The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature (Modern Asian Literature Series)

by Неизвестный

  “That’s right. She was wearing black-rimmed glasses. I pretended I didn’t recognize her. Too much trouble.”

  “The way she left here wasn’t very nice. It was like she ran out on her debts. She was popular, though. Had a lot of customers!”

  “She told me that she wanted to pay off her debts by the end of that year, and in the coming year she was going to open her own geisha house,” Jūkichi recalled.

  Jūkichi had been involved with the woman for more than three months, but he was not inclined to find out more information about her. “She was a foolish, unappealing woman,” he declared. He showed no sign of fondness for her.

  “Even we could tell you didn’t particularly like her. But you stayed with her longer than with any other geisha. What did you see in her?”

  “Nothing really. I had some extra money, that’s all. She was convinced I’d fallen in love with her. When I told her I wasn’t going to see her anymore, she was conceited enough to believe I’d be back for certain.”

  “You’re a decisive guy, aren’t you!”

  “That’s not it. If there isn’t something exceptional about a woman, I can’t become passionate about her. It’s true I became involved with the woman, but nobody will blame me or become jealous. She wasn’t going to die for love, and she wasn’t going to despise me, either. I had no interest in her.”

  “You’re a strange one!”

  The maid offered to call him a woman, but he refused. Neither was he in the mood to return home. “Shall we go to a vaudeville hall?” he offered. She replied that she was the only maid on duty and couldn’t leave the house. Jūkichi did not want to go by himself. So he stayed and drank several cups of saké he did not enjoy and gossiped with the taciturn maid about a few of the geisha he had known, the rise and fall of restaurants, geisha houses, and other businesses in the district. Bedding was spread, and he lay down.

  The rain beat gently against the window. Jūkichi heard the sensual voices of women in the alley calling out to one another. He remembered the vulgar songs he had learned in this house. That night he slept soundly for the first time in many nights.

  The same night, Tokiko recorded the following in her diary: “Since my days as a student I’ve had my hair done in a modified Western style, but at Mrs. Yazawa’s urging, today I changed to a style more appropriate to a young married woman. The hairdresser offered me formal congratulations and said that I’d undergone my coming-of-age ceremony. I was embarrassed. I gave the hairdresser a gift of fifty sen. My husband suggested we should have Mrs. Yazawa’s gift of a bolt of cloth made into an underskirt and a half-coat, and we took the measurements. But we had no cutting board, so it was difficult to get the correct ones. The maid then brought us a drying frame, so we were able to spread out the cloth and measure it. My husband went out for the evening and hasn’t returned. The maid and I talked late into the night. After eleven, she began yawning. Said she didn’t know when my husband would return. I let her go to bed and stayed up alone. The crying of the Chinese infant next door and the howling of neighborhood dogs combine in the rainy night to create a mood of indescribable loneliness. I’m fully awake, but the clock just struck two, so I will go to bed.”

  The next day dawned bright and beautiful. Jūkichi came home shortly after noon, carrying his umbrella. Tokiko felt a certain constraint in front of Jūkichi, but for the rest of the day she made certain to remain close by to serve his needs.

  The old maid had a toothache and left for her daughter’s house to recuperate for four or five days. Jūkichi left the house every day. When he returned, he said nothing about the mess the house was in, the disordered main room and the dirty kitchen. Mrs. Yazawa visited for the first time in several days. Tokiko had gone to bathe at the public bath.

  “How’s everything?” Mrs. Yazawa asked Jūkichi, who was preparing his own tea in the kitchen.

  “Your young lady has left this place in a fine mess! I have to walk around in this dust and dirt.”

  “The kitchen hasn’t been cleaned, either,” she said. Unable to sit still, she went to get a broom and began sweeping.

  “I don’t mind about the housekeeping, but sometimes I’m shocked by her stupidity. She’ll sit in some sticky, dirty place wearing one of her best kimonos. Last evening, she was boiling bamboo sprouts. The pot was full, more than we could ever eat. I suppose she’s used to cooking for large families in the countryside, but is she so dumb she can’t tell the difference between a household of ten and one of two? The other day I called in a servant girl from a neighborhood sushi shop to help with the chores. Tokiko treated her like a guest, seated her at the same table with me, and served both of us. Maybe she enjoys playing house.”

  “She’s twenty. She’s not a child.”

  “I don’t know. If I were in my twenties and she looked like a fairy-tale princess, playing house might be kind of fun,” Jūkichi laughed. “What about Kaneko? Is she still acting like a child?”

  “No, not at all,” Mrs. Yazawa replied emphatically, shaking her head. “She’s an intelligent, perceptive young woman. A bit of a tomboy, though.”

  “I dislike women who are insensitive. First, it’s impossible to carry on a conversation with Tokiko. She hasn’t grown accustomed to Tokyo life, and she hasn’t the slightest idea how to please a man. She’s just a puppet in the shape of a woman. I wouldn’t mind if she were like one of those beautiful, lifelike dolls created by the master Yasumoto Kamehachi, though.”

  As Jūkichi repeated his usual poisonous denigration of his wife, he became quite enthusiastic. Mrs. Yazawa looked displeased as she cleaned the kitchen.

  “She’s afraid of you, you know. Why don’t you be kind to her? Take her out and show her something of the world!” Mrs. Yazawa said irritatedly.

  “Even her voice grates on my nerves. Then every time she speaks, she has to end in the register of an upper-class Tokyo lady. It’s quite comical to hear provincials try to speak like Tokyo sophisticates.”

  “She must have picked that up recently. It’s not like her to be pretentious.” Mrs. Yazawa was considering whether to caution the young woman about her language when Tokiko returned, refreshed, from her bath. “The Tokyo lady has arrived,” Jūkichi observed chuckling and went into the front room.

  Mrs. Yazawa listened as Tokiko spoke about her insecurities, then led her by the hand to her husband’s side.

  “Let’s get along, you two!” Mrs. Yazawa said and attempted to join their hands.

  Tokiko leaned against Mrs. Yazawa. “Will you be my mother?” she asked sweetly.

  “Of course! I’m delighted to have this fine grown-up daughter!” Mrs. Yazawa responded.

  Jūkichi laughed bitterly. While Mrs. Yazawa was there, he carried on a cheerful conversation, but as soon as she left, he fell silent.

  The couple were merely two people inhabiting separate rooms in the same house. They made attempts at familiar conversation, but not once did their hearts come together in intimacy.

  Jūkichi felt that a stranger, a young woman to whom he felt little connection, had been placed in his care.

  Tokiko never once, however, communicated her loneliness and sadness to members of her family. Although her aunt from Aoyama repeatedly questioned her about her situation in her new household, Tokiko did not confess her true feelings.

  “Once a woman’s married, she must decide that her husband’s house will be the place where she dies. No matter how she suffers, she must never leave her husband. If you don’t have the courage to endure, you will never be a real woman. Never forget, for even a moment, that you have no other home to return to. If your husband’s bad tempered, you should see that as your fault and work to improve his temperament. Pleasing your husband in every regard is your duty and your means for self-fulfillment as a woman!” As assertive as a man, the aunt gave her speech at the first opportunity in their conversation.

  “I shall never return to my parents’ house,” Tokiko replied.

  Lectured to by her mother an
d father and instructed by such books as Virtues of Chaste Young Ladies and The Mirror of Feminine Virtue, which she had read so assiduously for many years, Tokiko was intent on staying with Jūkichi and making their marriage a success. In her diary she wrote, “No matter how cruel my husband is, if I honestly do my best, my efforts will be rewarded with his love.” From then on, as one would record the weather of the day, Tokiko would start off each day’s entry to her diary with the observation “Today husband in good humor” or “Today husband in bad humor.” Convinced that her husband was a cruel person, Tokiko felt a melancholy sort of pride in identifying with the heroines presented in The Mirror of Feminine Virtue as her models of valiant, self-sacrificing womanhood.

  One day, Jūkichi spied Tokiko in the next room looking bored. “If you want, you can go out and see some sights in the city. There’s no pressing need for you to stay in the house.” His tone was gentle. Encouraged, Tokiko replied cheerfully, “I have a number of errands to run. They’ve been piling up. I won’t be out amusing myself.” Tokiko did not want Jūkichi to think that she would be having fun.

  “You don’t have to work so hard,” Jūkichi said with a chuckle. “Staying inside all the time is bad for your health. I don’t need you getting sick on me.”

  “I’m healthy. You’re the sickly one.”

  “Maybe you’re right. I’ve gotten sicker since I’ve been married.”

  “My heavens!” Tokiko said, opening her eyes wide in mock surprise. “Judging from what you talk about in your sleep, I thought the source of your illness was somewhere else!”

  “I talk in my sleep? First I’ve heard of it,” Jūkichi said. He knew his heart was not at peace even in sleep. “What do I say?”

  “You seem to be suffering. You’re so negative. And you keep saying a woman’s name.”

  “What woman is that?” Jūkichi asked in true wonderment. Taken aback by his sudden seriousness, Tokiko hesitated before answering. At length, she replied with a smile, “Do you know a woman named Sū?”

  “Sū?” It took Jūkichi some time to recall the woman. Probably Osuzu. He had once been infatuated with her, but it had been years since she had crossed his conscious mind.

  Remembering her, he asked his wife, “Isn’t there a man or two you think of fondly from the time before you came here?”

  “Of course not!” Tokiko replied.

  “But that’s not natural. You are twenty, and if you are equipped with normal human emotions, you must have felt something for at least one young man, even if you had only thoughts and didn’t act on them. There must have been someone?”

  Jūkichi’s words made Tokiko feel like a coward. “But I had no male friends at all,” she said, as if defending herself. “There was something,” she blurted out after some thought. “Once a young man put a letter in the sleeve of my kimono as I was on my way back from my music lesson. I thought about showing it to my father, but I was too frightened, and I tore it up and threw it away.” She spoke of this incident as if it qualified her for adulthood.

  “So you threw it away without reading it?”

  “That’s right. It’s probably best not to read such letters.”

  “You should have read it. You might never have another opportunity to see a love letter sent specifically to you.”

  Tokiko did seem to have regrets about not reading the letter. “I wonder what’s in a love letter?” she asked.

  “It varies, depends on the man,” Jūkichi said, tilting his head to the side.

  “I don’t understand how men think.”

  “Women are a mystery to me, too.”

  “Don’t you think men have more superficial feelings than women do? I’ve heard of men playing with a woman’s emotions, but I’ve never heard of a woman playing with a man’s emotions.”

  “I don’t suppose it matters much. The important thing for you is to understand men.”

  “I want to understand you!”

  At around that time, Tokiko felt an urgent need to dispel the many doubts plaguing her. Jūkichi’s behavior seemed incomprehensible to her. Men’s hearts seemed dark and forbidding. Why did they suffer so? What did men really think of women? Answering these questions seemed like bringing up water from a bottomless well. It frightened her. Her father, uncle, brother-in-law, and school principal all were men, but they were not frightening. From her ethics courses and such books as Virtues of Chaste Young Ladies, she was vaguely aware of the distinction between men and women, that “men are strong and women weak” or “men are active in the world; women rule the household.” But these had taught her nothing of the vagaries of men’s hearts. How she longed to understand!

  “Is something bothering you?” she asked, having come to recognize the signs of worry on her husband’s face.

  For some reason, this concern seemed to irritate Jūkichi, “As long as I bring in enough to settle our accounts by the end of the month, you should have no complaints. If I am worried about something, it needn’t concern you.”

  “But that’s not how a married couple should be. We’re not just two people living in the same house!”

  “Yes we are. It’s the best sort of marriage,” Jūkichi snorted.

  Tokiko saw that Jūkichi was becoming angry, and she kept silent.

  VIII

  Letter after letter came from Tokiko’s relatives in the provinces requesting that the couple pay a visit, if only for one day. The aunt from Aoyama arrived to plead with Jūkichi. If the couple did not make the trip, Tokiko’s relations and friends in the countryside would be subjected to vicious, unfounded rumors. Jūkichi promised that they would visit some time in April. Now April was approaching.

  The azaleas were blooming white and red in the garden, and the Japanese rose also was in bloom. A soft breeze blew in from under the leaves of the oak tree. It was Jūkichi’s custom to take long walks in the suburbs during this time of the year. This year as well, he rode the Yamanote Line to Shibuya or Meguro or Yoyogi and took his walks there. He was not adverse to making the long journey to the countryside, with its fresh young vegetation, but he hated the idea that he was being forced to travel out of a sense of duty. Then he remembered, as he was apt to from time to time, that day in spring—he was not sure of the exact date—when he had passed through Tokiko’s home province, deep in the mountains.

  He was returning from a pilgrimage to Zenkō Temple. He had spent the night at a hot spring resort in Suwa and had boarded the third-class passenger car the next morning for the lonely journey home. The train had stopped for thirty or forty minutes at a station called Hajikano at the base of the mountains. Although the memory had been eroded by the passage of a year, Jūkichi still recalled the fresh spring colors of the mountains that surrounded him when he looked up from the train platform. The entrance to the long Sasago Tunnel was black with soot. “The tunnel’s more than three miles long,” someone told him, pointing it out. “The light from the entrance at the other side seems the size of a horse’s eye.” In the train car, a fellow with hairy arms and wearing straw sandals took a bamboo flute out from his parcel and began to play. Jūkichi remembered neither the man’s face nor what he was wearing, but the sound of the flute still reverberated in his mind, the tones from the man playing the shakuhachi in the depths of a deep green valley. Remembering himself, all alone on his journey, as he listened to the music, brought forth a variety of impressions and associations.

  “I’ll have to go through that area again, won’t I? I wonder what I’ll think of it this time?” he thought. “We’re leaving for your hometown tomorrow!” Jūkichi announced to Tokiko. In the evening he went to tell the Yazawas.

  “I’m glad to hear it. You’ll relieve her parents’ anxieties,” Mrs. Yazawa commented.

  “I don’t know about that.” Jūkichi wondered whether he would be able to tolerate the stifling ceremonies observed in provincial households. “You told me I should’ve gone on a trip with my new wife shortly after the ceremony, but even on this short train trip, I s
till feel traveling by oneself is best. With two of us, I feel restricted. It’s better to live one’s life alone!”

  “I don’t think you mean that. Besides, I’m certain you’ll both enjoy yourselves on the train,” Mrs. Yazawa replied. “Still,” she continued, “my honeymoon was no fun at all. We went to Hakone. It didn’t turn out as I expected.”

  “I always believed that a honeymoon was something you did with the person you found most fascinating in the world. I feel I’ve been deceived in my marriage. I have no interest at all in domestic affairs. It looks like the medicine of marriage isn’t working. I think I should stop taking it.” But while he was sighing in self-pity, he continued to harbor undefinable expectations.

  Tokiko soon arrived, and the couple set off toward Kagurazaka to buy gifts for the relatives in the countryside. After Jūkichi finished his shopping, Tokiko took money out of her own purse and bought gifts for her friends at one shop selling Western-style products and at another that dealt in canned goods.

  As if embarrassed to be seen with his wife, Jūkichi, his head down, was walking several paces ahead, but suddenly he turned and asked Tokiko if she were looking forward to her trip home.

  “No, I don’t want to go back. They’ll be nagging me all the time.”

  “I’ll have to put up with more than you will,” Jūkichi countered. “When you get home, everyone will make a big fuss over you. You must tell your parents how you’ve been treated in your new house. Keep nothing back.”

  “I’m not going to tell them anything!”

  “If you won’t talk, I will!”

  “What will you say? What?” Tokiko asked, apparently concerned. But Jūkichi did not answer.

  “You can ride in the second-class coach, and I’ll go third class,” he declared, not joking.

  “Please don’t do that,” she replied in tears, thinking of the reactions of her family when they greeted her as she got off the train.

  “Then you can ride third class, too. It’s less crowded and your surroundings are more interesting. Plus, it’s cheaper.”