“Would you see what they want, Koi-san?”
Taeko was back in a few minutes. She picked up the handbag and lace handkerchief in her seat. “May I speak to you a minute?” Sachiko followed her into the lobby.
“What is it?”
“A maid just came from the inn.”
When she had been told that someone had asked for her, Taeko had gone to the door to find a maid from the Hamaya waiting there. The maid, who had an Osaka accent, reported that there had been a call from Ashiya. The landlady had not succeeded in getting through to the Kabuki Theater, and had finally sent the maid to deliver the message in person. And what was the message? She herself had not been at the telephone, said the maid, but according to the landlady it was something about a sick person who had taken a turn for the worse. Not the little girl, however. The lady on the telephone had said over and over again that it was not the little girl, who had scarlet fever, but rather the person in the ear-nose-and-throat hospital—Koi-san would know whom she meant. The landlady promised to relay the message to the Kabuki Theater immediately. She asked if there was anything else to be done and was told that at least Koi-san should come back on the night train, and telephone if there was time before she left.
“It is Itakura, then?”
Taeko had mentioned on the train that Itakura, whose ear had been bothering him for five or six days, was in the Isogai Hospital in Kobe. Having been told that the beginnings of a papillary infection made surgery necessary, he had the day before had the ear operated on. The operation was apparently successful. Since her plans were made and Itakura assured her that there was no cause for worry, she had decided not to postpone her trip— and Itakura was so strong that you felt nothing could kill him. But there had been a relapse. The call, she gathered, was from the lady in Ashiya, said the maid. Yukiko, possibly after talking to Itakura’s sister, must have concluded that something should be done. Papillary infections were not serious if treated in time, but when the operation was late, the infection often spread through the chest and sometimes even proved fatal. If Itakura’s sister found it necessary to call Yukiko, then all was not well.
“And what will you do, Koi-san?”
“Go back to the Hamaya, and leave as soon as I can.” Taeko was quite calm.
“And what shall I do?”
“Stay on to the end. It will hardly do to walk out on Tsuruko.”
“But what shall I say to her?”
“Whatever seems best.”
“Did you tell her about Itakura?”
“No.” In the doorway, Taeko threw a cream-colored lace shawl over her shoulders. “But you can if you like.” She ran down the stairs.
It was fortunate for Sachiko that the curtain had gone up and Tsuruko’s attention was concentrated on the stage. As they were making their way out through the crowd afterwards, Tsuruko asked what had happened to Koi-san.
“A friend came and took her off a little while ago.”
Sachiko saw her sister as far as the Ginza. Back at the inn, she found that Taeko had just left. The landlady had reserved a berth for that night and Taeko had taken the ticket and run for the station. She had also telephoned Ashiya, but the landlady had not heard the details of the conversation. Taeko did however ask her to tell Sachiko that although the story was not entirely clear, a virulent infection seemed to have set in shortly after the operation, that the patient was in great pain, and that Koi-san would take the train through to Sannomiya Station and go from there directly to the hospital the following morning. Koi-san had left a small suitcase at Shibuya and wanted Sachiko to pick it up before she left, said the landlady, who had guessed something of the relationship between Taeko and Itakura. Very restless, Sachiko put in another emergency call to Ashiya, and found Yukiko as difficult to understand as ever. It was not that the connection was bad; Yukiko’s voice was simply inadequate, though she was doing her best. A frail little voice in any case—a fleeting, ephemeral voice, one might have said—it was extremely unreliable over the telephone. There was in fact nothing so exasperating as a telephone conversation with Yukiko. Knowing now inept she was, Yukiko usually had someone else talk for her, but she could not entrust a matter concerning Itakura to O-haru, nor could she leave everything to Teinosuke. For want of a better solution, she had to take the call herself. Her voice would trail off to something no louder than the hum of a mosquito, and it seemed to Sachiko that she spent more time saying “Hello” than actually talking about the business at hand. But in the fragments she managed to salvage from the lapses and hesitations, she learned that there had been a call from Itakura’s sister at four in the afternoon. Although he had seemed to be making good progress, Itakura had taken a sudden turn for the worse the evening before. Had the inflamation spread through the chest, then? No, there was nothing wrong with the chest. It was the leg. What exactly was wrong with the leg was not clear, but the patient leaped with pain if anything brushed his leg, and he could only lie moaning and writhing. He had not yet asked for Koi-san, according to the sister. Seeing that he faced a crisis, and concluding that the case was no longer one for an ear-nose-and-throat specialist, the sister thought she should call in another doctor. Alone and quite at a loss, she had telephoned for Koi-san as a last resort. Was there no more recent report? asked Sachiko. Yukiko replied that she had telephoned to say that Koi-san would leave on a night train, and had been told that the pain was growing worse—Itakura was almost mad with pain—and that the sister had telegraphed her family in the country. Her parents would be in Kobe the following morning. Koi-san had already left, said Sachiko. Having no reason to stay on in Tokyo herself, she would take a train the next morning. Just before she hung up, she asked after Etsuko, and learned that the girl was really too healthy. She kept trying to flee the sick room, and the scabs were gone except for traces on the soles of her feet.
Sachiko wondered how she could explain this sudden departure. Finally resigned to the fact that no excuse would be really convincing, she called Shibuya the following morning: Koi-san had left on urgent business, and since she meant to follow today she wondered if she might visit the Shibuya house. In that case, answered Tsuruko, she herself would come to the Hamaya. Soon she arrived with Taeko’s suitcase. She was the most phlegmatic of the four sisters, so phlegmatic that they had come to think of her as a little obtuse, and she did not press to know what the “urgent business” might be. Even so, Sachiko could see that her sister was puzzled at this running off without waiting for an answer to the troublesome question Koi-san herself had raised. After announcing that she must leave immediately, Tsuruko proceeded to stay for lunch.
“Is Koi-san still seeing Kei-boy?” she asked suddenly.
“Now and then, I believe.”
“And she is seeing someone else?”
“Have you .heard rumors?”
“There was talk of a prospect for Yukiko. Nothing came of it, and we said nothing to her. But there was an investigation.”
The person who had been acting as go-between had only meant to be kind, Tsuruko was sure. Although Tsuruko had not learned the details, it appeared that strange rumors were current about Koi-san—that she had recently become intimate with a young man who, unlike Okubata, came from the lower classes. No doubt the rumors were quite groundless, said the go-between, but still he thought Tsuruko should know of them. Tsuruko suspected that Koi-san’s behavior rather than any defect in Yukiko was responsible for the failure of the marriage negotiations. Because she had the most complete trust in Sachiko and Koi-san, she would not ask to what extent the rumors were true, or who the young man was, but it was her opinion and Tatsuo’s that there could be nothing better for Koi-san than to marry Okubata. They meant to make him a proposal as soon as they had Yukiko safely married. For the reasons outlined in the letter, therefore, they could not give Koi-san the money she wanted. Her manner had suggested that she was ready for a quarrel and they had been discussing how best to send her back to Osaka. Tsuruko was relieved at the turn events had t
aken.
“It really would be best for her to marry Kei-boy. I think so myself, and so does Yukiko, and we have both been arguing with her.”
Sachiko’s words may have sounded like an apology. In any case, Tsuruko did not push the matter. By the time lunch was over, she had said everything she had to say.
“Thank you very much.” Immediately after dessert she stood up to leave. “I may not be able to see you off this evening, I am afraid.”
34
BACK IN Ashiya the next morning, Sachiko heard this from Yukiko:
When, two afternoons before, she had been told that there was a call from Itakura’s sister, Yukiko, knowing nothing of Itakura’s illness and never having met the sister, was sure the call must be for Taeko. But no, it was for Miss Yukiko, the maid insisted, and Yukiko went to the telephone. The sister said that she knew of Koi-san’s trip to Tokyo, apologized profusely for disturbing Yukiko, and told her the details of the illness. The day of the operation—the day before Taeko’s departure for Tokyo— Taeko had visited the hospital and found Itakura comfortable and in good spirits, but from that evening his leg began to itch. Although at first it was enough if they rubbed the leg for him, his complaint by the next morning had become “It hurts, it hurts.” Now, the third day after the operation, the pain was still more incense. Worse, the head of the hospital paid no attention, and only pointed out that the incision was healing satisfactorily. He fled after changing the bandage once in the morning, and for two days now he had left the patient to suffer by himself. The nurses were remarking apologetically that the doctor had really botched things this time. Itakura’s sister, who had closed the Tanaka house to be with her brother, had concluded that she could no longer bear the whole responsibility. She had not been able to think of anything, she said, her voice choked with tears, except to have Taeko come immediately—no doubt her brother would scold her later. (She seemed to be calling from outside the hospital.) One could imagine Yukiko, as uncommunicative as ever, forcing the sister to do all the talking; but the tone and choice of words made it obvious that the sister, whom Taeko had described as a twenty-year-old country girl quite unaccustomed to the city, had summoned all her courage to make the call. Yukiko said she understood and would telephone Taeko immediately.
Taeko had gone directly from Sannomiya Station to the hospital. Back home for an hour or so during the evening, she described how frightening it was to find Itakura, usually so sturdy and so indifferent to pain, reduced to whimpering and moaning. Told that Taeko was back, he had looked up at her with twisted face and gone on moaning. The pain left him no room to think of others. He had moaned all through the night, and neither eaten nor slept. There was no sign of a swelling, however. It was difficult to tell exactly where the pain was—from the left knee to the foot, apparently. The moaning was louder when he turned over or when someone chanced to touch the leg. Why should an ear operation affect a leg, asked Yukiko. Taeko did not know the answer. Not only did the head of the hospital refuse an opinion, but he had been running away ever since Itakura first began to complain. From what the nurse said, and from what Taeko herself would guess as a layman, germs had entered at the time of the operation and settled in the leg.
Dr. Isogai was forced to take action when the parents and a sister-in-law, who had arrived early the same morning, began holding consultations in the hall. That afternoon he called a surgeon. After a conference with Dr. Isogai, the surgeon withdrew, to be followed almost immediately by another surgeon, who also examined the patient, had a conference with Dr. Isogai, and withdrew. Dr. Isogai, said the nurse, had seen that the infection was out of control. Having been told by the best-known surgeon in Kobe that it was too late even for amputation, he had in great haste called in a second surgeon, and again been refused. Taeko added that she herself, after seeing Itakura and hearing the sister’s story, had known that there was not a moment to lose. She had been in favor of consulting a reliable doctor, whatever the head of this hospital might think, but country people are slow. Itakura’s family only stood in the hall conferring and wondering what to do. Though Taeko was aware that they were wasting precious time, she could not be too forward. She had met them only that morning. When she made a suggestion, they said she was probably right and did nothing.
Such was the story the evening before. At six this morning she had come home again to rest for an hour or two, and said that Dr. Isogai had finally called in a Dr. Suzuki who agreed to operate, though he was doubtful about the results. Even then the parents could not make up their minds. The mother in particular said that if Itakura was going to die, they should at least let him die a whole man. The sister on the other hand insisted that they must do everything possible, hopeless though the case might be. The sister was right, of course. Not that it mattered—Taeko was now sure that nothing would help.
One had trouble knowing how far to believe the nurse, who was hostile to Dr. Isogai and would criticize him on the least provocation, but it was her story that the doctor was an old man and an alcoholic besides. His hand thus being shaky, he had made two or three serious blunders that she herself knew of. Even the finest specialist, Dr. Kushida said afterwards, could not absolutely guarantee that germs would not enter from an ear operation and attack the legs, since after all a doctor was not a god, but if there was the slightest possibility that an infection had slipped in, the doctor should not waste a moment in calling a surgeon when the patient complained of a throbbing anywhere in the body. Even then, it was a battle with time, and the least delay might make the final difference. One could sympathize with Dr. Isogai, then, in having botched the operation, but one could not find terms— cruelty, neglect, incompetence—to describe the failure of a doctor who abandoned a suffering patient for three whole days. It was Dr. Isogai’s good luck that he faced a family of naive, poorly informed farmers who would not make trouble for him. It was Ita-kura’s bad luck that he had not known what a questionable physician he was choosing.
Sachiko had a number of questions: from which telephone Yukiko had called, whether the maids knew, whether she had told Teinosuke. Yukiko replied that she was in the sick room with O-haru when the first call came, and that O-haru, Etsuko, and the nurse “Mito” heard the conversation; that O-haru and Mito looked a little strange and said nothing, but that Etsuko made a great nuisance of herself (what had happened to Itakura, why was Koi-san coming home, and so on); that Yukiko, knowing how quick O-haru would be to tell the other maids, and not wanting Mito to hear more, used the telephone in the main house for the other calls; and that she told Teinosuke both of the original call and of all she had done since. Teinosuke was much concerned, she added, and after hearing the story in detail from Taeko that morning had urged her to make the parents agree to an operation.
Sachiko wondered what to do. “I ought to go to the hospital myself, for just a little while.”
“But you should call Teinosuke first.”
“I will have a nap first.”
Sachiko had been unable to sleep on the train. She went upstairs to lie down, but was too nervous to sleep even now. After washing her face and ordering an early lunch, she went to call Teinosuke. Although there was no keeping Taeko from the man’s bedside, said Sachiko, she knew that if she too went to the hospital it might seem that the Makiokas were publicly acknowledging the betrothal. Still Itakura had rescued Taeko at the time of the flood, and Sachiko thought it would rest badly on her conscience if she ignored what might well be his last illness. She did not think he would live. Strong though he was, there was something about him, she had thought, that suggested an early death. Teinosuke agreed. Perhaps she should visit the hospital for a few minutes. But might not Okubata be there? Might it not be better to stay away? They concluded that she should go if there seemed to be no danger of meeting Okubata, but that she should not stay long, and that if possible she should bring Taeko home with her. Calling Taeko to ask about Okubata, she was told that at the moment only Itakura’s relatives were at the bedside, that no one
else had been told, and that whatever happened Taeko saw no need to call Okubata. Itakura would be excited unnecessarily. She had thought of having Sachiko come to the hospital, however: they were still debating whether to call in the surgeon or not. Taeko and the sister were warmly in favor of an operation; the parents were still undecided. Sachiko might be able to help.
She would leave after lunch, said Sachiko. Over an early lunch she discussed with Yukiko the possibility of letting Mito go: it would not do to have reports about Taeko leak out, and Mito was no more than a playmate for Etsuko. Mito herself was beginning to suggest that her work was finished, said Yukiko. As she left in a taxi at noon, Sachiko asked Yukiko to tell Mito that, short notice though it was, they would not need her services after that day. If she would wait and perhaps have dinner with Sachiko, she would be free to go afterwards.
The hospital—such it was called—was a shabby two-storey building in a narrow alley. On the second floor there were only two or three rooms, Japanese style. Itakura had a six-mat room with a view of a clothesline. Crowded and badly ventilated, it smelled of perspiration. He lay facing the wall in a steel bed, his body slightly bent. All the while Sachiko was being introduced to the relatives—parents, sister, and sister-in-law—he was moaning in a low voice, rapidly and quite without pause: “It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.” Taeko knelt by the pillow.
“Yone-yan. Sachiko has come.”
“It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.”
He lay on his side and stared at the wall. Sachiko, behind Taeko, peered timidly down and saw that he was far from as gaunt as she had expected, and his color was far from as bad. The blanket was pulled down to his hips. He wore only a light cotton kimono, the sleeves of which were pulled up, and his chest and arms seemed as powerful as ever. The bandage over his ear was held in place by a cross of tape, one strip from the jaw to the top of the head, another from the forehead to the neck.
The Makioka Sisters Page 36
