“No matter how — selfish I may be — to stand in the way of your treatment — such a — grateful as I am for the freedom you always give me — to think that — stopping you from going away to recuperate—”
Tsuda was at last relieved. But O-Nobu had more to say. As the convulsion subsided, the flow of her words evened.
“I’m not thinking about anything so trivial. I may be a woman and a fool, but I happen to have my own honor. And I want to uphold my honor, whether as a woman in a woman’s way or as a fool in a fool’s way. If that should be sullied…”
Having come this far, O-Nobu burst into tears again. She continued, brokenly.
“If ever — if that should happen — how will I ever — hold my head up — to Uncle and Aunt Okamoto? — I’ve already been made an utter fool of by your sister — and you stand there watching — pretending — pretending you have no idea — what’s going on—”
Tsuda spoke up at once.
“O-Hide made a fool of you? When? When you went over there today?”
This was a serious slip. He couldn’t possibly have known about that meeting unless O-Nobu had told him. Not surprisingly, O-Nobu’s eyes flashed.
“Lovely. So you already know all about my visit with Hideko-san today?”
“She telephoned me”—the reply rose only as far as Tsuda’s throat. He paused in confusion, wondering whether to say it or desist. But the moment offered no reprieve. The longer he floundered, the more danger he was in. He felt trapped. Then, at the last possible instant, a hair’s breadth away from being too late, a clever excuse fell out of the sky.
“The rickshaw man told me when he came back. O-Toki must have spoken to him.”
Luckily, the maid had known where O-Nobu was going when she hurried out of the house. The shot in the dark had hit the mark, and Tsuda breathed for the second time a sigh of relief.
[149]
HAVING FLAILED away at Tsuda’s defenses, O-Nobu halted. The thought that her husband had not been deceiving her so unconscionably drained the energy she needed to press forward as she had intended. Sensing her hesitation, Tsuda seized upon it.
“Why should you care what someone like O-Hide has to say? O-Hide is O-Hide and you’re you.”
O-Nobu replied, “Why should I care? Why should you care what someone like Kobayashi says to me? You’re you and he’s him.”
“I don’t care. I wouldn’t care if you just stood your own ground. But when he creates suspicion and misunderstandings that get waved in my face, then I have to defend myself, that’s all.”
“It’s exactly the same for me. O-Hide’s contempt wouldn’t trouble me; I could even handle Aunt Fujii turning away, if only you would stand your ground. You’re the only one who matters, but you—”
O-Nobu faltered. She had no clear facts. Consequently, she had nothing clear to say. Once again, Tsuda seized hold.
“You must be afraid I’ll behave in a way that reflects badly on you. Why not lean on me a little instead and take some comfort?”
O-Nobu abruptly lifted her voice until she was almost shouting.
“I want to lean on you. I want to feel secure. I want immensely to lean, beyond anything you can imagine.”
“You think I can’t imagine?”
“You can’t at all. If you could, you’d change for me. You’re able to be so aloof because you can’t imagine.”
“Since when am I aloof?”
“You don’t feel sorry for me, you don’t pity me.”
“Feel sorry? Pity you?”
Tsuda repeated after O-Nobu and momentarily floundered. When he spoke again, his voice wavered.
“You say I don’t feel for you. I want to; I certainly would, if only there were a reason. But there isn’t, so what am I to do?”
O-Nobu’s voice was taut.
“Yoshio! Oh, Yoshio!”
Tsuda was silent.
“Please! Make me feel secure. As a favor to me. Without you, I’m a woman with nothing to lean against. I’m a wretched woman who’ll collapse the minute you step away. So please tell me I can feel secure. Please say it, ‘Feel secure.’”
Tsuda considered.
“You can. You can feel secure.”
“Truly?”
“Truly. You have no reason to worry.”
As if she had burst the chains that bound her heart, O-Nobu hurled her passion at her husband.
“Tell me, then. Please. Tell me everything right here and now, the whole story. Come out with it and give me some peace of mind.”
Tsuda was flummoxed. His feelings surged and ebbed like a wave. He considered summoning his courage and revealing everything. In the same moment, he reflected that whatever doubts O-Nobu might have about him, she almost certainly did not have hard evidence in hand. Had she known the facts, he reasoned further, having gone this far she would undoubtedly have thrown them in his face.
He did feel sorry for her. But there was still room for him to get away. He vacillated between moral scruple and self-interest. Abruptly the weight of a trip to the hot-springs resort was added to one side of the balance. Making good on his promise was an obligation to Madam Yoshikawa. And it was something he had to do. The victory went to his sense that the wiser policy would be to avoid a confession until after the journey had been accomplished.
“We’re just working ourselves up with all this talk. Since there’s no limit to it, I say let’s stop here. But I’ll make you a promise you’ll appreciate.”
“A promise?”
“A guarantee. I’ll guarantee that nothing will happen to compromise your honor.”
“How can you do that?”
“How? Since I can hardly present you a certificate, I’ll swear it.”
O-Nobu was silent.
“If you’ll just say you trust me, that’s all I require. In the unlikely event something should come up and you feel threatened, all you need to say to me is ‘Make this go away.’ And I’ll reply, ‘You bet I will, I’ve promised.’ How about it? Does that feel like a decent compromise?”
[150]
THE NOTION of a compromise may have seemed incongruous under the current circumstances, but it was a reasonable description of what Tsuda was feeling in his heart at that moment. He wanted a compromise in the most appropriate sense of that term. O-Nobu was quick to perceive the truth of this, and her mounting agitation was finally quieted. Tsuda, who had been secretly tormenting himself with worry that the tide of her emotionality would rise again, felt reprieved. In the next instant he recovered the presence of mind he needed to turn the force of her staunched emotion back upon itself. He set to work placating O-Nobu, deploying abundantly phrases likely to please her. Possessed of a calmness and composure he could marshal when necessary, he was inveterately adept at accommodating himself in the moment to his companion’s feelings. Small wonder that his efforts were not in vain. For the first time in a long while, O-Nobu beheld the Tsuda she had known before their marriage. Memories from the time of their engagement revived in her heart.
My husband hasn’t changed after all. He’s always been the man I knew from the old days.
This thought brought O-Nobu a satisfaction more than sufficient to rescue Tsuda from his predicament. The turbulence that was on the verge of becoming a violent storm subsided. As a couple, however, they had changed. Somewhere along the way through the turbulence, without realizing it, they had altered the nature of their connection.
As the storm was subsiding, Tsuda had an insight.
In the final analysis, a woman is easily consoled.
Embracing the confidence the upheaval had conferred on him, he secretly rejoiced. Until now, dealing with O-Nobu, he had never once escaped feeling in some way or other that she was more than he could handle. Even as he reminded himself that she was a mere woman, at some point every day there came a time when he was forced to taste a sickening sense of defeat. He hadn’t yet dissected this to discover whether it was attributable to her intuition, to the adroitness that might be seen as an active function of her intuition, or to something else entirely, but there was no question that it was a fact. It was, moreover, a fact that he had folded away inside himself and never yet revealed to anyone. In that sense, it was at once a fact and a secret. Why had he converted this undeniable fact into a secret? Put simply, because he wished to think as highly of himself as possible. No matter that in the war of love, which was how he viewed their relationship, he regularly found himself in the position of the defeated, he was nonetheless a proud man. To be sure he was vanquished, but since defeat was inevitable, out of his hands, he never truly surrendered. Not that he accepted his captivity to love with open arms; instead, invariably, he was caught off guard and felled. Much as O-Nobu, failing to notice that she was wounding his pride, experienced the only satisfaction she took from love in vanquishing him, Tsuda, who hated losing, gave in each time his strength failed him and she knocked him to the ground even as he lamented his surrender. Now that his manipulations had in the course of a single, painful evening inverted their unusual relationship, it was only natural that his attitude toward O-Nobu should change. Until now, he had never once beheld this woman called O-Nobu come at him so candidly and with such fierceness, highhanded yet deferential to the point of fawning, but without falsehood. Fleeing before her with his weaknesses in his arms, he had succeeded for the first time in defeating her. The result was clear. Now at last he was able to disdain her. At the same time, he was able to extend her more sympathy than before.