The Wild Geese (13 page)

During these periods she would remain alone at the brazier with her elbows resting on its frame. She would sit silently and would seem so lost that one day Ume asked her: “Is anything wrong?”

But now that she could see Okada for many days in a row, she felt buoyant, and one morning she walked to her father's house with a light step.

She visited him without fail once a week, but she never stayed more than an hour. This was because her father refused to let her stay longer. When she called on him, he treated her always with the same kindness. And if he had any good things to serve, he brought them out and made tea for her. But, this finished, he said: “You'd better go now.”

He said this not merely because of the impatience of an old man but also because he thought it selfish of him to detain his daughter for long when he had sent her out to do service. On her second or third visit she had
informed him that she could stay longer because her master never came in the morning, but the old man wouldn't allow her to take her time.

“Well, it may be true,” he had told her, “that as yet he hasn't come in the morning, but you can't be certain when he'll get there on some unexpected business. If you had asked him, and got his permission, it would be all right. But since you've only stopped here on your way from shopping, you shouldn't stay long. You wouldn't have any excuse if he thought you were idling away the time.”

She knew her father would be offended if he learned about Suezo's profession, and she worried about this. When she visited him, she waned to find out if he had discovered anything, but so far he was ignorant of the matter. It was natural that he remained so. Since moving here, he had started to rent books, and with his glasses on, he would sit all day and read. He borrowed histories with a romantic twist and biographies, both kinds of books exclusively printed in a particular script. If the keeper of the library showed him works of fiction and recommended them, the old man would say: “What? Those lies!”

At night, since he tired of reading, he would go to the variety hall where he would listen to the comic tales and hear the dramatic ballads being recited without questioning their truth or falsehood. But unless the teller was a particular favorite of his, he seldom went to the hall at Hirokoji, where the narratives were chiefly historical. These were his only hobbies, and since he never gossiped with outsiders, didn't make any new friends. Therefore,
he had little chance of hearing about Suezo's background.

Nevertheless, some of his neighbors wondered about the fair visitor to the old man's house, and at last they identified her as the usurer's mistress. If the neighbors on both sides of the old man's house had been chatterboxes, the unpleasant report might have somehow reached him in spite of the lack of communication between them. But fortunately they were not likely to disturb his peace of mind, for one of them was a minor clerk at a museum who spent of all his leisure hours collecting model copy-books of Chinese characters and learning how to use the brush, and the other man was an engraver who had remained at the old craft in spite of his fellow-craftsmen's having abandoned the trade in order to make seals. Of the houses in the same row as the old man's, the trading places included only a noodle restaurant, a rice-cake shop, and a store dealing in combs.

Even before the old man heard his daughter's gentle greeting, he was conscious of her visit from the movement of the door and the light step of her clogs. He would put down the book he was reading and wait for her entrance into the room. If he could take off his glasses and look at his precious daughter, it was a festival day for him. Of course he could see better with his glasses on, but it seemed to him that they set up a barrier between him and Otama. Usually he had so much to tell her that after she had gone, he always remembered something or other left unsaid. But he never failed to say: “Give Suezo my greeting.”

On that day when Otama had left her house in such a joyous mood, she also found her father in good humor, listened to him recite a court tale, and ate a rice wafer of enormous size. “I bought it,” he said, “at a branch shop that just opened at Hirokoji. It's from the famous bakery at O-senju.”

He asked her many times during their talk: “Isn't it time to go?”

“Don't worry about it!” Otama said smiling. And she stayed there almost until noon.

She knew that if she had told her father that lately Suezo sometimes came at the most unexpected hours, the old man would have urged her more frequently to go back.

Otama had become more brazen and was not very anxious about Suezo's visits during her absence.

I
T
WAS
getting colder, and the boards outside the wooden drain from the sink were covered with a thick frost. Otama pitied Ume for having to draw water from the deep well with a long rope, and she bought the girl a pair of gloves. But Ume, who thought it too troublesome for her to put them on and take them off in doing kitchen work, guarded the gloves as a precious gift and still labored at the well with her bare hands. Otama would say: “Use hot water for washing clothes and for wiping the floors.” But Ume's hands still got rough and chapped.

Otama said, sympathizing with her: “The worst thing's to keep your hands wet. Wipe them carefully and dry them each time you take them out of water.”

She bought Ume a cake of soap for the purpose. But the girl's hands became rougher, and it pained Otama to see them in that condition. “Why do her hands get so red and cracked?” she wondered to herself. “I did as much work as she does now and mine weren't like that.”

Otama had been in the habit of getting out of bed as soon as her eyes opened in the morning, but when Ume would say: “The sink's frozen. Stay where you are,” her mistress remained under the covers.

As a safeguard against obscene thoughts, educators warn young people not to remain awake after going to bed and to get up as soon as they awaken, for in the vigors of youth kept warm in bed, an image like the flower
of a poisonous plant blooming in fire is apt to be engendered. At such times Otama's imagination was unbridled. Her eyes would glow, and the flush would spread from her eyelids to her cheeks as though she had drunk too much saké.

One frosty morning after a starry night, Otama remained idly in bed for a long time—a habit she had acquired of late. Not until she saw the morning sun through the front window did she rise. And with only a narrow band around her kimono and a housecoat over it, she stood brushing her teeth in the open corridor outside her room. Suddenly the lattice door opened, and Ume's friendly voice greeted a visitor. Otama heard him enter the room.

“Hey there! You lazy-riser!” said Suezo, sitting at the brazier.

“Oh! Excuse me,” Otama said, hastily taking the toothbrush from her mouth. “You've come awfully early.”

To Suezo's eyes, her smiling face, flushed somewhat as though the blood had rushed to her head, was lovelier than ever. Since coming to live at Muenzaka, she had become prettier by the day. At first Suezo admired the maiden-like naïveté of her manners. But lately they had changed, and he was even more enchanted. He saw this transformation as evidence of her understanding of love, and he was proud that she had learned what it was from him. In spite of his insight into reality, this was a ridiculous misunderstanding of his mistress' state of mind. At first she had served him faithfully, but as a result of her unhappiness and the reflectiveness caused by the sudden
changes in her life, she had arrived at a self-consciousness which might almost be called impudent negligence. She had acquired that coolness of mind that most women in the world who do have it can reach only after experiences with many men. Suezo found it stimulating to be trifled with by her coolness. She had begun to neglect her duties with an increasing disregard for them, and she had become less tidy. But this untidiness fanned Suezo's passions to a higher intensity. He did not realize the basis for these alterations, so he was more charmed than before.

Squatting down and drawing a brass basin near her Otama said: “Turn around, please.”

“Why?” he asked, lighting a cigarette.

“Because I'm washing.”

“Don't worry about me. Go ahead.”

“But if you sit there staring at me, I can't.”

“My, but you're proper. How's this? All right?” And with his back toward the corridor Suezo smoked his cigarette. “What an innocent thing she is,” he thought.

Pushing back the top of her kimono and letting it slip off her shoulders, she washed herself quickly. She was not as careful as she usually was, but since she had no blemish to hide or smooth over by using make-up in secret, she had no reason to feel embarrassed at being observed.

Before long, Suezo turned around. While she was washing, she didn't notice that he had turned, but after finishing and drawing the mirror stand in front of her, she saw his face in it, the cigarette still in his mouth.

“Ah? So that's the kind of man you are!” she said, continuing to comb her hair.

A triangular patch of white skin revealing her neck and part of her back could be seen above the loosened kimono, and her soft arms, lifted high and exposed a few inches above the elbows, were sights Suezo never tired of.

“Don't rush,” he said, fearing his silence would hurry her and making his tone deliberately easy. “I haven't come for anything in particular. When you asked me the other day when I'd be here, I told you this evening. But I've got to go to Chiba. If everything goes all right, I'll be able to come back tomorrow. If not, maybe the day after.”

“Oh?” said Otama, wiping her comb and looking back at him. She made herself seem sad.

“Be a good child and wait for me,” said Suezo humorously, putting his cigarette case in his kimono sleeve. Suddenly he got up and went out to the entrance.

Throwing her comb down, Otama said: “Oh, excuse me for not giving you even a cup of tea!” But when she stood up to see him off, he had already opened the door and was gone.

Ume brought Otama's breakfast in from the kitchen and, setting it down, bowed with her hands on the mats to apologize.

“What are you asking pardon for?” said Otama, sitting at the brazier and knocking the ashes off the fire with a pair of charcoal tongs.

“For being late with the tea.”

“Oh, is that all? Why, I was only being polite. Your master doesn't mind,” she said, taking up her chopsticks.

Watching her eat, Ume thought Otama was unusually good-natured, though for that matter her mistress was seldom in a bad temper. A trace of the smile with which Otama had said “What are you asking pardon for?” still remained on her faintly flushed cheeks. The maid wondered why Otama had smiled, but she was too simple to probe causes. And she felt infected by her mistress's happiness.

Looking at Ume's face and making herself even more cheerful, Otama said: “Ah, don't you want to go home?”

The maid's eyes rounded in wonder. As late as the second decade of the Meiji era, the customs of the trades-men's houses in Edo were still kept up, although they were slowly dying out. As a result, even those servants whose families lived in the city were not easily allowed to go home except on Servants' Day.

“Well,” Otama continued, “since your master's not expected this evening, you might as well go and spend the night with your family if you wish.”

“Oh, do you mean it?” Ume did not doubt Otama's sincerity, but she felt that she was unworthy of the favor allowed her.

“Why should I lie? I'd never play tricks on you unfairly. Don't put away the breakfast things, but go on—now! Take all the time you want, and stay there for the night. But don't forget to come back early tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, yes—I will! Ume said, her face flushed with delight. She saw her father's house, his two or three rickshaws in the entrance, her father resting on a cushion placed in a space scarcely wider than the cushion
itself between a chest of drawers and the brazier. And, her father at work, Ume also pictured her mother there, her sidelocks hanging loosely over her cheeks, a thin sash holding up her sleeves and seldom taken off her shoulders. These images, like so many silhouettes, came alternately in rapid succession to Ume's mind.

When Otama had finished the meal, Ume took the tray away. The girl felt she should wash the dishes even though she had been told to leave them, and when Otama came in with something folded in a piece of paper, Ume was rinsing the bowls and plates in a small wooden bucket filled with hot water.

“Oh, you're washing them even though I said not to? I'll do it for you. It's not much work for me to wash a few things. You did your hair last night, so it looks all right, don't you think? Hurry and dress. I've nothing to give you as a present for your parents, so take this.”

Otama handed Ume the folded paper. Inside was a half-yen note, blue-colored and resembling a playing card.

Otama had hurried Ume off, and like a good maid with her sleeves tied up with a sash and her kimono ends tucked up under her
obi
, she went directly into the kitchen. She began the half-washed bowls and plates as though it were a pleasant pastime for her. She was used to such work and could do it far more quickly and thoroughly than Ume could, but now she went about it more slowly than a child playing with its toys. She cleaned one plate for five minutes. Her face was animated, rosy, her eyes distant.