CHAPTER 67
Okusan’s warm perception of me inevitably started to influence my state of mind. After a while my glances became less mistrustful, and my heart felt more tranquil and settled within me. This new happiness I owed, in effect, to the way Okusan and the rest of the household turned a blind eye on all my wariness and shifty glances. No one reacted nervously to me, and so my own nerves grew steadily calmer.
Perhaps she did indeed find me generous and open-hearted, as she claimed, but Okusan was a wise woman, and her treatment of me may well have been intentional. Or she may simply not have noticed anything odd, since all my nervous activity was largely in my mind and may not have been evident to others.
Gradually, as my inner turmoil subsided, I grew closer to the family. I could now joke with Okusan and her daughter. Sometimes they invited me to have tea with them, and on other evenings I would bring cakes and invite them to join me in my room. My social world had suddenly expanded, I felt. I constantly found my precious study time frittered away on conversation, but oddly, this disruption never bothered me. Okusan was, of course, a lady of leisure. Ojōsan not only went to school but had her flower arranging and koto study, so she should by rights have been extremely busy. But to my surprise she seemed to have all the time in the world. Whenever the three of us came across one another, we would settle down for a long chat.
It was generally Ojōsan who arrived to fetch me. She would come via the veranda to stand in front of my room, or else approach through the sitting room and appear at the sliding doors that led to the room next to mine. She would always pause in front of my room. Then she would call my name and say, “Are you studying?”
I was usually sitting staring at some difficult book lying open on the desk in front of me, so no doubt I looked impressively studious. But to tell the truth, I wasn’t devoting myself to my books as much as it might seem. Though my eyes were fixed on the page, I was really just waiting for her to come for me. If she failed to appear, I would have to make a move. I would rise to my feet, make my way to her room, and ask the same question—“Are you studying?”
Ojōsan occupied a six-mat room beyond the sitting room. Okusan was sometimes in the sitting room, sometimes in her daughter’s. Neither had a room she considered exclusively her own. Despite the partition between them, the two rooms formed a single space, with mother and daughter moving freely between them. When I stood outside and called, it was always Okusan who answered, “Come on in.” Even if Ojōsan happened to be there as well, she rarely responded herself.
In time Ojōsan developed the occasional habit of coming to my room on some errand and then settling down to talk. Whenever this happened, a strange uneasiness beset my heart. It wasn’t simply a nervous response to finding myself alone face-to-face with a young woman. Her presence made me oddly fidgety and ill at ease, and this unnatural behavior distressed me as a self-betrayal. She, however, was entirely at her ease. It was difficult to believe that this unabashed girl and the girl who managed to produce only a timid whisper when practicing her koto singing could be the same person. On occasion she stayed so long that her mother called her from the sitting room. “Coming,” she would answer, but she continued to sit there. Yet she was far from a mere child—this much my eyes told me clearly. And I could see too that she was behaving in a way that let me know as much.