CHAPTER 99
“No,” I replied, having no intention of telling Okusan what K had confessed to me. But the lie immediately made me unhappy. I awkwardly backed away from it by saying that K hadn’t asked me to say anything on his behalf that I could recall, and my present business had nothing to do with him.
“I see,” she said, and waited for more.
There was nothing for it but to broach the subject at last. “Okusan,” I said abruptly, “I wish to marry Ojōsan.”
She took this more calmly than I had anticipated, although she stared at me in silence, apparently at a loss how to respond.
But I had gone too far now to let her gaze disconcert me. “Please, Okusan. Please let me marry her,” I said. “Let me make her my wife.”
Okusan’s mature years lent her far greater calm than I could muster. “That’s all very well,” she replied, “but isn’t this rather hasty?”
“It’s now I want to marry her,” I said, which made her laugh.
“Have you thought this through properly?” she went on.
I earnestly assured her that although the request was sudden, the impulse behind it was anything but.
A few more questions followed, which I have forgotten. Okusan had quite a masculine clarity and directness that made her far easier to talk to than the usual woman in this kind of situation.
“Very good,” she finally said. “You may have her. Or rather,” she corrected herself, “since I’m not in a position to speak so patronizingly, let me say, ‘Please take her for your wife.’ As you know, the poor girl has no father to give her away.”
And so the question was settled, straightforwardly and without fuss. It would have taken no more than fifteen minutes from beginning to end. Okusan demanded no conditions. It would not be necessary to consult the relatives, she maintained. All she had to do was inform them of the decision. She even stated that there was no need to consult the wishes of Ojōsan herself.
Here I balked—educated man though I was, I was apparently the more conventional in such matters. As for the relatives, I said, I would leave that up to her, but surely the right thing to do next was to gain the girl’s consent.
“Please don’t worry,” Okusan replied. “I wouldn’t make her marry anyone she didn’t want to.”
Once back in my room, I felt somewhat unnerved at how remarkably smoothly the discussion had gone. I even found myself almost doubting that it could all really be as safely settled as it seemed. At the same time, however, my whole being was swept with a sense of renewal at the thought that the future was now decided.
Around noon I went into the living room and asked Okusan when she planned to tell Ojōsan the news of our conversation. Since she had already agreed, she said, it didn’t matter when she told her daughter. I turned to go back to my room with the uncomfortable feeling that she was playing the male far better than I was in all this, but Okusan held me back. If I wished, she said, she would tell her daughter right away, as soon as she came back from her lessons that day.
That would be best, I agreed, and returned to my room. But the idea of sitting mutely at my desk listening as the two of them murmured together in the distance made me jittery. At length I put on my hat and went out.
And now once again, on the road below the house, I crossed paths with Ojōsan coming up. Quite innocent of all that had happened, she looked surprised to see me.
“You’re back, are you?” I said politely, raising my hat.
“Are you better now?” she asked in a rather puzzled tone.
“Yes, yes, much better, thanks,” I replied, and stepped briskly around the corner toward Suidō Bridge.