Some Prefer Nettles Page 9

  "And have you found someone too?" she asked after she had told him of Aso. It was clear that she had nursed a hope not too different from his.

  He answered that he had not. Perhaps the really unforgivable thing was that he had forced her to remain continent while he had not been at pains to remain so himself. He had found no one, he said; but he had in fact let his curiosity and his physical appetites drive him—indeed, only for a moment now and then—to the company of certain unwholesome women. For Kaname a woman had to be either a goddess or a plaything. Possibly the real reason for his failure with Misako was that she could be neither. Had she not been his wife he might have been able to look on her as a plaything, and the fact that she was his wife made it impossible for him to find her interesting.

  "I've kept this much respect for you, I think," he said later that same night. "I may not have been able to love you, but I've been careful not to use you for my own pleasure."

  At that Misako broke into violent sobbing. "I understand that—I'm even almost grateful for it. But I've wanted to be loved more than I have been, even if it meant being used."

  Even after Misako's confession, Kaname made no effort to urge her into Aso's arms. He said only enough to show that he claimed no right to pronounce her love affair improper and that he could not object, whatever it might develop into. And yet almost certainly his very refusal to call it improper had the indirect effect of sending her on to Aso. What she wanted from him was not this understanding, this sympathy, this generosity. "I don't know myself what to do. I'm terribly mixed up," she said. "If you tell me I should, I can still back out." She would probably have been overjoyed had he said imperiously: "This foolishness must stop." And even had he called her affair not illicit but only unwise, she would probably still have been able to leave Aso. That was what she wanted. Deep in her heart she no longer hoped for any love from the husband who had withdrawn so from her; but she did hope that he would somehow bring this new love of hers under control, put an end to it. When she asked what to do, however, he only sighed and said: "I have no idea." Aso's visits became more frequent and Misako took to going out oftener and to staying out later at night, and Kaname never attempted to interfere or indicated any displeasure by so much as a frown. She would have to dispose of this new passion, the first in her life, by means of her own.

  Even afterwards he sometimes heard her sobbing in the night, no doubt from an excess of wretchedness at being turned away by this stone of a husband and yet unable to throw herself decisively into the world of her new love. Especially on nights after she had had a letter from Aso or had met him somewhere, Kaname would hear her quiet sobbing, muffled by the bedclothes, through to the dawn. One morning, perhaps half a year later, he called her into the western wing. "I've something to talk to you about," he said. There were early daffodils on the table, he remembered, and the electric stove was going. It must have been a bright, clear winter morning. They faced each other swollen-eyed across the table—she had cried until daybreak again the night before and he himself had not been able to sleep. He had thought of talking to her during the night, but there was a possibility that Hiroshi might wake up, and there was a possibility too that Misako, always ready with tears even in the daytime, might become still more emotional in the dark. He decided that the fresh morning hours would be better.

  "There's something I've been thinking for a long time I'd like to talk over," he said, trying to sound light and pleasant, as though perhaps he were inviting her out for a picnic.

  "And there's something I've been wanting to talk over," Misako parroted back as she pulled her chair up near the stove. There was a suggestion of a smile in the corners of her eyes, red though they were from lack of sleep.

  It presently became clear that the two of them had reached very much the same conclusions by the same route. Kaname said that it was impossible for them to love each other now, and that, though they might with their recognition of each other's good points and their knowledge of each other's weaknesses find themselves happily mated ten, twenty years hence, on the edge of old age, there was no point in relying on anything as indefinite as that; and Misako said she agreed. They had both concluded too that, while they were held together by affection for Hiroshi, it would be foolish to make fossils of themselves for no better reason than that. But when Kaname asked: "Would you like to separate, then?" Misako answered: "Would you?" They knew that divorce was the solution, and yet neither had the courage to propose it, each was left face to face with his own weakness.

  Kaname had no real cause to throw his wife out. He would only feel worse once the separation was over if the initiative had been his, and he wanted to be the passive partner. Since Misako had someone to marry and he had no one, he hoped that she would make the decision. But for Misako the fact that she had a lover and Kaname had none, that she alone of the two would be happy, only made it the more difficult to take the first step. True, she was not loved by her husband. She could not say, though, that she had been cruelly mistreated. If one was always looking for something better, then of course there was no end to one's demands; but the world was full of unfortunate wives, and Misako, unloved but with little else to complain of, could not find it in her to make that alone the reason for abandoning her husband and child. In a word, both husband and wife wanted to be discarded; each hoped to put himself in a position where that would happen. But why, since they were presumably adults, did they find themselves so paralyzed at the task before them? Why were they so afraid to do what reason told them must be done? Was it simply that they were incapable of turning away from the past? Others had evidently found that time softened the pain (though certainly there was pain), once a separation was complete.

  "With us I suppose it's that we're more afraid of what's in front of our noses than of what's still a distance off," Kaname said with a laugh.

  At the end of the conversation Kaname came to his proposal. "We'll have to arrange," he said by way of preface, "so that we'll be drifting into a divorce and hardly knowing it."

  The ancients would perhaps have called it girlish sentimentality, this inability to face up squarely to the sorrow of a farewell. Nowadays, however, one is counted clever if one can reach a goal without tasting the sorrow, however slight it may be, that seems to lie along the way. Kaname and Misako were cowardly, and there was no point in being ashamed of it. They could only accommodate themselves to their cowardice and follow its peculiar way to happiness.

  Kaname recited the set of principles he had been carrying nicely composed in his mind:

  "1. To satisfy appearances, Misako is for the present to remain Kaname's wife.

  "2. Similarly for the sake of appearances, Aso is to be for the present a friend only.

  "3. To the extent that it will not arouse suspicion, Misako's love for Aso, both physical and spiritual, is to be given free license.

  "4. If after a period of two or three years it appears that Misako and Aso are affectionate and compatible and are in prospect of being happily married, Kaname will take principal responsibility for gaining the consent of Misako's family, and will formally relinquish her to Aso.

  "5. This period of two or three years is therefore to be considered a testing of the affections of Misako and Aso for each other. If it appears that the test has failed, and that the two, because of incompatibilities which have emerged, could not make a successful marriage, Misako will remain in Kaname's house as she has to now.

  "6. If, happily, the experiment is a success, Kaname will continue to regard the two as friends after they are married."

  As Kaname finished speaking, he saw Misako's face light up bright as this winter morning. "Thank you," she said simply. There were happy tears in her eyes, as though for the first time in years the turmoil in her heart had quieted, as though she could finally look up untroubled into the open sky. Kaname, as he watched her, felt that his chains too had snapped. In all the years they had been together they had been tormented by an irritant like a fragment lodged betwe
en two back teeth. Now, ironically, they felt it dissolve, they felt a coming together without restraint, when for the first time they spoke openly of separation.

  It was of course a bold adventure, but unless they closed their eyes and let themselves fall step by step into a position from which there would be no withdrawing, the divorce probably would never come. It was not likely that Aso would object. Indeed, Kaname took special pains, when he explained the proposal, to point out its risks. "There are probably countries in the West where no one would raise an eyebrow at this sort of thing. But Japan hasn't yet come that far, and if we are to carry it off I'm afraid we're going to have to be extremely careful. The most important thing of course is for us to trust each other. And no matter what good intentions we may have, it will be easy enough to make mistakes. We shall all of us be in a difficult position, and we shall have to be careful not to hurt any feelings and not to cause any unnecessary emharassment. You will keep all of this in mind, I'm sure."

  After that Aso's visits stopped and Misako began "going to Suma."

  Kaname closed his eyes to the affair. If only he relaxed, his fate would take care of itself—thus he gave himself up to the current and made no effort of die will other than that required to cling, blindly and with singleness of purpose, to the direction in which it seemed to be taking him. But the end of the experiment, the day when a decision would have to be made, loomed ever more fearsome. No matter how he tried to glide along, there was still the moment of parting to be faced. It could not be avoided. He felt as though, on a course that had seemed calm and smooth, a typhoon belt had appeared and was somehow to be got through. He had kept his eyes carefully shut, but they would one day have to open. The prevision of it made him the more prone to seek yet a moment's refuge in the comfortable drift.

  "On the one hand you say it's hard to leave her, and on the other you pamper yourself with this wild unsteadiness. I couldn't tolerate it myself," Takanatsu said.

  "My unsteadiness is nothing new. Anyway, it seems to me that ethics have to be modified a little to suit the individual. Everyone has to build his own scheme and try to apply it."

  "True, I suppose. And in your scheme unsteadiness is a virtue?"

  "I don't say it's exactly a virtue, but I do say it's wrong for someone who was born indecisive to go against his nature and force himself into decisions. If he does, he generally adds to his losses and in the end he is worse off than ever. Indecisive people have to choose a course that suits them. To take my case: the final goal is a divorce, and if I reach that goal eventually, it doesn't matter how many evasions and detours I go through on the way. I don't think it would matter if I were even more unsteady —as you call it—than I am."

  "I suspect from the way you talk that it will take a lifetime for you to get through to your goal."

  "I've honestly thought so too. They say that in the West adultery is a common thing, at least among the upper classes. Most often it's not the kind where the husband and wife are deceiving each other, but the kind where each one recognizes and ignores it—very much like my own case. I often think that if society in this country would only allow it, I could be content with some such arrangement as that for the rest of my life."

  "It's out of style even in the West. Marriages aren't held together any more by religion."

  "But it's not only a question of religion. I wonder if even foreigners aren't afraid to cut the old ties too quickly."

  "Well, I shall leave you to do as you like. I'm through." Takanatsu brusquely took up the volume of The Arabian Nights, which had slipped to the floor.

  "Why do you say that?"

  "You should know. It's not for an outsider to get himself involved in a problem as cloudy as yours."

  "But it will be harder if you don't help."

  "Let it be harder, then. I've nothing to suggest."

  "Whether you have or you haven't, it will be hard for us if you run away. It will only make things cloudier still. Really, I beg of you."

  "Well, tonight I'll take Hiroshi to Tokyo with me." There was little encouragement in Takanatsu's voice as he leafed coldly through the book.

  "I WOULD join the song-thrush

  And sing my way up the river

  To meet spring in Miyako."

  Her semisen tuned to the proper low mode, O-hisa was singing an old Osaka song. The Osaka folksong can be coarse and crude, bur this particular one the old man liked. It had in it a touch of Tokyo verve that perhaps appealed to him, son of Tokyo that he was, even now that he had "surrendered" to Osaka. Then too, as he pointed out, the samisen refrain that broke into the lyrics seemed ordinary enough at first, but if one listened for it one could find deep down the sound of the River Yodo.

  "Held back by the winter wind,

  By the clinging 'willow branches,

  I walk, untrained to walk-

  How many times now,

  Up and back?—

  This strand to Hachikenya.

  Pressed close together all the night

  We lie. What is it wakes us?

  The crows at Amijima?

  The bells at Kanzanji?"

  Through the open second-floor window they could see the harbor in the gathering dusk, separated from them by only the waterfront road. A straits ferry, one would guess from its name, was preparing to put out to sea. It was a tiny ship, of no more than four or five hundred tons, and yet its stern almost brushed against the dock as its prow came round, so narrow was the harbor. Kaname sat on the veranda and looked out at the concrete breakwater, small and dainty as a piece of rock candy. At the end of it was an equally diminutive lighthouse, its light already burning even though the sea was still a pale evening gold. Two or three men were fishing at its base. The scene was hardly striking, but it had about it a certain air of the south that one does not find in the provinces around Tokyo. Kaname thought of how, twenty years before, it must have been, he had once visited a small town on the coast north of Tokyo. There had been a light on each of the two points at the harbor mouth, and the little harbor, its waterfront lined with pleasure houses, had struck him as in its way the very model of the old boatman's town. But in contrast with the decay of the one in the north, this southern harbor was gay, warm, full of the joy of life. Like most natives of Tokyo, Kaname rather tended to stay at home, and here on the veranda, cooling himself in a cotton summer kimono, it struck him as somewhat laughable that a trip across an arm of the Inland Sea to an island almost in Kobe harbor should seem a major expedition. He had not been especially enthusiastic when the old man had asked him to come along on this visit to the thirty-three holy places of Awaji. He foresaw that he would not find it soothing to have to watch the old man and O-hisa together, and in any case it seemed best not to risk making a nuisance of himself.

  "Come, now. There's no need to be so bashful," the old man said. "I want to stay a couple of days in the harbor first and see the Awaji puppet theater —it's supposed to be the ancestor of the one in Osaka, you know. After that we'll dress ourselves up like pilgrims and do the holy places. Why don't you come along at least as far as the harbor?"

  O-hisa added her persuasions, and Kaname, with the impression of the Osaka puppets strong in his mind, had to admit that he did feel some curiosity about the Awaji theater.

  "Maybe you should get yourself up to look like a pilgrim too, since you're so intrigued with the idea," Misako said with a frown.

  When he thought of the fragile O-hisa made over into the winsome pilgrim of the Kabuki and of the old man at her side ringing a pilgrim's bell and intoning a canticle from one holy place to the next, Kaname could not help being a little envious. The old man chose his pleasures well. Kaname had heard that it was not uncommon for men of taste in Osaka to dress a favorite geisha as a pilgrim and do the Awaji circuit with her every year. The old man, much taken with the idea, announced that he would make this the first of an annual series. Always afraid of sunburn, O-hisa was less enthusiastic.

  "How does it go? We sleep at Hachikenya, is
it? Where do you suppose Hachikenya is?" Kaname asked.

  As O-hisa laid down the polished horn plectrum, the old man touched his finger to the silver flask he was heating unhurriedly over charcoal. The favored red-lacquer cups were ready in front of him. Even though it was a warm May day, he had thrown a dark-blue cloak over his cotton kimono. "You're from Tokyo, of course, and you wouldn't know." He took the flask from the charcoal. "The Osaka barges used to start up the River Yodo for Kyoto from the Temma Bridge, and the boathouses were just above at Hachikenya."

  "I see. So we're sleeping at Hachikenya. And Amijima is on the river just above that, which would explain the crows."

  "Right. The best thing about this song is that it's short. Most of the Osaka songs are so long they put you to sleep. This one is just the right length to keep you interested."

  "How about another one, O-hisa?"

  "No, she's incompetent. When young women sing this sort of song they make it too pretty. The samisen should be coarser, I tell her, but she won't understand. She goes through it as though it were a concert piece."

  "If you find it so unpleasant," said O-hisa, "perhaps you should play something yourself."

  "No, no. Go ahead. We'll have another from you."

  "I don't really know why I should." Pouting like a spoiled child, O-hisa took up the samisen to re-tune it.

  O-hisa was called upon to pamper the demanding old man to a really extraordinay degree. He for his part lavished affection on her as on his principal treasure. He trained her in the arts, in cooking, in dress, wherever it was possible to cultivate and refine her, so that when he died she would have no trouble making a new match as she wished. It was doubtful in the final analysis, however, whether the regimen was appropriate for the modern young woman. O-hisa was allowed to see only puppet shows and to eat only insubstantial Japanese delicacies, and it was hard to believe that she was really satisfied with no more. Now and then she must want to see a movie or to eat a beefsteak. Kaname could admire her forbearance, which he credited to the fact that she had been reared in Kyoto, but at the same time he found it hard to understand the workings of a spirit so submissive. The old man had once been intent on having her master the rough tearoom style of flower arranging. That field of interest had now given way to the old folksong. Once a week the two of them made their way to the southern outskirts of Osaka to take lessons from a blind musician. The old man's whims were to be seen here too, in the fact that they purposely went to Osaka when there were certainly teachers enough to choose from in Kyoto. It may have been that he had found his evidence in the seventeenth-century beauties on a Matahei screen, but he insisted that the samisen for the folksong was best held not on the knee but at the side in the Osaka fashion. There was great charm in the figure of a young girl seated on a cushion, he said, with her body slightly twisted to hold the Osaka samisen. It was hopeless to look for O-hisa to master the instrument at her age, and one would do better to attend to the way she held herself. His pleasure really came more from watching her than from listening to her.