CHAPTER 87
It was a cold, rainy day in November. Sodden in my overcoat, I made my way as usual past the fierce Enma image that stands in Genkaku Temple1 and up the hill to the house. K’s room was deserted, but his charcoal brazier was newly lit. I hurriedly opened the doors through to my room, eager to warm my chilled hands at my own glowing charcoal. But my brazier held only the cold white ash of its earlier fire; even the embers were dead. My mood quickly shifted to one of displeasure.
Okusan had heard me arrive and came to greet me. Seeing me standing silent in the middle of the room, she sympathetically helped me out of my coat and into my casual household kimono. I complained of the cold, and she obligingly carried in K’s brazier from next door. Was K home yet? I asked. He had returned and then gone out again, she told me. This puzzled me, as it was a day when his class schedule meant he came home later than I. He probably had some business to attend to, Okusan said.
I sat for a while reading. The house was still and hushed, there was no sound of any voice, and after a while the early winter chill, combined with the desolate silence, began to penetrate me. Seized by a sudden urge to be among a bustling throng of people, I put my book down and rose to my feet. The rain seemed to have lifted at last, but the sky still hung heavily chill and leaden, so to be on the safe side, as I went out I slung an oil-paper umbrella over my shoulder. I set off east down the hill, following the earthen wall that ran along the rear of the Arsenal.
In those days the roads were not yet improved, and the slope was a lot steeper than it is today. The street was narrower and not straight as now. As you descended into the valley, high buildings blocked the sun, and because drainage was poor, it was damp and muddy underfoot. The worst section was between the narrow stone bridge and the street of Yanagi-chō. Even in high rain clogs or rubber boots, you had to tread carefully to avoid the mud. Everyone was forced to pick their way gingerly along the long thin rut that had formed in the middle of the road. It was a mere foot or two wide, so it was a bit like walking along a kimono sash that had been casually unrolled down the center of the road. People made their way cautiously, in single file.
I was negotiating this narrow strip when I ran abruptly into K. Concentrating on where I was putting my feet, I was unaware of him until we were face-to-face. Only when I raised my eyes on impulse to see what was suddenly blocking my way did I discover him there.
Where had he been? I asked. He had just stepped out for a bit, he said. His reply was typically brief and unresponsive. We maneuvered past each other on the narrow strip of navigable road, and as we did, I saw that a young woman was behind him. Short-sighted as I was, I had not seen her until now, but once K had passed me, my eyes fell on her face, and I was astonished to discover that it was Ojōsan.
She greeted me, her cheeks slightly flushed. In those days, fashionable girls wore their hair swept straight back from the forehead and coiled on top of the head. For a long moment I stared blankly at this twist of hair. Then I became conscious of the fact that one of us would have to make way for the other. Resolutely, I stepped aside, putting one foot into the mud and so leaving a space for her to pass me with relative ease.
When I arrived at Yanagi-chō, I could not think where to go. All possibilities now felt equally bleak. For a while I tramped despairingly along through the sludge, oblivious to the splashes, then went home again.