CHAPTER 20

I tried to comfort Sensei’s wife as much as my understanding of the facts allowed, and she in turn seemed to try to be comforted. We continued to mull over the question of Sensei together. But I was unable to grasp the real source of the problem. Her distress grew out of vague perplexity and doubts. She didn’t know much about what had happened, and what she did know she could not reveal to me fully. Thus were comforter and comforted equally at sea, adrift on shifting waves. Lost as she was, she clung to what frail judgment I could offer.

At around ten, when Sensei’s footsteps sounded in the entrance hall, she rose to her feet, all thoughts of me and our conversation seeming instantly forgotten. She was there to greet him as he slid open the lattice door, leaving me to follow her out. The maid, who must have been dozing in her room, failed to appear.

Sensei was in rather a good mood, but his wife was even more vivacious. I gazed at her, astonished at the change. Her beautiful eyes had recently shone with tears, and her fine brow had been furrowed with suffering. Surely it had not been deceit, yet one could be forgiven for wondering if her earlier conversation had been a mere feminine ploy, a toying with my feelings. I was not inclined to be critical, however. My primary feeling was relief at seeing her instantaneously brighten. After all, I decided, there was no real need to worry about her.

Sensei greeted me with a smile. “Thank you very much,” he said. “I trust no burglar appeared?” Then he added, “You must have felt the exercise was a bit pointless, if no one broke in.”

“I do apologize,” his wife said to me as I was leaving. Her tone made me feel this was less an apology for taking up my precious time than an almost humorous regret for the fact that there had been no burglar. She wrapped the cakes she had brought out with the tea and handed them to me.

Slipping the package into my kimono sleeve, I set off, winding hurriedly through the chilly, largely unpeopled lanes toward the bright and lively town.

I have drawn the events of that night from deep in my memory because their details are necessary to my story now. At the time, however, as I headed for home with her cakes tucked into my sleeve, I was not inclined to think much about the conversation that had taken place that evening.

The next day after morning classes, when I returned to my lodgings for lunch, my eyes fell on the little parcel of cakes lying on my desk. I immediately unwrapped it, picked up a piece of chocolate-coated sponge cake, and popped it into my mouth. And as my tongue registered the taste, I felt a conviction that, when all was said and done, the couple who had given me this cake was happy.

Autumn ended uneventfully, and winter arrived. I came and went as usual from Sensei’s house, and at some point I asked his wife if she could help me take care of my clothing—around this time I began to wear rather better clothes. She kindly assured me that it would be a fine opportunity to alleviate the boredom of her childless life.

She remarked that a garment I had given her to mend was of hand-woven cloth. “I’ve never worked with such good material before,” she said, “but it does make it hard to sew, I must say. The needle just won’t go through. I’ve broken two already.”

For all her complaints, however, she did not seem to resent the work.