I Am a Cat (17 page)

“That large house in the European style, the one with a godown? Ah, yes. Of course. Have I not seen ‘Goldfield’ on the nameplate of that dwelling?” My master, at last, seems ready to take cognizance of Goldfield’s European house and his incorporated godown, but his attitude toward Madam Conk displays no deepening of respect.

“Of course my husband should call upon you and seek your valued advice, but he is always so busy with his company affairs.” She puts on a “that ought to shift them” face, but my master remains entirely unimpressed. He is, in fact, displeased by her manner of speaking, finding it too direct in a woman met for the first time. “And not of just one company either. He is connected with two or three of them and is a director of them all, as I expect you already know.” She looks as if saying to herself, “Now surely he should feel small.” In point of fact, the master of this house behaves most humbly toward anyone who happens to be a doctor or a professor, but, oddly enough, he offers scant respect toward businessmen. He considers a middle school teacher to be a more elevated person than any businessman. Even if he doesn’t really believe this, he is quite resigned, being of an unadaptable nature, to the fact that he can never hope to be smiled upon by businessmen or millionaires.

For he feels nothing but indifference toward any person, no matter how rich or influential, from whom he has ceased to hope for benefits. He consequently pays not the faintest attention to anything extraneous to the society of scholars, and is almost actively disinterested in the goings-on of the business world. Had he even the vaguest knowledge of the activities of businessmen, he still could never muster the slightest feeling of awe or respect for such abysmal persons. While, for her part, Madam Conk could never stretch her imagination to the point of considering that any being so eccentric as my master could actually exist, that any corner of the world might harbor such an oddity. Her experience has included meetings with many people and invariably, as soon as she declares that she is wife to Goldfield, their attitude towards her never fails immediately to alter. At any party whatsoever and no matter how lofty the social standing of any man before whom she happens to find herself, she has always found that Mrs. Goldfield is eminently acceptable. How then could she fail to impress such an obscure old teacher? She had expected that the mere mention of the fact that her house was the corner residence of the opposite block would startle my master even before she added information about Mr. Goldfield’s notable activities in the world of business.

“Do you know anyone called Goldfield?” my master inquires of Waverhouse with the utmost nonchalance.

“Of course I know him. He’s a friend of my uncle. Only the other day he was present at our garden party.” Waverhouse answers in a serious manner.

“Really?” said my master. “And who, may I ask, is your uncle?”

“Baron Makiyama,” replied Waverhouse in even graver tones. My master is obviously about to say something, but before he can bring himself to words, Madam Conk turns abruptly toward Waverhouse and subjects him to a piercing stare. Waverhouse, secure in a kimono of the finest silk, remains entirely unperturbed.

“Oh, you are Baron Makiyama’s. . . That I didn’t know. I hope you’ll excuse me. . . I’ve heard so much about Baron Makiyama from my husband. He tells me that the Baron has always been so helpful. . .” Madam Conk’s manner of speech has suddenly become polite. She even bows.

“Ah yes,” observes Waverhouse who is inwardly laughing. My master, quite astonished, watches the two in silence.

“I understand he has even troubled the Baron about our daughter’s marriage. . .”

“Has he indeed?” exclaims Waverhouse as if surprised. Even Waverhouse seems somewhat taken aback by this unexpected development.

“We are, in fact, receiving proposal after proposal in respect of marriage to our daughter. They flood in from all over the place. You will appreciate that, having to think seriously of our social position, we cannot rashly marry off our daughter to just anyone. . .”

“Quite so.” Waverhouse feels relieved.

“I have, in point of fact, made this visit precisely to raise with you a question about this marriage matter.” Madam Conk turns back to my master and reverts to her earlier vulgar style of speech. “I hear that a certain Avalon Coldmoon pays you frequent visits. What sort of a man is he?”

“Why do you want to know about Coldmoon?” replies my master in a manner revealing his displeasure.

“Perhaps it is in connection with your daughter’s marriage that you wish to know something about the character of Coldmoon,” puts in Waverhouse tactfully.

“If you could tell me about his character, it would indeed be helpful.”

“Then is it that you want to give your daughter in marriage to Coldmoon?”

“It’s not a question of my wanting to give her.” Madam Conk immediately squashes my master. “Since there will be innumerable proposals, we couldn’t care less if he doesn’t marry her.”

“In that case, you don’t need any information about Coldmoon,” my master replies with matching heat.

“But you’ve no reason to withhold information.” Madam Conk adopts an almost defiant attitude.

Waverhouse, sitting between the two and holding his silver pipe as if it were an umpire’s instrument of office, is secretly beside himself with glee. His gloating heart urges them on to yet more extravagant exchanges.

“Tell me, did Coldmoon actually say he wanted to marry her?” My master fires a broadside pointblank.

“He didn’t actually say he wanted to, but. . .”

“You just think it likely that he might want to?” My master seems to have realized that broadsides are best in dealing with this woman.

“The matter is not yet so far advanced, but. . . well, I don’t think Mr.

Coldmoon is wholly averse to the idea.” Madam Conk rallies well in her extremity.

“Is there any concrete evidence whatsoever that Coldmoon is enamored of this daughter of yours?” My master, as if to say, “now answer me if you can,” sticks out his chest belligerently.

“Well, more or less, yes.” This time my master’s militance has failed in its effect. Waverhouse has hitherto been so delighted with his self-appointed role of umpire that he has simply sat and watched the scrap, but now his curiosity seems suddenly to have been aroused. He puts down the pipe and leans forward. “Has Coldmoon sent your daughter a love letter? What fun! One more new event since the New Year and, at that, a splendid subject for debate.” Waverhouse alone is pleased.

“Not a love letter. Something much more ardent than that. Are you two really so much in the dark?” Madam Conk adopts a disbelieving attitude.

“Are you aware of anything?” My master, looking nonplussed, addresses himself to Waverhouse.

Waverhouse takes refuge in banter. “I know nothing. If anyone should know, it would be you.” His reaction is disappointingly modest.

“But the two of you know all about it,” Madam Conk triumphs over both of them.

“Oh!”The sound expressed their simultaneous astonishment.

“In case you’ve forgotten, let me remind you of what happened. At the end of last year Mr. Coldmoon went to a concert at the Abe residence in Mukōjima, right? That evening, on his way home, something happened at Azuma Bridge. You remember? l won’t repeat the details since that might compromise the person in question, but what I’ve said is surely proof enough. What do you think?” She sits bolt-upright with her diamond-ringed fingers in her lap. Her magnificent nose looks more resplendent than ever, so much so that Waverhouse and my master seem practically obliterated.

My master, naturally, but Waverhouse also, appear dumbfounded by this surprise attack. For a while they just sit there in bewilderment, like patients whose fits of ague have suddenly ceased. But as the first shock of their astonishment subsides and they come slowly back to normality, their sense of humor irrepressibly asserts itself and they burst into gales of laughter. Madam Conk, baulked in her expectations and, ill-prepared for this reaction of rude laughing, glares at both of them.

“Was that your daughter? Isn’t it wonderful! You’re quite right.

Indeed Coldmoon must be mad about her. I say, Sneaze, there’s no point now in trying to keep it secret. Let’s make a clean breast of everything.”

My master just says “Hum.”

“There’s certainly no point in your trying to keep it secret. The cat’s already out of the bag.” Madam Conk is once more cock-a-hoop.

“Yes, indeed, we’re cornered. We’ll have to make a true statement on everything concerning Coldmoon for this lady’s information. Sneaze! you’re the host here. Pull yourself together, man. Stop grinning like that or we’ll never get this business sorted out. It’s extraordinary.

Secretiveness is a most mysterious matter. However well one guards a secret, sooner or later it’s bound to come out. Indeed, when you come to think of it, it really is most extraordinary. Tell us, Mrs. Goldfield, how did you ever discover this secret? I am truly amazed.” Waverhouse rattles on.

“I’ve a nose for these things.” Madam Conk declares with some self-satisfaction.

“You must indeed be very well informed. Who on earth has told you about this matter?”

“The wife of the rickshawman who lives just there at the back.”

“Do you mean that man who owns that vile black cat?” My master is wide-eyed.

“Yes, your Mr. Coldmoon has cost me a pretty penny. Every time he comes here I want to know what he talks about, so I’ve arranged for the wife of the rickshawman to learn what happens and to report it all to me.”

“But that’s terrible!” My master raises his voice.

“Don’t worry, I don’t give a damn what you do or say. I’m not in the least concerned with you, only with Mr. Coldmoon.”

“Whether with Coldmoon or with anyone else. . . Really, that rickshaw woman is a quite disgusting creature.” My master begins to get angry.

“But surely she is free to stand outside your hedge. If you don’t want your conversations overheard, you should either talk less loudly or live in a larger house.” Madam Conk is clearly not the least ashamed of herself. “And that’s not my only source. I’ve also heard a deal of stuff from the Mistress of the two-stringed harp.”

“You mean about Coldmoon?”

“Not solely about Coldmoon.” This sounds menacing but, far from retreating in embarrassment, my master retorts. “That woman gives herself such airs. Acting as though she and she alone were the only person of any standing in this neighborhood. A vain, an idiotic fellow. . .”

“Pardon me! It’s a woman you’re describing. A fellow, did you say?

Believe me, you’re talking out of the back of your neck.” Her language more and more betrays her vulgar origin. Indeed, it now appears as if she has only come in order to pick a quarrel. But Waverhouse, typically, just sits listening to the quarrel as if it were being conducted for his amusement. Indeed, he looks like a Chinese sage at a cockfight: cool and above it all.

My master at last realizes that he can never match Madam Conk in the exchange of scurrilities, and he lapses into a forced silence. But eventually a bright idea occurs to him.

“You’ve been speaking as though it were Coldmoon who was besotted with your daughter, but from what I’ve heard, the situation is quite different. Isn’t that so,Waverhouse?”

“Certainly. As we heard it, your daughter fell ill and then, we understand, began babbling in delirium.”

“No. You’ve got it all wrong.” Madam Conk gives the lie direct.

“But Coldmoon undoubtedly said that that was what he had been told by Dr. O’s wife.”

“That was our trap. We’d asked the Doctor’s wife to play that trick on Coldmoon precisely in order to see how he’d react.”

“Did the doctor’s wife agree to this deception in full knowledge that it was a trick?”

“Yes. Of course we couldn’t expect her to help us purely for affection’s sake. As I’ve said, we’ve had to lay out a very pretty penny on one thing and another.”

“You are quite determined to impose yourself upon us and quiz us in detail about Coldmoon, eh?” Even Waverhouse seems to be getting annoyed for he uses some sharpish turns of phrase quite unlike his usual manner.

“Ah well, Sneaze,” he continues, “what do we lose if we talk? Let’s tell her everything. Now, Mrs. Goldfield, both Sneaze and I will tell you anything within reason about Coldmoon. But it would be more convenient for us if you’d present your questions one at a time.”

Madam Conk was thus at last brought to see reason. And when she began to pose her questions, her style of speech, only recently so coarsely violent, acquired a certain civil polish, at least when she spoke to Waverhouse. “I understand,” she opens, “that Mr. Coldmoon is a bachelor of science. Now please tell me in what sort of subject has he specialized?”

“In his post-graduate course, he’s studying terrestrial magnetism,” answers my master seriously.

Unfortunately, Madam Conk does not understand this answer.

Therefore, though she says, “Ah,” she looks dubious and asks: “If one studies that, could one obtain a doctor’s degree?”

“Are you seriously suggesting that you wouldn’t allow your daughter to marry him unless he held a doctorate?” The tone of my master’s inquiry discloses his deep displeasure.

“That’s right. After all, if it’s just a bachelor’s degree, there are so many of them!” Madam Conk replies with complete unconcern.