Thirst for Love (15 page)

Yakichi’s jealousy was inexpressibly degrading. If, in the prime of his life, he had seen his wife captivated by another man, he probably would have wiped those strange ideas out of her head with a single swipe of the rough back of his hand. Fortunately, his dead wife was never thus afflicted. She was a woman resolutely pursuing the charming irrelevance of educating him in the ways of high society. Now Yakichi was old. His was an aging process that worked from the inside out—an aging process like that which might attack a stuffed eagle, its insides hollowed by white ants. With Etsuko’s stealthy attachment for Saburo developing under his eyes, Yakichi took no decisive step.

Etsuko looked at the jealousy flashing in this old man’s eyes in all its powerlessness and degradation and thought of the potency of her own jealousy, of the thing that filled her with its inexhaustible store, of the “ability to suffer” of which she was constantly aware and was tempted to boast of to any who would hear.

Etsuko answered to the point, joyfully and to the point. “I intend to speak to Saburo and ask him for the truth. I think this is a better course than your talking to him directly, Father.”

One common danger allied Etsuko and Yakichi. It was not the mutual benefit that makes allies of the ordinary nations of this world; it was jealousy.

After that the four talked agreeably until noon. When they returned to their rooms, Yakichi sent Etsuko back to Kensuke’s quarters with a whole pint of their fine Shiba chestnuts.

While preparing lunch, Etsuko burned one of her fingers slightly and broke a small dish.

When the food was soft, Yakichi had nothing but fine things to say about it. When it was hard he found it tasteless. He judged Etsuko’s cooking not by how it tasted, but by how soft it was.

On rainy days, when the veranda was closed off, Etsuko cooked in the kitchen. The rice Miyo had cooked the day before had not been transferred to a tub but had been kept in the pot in order to retain the warm taste. Only the rice remained as evidence that she had been there. The charcoal embers showed no sign of life. Etsuko went to Chieko for hot coals with which to start a fire; while she was transferring them to the clay stove, she burned her middle finger.

The pain annoyed Etsuko. What if she screamed? Under no circumstances would it be Saburo who would hear her scream and come running. It would be Yakichi who would bustle in, his ugly, brown, wrinkled legs showing out of his open robe, and would say: “What’s wrong?” It would never be Saburo.

She felt like laughing—a loud, mad laugh. Again, though, there would be Yakichi. His eyes would narrow. He wouldn’t laugh with her; he would simply strive to figure out the reason for her laughter. He was not of an age to join voices and laugh unreservedly with a woman. Yet he was her only echo, her only reverberation; and she was a woman none would call old.

A puddle of rainwater covered part of the twenty square yards or so of the kitchen’s earthen floor, reflecting the gray light coming lazily through the glass door. Etsuko stood barefoot in her damp, sticky
geta
, held her burned finger against the tip of her tongue and absentmindedly looked toward the door. Her head was full of the sound of rain.

Assuredly, daily life is a ridiculous thing. Her hands began to move as if they were no longer tied. She put the pot on the fire. She poured water. She poured sugar. She cut sweet potatoes into round slices and put them in it. The menu for today’s lunch would be candied sweet potato, ground beef she had purchased at Okamachi with sautéed
hatsutaké
mushrooms, and grated yam—all put together by her absentminded energies. All the while she wandered about, dreaming like a scullery maid.

But the pain hasn’t started yet. Why not? I’m not yet really suffering. Pain should turn my heart to ice, make my hands shake, tie up my legs. Who is this me, here preparing a meal? Why am I doing this?

Cool judgment, accurate judgment, judgment seasoned with sentiment—these things I can still use and shall continue to use far into the future. But Miyo’s pregnancy should have made my misery complete! Something must be missing. It must be that something more terrible must be added to that completeness.

First I must follow through with the plan I have contrived so carefully. It will be painful to see Saburo; it certainly won’t be fun. But married! To me? (I must be out of my mind.) To Miyo! To that country wench, that rotten tomato, that stupid girl smelling of urine!

Thus my suffering will be complete. My suffering will be a perfect thing, a finished thing. Then maybe I will get some relief. A brief, a false ease will be mine. That I shall cling to. That chimera I shall trust . . .

Etsuko heard the chirping of a chickadee by the window frame. She pressed her forehead to the glass and watched the little bird adjusting the feathers of its wet wings. A thin white patch that looked like an eyelid kept winking down across the bird’s tiny, flashing black eye. At its throat a fine break in the feathers kept moving; from there the peevish chirping came.

She saw something very bright in the distance. The rain had now slowed to a drizzle. The center of the chestnut grove at the edge of the garden was growing bright, opening like a gold niche in a dark temple.

In the afternoon the rain cleared away.

Etsuko went out into the garden with Yakichi to repair the roses that had lost their supports in the storm. Some roses were floating face-down in the muddy, grass-strewn rainwater. Mutilated petals drifted beside them.

Etsuko rescued one flower and tied it to a righted support with a piece of string. Fortunately the stem had not broken. Her fingers felt the weight of the petals of which Yakichi was so proud. As she touched each flower Etsuko looked deep into the marvelous, scarlet petals from which the fresh, clinging sensation came.

Yakichi, however, was out of sorts as he worked at this task—expressionless, silent in his rubber boots, his army trousers tight on his legs as he stooped to pick up the roses. This uncommunicative, expressionless toil was the toil of a man whose blood still bespoke his farmer’s lineage. Even Etsuko was attracted to the Yakichi of times like this.

Then Saburo came down the gravel path before Etsuko’s eyes and called to them: “Excuse me. I didn’t know you were out here. I’ll get ready and do that for you.”

“We’ve finished. It’s all right,” said Yakichi, without looking at Saburo.

Saburo’s light brown face smiled at Etsuko from under his great straw hat. The battered brim of the hat was pulled down at an angle. The western sun etched a bright streak across his forehead. The stark whiteness of the teeth in his smiling mouth—the fresh whiteness of them, as if washed by rain—made Etsuko’s eyes open wider as she stood up.

“Just on time. I want to talk to you. Would you walk with me over that way?”

Etsuko had never before spoken to Saburo in such friendly tones in the presence of Yakichi. Her words suggested a free and easy association unmindful of Yakichi; one who heard these phrases alone could have taken them as boldly inviting. She had closed her eyes to the cruel duty she had to perform later and had uttered her words half drunk with the joy of them. As a result, an unanticipated, unrestrained sweetness floated about what she said.

Saburo looked doubtfully toward Yakichi. Etsuko, however, already had him by the elbow and was propelling him down the path in the direction of the entrance to the Sugimoto home.

“Are you just going to walk around and talk it over?” Yakichi called after them, in a somewhat flustered voice.

“Yes,” said Etsuko. Her quick reactions—impulsive, almost unconscious—had deprived Yakichi of the opportunity of being present at her confrontation with Saburo.

Her first words to Saburo were rather meaningless: “Where were you going just now?”

“I was going to mail a letter.”

“A letter? Let me see.”

Saburo politely displayed a postcard he had been holding rolled up in his hand. It was a reply to a letter he had received from a friend at home. The writing was quite childish; it set forth Saburo’s most recent history in only four or five simple lines: “Yesterday we had the festival here. I went out with the Young Men’s League and made a lot of noise. I’m really beat today. It was all very exciting, though, and fun.”

Etsuko’s shoulders shook as she laughed.

“It’s to the point,” she said, returning the card to Saburo. He seemed a little dissatisfied by her comment.

The gravel path through the
kaede
trees was splashed everywhere with spots of sun and drops of rain slipping through the leaves. On some trees the leaves were already red; their branches turned in the wind. As Etsuko and Saburo reached the stairs, the sky that had until then been hidden by foliage suddenly opened out. They were aware for the first time of the all-enveloping mackerel sky.

This joy beyond speech, this silent richness beyond words, created in Etsuko a kind of guilt. Here was this tiny period of peace vouchsafed her in order to make her misery complete. She began to be astonished at the joy she had been taking in it. Was she going to go on forever with this absurd conversation and never get to the unpleasant issue?

They crossed the bridge. The creek had swelled; in the muddy torrent great masses of water plants streamed with the current—fresh, green tresses appearing and disappearing. They went through the bamboo grove and came to a path from which a fresh view of the rain-washed ricefields spread. Saburo stopped and took off his hat.

“Well, goodbye.”

“Are you going to mail your card?”

“Yes.”

“I want to talk to you. Would you mail it afterward?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

In Saburo’s eyes a tinge of anxiety showed. How could the ever-distant Etsuko deal with him here so intimately? This was the first time he had felt her and her words at such close range. He reached his hand to his back uneasily.

“Is something wrong with your back?” asked Etsuko.

“Yes, I got scraped a little in the festival last night.”

“Does it hurt much?” she asked, bringing her brows together.

“No. It’s better already,” he said cheerfully.

His young flesh is indestructible
, thought Etsuko.

The mud and the soaking-wet weeds along the path dirtied their feet. After a time the path narrowed; they could no longer walk side by side. Etsuko went ahead, lifting her skirts slightly. She suddenly began to wonder whether Saburo was following her. She was tempted to call his name but found it awkward either to call to him or turn to look at him.

“Was that a bicycle?” she asked, turning back toward him.

“No.” His bewildered face was right by hers.

“Oh, I thought I heard a bell,” she said, looking down. It pleased her to see his great, clumsy bare feet beside her bare feet, spotted with the same mud.

As usual, there were no automobiles on the highway.

The untraveled concrete surface had dried quickly. Only a few puddles here and there reflected the mackerel sky. Its vivid line, looking as if it had been drawn with chalk, disappeared into the horizon and the pale blue evening sky.

“Have you heard that Miyo is pregnant?” Etsuko asked, walking beside him.

“Yes. I’ve heard it.”

“From whom?”

“From Miyo.”

“I see.”

Etsuko felt her heartbeat quicken. She felt she had to hear the painful truth from Saburo’s own lips. There was at the root of her resolve a complex hope which made her think that Saburo might have contrary evidence. For instance, that Miyo’s lover was a certain Maidemmura youth, a notorious person whom Saburo had warned her about, though she had scorned his advice. Or, for instance, that she was involved with some married man among the union executives . . .

These possibilities and these impossibilities revolved in Etsuko’s brain, each in its turn threatening her, each alternately standing for the truth, with the result that her heart kept putting off the fatal question. What seemed like a myriad of joyful particles hidden in the rain-fresh air, what seemed like a myriad of elements hurrying, dancing toward a new combining—all these pellucid intimations struck their nostrils and made their cheeks glow as they walked in silence for a time on the untraveled road.

“Now Miyo’s child—” Etsuko said, suddenly. “Now Miyo’s child—who is its father?”

Saburo did not answer. Etsuko waited. Still he did not answer. When silence is prolonged over a certain period of time, it takes on new meaning. Etsuko could not bear to wait until that period had elapsed. She closed her eyes. Then she opened them again. It seemed as if she were the one being pressed for an answer. She looked stealthily at the silhouette of Saburo’s stubbornly down-turned profile beneath his straw hat.

“Is it yours?”

“I guess so.”

“You guess so? And perhaps you guess not?”

“No.” Saburo’s face reddened. He forced a smile, though not very far: “It’s mine.”

It had been too quick—Etsuko chewed her lip in consternation. She had taken refuge in the faint hope that he would divine that common courtesy to her called for a denial, even a clumsy, outright lie. But now that hope was gone. If she held any part of his heart, surely he would not have made the admission he had just made. This truth that Yakichi and Kensuke had arrived at, and which she herself had already grasped as self-evident—the truth that Saburo was the child’s father—she had been convinced that Saburo would in the end, out of fear and embarrassment, deny.

“Well,” Etsuko said, as if she were tired. There was no power in her words: “Then you love Miyo?”

Here was a word that meant nothing to Saburo. It was out of his ken, part of the lexicon of luxury, of articles made to order. It was somehow superfluous, devoid of urgency, forced. In the urgent but not at all lasting relationship that bound him and Miyo—like that of two compasses drawn to each other through force when within a certain radius of each other but not drawn at all when outside that radius—the word
love
had no proper place.