The Makioka Sisters Page 8

  Sachiko lowered her voice. “I can tell you the details later. I wanted you to know at least that much.”

  “Yukiko is back.” Etsuko pressed her face to the glass door, and four little legs were lined up side by side in cream-colored woolen socks.

  “Play inside today, Etsuko. The wind is cold.” Yukiko opened the door. “You come in too, Rumi.” Her voice was quite as usual.

  So the matter ended for Yukiko, but for Teinosuke it was not so simple. When he heard the news that evening, he did not try to hide his annoyance. So they had broken up another perfectly good match. Once singled out by Itani to lead the negotiations, he had become enthusiastic, and he had told himself that if the main house again appeared with out-of-date arguments about form and prestige, he would plead as strongly as he could the reasons for accepting the proposal: Segoshi was marrying for the first time, and since he looked younger than he really was, he and Yukiko would not seem at all badly matched. Because of these two points alone it would be a great shame to decline the proposal in the vague hope that someone who filled certain other qualifications might appear. Even when Sachiko had finished her story, he found it hard to give up hope. But clearly the main house had made its decision. And supposing Teinosuke were to be asked whether he could take responsibility, whether he could guarantee that if Yukiko married a man in whose veins flowed such blood there would, in the future, be nothing wrong with the man himself or with children who might be born? He had to admit that the thought made him uneasy. The spring of the year before—had it been?—they had had a similar proposal. That man was also in his forties, it was also a first marriage, and the family had money. Everyone was most excited. The day had been set for exchanging betrothal gifts when suddenly the Makiokas learned that the man was deeply involved with a woman and was taking a wife to screen the affair. They had of course immediately ended the negotiations. Yukiko’s miai, when one explored them thoroughly, almost always had their dark sides; and so it was that the people in the main house were cautious. The desire for a match out of all proportion to what they could reasonably expect had the perverse effect of dazzling them and throwing them off guard. Wealthy bachelors past forty generally had something wrong with them.

  Possibly Segoshi’s insane mother had in fact been responsible for his not having married earlier, but it did not seem likely that he had meant to deceive them. No doubt he thought that, since the investigation was taking so long, Teinosuke and the rest had learned of the mother, and that even so they were interested in the proposal. His modesty—his insistence on his low status and his general unworthiness—perhaps carried a strong mixture of gratitude. He had not denied the rumor spreading among his fellows at MB. Chemical Industries that he was about to take a fine bride, and Teinosuke, hearing reports that the reliable and industrious Segoshi had become too restless to work, could not help feeling that they were needlessly hurting a most admirable gentleman. Had the investigation and the refusal been prompt, no one would have been hurt; but Sachiko had delayed, and the main Osaka house had hardly acted with dispatch. And worst of all, they had tried to cover the delay by suggesting that the investigation was almost over, and by giving the most hopeful of reports—by indicating that the approval of the main house was virtually assured. That had not been simply mischievous of them. They had really felt that this time they would be successful. Still the end result was a wrong that could have been avoided, and Teinosuke felt that he had himself to reprove before he reproved Sachiko or the people at the main house.

  Teinosuke, who had been adopted into the Makioka family, had made it a principle not to become too deeply involved in Yukiko’s marital problems; and now, at the thought that discussions in which he had played so central a part were a failure (an unavoidable failure, of course), and at the further thought that his own rashness had caused pain and had possibly made Yukiko’s future yet unhappier, he felt first of all that he must apologize, if but silently, to Yukiko. One worried little, moreover, when a marriage proposal was refused by a man, but when the refusal came from a woman, it was most embarrassing and degrading for the man, no matter how deviously it was phrased. There could be no doubt, then, that the Makioka family had invited the hostility of a great many families. Sachiko and her sister at the main house, quite ignorant of the world, had a way of blithely luring a prospective husband to the point of a formal betrothal before rejecting him. What Teinosuke feared most of all was that the accumulated resentment might lead to tragedy for poor Yukiko.

  But the problem of the moment was how to refuse Segoshi. Sachiko meant to run away, that much was clear, and Teinosuke concluded that, to pay in part for his mistakes, he must take up the bad hand he had been dealt and try to make Itani understand. How should he proceed? There was little more to be done about Segoshi, but it would be unwise to make Itani unhappy; she might be of service later. She had put a great deal of time and effort into the negotiations—the trips to the house in Ashiya and the office in Osaka were in themselves no small matter. Itani’s beauty shop was prosperous enough to keep her and her several assistants busy, and yet she had taken time to run about on those errands. Even if, as rumor would have it, she was fond of arranging marriages, what she had done was not to be dismissed as ordinary courtesy. She had spent a good deal of money on cab fares, to mention but one detail, and there had been that night at the Oriental Hotel. Teinosuke had assumed that, although Itani was formally the hostess, the expenses would be shared by him and Segoshi, but when he tried to pay her on the way out she refused his money. She had invited them, she said, and the party was hers. Teinosuke let the matter pass, thinking that she would be called on to do much more before the marriage was finally arranged, and that they could see later about paying for all her services. But now something had to be done.

  “She will refuse money,” said Sachiko. “Let me take her a present. I am not sure I can think of anything just at the moment… . Suppose you talk to her, and I will see what Tsuruko has to say about a present.”

  “You always manage to take the pleasant jobs.” Teinosuke looked annoyed, but there was little he could do.

  15

  ITANI’S visits stopped around the first of December. Perhaps she had sensed that the negotiations were not going well. If she had, Teinosuke’s task would be easier. He did not want to be overheard, he said when he telephoned for an appointment, and he would prefer to visit her at home. Leaving the office a little later than usual, he stopped to see her on his way back to Ashiya.

  She sat before him in an armchair, half hidden in the shadow cast by the deep green lamp shade. Teinosuke had about him a boyishness surprising for a man in his profession—one might have taken him for a young man of letters—and the fact that he could not see Itani’s face very clearly made it easier for him to break the unpleasant news.

  “I would rather not have to tell you this—but we have finally investigated the gentleman’s family. Everything seems to be all right, except that his mother is ill.”

  “What?” Itani cocked her head in surprise.

  “She is generally thought to have palsy, we’ve been told, but we have a report that the trouble is mental.”

  “Not really!” Itani’s usual poise quite left her. “Not really!” she said again, and then again, emphasizing the words each time with a shake of the head.

  Teinosuke wondered whether she had known of the woman’s illness. Her earlier haste, and now this confusion, made him suspect that she had indeed.

  “I hope you won’t misunderstand, Mrs. Itani. I don’t mean to blame you in any way. It would be the proper thing to put together a pleasant excuse, I suppose, and we thought of doing just that. But you have gone to so much trouble that we could never be satisfied with an excuse you wouldn’t accept.”

  “I quite understand, and I’m not in the least angry. On the contrary, I must apologize to you. I’ve really been too careless.”

  “You mustn’t say that. The truth is that we are very unhappy with ourselves. People begin to
think that the Makiokas are so worried about form that they go on refusing perfectly good proposals, and I want you, at least, to know that this time we have a good reason. And I hope most sincerely that we haven’t made you angry. May we ask you to speak to Mr. Segoshi?”

  “You are being very kind. I don’t know what you may be thinking, but this is the first I have heard of the illness. We are very lucky that you investigated so carefully. And you are quite right to refuse. It is sad for Mr. Segoshi, but I’ll try not to upset him too much.”

  Greatly relieved, Teinosuke took his leave shortly after he had finished his business. Itani repeated time after time that she was not in the least angry. Indeed she felt most apologetic, and she would somehow redeem herself by bringing Miss Yukiko a really good proposal. He need have no misgivings—she would take care of Miss Yukiko, and she hoped he would pass this assurance on to his wife. Since Itani was not given to sugary words, Teinosuke concluded that she was indeed less put out than he had feared.

  Some days later Sachiko bought a kimono and accessories in Osaka and left them at Itani’s house with a message. Itani herself was out. The next day Sachiko received a most friendly letter of thanks. Itani had been of no use to them, and her rashness had caused needless pain. There was no reason whatsoever to reward her. But she would redeem herself somehow, she again insisted.

  One evening ten days or so later, as the year was drawing to an end, a cab pulled up at the gate. She had very little time, said Itani. She had only come to say hello, and she could stay no more than a moment. Sachiko was in bed with a cold, but Teinosuke, back from work, persuaded Itani to come into the parlor. What had happened to Mr. Segoshi, he asked after they had talked for a time. It was sad. He had seemed such an admirable gentleman. It was truly sad, Itani agreed. Mr. Segoshi probably thought they already knew about his mother, Teinosuke continued. Again Itani agreed. He had seemed strangely cool and reticent at first, perhaps because of his mother, and it was only gradually that he had wanned to the prospect. That being the case, said Teinosuke, they had been grievously wrong to take so much time with the investigation. But he hoped that Itani would not be frightened off, and that they would count on her help again. Itani suddenly lowered her voice. “If you don’t mind his having a good many children,” she said, as if probing very tentatively, “I do as a matter of fact have another prospect.” Teinosuke thought he saw the real reason for the visit.

  The details were these: the man was manager of a branch bank south of Nara. He had five children, but the oldest, a boy, was a student in Osaka, and the second, a girl, could be expected to marry soon. There would only be three at home. The Makiokas need have no concern about Miss Yukiko’s livelihood, since the family was one of the wealthiest in the region. As soon as Teinosuke heard that the man had five children and lived in a country town, however, he knew that there was no hope. Apparently noting a certain lack of enthusiasm, Itani retreated. She knew, she said, that they would not find the proposal an attractive one.

  But why, then, had she come? Perhaps deep in her heart she was unhappy with them, and wanted to hint that this was the sort of match they must expect.

  Teinosuke went upstairs when he had seen her to the door. Sachiko lay sniffing at an inhaler, a towel over her face. “I hear Itani has another proposal,” she said presently, wiping her face.

  “Who told you?”

  “Etsuko arrived long ago with the news.”

  ‘True to form.” Etsuko had come quietly into the parlor and was listening most intently to his conversation with Itani until he chased her from the room. It was, he said, no conversation for a child. She had taken everything in from the dining room, “Even when they are young they enjoy talk about husbands.”

  “The man has five children.”

  “You even heard that?”

  “Of course. The oldest boy is in school in Osaka, and the oldest girl is to marry soon.”

  Teinosuke was more and more astonished.

  “And he lives in Shimoichi, and he is the manager of some bank.”

  “Remarkable. You can never be too careful with children.”

  “We really must watch ourselves. And think what would have happened if Yukiko had been here.”

  Both Yukiko and Taeko went each year to spend the first days of the New Year at the Osaka house. Yukiko, a little ahead of Taeko this year, had left the day before. The thought of the difficulty they might have had on their hands had she still been in Ashiya was frightening.

  Sachiko was susceptible to attacks of bronchitis. Since she had been warned by the doctor that bronchitis could easijv-turn into penumonia, she was extremely careful with even the slightest cold, and would spend as much as a month in bed each winter. This time, happily, than cold seemed to have gone no farther than the throat. Her temperature was returning to normal.

  The end of the year approached. Sachiko, who meant to stay in her room a day or two more, was reading a New Year magazine on the twenty-fifth when Taeko came to announce her departure for Osaka.

  “But we have a whole week still. Last year you waited until New Year’s Eve.”

  “I did, I suppose.”

  Taeko was to give her third doll exhibition in January, and had been hard at work in her studio for the better part of the last month. Afraid she might forget her dancing, moreover, she had been going once a week for a lesson in Osaka. It seemed to Sachiko a very long while since she had really talked to this youngest sister. Knowing how the people at the main house wanted Yukiko and Taeko to be with them, she had no thought of keeping either sister in Ashiya. Still it was odd that Taeko, who hated being in the main house even more than Yukiko did, should be leaving so early. Sachiko did not go so far as to suspect connivance with young Okubata. It made her a little sad, however, to see how Taeko, always precocious, was each year growing farther away from her.

  “I have no more to do on the dolls. In Osaka I can go for a lesson every day.” It was not exactly an apology, although Taeko did seem to be admitting that her sudden departure called for an explanation.

  “And what are you practicing now?”

  “A New Year dance called ‘Manzai,’“ answered Taeko. “Can you still play the accompaniment?”

  “I remember most of it, I think. ‘May this year too be happy

  Taeko went through the hand motions as Sachiko hummed the accompaniment. “Wait just a minute. These clothes will never do.” She ran off to her room, and almost immediately was back dressed in kimono, a dancing fan in her hand.

  “Says the lovely maid, the lovely maid, the lovely maid of Miyako,

  “Mussels and clams, won’t you buy my clams,

  Large fish, and small fish,1 and mussels, and clams,’

  And on the shelf beside her, scarlet and gold,

  Brocades and damasks, and chirimen silks.

  Tonton chirimen, ton chirimen.”

  They had, as little girls, been especially delighted with the way in which the samisen refrain echoed in solfeggio the word chirimen, “crepe.” “The Lovely Maid of Miyako, Ton Chirimen” had become almost a nursery song, and Sachiko remembered it alone of the jiuta, the old Osaka songs. The picture of the Semba house twenty years before floated up in her memory, and the faces of her father and mother. Taeko used to dance this same “Manzai” on New Year’s Day, accompanied on the samisen by her mother or sister. The figure of the little dancer, a hand lifted artlessly, was as clear in Sachiko’s mind as if she had seen it yesterday. And this was the same sister? (The other sister too, and both of them still unmarried—what would her mother and father be thinking in their graves?) Sachiko did not try to hide her tears.

  “When will you be back, Koi-san?”

  “On the fourth.”

  “We will have you dance for us, then. Practice every day, and I will try to learn the samisen part well.”

  They had fewer guests here in Ashiya than when they had lived in Osaka, and, with the younger sisters away, the first days of the New Year were always a little too qui
et. It was good for Sachiko and her husband to be alone now and then, but Etsuko, intensely lonely, could hardly wait for Yukiko and Koi-san to come back. On the afternoon of New Year’s day, Sachiko took out her samisen and began practicing “Manzai.” For three days she practiced, and by the third day Etusko too had learned to take up the tonton chirimen, ton chirimen.

  1 The song refers to congratulatory fish associated with the New Year.

  16

  TAEKO’S exhibition ran for three days, this time in a Kobe gallery. Through the efforts of Sachiko, who knew everyone, most of the dolls were sold on the opening day. Sachiko brought Yukiko and Etsuko on the third day to help clean up.

  “Etsuko, suppose we have Koi-san take us to dinner tonight,” suggested Sachiko when they had finished. “She has lots of money.”

  “A splendid idea,” Yukiko joined in. “Where will it be, Etsuko? A Western restaurant? A Chinese restaurant?”

  “Go ahead and make your plans. You might remember, though, that I have not yet collected.” Taeko did not feign poverty well, however. She was smiling in spite of herself.

  “Quite all right, quite all right. I can pay for it, and you can pay me later.” Knowing that Taeko could count on considerable profits even after she had paid the bills, Sachiko was determined to coax forth a dinner invitation. As Irani would have noted, Taeko, unlike Sachiko, was blessed with sound business sense. She was not quick to open her purse.

  “We will go to the Tōgarō,” said Taeko. “The Tōgarō is the cheapest place I know.”

  “Really, Koi-san. You could at least take us to the Oriental Grill.”

  The Tōgarō was half butcher shop and half Cantonese restaurant.

  “Good evening.” A young foreign woman was paying her bill as they went in.

  “How nice to see you, Katharina,” said Taeko. “This is the Russian lady I spoke to you of. My sisters.”

  “How do you do. I am Katharina Kyrilenko. I went to the exhibition today. You sold all. Congratulations.” Her Japanese was far from perfect.