Natsume Soseki - Light and dark

But it was no longer O-Nobu he was dealing with. And it was immediately evident from Kiyoko’s reply that he needn’t worry about having forgotten his inveterate caution.

“He’s well, thank you,” she said, smiling. “Same as ever. We sometimes speak of you.”

“Is that so? I’m so busy all the time I’ve been neglecting everybody.”

“It’s the same at home, Yukio-san. These days it seems a man can’t afford any leisure time. So you sort of drift apart. There’s nothing to be done about it, it’s how life seems to go—”

“Isn’t that so!”

Tsuda wished that instead of replying “Isn’t that so” he had tried instead an inquiry, “Is that so?”

Is that so? You’ve become estranged just being busy? Are you telling me the truth? At that moment these questions, an interrogation, were already hiding silently inside him.

The Kiyoko sitting before him was the same, uncomplicated Kiyoko as ever, or at least a Kiyoko impossible to interpret as otherwise. Certainly she had all the latitude she needed to engage in a conversation between them about Seki. The degree of her simplicity was revealed in her ability to do this without distress. Tsuda had expected this was how it would be yet hadn’t managed to imagine it until now. The satisfaction he derived from encountering his heroine once again just as she had been in the past reached him together with dissatisfaction that she was able, with the same generosity of spirit he remembered, to speak about Seki in front of him so easily.

Why does that bother me?

Tsuda lacked the courage he needed to confront this question squarely. Since Seki was her husband in fact, he was obliged to acknowledge her attitude respectfully. But that was merely on the surface of things, an acknowledgment ventured by a stranger who happened to be passing by. But there was another, privileged point of view. Closer to home, someone altogether different from a casual passerby obstinately stood his ground. Loathe to identify that someone as himself, Tsuda preferred to think of him as a “special person.” By “special” he referred to the difference between a professional and an amateur. Between a savant and an ignoramus. Or between a connoisseur and a philistine. It seemed to him, accordingly, that he had the right to say more than an ordinary man in the street.

It was only a matter of time until his attitude toward Kiyoko, affirmative on the surface and critical underneath, should make an appearance.

“I APOLOGIZE for last night.”

Abruptly Tsuda tried this approach. He was curious about the effect it might have on her.

“I’m the one who should apologize.”

Her reply came easily. Detecting no discomfort in it gave Tsuda cause to wonder.

Can it be that the surprise she felt last night is already in the past for her this morning?

If she were no longer able to recall what she had felt, his mission, for better or for worse, had been reduced to insignificance.

“I felt sorry afterward for having startled you.”

“Why did you, then?”

“I didn’t mean to. I couldn’t help it because I didn’t know. I had no idea you were staying here.”

“But you came all the way from Tokyo with a present for me.”

“That’s true. But the fact is, I didn’t know. I ran into you by accident.”

“How can that be?”

Her response came as a surprise: clearly she was thinking his behavior had been intentional.

“Why would I have done that on purpose? Certainly not for my own amusement.”

“You seemed to have been standing there for quite a while.”

To be sure, he had been gazing at the water overflowing in the basin and peering at his reflection in the mirror. No question he had tarried, even combing his hair with the comb that had been lying there.

“What are you supposed to do when you get lost and have no idea where you’re going? There’s nothing you can do.”

“I suppose. But that wasn’t how it seemed to me.”

“Are you thinking I was lying in wait? You can’t be serious. I may have a prodigy of a nose, but it didn’t tell me when you’d be going to the bath.”

“Of course not! That’s silly.”

Kiyoko’s “Of course not!” was articulated with such conviction that Tsuda couldn’t help laughing.

“Why would you even suspect such a thing?”

“You must know why.”

“I don’t, I have no idea.”

“Then it doesn’t matter. It’s something that shouldn’t need explaining.”

Tsuda could only try approaching from a different angle.

“But what reason would I have to lie in wait for you at the end of a hallway? Just tell me that.”

“I can’t say—”

“There’s no need to be polite — please tell me.”

“I’m not being polite. I can’t say what I can’t say.”

“But it’s something you’re thinking, isn’t it? So if you wanted to, you should be able to come out with it.”

“There’s nothing on my mind — not a thing.”

This simple remark thwarted Tsuda’s advance even as it intensified his persistence.

“Then where does your suspicion come from?”

“If it’s wrong to be suspicious, I apologize. And I won’t be anymore.”

“But you’ve already doubted me.”

“I can’t help that. It’s true I doubted you. And I’ve admitted it. All the apologizing in the world won’t change that.”

“But why can’t you just tell me what it is you’re doubting?”

“But I already have.”

“That was only half of it, a third of it — I want the whole truth.”

“Oh my god! I don’t know what to say!”

“It’s so simple. All you have to say is I doubted such-and-such about you for such-and-such a reason and you’d be finished in one breath.”

Apparently distressed until that moment, Kiyoko suddenly appeared persuaded.

“That’s what you want to hear?”

“Obviously. That’s precisely what I want to hear, which is why I’ve persisted in making you miserable. But you keep trying to conceal it.”

“If only you’d said so right away. That’s not something I have to conceal. There is no reason. It’s just that you’re a person who does that sort of thing.”

“Lies in wait?”

“Yes.”

“That’s absurd!”

“I’m sorry, but the person I’ve seen you be is that sort of person.”

“I see—”

Folding his arms, Tsuda lowered his head.

PRESENTLY HE looked up again.

“It feels as though we’re arguing. I didn’t come here to argue with you.”

Kiyoko replied.

“I certainly didn’t mean for that to happen. I got swept away somehow, it wasn’t on purpose.”

“I know it wasn’t. Maybe it’s my fault for grilling you.”

“Maybe so.”

Once again, Kiyoko smiled. Discovering in her smile the same easiness he had identified before, Tsuda could forbear no longer.

“As long as we seem to be doing questions and answers, would you answer just one more?”

“Of course. Anything.”

The reply issued from someone prepared to respond to whatever question Tsuda wished to pose. That in itself disappointed him not a little before he had spoken.

She’s already forgotten everything, this woman .

Even as the thought formed, he recognized that this was characteristic. He felt a need to confirm this.