CHAPTER 9

Sensei and his wife had a good relationship, as far as I could tell. I was not really in a position to judge, of course, since I had never lived under the same roof with them. Still, if he happened to need something while we were in the living room together, it was often his wife rather than the maid whom he asked to fetch it. “Hey, Shizu!” he would call, turning toward the door and calling her by name. The words had a gentle ring, I thought. And on those occasions when I stayed for a meal and she joined us, I gained a clearer picture of their relationship.

Sensei would sometimes take her out to a concert or the theater. I also recall two or three occasions when they went off for a week’s vacation together. I still have a postcard they sent from the hot springs resort at Hakoné, and I received a letter from their visit to Nikko, with an autumn leaf enclosed.

Such was my general impression of them as a couple. Only one incident disturbed it. One day when I arrived at the house and was on the point of announcing myself at the door as was my custom, I overheard voices coming from the living room. As I listened, it became evident that this was no normal conversation but an argument. The living room was right next to the entrance hall, and I was close enough to get a clear sense of the general tone, if not the words. I soon understood that the male voice that rose from time to time was Sensei’s. The other one was lower, and it was unclear whose it was, but it felt like his wife’s. She seemed to be crying. I hesitated briefly in the entrance hall, unsure what to do, then made up my mind and went home again.

Back at my lodgings, a strange anxiety gripped me. I tried reading but found I could not concentrate. About an hour later Sensei arrived below my window and called up to me. Surprised, I opened it, and he suggested I come down for a walk. I checked the watch I had tucked into my sash when I set off earlier, and saw that it was past eight. I was still dressed in my visiting clothes, so I went straight out to meet him.

That evening we drank beer together. As a rule Sensei did not drink much. If a certain amount of alcohol failed to produce the desired effect, he was disinclined to experiment by drinking more.

“This isn’t working today,” he remarked with a wry smile.

“You can’t cheer up?” I asked sympathetically.

I still felt disturbed by the argument I had heard. It produced a sharp pain in me, like a fishbone stuck in my throat. I couldn’t decide whether to confess to Sensei that I had overheard it, and my indecision made me unusually fidgety.

Sensei was the first to speak about the matter. “You’re not yourself tonight, are you?” he said. “I’m feeling rather out of sorts too, actually. You noticed that?”

I could not reply.

“As a matter of fact, I had a bit of a quarrel with my wife earlier. I got stupidly upset by it.”

“Why . . . ?” I could not bring myself to say the word “quarrel.”

“My wife misunderstands me. I tell her so, but she won’t believe me. I’m afraid I lost my temper with her.”

“How does she misunderstand you?”

Sensei made no attempt to respond to this. “If I was the sort of person she thinks I am,” he said, “I wouldn’t be suffering like this.”

But I was unable to imagine how Sensei was suffering.