CHAPTER 69
Piecing together the various bits of evidence, it became clear to me, in a word, that the people of this household trusted me. In fact, I even found proof enough to convince me that this trust had existed from the very beginning. Having come to suspect others, I was oddly moved by this discovery. Were women so much more intuitive than men? I wondered. And did this account for women’s tendency to be so easily deceived? In retrospect, these thoughts seem ironic, since I was responding just as irrationally and intuitively to Ojōsan. While swearing to myself that I would trust no one, my trust in her was absolute. And yet I found her mother’s trust in me peculiar.
I did not talk much about my home and was careful to make no mention of recent events. Just recalling them filled me with distress. I spent as much of our conversations as possible listening to Okusan. But she had other ideas. She was always curious about my home and the situation there, so in the end I revealed everything. When I told her that I had decided never to return, that there was nothing left for me there except the graves of my parents, she seemed deeply moved, and her daughter actually wept. I thought then that it was good to have spoken. It made me happy.
Now that I had told her all, it was abundantly clear that Okusan felt her intuitions confirmed. She began to treat me like some young relative. This did not anger me; indeed, I was pleased by it. But in time my paranoid doubts returned.
It was a tiny thing that sparked my suspicion, but as one insignificant incident was added to another, distrust gradually took root. I began to suspect that Okusan was trying to bring her daughter and me together from the same motives as my uncle. And with this thought what had appeared to be kindness suddenly seemed the actions of a cunning strategist. I brooded on this bitter conviction.
Okusan had always stated that she had wanted a lodger to look after because the house was forlornly unpeopled. This did not seem a lie to me. Having grown close enough to become her confidant, I was now quite sure it was true. On the other hand, she was not particularly wealthy. From the point of view of her own interests, she certainly had nothing to lose by cultivating the relationship.
And so I grew wary again. Still, at times I scoffed at my own foolishness. What use was all my caution about her mother, when I still loved Ojōsan as deeply as ever? But no matter how foolish I recognized myself to be, this contradiction was hardly a source of much pain. My real anguish began when it occurred to me that Ojōsan might be as devious as her mother. The instant it occurred to me that everything was a result of plotting behind my back, I was racked with agony. This was not mere unhappiness—I was in the grip of utter despair. And yet, at the same time I continued to have unwavering faith in Ojōsan. Thus I found myself paralyzed, suspended between conviction and doubt. Both seemed to me at once the product of my imagination and the truth.