The Wild Geese (6 page)

He walked on in the same direction as this party, sometimes going ahead, sometimes falling behind.

At last he reached his own house and went in.

O
TAMA
, who had never been away from her father, was eager to know how he was. Yet, in spite of this desire, several days had passed without her being able to visit him. She was afraid that Suezo might come when she was out, and she feared that he would be annoyed if he did not find her. Usually he came at night and stayed until eleven, but he began to appear briefly at odd hours.

The first time he came during the day he said, sitting down opposite her in front of the charcoal brazier: “I've dropped in on my way to an appointment. I'll just smoke a cigarette and go.”

As a matter of fact, Otama seldom knew when he would come, so she didn't have the courage to leave. She might have slipped out in the morning, but she considered Ume an unreliable child. Moreover, Otama didn't want to be seen then or in the afternoon, for she didn't like the thought of the neighbors staring at her. She was so shy that at first she went to the bathhouse below the slope only after she had sent Ume out to see that it was not crowded.

To make matters worse, on the third day after she had moved in, she had been frightened. She was already timid enough to give the situation more attention than it deserved. On first moving into Muenzaka, she had been called on by the vegetable dealer and the fishmonger. When she agreed to be their customer, they gave her an
account book. On the day in question, when the fish had not been delivered, she sent Ume down the slope to get a few slices for lunch. Otama was not used to eating fish every day, having taken her meals without such delicacies. Nor had her father been particular about food as long as she had prepared it well and it was healthy for him. But once she had heard one of her neighbors at their old house saying that she and her father had bought no fish for several days. Remembering how embarrassed she had been then, Otama decided to send the girl for some. “If Ume thinks I'm trying to save money,” she reasoned, “then I'm being unfair to Suezo. He's not like that.”

But a short while later the maid returned crying.

“What is it? Tell me,” Otama said a number of times before the girl would speak.

“I went into a fish market, but not the one we buy from. I looked around but couldn't see the dealer. And I thought: ‘Why, he's probably calling on customers after buying fresh fish at the waterfront.' And then I saw some mackerel looking like they'd just been pulled out of the water. ‘How much?' I ask the wife. ‘I've never seen you around here,' she says to me, not even telling me how much. ‘Whose house you from?' she asks. And when I told her, she began to make a face like she was angry. ‘Why!' she says. ‘Then I'm sorry for you. Go on back where you're from and tell your mistress we don't sell fish to the—whore of a usurer!' And then she turned her back on me, smoking her pipe, pretending I wasn't even there!”

Ume had been too shocked and hurt to go to another shop and had run all the way back. And the simple girl, all the while making sympathetic gestures, told her mistress the entire story line by line.

As Ume spoke, Otama's face turned pale, and for a while she could not answer. A mixture of feelings tumbled inside the inexperienced girl. It was impossible for her to disentangle her confused thoughts, but the total confusion put so heavy a strain upon the heart of a pure girl sold that all her blood seemed to be drawn into it, draining the color from her face and leaving her back chilled with cold perspiration.

On these occasions an insignificant thought seems to take hold of us. Would Ume continue to serve her after this disgrace?

As the girl watched Otama, she could see that her words had upset her mistress. But she could not guess what had caused Otama such dismay. The girl had returned to the house in a fit, but now it seemed that the food for lunch was indispensable, and she still carried the coins in the folds of her sash.

“I never met such a nasty person!” Ume said, a look of compassion on her face. “Why! Who'd shop at such a place? Not me. There's another shop up ahead of that one. Near a fox-shrine. That's where I'll go. And right away too.” And she got up from the mats to run out.

Otama gave her an automatic smile and a nod, moved at finding a friend in Ume, who hurried out of the room.

Otama remained seated. As the strain became less intense, she began to cry quietly and reached into her
kimono sleeve for a handkerchief. She heard a voice cry out: “It's not fair! How cruel!” It was her own confusion. By these words she did not mean that she hated the woman who refused to sell her the fish, nor did she feel sad or mortified in recognizing that her status had barred her from a simple fish market. She did not even feel resentment toward Suezo, who had purchased her and who had now turned out to be a usurer. It was humiliating to belong to such a man, but she did not even feel that. She had heard that usurers were disgusting persons, looked down on, feared, detested. But her father's only experience in that direction had been with pawnbrokers. And when their clerks had not been kind enough to give him the sum he needed, he had never complained in spite of the inconvenience. So, even though she had been told that such men existed, her fear was similar to that of a child toward an ogre or a policeman—not a particularly keen one. What then was this despair she suddenly felt?

In her feeling, the sense of injustice done by the world in general and men in particular was almost absent. If she had such a sense, it was that of the unfairness of her own destiny. She had done nothing wrong, yet she was to be persecuted by the world. This pained her. This was her despair. When she had learned that the policeman had deceived her and deserted her, she had used the same words for the first time in her life: “It's not fair! How cruel!” And she had used them again when she had been forced into becoming a mistress. And now that she realized she was not only a “whore” but one kept by a usurer
whom the world detested, the feeling of humiliation that time and resignation had softened and toned down emerged once more with its sharp outline and strong colors. This was the substance of Otama's emotion, if you force me to describe it in any reasonable way.

Eventually she stood up, opened a closet, and from a bag of imitation leather took out a calico apron which she had made. Tying the apron around her waist, she entered the kitchen with a sigh. Her silk apron was more like a dress, and she never used it while working there. She was so fond of personal cleanliness that even when she wore an easy-to-wash summer kimono she would tie a towel around her hair in order to keep the neckband from getting soiled.

Gradually her thoughts settled. Resignation was the mental attitude she had most experienced. And in this direction her mind adjusted itself like a well-oiled machine.

O
NE
EVENING
when Suezo came, he took his usual seat opposite Otama. From their first meeting in her new home she had put a cushion beside the charcoal brazier as soon as she knew he was there. He would go to it and sit down, and relaxing with his pipe, engage in small talk. From her own position on the mats she would answer him in monosyllables. She would say a few words, pass her hands along the frame of the brazier, toy with the charcoal tongs, do anything to keep herself busy. If she hadn't had a definite place before the brazier, she wouldn't have known what to do. It may be said that she was facing a formidable enemy with only the battlement of the brazier to protect her.

During their talks Suezo would get her to speak for a time, usually on trivial and sentimental matters about the years she had lived alone with her father. In spite of himself, Suezo would listen with a smile, not so much to what she was saying but rather to the pleasant melody of her voice. It was as though he was hearing the pure tones of a bell-insect. Then Otama would suddenly become self-conscious, blush at having run on about herself, and dash off the rest of her sentence before lapsing into her usual silence. With his penetration Suezo could see that her speech and behavior were so totally innocent that she seemed as transparent as fresh water in the bottom of a flat vase. His delight in their conversation was equal
to his own joy in soaking his limbs in an agreeably warm bath after an exhausting day at work. The experience of this delight, quite a new one for him, had been giving him unconsciously a sort of “culture” since the start of his visits to her. After all, a primitive beast can be subdued by sensitive hands.

But a number of days after she had moved in, he became aware of her increasing restlessness. When he took his place before the brazier, she would get up, find some unnecessary task to do, occupy her hands. From the beginning of their relationship, she had avoided his glance and had hesitated in answering his questions. On this occasion her conduct was so strange that there had to be some explanation for it.

“Come now,” he said, filling his pipe, “something's bothering you. What is it?”

“No,” said Otama, her eyes widening, “there's nothing wrong.”

She had pulled out one of the drawers from the frame of the brazier as if to arrange it, but she had already put it in order. She began to search for an item when obviously she had nothing to look for. Suezo could tell that her eyes could not keep very great secrets.

In spite of frowning unconsciously, he brightened instantly. “Come, Otama, you know you're worried. It's written all over your face. I can just make out the words. Let me see,” he said, looking at her sharply. “Oh yes! ‘I'm all confused. What'll I do? What'll I do?' ”

Otama was embarrassed, and for a while she sat in silence as though she did not know how to begin. Suezo
could clearly perceive the motion of this delicate instrument.

“I—well—it's my father. I've been thinking about visiting him—one of these days. . . . And it's been long since . . . .”

Though a man may see the particular movement of a highly intricate machine, he may not necessarily understand its total operation. An insect that must always ward off persecution from the bigger and stronger of the species is given the gift of mimicry. A woman tells lies.

“What!” said Suezo, smiling in spite of his scolding tone. “You haven't visited him yet? His house right at Ike-no-hata? In front of your nose? Why, just think of Iwasaki's estate on the other side. It's almost as if the two of you were living in the same house. If you wish, we'll go now, though tomorrow would be better.”

“But—I've so many things to think of—to consider,” she said, poking the ashes with the charcoal tongs and stealing a glance at him.

“Nonsense!” he interrupted. “Such a simple thing doesn't require a reason! What an infant you are!” he said, his voice nevertheless tender.

The matter ended there. Later, he even said with humorous gallantry: “If it's so much trouble, I'll come around in the morning and take you. After all, it
is
several hundred yards!”

Lately Otama had tried to think of him in several ways. When she saw him in front of her with his reliable and considerate manner, even tenderness, she wondered why he had chosen a base profession. And she said to
herself: “I may change him, make him find something else to do.” But she knew this was more than she could do. And yet she confessed to herself: “He's not detestable! Usurer or not, he's not detestable!”

As for Suezo, he had caught an image at the bottom of Otama's mind, had sounded her out regarding it, and had found it a childish trifle. But as he walked down Muenzaka after eleven that night, it seemed as though something were behind what he had already discovered. He was shrewd enough to locate part of the trouble. “Something,” he conjectured, “someone's told her something. Something about me. And she's holding it against me.”

But he did not know who had told what.

W
HEN
O
TAMA
reached her father's house the next morning, he had just finished breakfast. She had never spent a great deal of time getting ready to go out, and she hurried along thinking that perhaps she had come too early, but the old man, not a late sleeper, had already swept the entrance to his house and had sprinkled water over the grounds. And after washing his hands and feet, he was just taking his lonely meal on the new mats.

A few doors from her father's house, some places where geishas entertained had recently been constructed, and on certain evenings the neighborhood was noisy. But the houses to the right and left of the old man's, like his own, kept their doors closed and were quiet, especially in the morning.

As the old man looked out of his low window, he could see though the branches of the parasol pine in his front garden the string-like willow trees faintly moving in the fresh breeze. Beyond them the lotus leaves covered the pond, their green color spotted here and there with light pink flowers blooming at that early hour. In the winter the old man's house would be cold since it faced north, but in the summer it was as good as any one could wish to find.

Ever since Otama had been old enough to think for herself, she had hoped that if the opportunity arose she would do one thing or another for her father. And when
she saw the house he was living in, she couldn't restrain her joy, couldn't help feeling her prayers realized. But even the happiness she felt had its bitter ingredient, an awareness of her altered position. “If I could see my father without that,” she said to herself, “how happy I could be!”