To the Spring Equinox and Beyond (41 page)

"I actually think so. Therefore, I see no need to hide it. If you have a sound mind, you should think the same as I do, shouldn't you? If you say you can't, it's your feeling of inferiority. Do you understand?"

"I understand. I understand quite well," Ichizo replied.

"If you do, good. Let's not talk about it anymore."

"I'll say no more about it. There'll never be another day when I bother you about it. You were right in saying that I've been putting a warped interpretation on everything. Until you told me, I was terribly afraid, so much so that my flesh cringed. But now that what you've told me has made everything clear, I'm very much relieved. I no longer have anything to fear, not anything. Though I've suddenly become helpless somehow. Lonely. I feel as if I'm standing alone in the world."

"Still, your mother's what she's always been, you know. I too am what I was. None of us will be any different toward you. Don't get so nervous about it."

"Nervous or not, I do feel lonely all the same. I can't help it. When I get back home and see my mother's face, I'm sure I'll be in tears. Just imagining those tears now makes me feel unbearably lonely."

"It's better not to mention any of this to your mother."

"Of course I won't. If I did, I can't even imagine the pain on her face."

We sat silently facing each other. To relieve the awkwardness I felt, I knocked the ashes from my pipe into a bamboo pot in the smoking set. Ichizo looked down at the
hakama
covering his knees. Soon he glanced up with that lonely face of his.

"I have something else I want to ask you. Would you please hear me out?"

"I'll tell you anything I know about."

"Where's my real mother living now?"

She had died soon after giving birth to him, from some post-natal complication or from a disease, so I had heard. Of this too my memory was too sketchy to give an account detailed enough to appease his hungry eyes. The account I gave him of the last of his real mother's fate ended in a few minutes. With a pitiful look he asked her name. Fortunately, I hadn't forgotten her old-fashioned name— it was Oyumi. He next asked how old she was when she died. Of that detail my knowledge was the least reliable. Finally he asked if I had ever seen her working at his family's house. I told him I had.

"What did she look like?" he asked.

Unfortunately, my memory about that was quite vague. I was only about fifteen or sixteen at the time.

"I once saw her having her hair done up in
shimada."
I was sorry I couldn't give a more pertinent answer.

At length, he asked with a resigned look, "Then please just tell me the temple. At least I want to know where she's buried."

How could I have known where her family temple was? I groaned and told him that as a last resort, he'd have to ask his mother.

"Is there no one else besides my mother who knows?"

"Probably not."

"Then I'll have to be content to remain in the dark."

I felt half-sorry for him, half-penitent, as if I'd done him some wrong. For a while his eyes gazed out at a large camellia tree in the garden blooming in the bright sunlight. And then he turned his glance back.

"My mother's insistence that I take Chiyo-chan for my wife is meant, after all, in consideration of the family line, isn't it?"

"Exactly. It's nothing more than that."

Still, he didn't say if he would marry her. Nor did I ask then if he would.

That talk with Ichizo was one of the most beautiful experiences I've ever had. It embellished my meager past in the sense that both of us were able to completely and unhesitatingly bare our thoughts to each other. I felt that from Ichizo's point of view too, it had perhaps been the first time in his life he had ever been consoled. After he left, what remained with me was the pleasant sensation of having done something good.

"You don't have to worry. I'll take charge of everything." I had warmly tossed off these words as I saw him to the entrance, though I did feel quite awkward when it came to reporting to my sister the results of my talk. For the time being I could only soothe her with words I thought might sound reasonable, reminding her that it would be better for her to wait until Ichizo had graduated, since he himself said that when he left school and had more time to think everything over, he'd definitely settle the question of his marriage one way or another. I also said that it would only disturb his studying for examinations if at this moment he kept being pressed for a definite answer.

At the same time, I told Taguchi the situation Ichizo was now in, with the intention of trying to speed up the question of Chiyoko's marriage before Ichizo's graduation if possible. When Taguchi heard the entire story from me, he responded in his usually tactful, off-hand manner: He said he knew how to deal with it without my having to remind him. "After all, we have to marry her off for her own sake, so we can't forcibly advance it or postpone it just for Ichizo's or his mother's convenience, though putting it that way may sound rude."

"Quite right," I replied, having to admit he was.

I associate with the Taguchis as their relative, of course, but I had never actually meddled in their daughter's marriage negotiations, nor had I ever been asked for advice about it. So until that day I had not heard about any of the marriage prospects, nor had I heard even indirectly any rumors about candidates. I remembered only the name Takagi, whom Ichizo had met and disliked the year before when they were at—Kamakura, was it?—and whom both Ichizo and Chiyoko had mentioned to me. I asked Taguchi how it was going with the young man. With an amiable laugh he replied that from the outset Takagi hadn't come forward. But he also told me that inasmuch as any bachelor of good status and education had a claim as a suitor, it couldn't be said that he was definitely out of the running. I was given further particulars regarding this young man about whom I knew very little and learned that he was in Shanghai and that his return was indefinite. Nothing has developed between him and Chiyoko, though their exchange of letters continues, but I ascertained that it is maintained on the condition that she can read his letters only after her parents do. I suggested unhesitatingly that he might be a good match for her. Whether desiring someone better or thinking otherwise, Taguchi didn't encourage my suggestion. Knowing nothing whatever about Takagi's character, I had no right to recommend him further, so I returned home, leaving that question as it was.

For a long time after our meeting—actually, it was only about a month and a half—I didn't get to see Ichi-zo. I was quite worried about his having to burden himself with family problems while his graduation exams were coming up. I secretly visited my sister just to spy out his condition. She was unconcerned and said quite calmly that he seemed very busy and that such was only to be expected just before his graduation. Since I was still uneasy about him, I made him spare an hour one evening to have dinner with me. We ate together at a Western-style restaurant near his house. I privately studied his frame of mind. As usual, he was calm. It was not altogether mere bluff when he assured me that his exams were of no real importance and that somehow he'd manage to come off fairly well. When I asked him if he was quite confident, his face suddenly became sad. He replied, "The human brain is made of sturdier stuff than we think, isn't it? I confess I've been in great fear for mine, but oddly enough it still hasn't collapsed. I'll probably be able to use it for some time yet."

These words, half-joking, half-serious, gave me an odd feeling of deep pity for him.

The season of fresh foliage was over, and on a day that you feel like flapping a round fan into the open chest of an unlined summer kimono after a bath, Ichizo suddenly turned up again. As soon as I saw him, I asked how his exams were going. He said that he had finished them only the day before. Then he informed me that he would be off on a short trip the next day, so he'd come to say good-bye. Once more I felt somewhat uneasy about his state of mind in heading for a distant spot before knowing the results of his examinations. He hoped to start his tour from Kyoto or thereabouts, pass through Suma and Akashi, and possibly go as far as Hiroshima or some place in that direction. I was surprised by the rather extensive tour he was planning. When I hinted at my disapproval by saying the trip might be quite all right if only he was certain of graduating, he responded curtly, showing much less concern about the examination results than I expected. He almost ignored my suggestion and told me that my caring about such a trifle didn't at all suit the way I usually am. As I talked on with him, I discovered that his idea had sprung from motives that had nothing to do with his graduation record.

"The truth," he said, "is that since that talk between us, I've been racking my brains somehow, so it's recently become too difficult for me to sit calmly in my study at home. I'm badly in need of a trip of some sort, so please let me go as a reward for my admirable conduct in not giving up halfway through my exams."

I told him that he was certainly justified in going wherever he wished with his own money. I said that I thought it might do him good to wander here and there and enjoy himself.

"Thanks," he said, looking slightly satisfied, but then he added, "Actually, I feel sorry for my mother, and though it may not even be right to say this aloud, ever since I heard the account from you, I've been overwhelmed by a strange feeling each time I see her face."

"Do you feel anything unpleasant?" I asked somewhat solemnly.

"No, only a kind of pity," he replied. "At first, I felt unbearably lonely. Then bit by bit, it changed to pity. Just between you and me, it's been too painful lately to see my mother's face day in and day out. Speaking of trips, I'd been thinking for some time that after I graduated, I'd take her to see Kyoto, Osaka, and Miyajima, so if my feelings had remained as they had been, I would have asked you to take care of our house while I accompanied her. But as I've just told you, the circumstances have been completely reversed, so I've come to feel it's better if I went away without her, if only for a short while."

"That you've come to feel so strange embarrasses me," I said.

"I should think I'm likely to miss her quite a bit when I'm away from home. What do you think? Will it turn out all right?" It was with real anxiety that he asked this question.

Pretending I was his much more experienced senior— which I am—I myself could hardly imagine what his future life would be like in this respect. I could only feel pity for him that because of his lack of self-confidence he was so eager to be reassured by someone else about a problem that belonged only to him. Ichizo, in spite of looking amenable on the surface, is actually quite strong-willed, but this was almost the first time that he had betrayed such a weakness. I tried as best I could to reassure him.

"There's no point in worrying. You can take my word for it that it'll be all right. Go ahead with your trip and enjoy it fully. Your mother's my sister. And what's more, she's made of purer stuff than I am because she's learned much less than I have. She's a woman worthy of anyone's love and respect. How could such a mother and so devoted a son as you ever be separated from each other for good? You can be sure that's impossible, so set your mind at ease."