To the Spring Equinox and Beyond (32 page)

I myself am not certain whether, for a man, my own jealousy is strong or weak. As an only child brought up with great care and without any rivals, I had no occasion to be jealous of anyone, at least not at home. I easily breezed through primary and middle school, mainly because there were few pupils who did better than I did. In the course of my academic career from high school up through university, it was the general custom with students not to attach much importance to class standing, and since year after year we took more and more pride in appraising ourselves more highly, I didn't much care about the grades I received. These points aside, I had never seriously fallen in love. And even less had I competed with another man in the pursuit of a woman.

I do confess I'm a man who's able to pay more than the usual close attention to a young woman, especially a beautiful one. As I walk along the street, if I happen across a pretty face and kimono, I feel like the sun has broken through clouds. Sometimes I even have the desire to possess that face and kimono. But a moment later the anticipation of the pitiful transformation that face and garment would undergo casts the same chill over me that a drunk suddenly shudders with when he finds his intoxication has passed away. What prevents me from persistently following a beautiful face is nothing other than the loneliness of being abandoned by that intoxicating liquor. Whenever this hopeless feeling takes hold of me, I sink into the depths of unpleasantness, as though I had suddenly been transformed into an old man or a monk. On the other hand, this may be what's kept me from knowing the jealousy that comes from love.

Since I want to be an ordinary person, I don't care in the least about boasting of never having experienced jealousy. But for the reasons I've just given, I had never been strongly gripped by this emotion until I actually came in contact with Takagi. I clearly remember the feeling of indescribable displeasure I received from him at the time. And when I thought that the feeling of jealousy began burning in me because of Chiyoko, who was not my possession or even my intended possession, I thought I wasn't doing justice to my personality unless I was somehow able to keep it under control. Along with this jealousy—which is something that shouldn't have even been there—an agony, unseen by anyone, began to grow in me.

Fortunately, Chiyoko and Momoyoko said that they'd go to the beach when it cooled off a little, and I thought that certainly Takagi would accompany them and that I'd be left alone as soon as possible. And as I expected, they did invite him. Instead of joining them, as I hoped, though, he made some excuse or other. I figured that it was out of consideration for me and frowned even more. Next, they invited me. I, of course, said no. I wanted to be given the opportunity to escape from Takagi—or if not the opportunity itself, at least the chance to hold out my hands and snatch it—but the mood I was in then was such that the exertion of going to the beach with the girls was itself distasteful. My mother, her face showing disappointment, urged me to go with them. I remained seated, silently looking at the distant sea. And then laughing, the two girls stood up.

"You're as obstinate as usual! You look just like a brat!" Chiyoko said.

As the abusive words indicated, I must have looked like that to everyone. I even felt so myself. With characteristic sociability, Takagi went out to the veranda to take down for the girls some big straw hats that resembled sedge hats and, handing them to them, saw them off with the usual civilities.

After the sisters went out the gate of the villa, Takagi stayed a while longer to talk with the women. He said it was quite pleasant to be summering there, but the problem became one of how to pass each day, so much so that his life had actually become all the more tedious. In fact, he looked as if in the heat and boredom he did not know what to do with that robust physique of his. He then murmured something to himself about how he should while away the time till evening. And then as if suddenly hitting on an idea, he said to me, "How about some billiards?" Fortunately, I had never once tried the game and declined immediately.

"Too bad. I thought I might have found a good match in you," he said before leaving. Looking from behind at his vigorous movement, I thought he would definitely head for the beach where the girls were. But I myself didn't move from the spot I was sitting in.

After Takagi left, my mother and aunt continued speaking about him for quite some rime. It seemed that my mother was very much impressed by this man she had seen for the first time. She praised his easy manners and considerate attentiveness. And my aunt seemed to confirm each of my mother's comments with illustrative examples. Hearing their words, I discovered I had to correct almost everything about the little I had known of him. I had heard from Momoyoko he had returned from America, but according to my aunt, he had been educated entirely in England. My aunt seemed to have picked up from somebody the words "English gentleman" and not only used them a few times, to the surprise of my mother, who knew nothing about them, but explained that this was the reason there was something refined about him. My mother simply said "Indeed" to express the deep impression she had felt.

While they talked on in this way, I said almost nothing. Though my mother showed no change in her usual manner as far as I could tell from the outside, I wondered what she was thinking, perhaps comparing Takagi with me. When I thought about that, I felt sorry for her, even regret. I imagined how she might feel about the old relationship between Chiyoko and me on the one hand, and the new one between Chiyoko and Takagi on the other. And so what I had done amounted to no more than having taken her on this excursion to give her what little uneasiness I could have warded off. Piled upon the unpleasant feelings I already had was one more pain in having wronged my aging parent.

This was merely my own conjecture from the circumstances of the time and not what actually turned up as fact, so that I'm not certain about it, but it may have been my aunt's intention to make the occasion one for confiding to my mother and me, in a form that could be called neither consultation nor pronouncement, that she intended to give Chiyoko in marriage to Takagi if the circumstances were favorable. It was doubtful whether my mother, while usually attentive to everything, was as sensitive as I was in this kind of situation, but I was actually expecting to hear from my aunt about the first step in the negotiations which would separate me for good from Chiyoko's hand in marriage. Luckily or unluckily, before she said anything about it, the girls came back from the beach, the brims of their straw hats fluttering. Actually, I was glad for my mother's sake that my guesswork had not come true. But at the same time it is not a lie to say I felt irritated by the same course of events.

Toward evening I went with the sisters to the station where, as my mother had ordered, I was to greet my uncle coming from Tokyo. The sisters were dressed in
yukata
of the same pattern and were wearing white
tabi.
What pride glowed in their mother's eyes as she looked after their retreating figures. And with what more than commonly high value did my mother set on that picture of me walking alongside Chiyoko. The painful thought that nature had used me as a means of deceiving my mother made me look back as I went through the gate. I saw that she and my aunt were still staring after us.

About halfway to the station Chiyoko stopped suddenly as if she had been reminded of something. "Oh dear, I've forgotten to invite Takagi-san," she said. At these words Momoyoko glanced at me. I stopped walking but said nothing.

"We don't have to, do we?" Momoyoko said. "We've already come this far."

"But he asked me to call him a while ago," said Chiyoko.

Momoyoko hesitated, again looking at me.

"Ichi-san, did you bring your watch? What time is it?"

I took it from my kimono sash and showed it to her. "There's still time. You can go back and call him if you like. I'll go on ahead and wait."

"It's too late for that. If Takagi-san intends to come, he'll come by himself. We can apologize afterward for having forgotten, and it'll be all right." After discussing it for a minute, they finally decided not to go back.

As Momoyoko had predicted, Takagi hurried into the station before the train arrived. "That was quite unfair of you," he said to the sisters, "when I asked you to let me come along. Hasn't your mother come?" He then turned and greeted me affably.

That evening, supper was later than usual, not only because it had been put off until my uncle and cousin arrived, but also because my mother and I had joined in as late arrivals. Further, as I had privately feared, there was a scene of great confusion with rice bowls and pairs of chopsticks busily moving around. Laughing, my uncle said, "Ichi-san, it's like some scene at a fire, isn't it? Occasionally, though, I find it enjoyable having a meal all noisy like this." It seemed to me he was indirectly apologizing. My mother, who is used to quiet meals, looked quite pleased. Despite the fact that she's shy, she actually likes that kind of spirited gathering. She kept praising the small saurel, broiled and lightly salted, that they were serving that night.

"If you ask a fisherman for them," my uncle said to her, "he'll bring them seasoned, as many as you like. If you want, take some with you when you go back. I'd thought of giving you some earlier, since I know you like them, but I didn't get a chance to. Besides, they don't keep too long."

"Once I ordered them at Oiso and brought them back to Tokyo," my aunt said, "but unless you're quite careful with them on the way, they . . . you know . . ."

"Get rotten?" Chiyoko asked.

Momoyoko said to my mother, "You don't like Okitsu bream? I like it better than these."

"Okitsu bream's very good too in its own way," my mother gently responded.

I remember such trivial talk because I took particular notice of the contented look on my mother's face at the time and also partly because I liked the salted saurel as much as she did.

Incidentally, let me mention something here. There are two sides to me in my tastes and disposition in which I'm very much like my mother and quite different from her. This is something I've never told anyone else before, but actually for a number of years I've made a meticulous study, unnoticed by anyone and merely for my own personal knowledge, of where and how I'm different from my mother and where and how we're similar. If ever she had asked me why I was doing such a thing, I wouldn't have been able to reply. I've asked myself and haven't been able to come up with a definite reason. But the result has been this: When I found a trait I shared with her, even if it was a defect, it made me quite happy. And if I had a trait that she didn't, even if it was a strong point, that displeased me very much. What concerned me most of all was that I looked only like my father, that my features had nothing in common with my mother's. Even now when I look at myself in the mirror, I imagine that if I had inherited more of my mother's facial features, even if they made me look more homely, it would have made me feel much better about myself, much more like I was my mother's child.