A Dark Night's Passing

by Naoya Shiga

  One day a letter from Nobuyuki arrived saying that he would like to visit him soon. Kensaku wrote back promptly, expressing his pleasure; but when later he discovered that Oei had been in touch with Nobuyuki, he wrote another letter withdrawing his invitation. He was immediately sorry that he had done such a thing to his brother, and wondered whether he should not himself go to Tokyo to see him. But he had not the energy to undertake the long train journey; besides, he really did not want to see his brother, for he knew that if he did, he would tell him everything.

  Suematsu tried several times to persuade Kensaku to go on a trip with him. “How about the San’in area?” he would say hopefully, producing yet another guidebook. “Now, that’s a place I’d like to see.” Kensaku appreciated his goodwill, but he could do nothing about his own obstinacy at such times; and always, his inner response was to vow to solve his own problems by himself.

  It was high time, he came to feel, that he started visiting ancient temples and shrines again, seeing ancient works of art. It was late autumn now, a particularly beautiful time. And slowly, as he began to go on pilgrimages—sometimes he would be away for several days visiting such places as Kōyasan and Murōji —his state of mind improved.

  Autumn passed, and Naoko’s time drew near. More in control of himself, especially now that there was danger of hurting the unborn child, Kensaku was hardly ever violent to his wife.

  The baby should arrive, the doctor said, in the first week of the new year at the latest. Remembering that Naoko’s last delivery had been hastened by that incident in the front hall, Kensaku admonished her repeatedly to be more careful this time. He found Oei’s presence reassuring; and having seen to it that everything that could be done to ensure a safe delivery had been done, he was able to avoid undue anxiety.

  But when the new year had come and gone, and ten days had passed after that, he began to worry. He approached the doctor and suggested that perhaps Naoko should have the baby in the hospital, and stay there for a month afterward. No, said the doctor, there was no need; there were enough people in the house to take good care of her. And when Naoko, too, showed no enthusiasm for the idea, Kensaku had no choice but to give it up.

  Then this chilling thought occurred to Kensaku: what if the doctor had miscalculated by a month, and the child were to be born some time in February—what if he then counted back the months and discovered that the child had been conceived while he had been absent?

  The fear was ungrounded. One day in late January he went to see the mansion of the daimyo Katagiri Sekishu in Yamato-Koizumi. After that he walked to Hōryūji. When he returned to his house that night, the baby had been born. It was a girl. The delivery was far more difficult than the last, he was told, because she was so well developed. He looked at the round face of his new baby daughter, and gave a deep sigh of relief. He would take the second character of “Hōryūji” and name her Takako; for it was at about the time he was in that temple that she was born.

  9

  Every year without fail, during that season when spring turns into summer, Kensaku would become a near-invalid, so enervated was he by the heavy dampness. At the same time his nervousness would increase, and his irritability would reach such a point that often he would surrender himself to it completely.

  One morning he, Oei, and Naoko with the baby set out for Shichijō Station. They had arranged previously with Suematsu to go to Takarazuka for a day’s outing, and they were to meet him at the station. They would catch the nine o’clock train, and be in Takarazuka in time for lunch. It was an unusually pleasant morning, and Kensaku was in a peaceful mood. True, he had become quite irritated as he waited by the gate of his house for Naoko to come out—she was being very slow—but he had somehow managed to control himself.

  Suematsu was waiting for them at the station. As he and Kensaku were busily talking to each other, the ticket gate opened to let the passengers through. It was then that Kensaku noticed that the women had disappeared. “Have they gone to the toilet?” he muttered; then more angrily, “Why couldn’t they wait until they got on the train? The idiots!”

  The two men were about to go to the toilet to find them when they saw Oei coming hurriedly toward them. “Please give me our tickets,” she said to Kensaku.

  “What in the world are you doing? The gate’s already open, can’t you see?”

  “Please go ahead. We’re changing the baby’s diaper.”

  “But why do it now? All right, you and Suematsu go ahead, and we’ll catch up.” Bad-temperedly he handed Suematsu two tickets, then hurried toward the toilet.

  “Don’t forget, it’s a pay toilet!” called Oei from behind.

  He met Naoko just as she was coming out of the toilet, holding the baby precariously with one arm while trying to extract her purse from under the sash with her free hand.

  “Hurry up!” said Kensaku. “What do you think you’re doing, changing diapers at a time like this!”

  “But she was uncomfortable, and she was crying.”

  “Then let her cry. Everyone else is now boarding, didn’t you know? Give her to me, I’ll carry her.” He almost grabbed the baby away from Naoko, then half ran toward the gate. On the platform on the other side guards were blowing their whistles loudly to signify the train’s imminent departure.

  “The other person is immediately behind me,” said Kensaku to the guard at the gate as he handed him the two tickets. He turned around and saw Naoko coming toward him in what he could only describe as a “sliding trot,” all the while trying to put away the soiled diaper in her cloth wrapper.

  Not caring what an onlooker might think of his behavior, he shouted, “Damn it, hurry up!” Then saying to himself, “Who the hell cares,” he ran up the stairs of the bridge two steps at a time. But even he was more careful when going down the stairs on the other side.

  The train began to move slowly. Holding the baby tightly under one arm he got on. “Be careful!” shouted a guard as Naoko ran alongside the train toward the doorway where Kensaku was standing. The train was moving no faster than a man walking.

  “Idiot!” shouted Kensaku. “Go home!”

  “But I can get on! If you take hold of my hand, I can get on without any trouble!” She had to run faster now to keep up with the train. She looked at Kensaku with pleading eyes.

  “It’s too dangerous! Just go home!”

  “But the baby needs my milk!”

  “Never mind! Go home, I said!”

  Naoko, refusing to give up, got hold of the handrail. Half-dragged along by the train, she at last managed to get one foot on the step, then pulled herself up. Just at that moment Kensaku’s free hand shot out, as in a reflex action, and hit Naoko’s chest. She fell backward on the platform, rolled over with the momentum, then lay still, once more face up. Suematsu, who had been watching from the coach ahead, jumped off and came running toward her. “I’ll get off at the next station!” Kensaku shouted to Suematsu, who gave a slight nod as he ran past.

  Far away, two or three guards were lifting Naoko up gently. “What in the world happened?” said a shocked voice behind Kensaku. It was Oei. “I pushed her off,” said Kensaku. Oei was speechless. “I told her it was too dangerous to try to get on, but she wouldn’t listen.” With great effort he controlled himself as he added, “Let’s get off at the next station.”

  “But how could you do such a thing, Kensaku?”

  “I don’t know myself, I don’t know why I did it.” He could still see the strange look in Naoko’s eyes as she fell off the train. It was unbearable. Oh God, he thought, I’ve done something irreparable.

  At the next station Kensaku was called to the telephone as soon as he and Oei came off the train. It was Suematsu. “She seems to have a slight concussion,” he said. “Otherwise she seems all right. The doctor should be here any minute. No serious injury, anyway, from what we can tell.”

  “The next train going back will be here in fifteen minutes,” Kensaku said. “We’ll be on it. And where are you all n
ow?”

  “In the stationmaster’s office.”

  Oei, standing beside Kensaku, asked, “How is she?”

  “She wasn’t injured, apparently,” Kensaku said as he put back the receiver.

  “Thank goodness. What a shock it was.”

  On the Kyoto-bound train Kensaku asked himself again why he had done such a thing. He could find no answer, except that he had had some sort of fit. That he had done Naoko no serious physical injury was fortunate. But he dared not contemplate what his action had done to their future relationship.

  Oei said, “Kensaku, is there something Naoko did that has annoyed you? You seem to have changed so much.” Kensaku gave no reply. “You always have been irritable, but you seem to have become much, much worse lately.”

  “That’s because of the erratic life I’ve been leading. Naoko has nothing to do with it. I’ve got to pull myself together, that’s all.”

  “I can’t help wondering if it isn’t my being in the house that has caused difficulty between you two.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Well, it’s true that Naoko and I get along very well together, and I have told myself that I can’t be the cause of your trouble. But, you know, having an outsider in the house does often make things difficult.”

  “Don’t worry about that, really. Naoko doesn’t think of you as an outsider at all.”

  “Yes, I know that, and I’m very grateful. But I can’t help having doubts when I see you behaving as you have lately.”

  “It’s the weather. I’m always like this at this time of year.”

  “Perhaps. But you’ve got to be kinder to poor Naoko. Besides, it’s not only her that you should think of. Supposing her milk stops because of what you did to her today—what will become of the baby?” The mention of the baby left Kensaku at a loss for an answer.

  With vacant faces Suematsu and Naoko sat in the stationmaster’s office, Naoko rigidly on a chair too high for her, rather like a woman criminal about to be interrogated.

  Suematsu stood up and said, “The doctor hasn’t come yet.”

  Naoko looked up for a second, then cast her eyes down again. When Oei went up to her, she burst out crying. She took the baby from Oei, and still crying, began to nurse her. “What a shock it was,” said Oei. “Still, what a good thing you weren’t badly hurt. How’s your head? Did you cool it with water or something?”

  Naoko said nothing. What could she have said, when she had been so badly hurt inside?

  “I do wish passengers wouldn’t do it,” said the stationmaster. “There’s no need to try so desperately to get on that train when there’s another one only forty minutes later. It doesn’t make sense to risk one’s life for the sake of forty minutes. Anyway, I’m glad madame wasn’t hurt.”

  Kensaku bowed and said, “I’m very sorry for the inconvenience we caused.”

  “The doctor who’s on our part-time staff was unfortunately out when we telephoned. They said he would be back soon, so we left a message asking him to come here immediately. But perhaps we should have called another doctor. Shall we do that?”

  Kensaku turned to Suematsu. “What do you think?”

  “Well, she seems a little quiet. It would be best, I think, if we were to take her to a doctor ourselves, instead of waiting here.”

  “That’s what we’ll do then,” Kensaku said to the stationmaster. “Thank you all the same. We’ve given you a lot of trouble, I’m afraid.”

  Suematsu left to order the rickshaws. Kensaku went to Naoko’s side, thinking he would say something. He searched for the right words, but it was no use. He lacked the strength to find them; besides, Naoko had made herself so unapproachable that no words would have reached her. Finally he said, “Can you walk?” Naoko, without looking up, nodded. “How’s your head?” This time she gave no sign of having heard.

  Suematsu came into the office and said, “The rickshaws will be here soon.”

  Kensaku lifted the baby from Naoko’s arms. The baby, in the midst of feeding, screamed with anger. Ignoring the noise Kensaku again thanked the stationmaster and his deputy, and left the office ahead of everyone else.

  10

  Though Naoko had indeed escaped serious injury, she had hit her hip quite badly in the fall, and was confined to bed for a couple of days.

  Kensaku wanted to have a good talk with her, but she obstinately refused to give him an opening.

  She seemed convinced that his action was related to the Kaname affair. But as far as he was concerned, he had acted on sheer, uncontrollable impulse; he had been overcome momentarily by a fit of irritation; he had certainly had no time to think about Kaname.

  “How much longer are you going to stay this obstinate?” he asked her at last. “If you are really angry with me, if you feel that to go on living with a fellow like me would be too dangerous, then please tell me so.”

  “No, I don’t think for a moment that living with you is dangerous. What’s so hard for me is that though you said you had forgiven me for what I did, you really haven’t forgiven me at all. I don’t believe that one can have ‘fits’ like that. I don’t believe you can do a thing like that to me just because I have annoying ways. I asked Oei about it, and she told me she had never seen you behave quite so irrationally before. She said that you had become very strange of late, that you were a different person. What can I think, except that you really can’t find it in yourself to forgive me? And if you have managed to forgive me at all, it’s only because you think it would be stupid to make yourself more unhappy by hating me. You’ve said so yourself, don’t forget, more than once. What comfort is there for me in that, to know that you want to forgive me because it’s to your advantage to do so? That’s not forgiving me at all, really, and it never will be. I’d much rather be hated outright by you. And if you couldn’t stop hating me, then that would be that. But you might eventually grow tired of hating me and learn to forgive me truly. How happy I’d be then. But the way things are now, I don’t know where I stand. I was terribly pleased when you said you weren’t going to hate me, you weren’t going to brood about it, since hating and brooding did no one any good. But you can’t expect me to go on believing what you said when you do something like what you did the other day. I can’t help thinking that deep inside, you do resent me. And if I’m right, what hope have I that you’ll ever forgive me?”

  “What are you proposing to do about it, then?”

  “I’m not proposing to do anything. All I want is to find some way of being forgiven.”

  “Do you want to go home?”

  “Why do you say such things? Why should I want to go home?”

  “I just asked, since you seem to have little hope for the future of our marriage. At any rate, I’m very glad that you’ve been so frank. You’ve been so obstinate and aloof lately, I simply haven’t been able to talk to you.”

  “I understand. But tell me, what do you think of what I’ve just been saying?”

  “It makes a lot of sense. But I really can’t believe that I resent you secretly. You ask me to forgive you after I’ve had my fill of hating you, but how can I make myself hate you when I don’t want to?”

  Naoko looked accusingly into Kensaku’s eyes. “It’s just like you to say that.”

  Perhaps, Kensaku began to think, she was not entirely wrong, perhaps he ought to re-examine himself. “Anyway, it’s not fair to assume that what I did the other day had anything to do with that business. It’s the way we’re living right now that’s the real problem. Perhaps that business did have something to do with our present troubles, but you mustn’t assume that it still is responsible for everything that goes wrong, when the real cause is the way we live.”

  “Yes, it may be that my thinking has become warped. But there’s one thing that’s been very much on my mind these last few days. Do you remember that story you told me about Omasa the Viper, or have you forgotten? Do you remember the things that you said then?”

  “What did I say?”
<
br />   “Oh, that a confession once made lost all meaning afterward, that you much preferred someone who refused to confess, who defiantly suffered alone, to someone who imagined that once having confessed, he was forgiven. You mentioned some woman ballad singer, I remember, or was she a geisha?”

  “Eihana, you mean?”

  “That’s right. You said all sorts of other things too at the time. And now they’ve come back to haunt me. You know, you can sound very magnanimous, but you aren’t at all actually. As a matter of fact, I remember that even when you were telling me about those women, I was frightened by something in you that struck me as unrelenting.” Kensaku became angrier and angrier as he listened to Naoko. “All right, that’s enough. I suppose what you say is true to a certain extent. But what you have to understand is that, for me, everything is my problem, mine alone, to solve. As you say, my feelings aren’t as magnanimous as my ideas. But when they become so, then all my problems will be solved. It’s an egotistic way of looking at things, but given my nature, it may also be the most practical for me. You don’t have a place in it, I know, but all I can do is to try to get there in my own way. That’s the way I’ve always been. Anyway, we shall have to try to live a little differently. Perhaps we ought to separate temporarily.”

  Naoko stared past him, deep in thought. For a time neither said anything.

  Now feeling more gentle toward his wife, Kensaku said, “ ‘Separate’ sounds a little ominous. I want merely to go away to some mountain for half a year, and live quietly by myself. A doctor may say I’m suffering from a nervous breakdown. But even if I am, I don’t want to go to a doctor for help. I said half a year, but perhaps three months will do. Just tell yourself I’ve gone on a little trip.”

  “Are you sure it’ll be nothing I can blame myself for?”