The Wild Geese (14 page)

Hopeful images entered her mind. Women pitiably waver in their decisions until they have made up their minds, yet once they have decided on their course of action, they rush forward like horses with blinders, looking neither to the right nor left. An obstacle which would frighten discreet men is nothing to determined women. They dare what men avoid, and sometimes they achieve an unusual success.

In Otama's desire to make overtures to Okada, she had delayed so long that a person observing her might have felt impatient because of her indecision. But now that Suezo had told her of his journey to Chiba, she made up her mind to dash toward the port like a ship under full sail in a favorable wind. Suezo, the obstacle in her way, was to remain overnight at Chiba, and the maid was to be at her parents'.

What a delight for Otama to find herself quite free of restraints until the following morning! Since everything had turned out so well for her, she thought that it could only be a good omen that she would attain her object. On that day of all days Okada would most certainly pass her house! Sometimes he came by twice, first in going and then in returning. And even if she missed him once, to do so twice was an impossibility. “I don't care what happens—I'll talk to him today! And once I speak, I'm sure he'll stop to talk,” she told herself.

She was a degraded woman, true, a usurer's mistress. But she was even more beautiful than when she had been a virgin. In addition, misfortune had taught her what she wouldn't otherwise have known: somehow men were
interested in her. And if this were the case, Okada could not look on her with absolute disfavor. No, that was out of the question. If he had disliked her, he would not have continued to bow to her whenever they saw each other. It was because of this same interest that he had killed the snake for her some time ago. She doubted that he would have offered his assistance if the event had happened at any other house. If it had not happened at her house, he wouldn't even have turned his eyes. Moreover, since she cared for him so much, at least some of her affection, if not all of it, must have been felt by him. “Why, even the birth of a child isn't as difficult as one thinks beforehand,” she assured herself.

As she probed her thoughts, she was not aware that the water in the bucket had grown cold.

After she had put away the trays on the shelf, she sat down at her usual place before the charcoal brazier. She felt restless. She took up the pair of tongs and stirred the ashes that Ume had sifted smooth. Then she got up to change into her kimono.

“I'll go to the hairdresser's,” she decided.

A good-natured woman who came to Otama to arrange her hair had recommended this shop for special occasions. But up to that time Otama had never gone there.

I
N
A
E
UROPEAN
book of children's stories, there is a tale about a peg. I can't remember it well, but it was about a farmer's son who got into a series of difficulties on his journey because the peg in his cartwheel kept coming out. In the story I'm telling now, a mackerel boiled in bean paste had the same effect as that peg.

I was barely able to keep from starving because of the meagre dormitory and boarding house meals, yet there was one dish that made my flesh creep. No matter how much air there is in the room or how clean the serving tray is, the moment I see this food, I recall the indescribable odors of the dormitory dining room. When I am served boiled fish with cooked seaweed and wheat gluten cakes, I have that hallucination of smell. And if the boiled fish is mackerel made in bean paste, the sensation is at its peak.

This dish, much to my disgust, was once served for supper at the Kamijo. The maid had set my tray down, but seeing me hesitate in lifting up my chopsticks, which I usually didn't do, she said: “Don't you like mackerel?”

“Well, I don't dislike it. When it's broiled, I can eat it with pleasure. But not when it's boiled in bean paste.”

“Oh, I'm sorry. The
okamisan
didn't know. Do you want some eggs instead?” she said, preparing to rise.

“Wait a while,” I told her. “I'm not hungry yet, so I'll go out for a walk. Make it look all right to the landlady.
Don't say I dislike it. I don't want to give her any trouble.”

“But I feel so sorry—”

“Oh forget it.”

Seeing me stand to put on my
hakama
, the maid took the tray out into the corridor.

“Are you in, Okada?” I said, calling out to my neighbor.

“Do you want anything?” he asked, his voice clear.

“Nothing in particular, but I'm off for a walk. And I'm going to get some sukiyaki at a restaurant on my way back. Come on along.”

“All right. There's something I've been wanting to tell you anyway.”

I took my cap off the hook and went out of the Kamijo with my friend. I guess it was after four. Neither of us had talked about the direction to take, but we turned right at the lodging house gate.

Just as we were about to go down Muenzaka, I nudged Okada, saying: “Look—there she is!”

“Who?” he asked, in spite of knowing whom I meant, for he turned to the left side to glance at the house with the lattice door.

Otama was standing in front of her house. She would have looked beautiful even if she had been ill. But a young, healthy beauty is made even more beautiful by using make-up, and she was just that. I couldn't tell why, but there was a difference from her usual appearance. I thought she was lovelier than ever. And the radiance of her face dazzled me.

I felt she was transformed as she fixed her eyes on Okada. When he took off his cap, I noticed how upset he was, and I saw him unconsciously quicken his step.

Having the liberty of a third party, I looked back several times and saw that she continued to watch Okada.

He went down the slope with his head bent and without relaxing his hurried gait. I followed him in silence. Opposing thoughts tumbled inside me. They arose from the desire to put myself in Okada's place. But the idea sickened me. Denying my wish, I thought to myself that I couldn't be that base—yet I was annoyed at not being able to repress it effectively.

The thought of putting myself in Okada's place was not that I wanted to surrender to the woman's temptations. I had simply felt that I would have been happy if, like Okada, I had been loved by such a beauty. But how would I have behaved then? I would have kept my freedom of choice, but I wouldn't have run as Okada had just done. I would have visited her, talked with her. I would have kept my virginity, but I would have gone so far as to stop at her house, have conversations with her, love her as one loves a sister. I would have helped her. I would have rescued her from the dirty mud. My imagination had gone that far!

We walked on without speaking until we came to the crossing at the bottom of the slope. After we had passed the police box, I was finally able to talk to Okada.

“Look here,” I said, “the situation's getting dangerous.”

“What? What's getting dangerous?”

“Don't pretend with me. Why, you must have been
thinking about that woman ever since you saw her. I turned around a number of times, and she was always watching you. She's probably standing there right now and looking in this direction. It's just as it's described in the
Saden:
‘His eyes received her and saw her off.' Only in your case it's just the reverse.”

“That's enough about her! Since you're the only person I confided in about how I got to know her, you shouldn't tease me.”

We reached the edge of the pond and stopped for a moment.

“Should we go that way?” Okada asked, pointing to the northern end of the pond.

I agreed and turned to the left. About ten steps later, I looked at the two-storied houses on the side of the street and said as though talking to myself: “Those houses belong to Fukuchi and Suezo.”

“They're a fine contrast. Though I hear the journalist hasn't much integrity either.”

“He's a politician too, and a politician,” I said without giving much thought to the question, “no matter how he may live, is not free from slander.” Perhaps I wanted to make the distance between these two men as wide as possible.

As we talked on in this way and crossed a small bridge leading to the north end of the pond, we saw a young man in student uniform standing at the water's edge and watching something. At our approach he shouted: “Hello there.”

It was Ishihara, a student who was interested in jujitsu and who read only those books related to his major subject. Neither Okada nor I knew him well, but we didn't dislike him.

“What are you looking at around here?” I asked.

Without answering he pointed across the water. We stared in that direction through the gray vagueness of the evening air. In those days, rushes grew all over the section of the pond from the Nezu ditch to where we were now standing. The withered stalks became more and more sparse toward the center of the pond, where only dried up lotus leaves like bunches of rags and seed sacs like sponges were seen here and there with stems broken at various heights into acute angles. They lent a picturesque desolation to the scene. Among these bitumen-colored stems and over the dark gray surface of the water reflecting faint lights, we saw a dozen wild geese slowly moving back and forth. Some rested motionless on the water.

“Can you throw that far with a stone?” Ishihara asked, turning to Okada.

“Of course, but I don't know if I can hit anything or not.”

“Go ahead. Try.”

Okada hesitated. “They're going to sleep, aren't they? It's cruel to throw at them.”

Ishihara laughed. “Don't be sentimental! If you don't, then I will.”

“Then I'll make them fly away,” said Okada, reluctantly picking up a stone.

The small stone hissed faintly through the air. I watched where it landed, and I saw the neck of a goose
drop down. At the same time a few flapped their wings and, uttering cries, dispersed and glided over the water. But they did not rise high into the air. The one that was hit remained where it was.

“Excellent shot!” Ishihara cried. He looked at the surface of the water for a short time and said: “I'll get it. But help me a little.”

“How can you?” Okada asked. Like him, I was eager to hear the answer.

“Now's not a good time,” said Ishihara. “In half an hour it'll be dark. And then I can easily get it. I won't need your help in actually going out there, but be here then and do what I tell you. And then I'll treat you to a feast!”

“It sounds all right,” said Okada. “But what will you do until then?”

“I'll wander around here. You two go wherever you wish. If all three of us stay, it'll attract attention.”

“Then let's go once around the pond,” I suggested to Okada.

He agreed, and we started out.

O
KADA
and I crossed the end of Hanazono-cho and went toward the stone steps leading to the Toshogu Shrine. For some time we walked in silence.

“Poor bird,” said Okada, as if speaking to himself.

Without any logical connection the woman of Muenzaka came into my mind.

“You see,” Okada said, this time to me, “I only meant to throw in their direction.”

“I know,” I said, still thinking of the woman.

After some time I added: “But it'll be interesting to see how Ishihara intends to get the bird.”

“Yes,” said Okada, walking on and thinking of something. Perhaps the wild goose occupied his thoughts.

As we turned south at the foot of the stone steps, we went on towards the Benten Shrine, but the death of the bird had depressed us and had broken our talk into fragments.

Passing before the entrance of the shrine, Okada suddenly said: “I almost forgot what I wanted to tell you.” It seemed as though it were an effort for him to turn his thoughts in another direction.

His news startled me. He had planned to tell me in my room that night, but he had gone out at my invitation. And then it had occurred to him to reveal it at the restaurant, but since that now seemed unlikely, he had decided to explain it during our walk. It was this.

“I'm going abroad before graduation. I've already got my passport from the Foreign Ministry. And I've sent in the notice that I'm giving up graduating. You know the German professor who's been studying endemic diseases in the Orient. Well, he employed me under the arrangement that he would give me four thousand marks for the trip to Germany and back, along with two hundred marks each month. He was looking for a student who could read Chinese and also speak German. Professor Baelz had recommended me, so I went and took the examination. I had to translate several passages from classical Chinese medical books into German, but I passed. And I got the contract right then.”

The Leipzig University professor would take Okada and help him pass his doctoral examinations. Okada had received permission to use as his graduation thesis the medical literature of the Orient to be translated by him for the doctor.