To the Spring Equinox and Beyond (28 page)

At any rate, there was that kind of tie between Chiyoko and me from that early time on even without our being aware of what was happening around us. But the ties binding us were rather uncertain ones. The two of us grew up as freely as skylarks soaring toward heaven. Even those who had twisted those ties might not have been aware that they were holding them so firmly at their ends. I feel a deep sadness for my mother in not being able to use the words "uncertain ties" as meaning the strange workings of fate.

When I entered college preparatory high school, my mother hinted at the affair concerning Chiyoko. At that age I was of course conscious of the other sex. But no idea had yet formed in my mind about who would be my future wife. I was not mature enough; I was still too restless to give the topic any serious thought. Actually, the girl who had played and quarreled with me since childhood and who was as familiar to me as if she had practically grown up in the same house seemed so very close to me that she looked too commonplace to provide the usual stimulus a man feels about the opposite sex. I think that these feelings were not mine alone but were probably the same with Chiyoko. As evidence, I cannot recall a single experience throughout our long association in which she treated me as a male. In her eyes, whether I'm angry or crying or posing amorously and making eyes at her, I'm invariably nothing more than her cousin. This comes partly, though, from her disposition, in which an inherent purity is dominant—this temperament of hers I know better than anyone else. But her disposition could not be the only thing that removes so completely the barriers set up to make us aware of the sexes. Only once did—well, I'll tell about that later.

My mother interpreted my deafness to what she said as coming from shyness, so she put the question away as though she were waiting for another occasion to mention it. I don't have the courage to deny that I was shy at the time. But my mother's interpreting the fondness I have for Chiyoko as shyness really amounts to acknowledging the exact opposite for a fact. The upshot of the matter is that all my mother's endeavors to bring us up on as friendly terms as possible in preparation for our future have only resulted in putting us further and further apart as man and woman. And yet my mother herself was quite unaware of this. And it was cruel of me to have brought it to her attention.

It really pains me to tell you what happened one day. Ever since that time during my high school days when my mother hinted about the question of Chiyoko, she seemed to have been brooding over it in her heart— until one night in my second year at the university, that is. During spring vacation when news of the blooming of the cherry blossoms was being talked about, she laid the question gently before me. By that time I was much more mature, so I could afford to take up the matter quietly and examine it carefully from all angles. This time she didn't merely drop some remote hint, but took care in phrasing her hope in an appropriate form. I simply replied that I found the situation distasteful because a cousin is related by blood. To my surprise, my mother said that she had requested that Chiyoko be given to me as my wife—she asked this right when Chiyoko was born—so that I really ought to marry her. When I asked why she had made such a request, she answered that it was because she liked the child, and that there was no reason why I shouldn't either. Such a reply, hardly applicable to the baby I was at the time, made me feel embarrassed. I pressed her further until she said with tears in her eyes that it wasn't, in fact, for my sake, but for her own. And yet she would not give me the answer to my repeated question of why it would be good for her. Finally she asked if it was impossible to bring myself to accept Chiyoko as my wife. I told her that I had no dislike for Chiyoko, but that since she herself had no desire to become my wife, nor did her parents want her to, it was better not to make such a proposal because it would only cause them trouble. My mother insisted that no matter what trouble they might be caused, it involved a promise, nor was there any reason to worry about causing them trouble. She then proceeded to give a number of instances in which Taguchi had been helped by my father and had given trouble to him. There was no dissuading her, so I suggested that we put off the final answer until my graduation. With a gleam of hope amid such misgivings to light up her countenance, she asked me to think it over once again.

These were the circumstances which forced me to share this problem which until then had been carried only in my mother's heart. Are not the Taguchis brooding over this very same problem in their own way? If they were to give Chiyoko in marriage to another family, they would at least have to get our approval at the last moment. That must be a source of worry to my uncle as well.

I began to feel uneasy. Whenever I saw my mother's face, I felt qualms, since it seemed to me as though I were shuffling through day by day by deceiving her. Once I actually reconsidered everything and decided, if it were possible, to marry Chiyoko as my mother wished. With that purpose in mind, I went out of my way to visit the Taguchis even when I didn't have any real business there, merely to sound out my aunt and uncle indirectly. Neither in words nor bearing did they show any sign of shunning me as they could have if they had been anticipating my mother's hard pursuit. They're not that shallow or unkind. Yet what a pitiful image they had of me as a would-be husband for their daughter. Their impression hadn't improved in the least from what I could tell it had been earlier; in fact, it had gotten worse. In the first place, my weak physique and pale complexion were unacceptable in their view of me as a potential son-in-law. I admit, though, that with my over-sensitivity, I'm apt to exaggerate or bring some undue prejudice to bear on someone's appraisal of me. So I think I'd rather avoid the impropriety of speaking too freely about the close observations I've made of my aunt and uncle, and keep them to myself. Anyway, they
had
probably committed themselves at that early time to giving Chiyoko to me as my wife—at least they had probably thought that they might as well. But later on, their rising social status, as well as their own view of my character, with its course quite opposite their own, must have doubly deprived the engagement of its feasibility, and now only the empty slough of obligation has been left behind somewhere in their minds. That may be how the affair now stands.

There was seldom any opportunity for them and me to talk even in general terms about marriage. Except that my aunt and I once had the following conversation:

"Ichi-san," she said, "you're old enough to be looking for a wife. It seems that your mother has been worrying about it for a long time."

"Well, if you find someone nice, please let my mother in on it."

"Someone gentle and tenderhearted would be best for you, Ichi-san. As attentive as a kind nurse, I should think."

"If I advertised for a bride that was like a nurse, I doubt if anyone would turn up," I said, smiling with self-scorn.

Chiyoko, who was doing something in a corner of the room, raised her head. "Shall I come nurse you?" she asked.

I looked intently into her eyes, and she looked into mine. But neither of us recognized anything meaningful there.

Without even turning her head toward Chiyoko, my aunt said, "How could Ichi-san have a liking for someone as outspoken and boisterous as you?"

In my aunt's low voice I caught something that sounded like fright as well as reproach. Chiyoko came out with only an amused laugh. At that time Momoyoko was sitting beside us too. She left her seat, smiling at her elder sister's words. After some time I got up to leave, interpreting what had been said as an informal refusal.

After this incident I found it more and more humiliating to try to gratify my mother's wish. As the son of a proud father, I find that my hypersensitivity in this respect surprises even me. Of course, on that occasion I took no offense at my aunt's words. Since she had not received any explicit proposal from us, she could not have revealed her opinion in any other way than she had. As for Chiyoko, whatever it was she said or laughed at, I took it only as a frank expression of what she was feeling at that moment in her ever candid heart. Judging from her words and behavior, I knew with certainty, as I previously had, that she was not willing to marry me, but at the same time I had something of a secret fear that if my mother were to have a confidential, intimate talk with her, Chiyoko might say right then and there, "If that's the case, I'll join your family." I had always believed her to be so singularly pure as to be able on such an occasion to sacrifice her own interests or even her parents' wishes as if none of that mattered in the least.

Being so strongly self-willed, I wished more to keep my ego from being bruised than to please my mother. Therefore, I tried discreetly to prevent what I feared might come to pass—that conversation in which Chiyoko would be persuaded by my mother into complying without my knowing anything about it. Since my mother had decided that Chiyoko would be my wife the minute the girl was born, it's obvious that she was my mother's favorite among all her nephews and nieces. And ever since she was a child, Chiyoko has regarded my home as her own, thinking nothing of coming and staying overnight. Even today, when our two families have less familiarity than they once had, she frequently visits us by herself, her face cheerful as she calls on her dear aunt as if she were her own mother. With that simplicity so characteristic of her, she has, concealing nothing, confided to my mother even the occasional marriage negotiations concerning herself. My good-natured mother would merely listen quietly, unable to reveal a single expression of her own disappointment. That intimate talk I was so afraid of could have occurred at any such moment between those two women of such deep connection.

What I've called discretion on my part was nothing more than a precaution against my mother's broaching the subject. But when I did try to bring up the question anew, I felt vaguely from somewhere inside me that it was cruel of a son to deprive his weak mother of her freedom in order to have his own way, so more often than not I left everything unuttered. But the image of my mother's frown was not the only reason for my abandoning the topic. I was also partly restrained toward her by the reflection that since she had not yet confided to Chiyoko her definite desire in spite of their close relationship, she might, if left alone, not do it for a considerable time.

And so I was able to let time go along without taking any definite steps concerning Chiyoko. In that interval though, during which I let the days pass in this kind of uncertainty, my connection with the Taguchi family was not wholly severed. I remember having occasionally used the streetcar to go to Uchisaiwaicho, if only for the purpose of seeing the delight on my mother's face. On the evening of one such day I was detained by Chiyoko, a rare moment in a long while. She said she'd serve me an unusual dish that she'd just learned how to make, and so I stayed for dinner. My uncle, who is away from home most of the time, happened to be present on that occasion and, as is his habit, told funny stories throughout the meal. Soon the whole room was in an uproar, until even the
shoji
were shaking from our laughter.