To the Spring Equinox and Beyond (7 page)

On entering his boardinghouse, Keitaro turned his attention first of all to this walking stick. Rather, it was the associations made on his way home that caused his eyes to turn toward the porcelain umbrella-stand as soon as he had opened the glass door at the entrance. As a matter of fact, from the day he had received Morimoto's letter, the sight of the cane had always given him a queer feeling that he could not explain, so much so that in coming and going he had tried to avert his eyes from it as much as possible. But then passing the umbrella stand and pretending not to see it had begun to so worry him that he came to feel, though only to a slight degree, haunted by the weird cane. He finally started wondering about his nerves.

It was certainly weak of him to be unable to tell the landlord and his wife Morimoto's address and his message to them because he had feared, out of his own self-interest, a return of that suspicion about his and Morimoto's past relationship. Not that this weakness was one that cast the least shadow on his conscience though. It was unpleasant, of course, not to accept a gift kindly offered as a token, for that was to bring another's generosity to naught. But this too did not cause him much concern.

Suppose, however, that Morimoto's earthly life reached its end in the near future—perhaps he would be found dying in some roadside ditch. And in anticipation of that miserable end, suppose the walking stick remained in the umbrella stand, its bodiless snakehead carved by the versatile man forever attached to the end of the bamboo cane, its wide-open mouth about to swallow something and yet not swallowing it, or about to vomit something and yet not vomiting. When Morimoto's fate and the snakehead representing that fate were thus combined in Keitaro's thoughts, and when Keitaro realized that he had been asked by this very man about to die on the road to walk every day with the snakehead clutched in his hand, it was at just such moments that he had that queer sensation. The fact that he could neither take the cane from the umbrella stand nor order the landlord to put it away out of sight was, while an exaggeration of a sort, a kind of destiny. But as colors heightened by poetry are not always pervasive enough to be incorporated into the prose of the real world, it must be admitted that Keitaro had not found the walking stick sufficiently worrisome to cause him to change his lodgings.

On that day as usual, the walking stick was in the umbrella stand, its snakehead turned toward the clog box. Looking sideways at it, Keitaro went up to his room. Presently, he sat down at his desk and began writing to Morimoto. First he thanked him for his letter, then wanted to add a few lines to explain why he had not replied sooner. But if he were to state the reason point-blank, he would have had to write that he could not bring himself to correspond due to the dishonor attached to having among his acquaintances a vagabond like him. Since that obviously would not do, he glossed everything over by writing simply that he had been too busy running around for what Morimoto knew only too well. Next, Keitaro put in a few congratulatory words on Morimoto's finding a good position in Dairen, and he followed these with the considerate remark: "At this time when Tokyo is getting colder by the day, how difficult the frost and wind in Manchuria must be. I imagine it is quite trying physically. Please take every precaution against illness."

As far as Keitaro was concerned, this last part was actually his main reason for writing. Therefore, he wanted to so word it aptly and in as many lines as possible so that it would convey sympathy to the person addressed and seem quite sincere to whoever happened to read it. On rereading his words, however, he was somewhat disappointed to find them as stale as those used by common people in offering compliments of the season. But as he had known beforehand, it was only-natural that they lacked the passionate warmth with which a love letter to one's sweetheart is phrased. So under the pretext that he was a poor writer and that no amount of revision could improve it, he let it stand and continued.

As for the disposal of the items Morimoto had left in the boardinghouse, Keitaro felt he ought to add something about them if only for the sake of courtesy. But he had no intention of asking the landlord what he had done with them, though without doing so Keitaro could not give Morimoto a detailed report. As he held his writing brush in midair, he thought about it a while.

"You asked me," he wrote at last, "to tell the landlord that he could do whatever he wished with your things. But please understand, as your own clairvoyance has already told you, that the Marten disposed of your property even before I had a chance to say something about it. You also offered me your plum bonsai, but I couldn't accept it because no trace remained either of its form or shadow. I merely want to thank you for your kind intention. Also . . ."

He again came to a halt. He had at last reached the point where he had to mention the walking stick. He was by nature too honest to write the lie that he had gratefully accepted the gift and was carrying it on his daily walks. Still less could he write that in spite of the gratitude he owed Morimoto for his kindness, he did not want it.

"The cane," he was driven to state, "is still in the umbrella stand. And it is standing there as if waiting day and night for the return of its owner. Even the Marten doesn't dare touch that snakehead. Each time I see it, I cannot help but admire your skill as a carver."

With this random compliment Keitaro tried to obscure the actual situation.

As he was writing Morimoto's address on the envelope, he attempted, though without success, to recall Morimoto's first name. He was forced to write only, "Mr. Morimoto, Official in Charge of Amusements, Electric Park, Dairen."

Because of the previous difficulties, the letter ought not to be seen by the landlord or his wife, so Keitaro could not call the maid to tell her to take it to the mailbox. He concealed the letter in his kimono sleeve, intending to mail it on his after-dinner walk. But just as he reached the foot of the cold stairs on his way out, he received a phone call from Sunaga.

What his friend wanted to tell him was that his cousin from Uchisaiwaicho had come that day and had informed him his uncle would be going to Osaka on business in four or five days. "I phoned him," Sunaga said, "and asked him to see you before he leaves since I thought it would be better for you not to put it off till his return. He agreed. So if you want to see him, the sooner the better. Just keep in mind that I couldn't talk about you in detail over the phone with my sore throat."

"Thanks very much. I'll call on him as soon as possible," said Keitaro. As he put down the receiver, it occurred to him that since he had to make the visit, he might as well do it that night. Again he returned to his room, put on the serge
hakama
he had recently had made, and left.

He did not forget to slip his letter into the mailbox at the corner of the street, but by that time his concern for Morimoto's welfare retained only a slight glow, though when he heard the thud of the letter dropping to the bottom of the box after sliding it through the slot, it was with a not altogether unpleasant feeling that he imagined Morimoto opening it within a week.

He walked straight ahead until he caught a streetcar, his thoughts directed straight toward Uchisaiwaicho. By the time the streetcar had passed the stop at the foot of Kanda Shrine, he found himself repeating in his mind what he had heard Sunaga say on the phone a while ago, when suddenly some of the words came out automatically and startled him: "Today a cousin of mine from Uchisaiwaicho visited me." Those had been Sunaga's exact words. No doubt this cousin was the child of Sunaga's uncle. But the imperfection of the Japanese language failed to indicate whether the cousin was male or female.

"Which is it?" Keitaro was suddenly obsessed by this question. If male, it gave no clue about the woman he had seen from behind. This woman who had so aroused his curiosity would then remain standing in obscurity. But if the cousin were a woman, she was most likely the same person who had entered Sunaga's house before Keitaro had: the day, the hour, and the way she had gone into the house would prove her identity. Skillful at combining the imagined and the real, Keitaro decided the latter was true before it was proved. The moment he had interpreted everything in this way, he felt the satisfaction of having poured cold water onto his seething curiosity, but at the same time he experienced a disappointment in finding a clue in a quarter less extraordinary than he had expected.

When he came to Ogawamachi, he had half a mind to get off the streetcar for a moment and drop in at Sunaga's to ascertain the fact from his very lips. But unable to find any grounds for meddling into another's personal affairs, save his own rather simple curiosity, he suppressed the inclination and changed for the Mita Line. Still, as his streetcar rapidly passed over Kanda Bridge and ran through Marunouchi, he was quite conscious of his rushing toward the house of Sunaga's cousin. So taken was he by this thought that he inadvertently rode to Sakurada-Hongocho, one stop past the stop near the Kangyo Bank where he ought to have gotten off. Surprised, he went back toward the darker quarter. The street at night was deserted, but he had no difficulty in finding the house he was to visit. Looking in from the gate with its gaslight globe on which the name Taguchi was written, he found the house set further back than he had thought it to be. On entering the grounds, however, he discovered that a graveled path curving obliquely toward the porch hid it from the street and that a dark cluster of trees screening the facade added to the dignified impression of the house in the darkness of the night. Seeing this, Keitaro realized that the residence itself was not as extensive as it appeared.

The porch had two glazed front doors in pseudo-foreign style. These were closed, and no servant came to respond either to Keitaro's call or to his ringing of the doorbell. Not knowing what to do, he stood a while looking into the interior. At last he heard footsteps from somewhere, and suddenly the frosted glass in front of him lit up. He noted the sound of a few steps made by garden clogs on the earthen floor, and one of the doors opened.

Keitaro had merely been standing there idly, having no particular curiosity about the look of the servant who would usher him in. Still, he had expected a houseboy wearing a cotton
haori
with a splashed pattern or a maid in a cotton-padded kimono to take his namecard and greet him with some show of respect. But the person who stood at the half-opened door was an older gentleman so elegantly dressed that Keitaro was jolted. With the electric light behind the man, his features were not distinctly visible, but his kimono sash of white silk crepe immediately caught Keitaro's notice. The moment Keitaro saw him, it flashed through his mind this had to be Sunaga's uncle Taguchi. The man's appearance so surprised Keitaro that he stood somewhat dazed, forgetting his greeting. Moreover, Keitaro, who thought himself a very young man, was not used to older people—whether in their forties, fifties, or sixties, they all looked ancient to him. Not only did he not have enough familiarity with his elders to distinguish a man forty-five years old from one fifty-five, but usually both seemed to him members of some alien and uncanny race, at least until he was accustomed to them. And so his confusion increased.

The other, however, seemed indifferent to his visitor. "What is it that you want?" he asked. There was neither courtesy nor contempt in the offhand way he uttered these words.

Slightly recovering his courage, Keitaro seized the opportunity to give his name and the purpose of his visit.

"Oh, oh, I see," said the older man as if just remembering. "Ichizo told me over the phone only a while ago. But I wasn't expecting you tonight."

Keitaro saw in these words the implication that he should not have come this soon, so he had to give the best explanation he could.

The man stood there in such a way that it couldn't be told whether he was listening or not. "Come again then," he said. "I'll be leaving on my trip in four or five days. If I find time to see you before I leave, I've got no objection."

Keitaro offered some courteous words and left through the gate. In the darkness he felt his thanks had been a little too polite.