of fact, I don’t care that much for my wife, so you needn’t trouble yourself about that.”
“Apparently that’s not so. That’s not what the world says.”
Tsuda was taken back by the lady’s hyperbole. Madam felt obliged to explain.
“By ‘the world’ I mean everyone!”
Tsuda was unable to picture clearly whom she meant by “everyone.” But he had no trouble divining the significance of her exaggeration. It seemed she was determined to drive this point into his brain. He forced himself to laugh.
“I assume ‘everyone’ means O-Hide?”
“O-Hide-san among them, of course.”
“Among them and represents them all, I suppose?”
“Possibly.”
Tsuda laughed aloud again. He noticed at once as it rebounded on him the laugh’s unfortunate effect on the lady, but it was too late to recall it. Having perceived the advantage of accepting guilt and punishment without protest, he quickly reformed his stance.
“I’ll be careful from now on.”
But Madam wasn’t finished.
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s only Hideko-san. Your uncle and aunt feel the same way, you should be aware of that.”
“I didn’t realize.”
Obviously, word of the Fujiis had reached the lady through O-Hide.
“And there are others,” Madam subjoined.
“I see,” Tsuda said simply, and in the instant he looked at his companion’s face, the words he had been expecting issued from her.
“To tell the truth, I’m of the same opinion as the others.”
Facing her as she declared herself as though definitively, Tsuda didn’t feel it necessary to hunt for the courage it would have taken to lift his voice in protest. He was silent, but he couldn’t help wondering if she was thinking more than she said. What accounts for this attitude all of a sudden? When she scolds me for treating O-Nobu too solicitously, is she also criticizing O-Nobu? This was a brand new suspicion. So new he had difficulty conceiving the process in his imagination whereby he had arrived at it. Before addressing his suspicion, he asked a question that remained in his mind.
“Does Okamoto-san feel the same way?”
“Okamoto is different. What Okamoto thinks is not my affair.”
This curt disclaimer was a surprise to Tsuda.
So you and Okamoto have nothing to do with each other? He was on the verge of asking this question, next in the natural order of things.
The truth was, he didn’t care for O-Nobu to the extent people assumed he did. Explaining to someone else how this partial misunderstanding had resulted would require time and effort, but he had his own lucid notion of the process and understood the pattern of facts with sufficient clarity to identify them one by one.
O-Nobu herself was principally responsible. It was O-Nobu who possessed the skill, and made full use of it unabashedly everywhere she went, to create, from the most complex possible angle, a reflection of how precious she was to Tsuda, and conversely of how much freedom she accorded him. The second responsible party was O-Hide. Her already distorted view of the situation was exacerbated by a kind of jealousy. Tsuda didn’t know whence her jealousy came. Having understood for the first time only after his marriage the meaning of a sister-in-law, he was unfortunately unable to apply what he had perceived and was left confounded. Fujii and his wife were third on the list. The villain here was neither hyperbole nor jealousy but rather an intemperate aversion to ostentation. Hence this, too, came down to a misunderstanding.
[134]
TSUDA HAD a particular reason for allowing this misunderstanding to obtain. Kobayashi had disinterred the reason. It was in the soil of this misunderstanding that the Okamotos’ good intentions toward him grew, and it was in his interest to preserve those feelings as best he could. Treating O-Nobu solicitously, in other words, was the same as currying favor with the Okamotos, and inasmuch as Okamoto and Yoshikawa were as close as brothers, it stood to reason that the better care he took of O-Nobu, the more assured his future became. A man who prided himself on his unfaltering perspicacity where his own interests were concerned, Tsuda wasn’t fool enough to celebrate the fact that Madam Yoshikawa had acted as formal go-between at the time of his marriage simply because he considered it an honor. In her involvement in his marriage he perceived a significance that was distinct from and went beyond honor.
But this was hardly more than a surface consideration. Deeper inside, layers below, there was a bottom beneath the bottom. Long before things had come to this pass, Tsuda and Madam Yoshikawa had been yoked together by circumstances unknown to others. Having traversed together a tortuous path private to themselves, they had been obliged to view the new relationship that had been forged half a year ago with more complex feelings than the others.
To put it plainly, before he married O-Nobu, Tsuda had loved another woman. And it was Madam Yoshikawa who had encouraged, perhaps even ignited, his love. She had manipulated the couple at will, contriving capriciously to push them together and then to tear them apart, and she had amused herself watching them on each occasion tumble into helpless confusion or drive each other to distraction before her eyes. Nonetheless it had never occurred to Tsuda to question his firm belief in her kindness. Madam on her part never hesitated to insist that a happy destiny was in store for the couple. Not content to speculate, when she saw that the moment had ripened, she attempted to unite their hands forever. However, at the last possible moment, her confidence received a bone-shivering blow. There was no protecting Tsuda’s arrogance, either; it received its own drubbing at the same time. Once the precious bird had flown suddenly away, she had never returned to Madam’s hand.
Madam Yoshikawa blamed Tsuda. Tsuda blamed her. Madam felt responsible. But Tsuda was unable to assume responsibility. To this day, unable to understand what had happened, he wandered in a dense fog. Meanwhile there arose the question of marriage to O-Nobu. Thinking to participate in this second romance, Madam Yoshikawa went into action. By undertaking the role of formal go-between with her husband, she neatly resolved her unfinished business with Tsuda.
Observing her minutely at the time, Tsuda was convinced by what he saw.
She intends this as compensation to me.
Certain he was correct, he attempted to derive from her intention a general policy toward his future. Living in harmony with O-Nobu, he was convinced, would constitute partial fulfillment of his obligation to the lady. He went so far as to assume that his future was guaranteed so long as he didn’t quarrel with his wife.
It was hardly surprising, then, having dealt with Madam Yoshikawa from the outset in the certainty that there was no miscalculation in his understanding, that he should be alarmed to perceive coming from his companion even the faintest trace of disapproval directed at O-Nobu. Before he could reform his own position in a way that would please her, he had first to ascertain whether he was correct.
“I know you think I treat O-Nobu too well, but if you’re also thinking she has her own shortcomings, I’d be grateful for your advice on that subject, too.”
“As a matter of fact, it’s just that I’ve come to see you about.”