“I didn’t say—”
The nurse wouldn’t divulge her name. Enjoying the resistance he encountered, Tsuda repeated the question over and again.
“In that case I’ll call you Miss Tochigi, Miss Tochigi Prefecture — will that be all right?”
“Fine with me.”
Her first name began with the letters “Tsu.”
“Tsu-yu — Miss Mist?”
“Wrong.”
“Of course Mist wouldn’t be right. How about Tsu-chi? Miss Earth?”
“Wrong again.”
“Hold on a minute. If it’s not ‘mist’ and it’s not ‘earth’—I get it. It must be ‘luster.’ Or maybe ‘eternity’?”
Tsuda continued nonsensically, and the nurse, grinning, shook her head at every guess. Each time she smiled, Tsuda pressed her again. When it became clear at last that her name was Tsu-ki, he joked about the unusual name.
“Miss Moon, then? That’s a wonderful name. Who named you?”
Instead of replying, the nurse countered.
“What might your wife’s name be?”
“Take a guess.”
After proposing several female names, the nurse said, “Is it O-Nobu-san?”
Was it a lucky guess? More likely she had heard the name and remembered it.
“There’s no putting anything over on you, Miss Moon.”
Just then, as Tsuda was enjoying himself largely, the actual O-Nobu appeared in the doorway, surprising the nurse, who picked up the tray and rose at once.
“Here’s your missus at last.”
Seating herself at the head of the mattress in the nurse’s place, O-Nobu turned her eyes instantly on Tsuda.
“You must have been thinking I wouldn’t come.”
“Not really. But it is late so I was beginning to wonder.”
Tsuda wasn’t lying, and O-Nobu could see it. But that served only to underscore the contradiction.
“But you sent me a letter earlier.”
“Yes, I did.”
“You wrote that I mustn’t come to visit today.”
“Today would have been a bit inconvenient.”
“Why was that?”
Tsuda finally came to attention. Observing O-Nobu closely, he replied.
“It was nothing, really. A trivial matter.”
“But you went to the trouble of having the letter delivered. Something must have been happening.”
Tsuda tried to dissemble.
“It was nothing serious. Why do you bother to get all worked up, you’re such a silly!”
Tsuda’s attempt to beguile O-Nobu had the opposite effect. She arched her dark eyebrows. In silence, she withdrew the note from her obi.
“Have another look at this.”
Tsuda accepted the letter in silence.
“What about it? It’s nothing so unusual.” Even as he spoke, he couldn’t help gainsaying his own words in his heart. It was a simple note. But it was more than sufficient to arouse O-Nobu’s suspicion. He realized that, already under suspicion, he had misstepped.
“If it’s nothing unusual, why don’t I understand what it means? I think you might explain it to me since I came all the way over here.”
“That’s why you came?”
“Yes.”
“Just for that?”
“Yes.”
No matter what, she wouldn’t budge. As he was realizing his companion was implacable, Tsuda stumbled on a convenient lie.
“If you must know, Kobayashi was here.”
The name was certain to have reverberated in O-Nobu’s heart. But that was hardly an end to it. To satisfy her, he had now obliged himself to provide an explanation.
[146]
“I ASSUMED you’d rather not run into Kobayashi. So as soon as I learned he was coming, I wrote you.”
When it appeared that O-Nobu was still unsatisfied, Tsuda had no choice but to amplify his attempt to reassure her.
“Even if you wouldn’t have minded, I would. Allowing a scoundrel like that to see you again. Besides, he was here on a nasty errand I didn’t want you to know about.”
“Something I couldn’t be allowed to hear? So there’s a secret between you?”
“It’s nothing like that,” Tsuda said and, observing O-Nobu’s small eyes fixed on him with a vigilance that would allow nothing to escape unnoticed, hastened to add, “He was here begging for money again, that’s all.”
“And why couldn’t I have heard that?”
“It’s not that you couldn’t. I’m saying I didn’t want you to.”
“So warning me was just being considerate?”
“You could say that—”
The small eyes that had been trained on Tsuda narrowed further even as a faint laugh escaped O-Nobu’s lips.
“How fortunate for me.”
Tsuda was losing his composure, and with it the control he needed to avoid speaking imprudently.
“But wouldn’t you have hated running into him anyway?”
“Not in the least.”
“You’re lying.”
“What makes you say so?”
“Because I heard that Kobayashi told you some things.”
“And?”
“And nothing. I’m saying you’d hate seeing him because of that.”
“Do you have any idea what I heard from Kobayashi-san?”
“I don’t. But since it’s him we’re talking about, it can’t have been anything pleasant. What the devil did he say?”
Choking back the words that had risen to her throat, O-Nobu turned the question around.
“What did Kobayashi-san tell you he said?”
“He told me nothing.”
“Now that’s a lie. You’re hiding something.”
“I think you’re the one who’s hiding. I think Kobayashi fed you some nonsense and you took him at his word.”
“Maybe I am. When you conceal things from me, what choice do I have?”
Tsuda was silent. So was O-Nobu. Each waited for the other to speak. But O-Nobu’s forbearance gave out before Tsuda’s. Her voice was sharp.
“Lies! Everything you say is lies! Kobayashi-san coming here meant nothing, but you cook up a story about it to deceive me.”
“Cook up a story? Why would I go to the trouble when I have nothing to gain?”
“But you do. You make a fuss about Kobayashi so you can hide a visit from someone else.”
“Someone else? Who would that be?”
O-Nobu glanced at the maple bonsai in the recessed alcove.
“Who brought that, I wonder?”
Tsuda knew he had stumbled. He regretted not having made a clean breast of Madam Yoshikawa’s visit right away. Not having mentioned her was a conscious decision. It would have been easy enough to do, but he was afraid to reveal the nature of their discussion and had decided, though his conscience bothered him, that, in the end, discretion was the best policy. Turning to look at the bonsai, he was on the verge of mentioning Madam Yoshikawa’s name, but before he could speak O-Nobu preempted him.
“Yoshikawa-san’s wife was here, wasn’t she!”
Tsuda spoke without thinking.
“How did you know?”
“It’s so obvious.”
Tsuda had been watching O-Nobu carefully, and now he regained his courage.
“Yes, she came. So your prediction came true.”
“I even know that she took the streetcar.”
Another surprise for Tsuda. Other than imagining that a car was probably waiting for her on the main street, he had paid little attention to Madam’s choice of conveyance.
“Did you run into her somewhere?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
Instead of replying, O-Nobu posed a question of her own.
“Why was she here?”
Tsuda replied off-handedly.
“I was just getting to that — but let’s be clear about one thing. Kobayashi was definitely here. He came first, and then she came. They arrived one after the other.”