The Wild Geese (12 page)

“Oh yes! Do that right away!” said her mistress, and the maid hurried back in.

Okada looked into the cage and saw the bird trembling on the perch. More than half of its mate's body was lost in the snake's mouth. Even as Okada had cut the snake apart, it had tried up to the last moment to swallow it victim.

“Do you want me to get the snake out?” the boy asked, turning to Okada.

“Think you can?” Okada said with a smile. “All right, but lift it to the middle of the bars first or else you'll break them.”

The boy was successful, and pulling at the tail of the bird with his fingertips, he said: “Why! Even though it's dead, the devil won't let go!”

Thinking there was nothing further to see, the remaining pupils of the sewing teacher went inside.

“Well,” said Okada, looking around, “I'd better go too.”

Apparently lost in thought, the mistress suddenly turned to him on hearing his words. She tried to speak, but was forced to hesitate and turned her eyes away. At that moment she noticed a spot of blood on Okada's hand.

“Ah!” she cried. “You've stained your hand.” And calling her girl, she had a wooden wash basin brought to the entrance.

When Okada told me the story, he did not give me a detailed account of the woman's attitude, but he said to me: “I don't know how she could have found a small stain
of blood on my little finger.”

While Okada was washing his hands, the errand boy, who had been attempting to pull the dead bird from the snake's throat, cried out: “Hey!”

The mistress of the house was standing beside Okada with a new towel folded in her hand, and hearing the boy's cry, she asked: “What's wrong?”

“The other bird nearly flew out the hole the snake made!” said the lad, putting his open hands on the cage.

“Keep your hand there,” said Okada, wiping his fingers on the towel she had given him. Turning to her, he asked: “Do you have a piece of strong thread? We can tie up the damaged part of the cage and keep that other bird from flying out.”

“Will a paper cord for tying hair do?” the mistress asked, after a moment's thought.

“All right,” said Okada.

“Get it from the mirror stand,” the woman said to her maid. When the girl came out, Okada took the cord from her and in a haphazard crisscross fashion tied up the opening left by the bent bars.

“Well,” said Okada, going out the entrance, “I guess there's nothing more for me to do.”

“I'm . . . then thank you,” said the woman, unable to express herself as she followed him outside.

Turning to the boy, Okada said: “Since you've done so much already, how about throwing the snake away somewhere?”

“All right. I'll throw it in the deep part of the ditch at the bottom of the slope. Do you have a piece of rope?” he asked, looking around.

“I have some. Wait a minute please,” said the mistress, whispering to her maid.

“Goodbye then,” said Okada. And he went down the slope without turning his head.

Okada had gone this far, and facing me, he said: “You see, I exerted myself too much even for a beauty.”

“I think you did,” I said. But I added quite frankly: “Killing a snake for a beautiful woman is an interesting story. It's almost like a fairy tale. But it doesn't seem to me that your story's finished.”

“What? Don't be foolish. If it weren't, do you think I'd have published it?”

I think he spoke without affectation, yet if it really ended there, I felt that he was sorry it did.

I had said that his story was similar to a fairy tale, but another idea occurred to me as I listened to him. But I didn't tell him this. It seemed to me that Okada, who had been reading the
Kimpeibai
, had met a woman like Kinren, the heroine of that novel.

All the students at the university, including those who never borrowed from Suezo, knew the usurer, the moneylender who had risen from the position of a school servant. But there were some who didn't know that the woman at Muenzaka was his mistress. Okada was among these. At that time I hadn't learned any of the details about her, yet I did know that the woman living next to the sewing teacher was Suezo's mistress.

In this instance I knew a little more than my friend.

O
N
THE
day that Okada killed the snake, a sudden change took place in Otama after she had spoken to him, for up to that time they had only looked at one another.

A woman may have her heart set on a particular article, yet she may not go so far as to think of buying it. Each time she passes it, she may stop and look into the window where the article, say a ring or a watch, is on display. She doesn't go to that shop deliberately, but whenever she happens to be in the neighborhood on some business or other, she always makes it a point to examine it. Though she recognizes that she will never be able to buy the article, the renunciation and the desire to have if often give rise to a not too keen but rather faint and sweetly sad emotion. And she enjoys feeling it. On the other hand, a particular item she can afford and has determined to buy gives her acute pain. It troubles her so much that she gets restless. Even when she knows she can own it in a few days, she can hardly wait for the moment of possession. Occasionally she will even go out to get it on impulse—this in spite of heat or cold, darkness, rain, or snow. The woman who steals articles in a shop is not carved out of a different wood. But there is a distinction. A shoplifter blurs the line between the expensive items she yearns for and can't buy and articles she can buy if she has the money.

Otama's longing for Okada had been like that of a woman for an expensive article she admired from a distance, but he now turned into an article she wanted to buy.

His rescue of her bird had given her an opportunity for becoming better acquainted with him. Should she send Ume to him with some token of gratitude? And if so, what should it be? Perhaps some bean-jam buns from Fujimura's confectionery? But that would reveal a lack of wit: too commonplace, what anyone else would do. If she avoided the commonplace, say by making him an elbow-cushion sewed out of small pieces of colored cloth, he would smile at it as though it were a token of girlish love. She couldn't think of a good possibility. But supposing she had made a choice, would it be right for Ume to take it to him?

Only a few days ago at a shop on Naka-cho, she had had her name card printed, but only that attached to the gift would not be satisfactory. She wished to write a few lines, but how could she? She had only gone through elementary school, and since she had not had any time to improve her brush work, she couldn't even write a note properly. The sewing teacher had told her she had worked at a lord's house, and if Otama had asked her to write, the sewing teacher would have done so at once. But Otama didn't want that. She had nothing to write that would have made her feel ashamed, yet she didn't want anyone else to know that she had written to Okada. Then what should she do?

In the same way that a route is followed back and forth along the same road, Otama thought this much through
in straight order and then in reverse, abandoning the problem while she dressed and gave directions to Ume for the kitchen. But later she speculated about it once more.

And then Suezo arrived. While she poured him some saké, she began to think about the problem again.

“What's on your mind so much?” Suezo asked, reproaching her slightly.

“Why!” she said, smiling meaninglessly but with a hidden fluttering of her heart, “nothing at all.”

Lately she had trained herself a great deal in not permitting her sharp-eyed lover to find out what she was concealing from him.

After Suezo had left, she dreamed that she had finally purchased a box of cakes and had rushed Ume out with it. But after the girl had gone, Otama discovered that she hadn't included a name card or a note. And she was startled into wakefulness.

Perhaps Okada had not taken a walk or she had missed him as he passed, for the day after the snake-killing, Otama didn't get a chance to look at the face she wanted so much to see. But the following day he was outside as usual. He glanced toward her window, yet it was so dark inside that he didn't recognize her. And the next day, at the time he usually came by, she took out a broom and swept the interior of the doorway. There was little dust to get rid of, and she occupied herself by placing first to the right and then to the left a pair of wooden clogs.

“Oh, dear!” said Ume, coming out of the kitchen. “Let me do that!”

“Don't trouble about it,” said Otama. “You look after the cooking. I'm only doing this because I don't have anything else to do.” And with these words the girl was driven back to the kitchen.

At that moment Okada came by with his usual greeting. Red to the ears, Otama stood bolt upright with the broom in her hand, but she let him walk on without saying a word.

She threw down her broom as though it were a pair of tongs that burned her hand, kicked off her sandals, and ran into the house.

Sitting before the charcoal brazier, she toyed with a pair of fire tongs over the kindled coals, thinking to herself: “I'm a fool! I thought that if I stared outside on such a cool day with the window open, it would look strange. So I purposely waited for him outside, pretending the place had to be swept. And yet—yet when he did come, I couldn't say a word! No matter how embarrassed I am in front of Suezo, I can say anything when I have a mind to. But why can't I speak to Okada-san? It's natural for me to thank him for his help. If I can't even give him my thanks, I'll never have the chance to talk to him. I'd be only too glad to send Ume with a gift, but since there's a problem in sending it to him and since I can't say anything to him, what else can I do? Why couldn't I speak just now? Well, yes, yes, I was about to. But I didn't know what to say! Calling his name would have been too familiar a way for me. It would be strange to say to a man who was looking at me: ‘Why, good day!' Now that I'm thinking about it, it's no wonder that I was so
upset at the time. For even now when I've enough time to think, I don't have the right words. No, it's foolish to think in this way. I didn't have to say anything. All I had to do was run out to him at once. Then he certainly would have stopped. And once he had, I might have said: ‘Please, I must thank you for your kindness of the other day.' That or some such thing.”

Reasoning in this way and toying with the coals, she was surprised to find the lid of the iron kettle jumping up and down, and she slid it aside to let out the steam.

From that day on, she carried on a personal debate about the two alternatives, namely, to speak to Okada herself or to send Ume to him with a message. Meanwhile, with the days growing cooler in the evening, it would have looked strange to leave the window open. Usually the grounds were swept once in the morning, but after the broom incident Ume swept in the evening as well, leaving Otama no chance to do it herself.

Otama began to go to the public bath at a later hour in order to see Okada on the way, but the distance between her house and the bath at the foot of the slope was too short to give much of an opportunity for such a meeting. On the other hand, as the days advanced, it was becoming more awkward for her to send her maid to him.

She tried to resign herself temporarily by giving her thought a new direction: she hadn't yet thanked Okada Since she hadn't returned the kindness which she was duty-bound to return, she was under an obligation to him. And it was obvious that he knew she was. It might be all the better for her to remain in that situation
instead of trying to repay him in a clumsy way.

Still she wanted to get to know him better by using her obligation to him as a starting point for more contact. In fact, she was secretly giving the matter a great deal of thought in order to bring this about.

By nature Otama was a spirited woman, and in the few months since she had become Suezo's mistress, her painful experience of the outward contempt shown a mistress and the inward envy of the people around her enabled her to set the world at naught. Yet since she was basically a good woman and had not yet had too much experience in life, she felt it difficult to visit a university student at his lodging house.

There were some fine autumn days when she could keep her window open and exchange a salute with Okada, but their relationship remained unchanged since that memorable event, and no new state of intimacy developed from her having spoken to him once and having handed him a towel. And the situation was more than frustrating for her.

When Suezo came and talked with her over the charcoal brazier, she imagined what it would be like if Okada were there instead. At first, she felt she was being unfaithful, but she gradually came to feel no shame in speaking in tune with Suezo's words while thinking of Okada all the time. Moreover, when she submitted to Suezo, the image of Okada was behind her closed eyes. Sometimes they were together in her dreams. He was there without any troublesome arrangements to be made.
But the moment she thought how happy she was, the man turned into Suezo instead of Okada. She would be startled and would awake, her nerves so strained that sometimes she cried out in a fret.

It was already November, and the days settled into Indian summer, so Otama had an excuse for keeping the window open to await Okada's daily walk. Previously a group of chilly and wet days had prevented her from seeing him for several days at a time, and she had become despondent. But she was of so mild a temperament that she didn't give her maid any trouble with unreasonable demands, nor did she give Suezo any sorry looks.