What in the world should I do?”
“That’s entirely up to you. I can see you taking a wife, after tasting the pleasures of life as you’ve already done, but not then having your own child. You might as well just go ahead and say yes. People will accept it readily enough, if you let it be known there was something between the two of you from before. Mr. Matsushima’s a very presentable man, and the child’s bound to have looks. You don’t, and that does you no good despite your skill. Mr. Matushima’s son would make you a good successor. Marry Ohisa, and everyone will be happy. Don’t you agree?”
Eager as Oriku always was to be helpful, these words slipped out of her mouth before she even knew what she was saying. Monnosuke seemed to have been expecting just that tone of voice.
“Then I’ll do as you suggest. I hope I may avail myself of your good offices.”
“Good offices?What do you mean?This has nothing to do with me.”
“But this isn’t the sort of thing a man can look after all by himself. Won’t you please talk to Mr. Matsushima for me?”
“Why in the world should I have to do that?”
“There isn’t anyone else I can ask, and it isn’t as though I was just adopting a kitten or something, you know. This woman is going to be my wife. There’s my teacher to think about, and I’ll have to introduce her to my other benefactors, too.”
“Mr. Matsushima will take care of all that for you. You won’t have to say a word.”
“But I’m sure everything will go much better—much more smoothly, you know—if you step in as go-between. Nothing you’d say would ever strike a false note.”
This was just what Monnosuke had had in mind. If he was going to marry someone’s pregnant maid, he wanted everything done properly, or as much as possible under the circumstances, but he could not very well say so himself, so he had been planning to use Oriku all along.
“All right, I’ll talk to Mr. Matsushima.”
“I’ll be very grateful.”
“I’ve never known a man to go on and on making such a nuisance of himself as you do!” She looked angry, but she was not displeased. It was her way always to do anything she possibly could for someone she had had that sort of connection with, even once.
“Matsushima” was a well-established restaurant at the Yakushi corner of Kayabachō. Oriku had known the owner ever since her Silver Flower days. In his mid-fifties, with a pale, slender face, he looked good in his kimono of lustrous, striped cotton, and you could see at a glance that women would find him attractive.
Oriku put in a phone call to Matsushima’s place and got him on the line. He willingly came out to Mukōjima. The streetcar ran as far as the Kaminari Gate, and from Azuma Bridge a penny steamer would then bring you to Kototoi. After that, it was just a matter of strolling along the embankment. That was the way most people came if they were in no hurry, but Matsushima was impatient, and at Azuma Bridge he hired a rickshaw.
It was late autumn. The cherry leaves were yellowing, and there were few people about. Still, the Asakusa Kannon main hall and pagoda, the Shōden temple grove, and so on, seen from the embankment, looked the part of famous sights of Edo. In fact, the whole view could have been a Hiroshige print.
“It’s always so beautiful out here!” Matsushima did not go straight in, but instead stood a while in the entrance and gazed around him. When he came down from the embankment, the reeds were so thick that he felt as if he were dropping down into a marsh. The gate was almost hidden by the reeds. Once he actually reached it, though, they turned out not really to be that tall. The winding little path quickly rose until suddenly the full, tranquil sweep of the Sumida River opened out before him, from Hashiba on the far bank to the torii of Masaki Shrine. To someone from Kayabachō the place seemed like a country villa. Out on the river the red-footed gulls were gathering in flocks, and sailboats were drifting lazily by. The autumn stream was especially clear.
“You could live forever in a place like this.”
“Not me, I’m afraid. I can’t just take it easy, the way you do.”
“The way I do? What gave you that idea? It’s not like the old days anymore. There’s a lot of competition. I’m off to the market at three every morning. It gets hard, when you’re as old as I am.”
“You’re still doing that?” “Still? How do you think my place would keep going if I didn’t? For Japanese food, everything depends on the raw materials. I can’t serve my customers anything I haven’t inspected myself.”
“I’m impressed. That’s what makes your restaurant the place it is.”
“And you—they say you go in person twice a year to Kuwana, which is why your clam chazuke is always so good. The quality goes down right away when you leave the marketing to other people.”
They headed for the annexes, chatting about cooking. She took him to the Paulownia, where she and Monnosuke had talked. An original Hokusai painting hung in the tokonoma.
“All right, auntie, what was it you wanted to discuss?” Matsushima had hardly sat down before he got right to business.
“What do you mean, ‘auntie’? You’re being rude!” “When a woman’s over fifty, you know, auntie’s what she’s called.”
“Well, not me. I’m only forty-five. If I’m ‘auntie,’ you’re ‘unk.’”
“Ha, ha, ha! Wicked repartee, as ever!”
He slipped out his tobacco pouch, while a maid brought in a tray of saké and two small dishes of wild greens. Matsushima was sufficiently fond of saké that it sometimes caused him problems. Apparently one of these problems was the maid Ohisa.
“What I wanted to talk to you about, you see. . .” said Oriku, pouring for him, “is this business of Ohisa.”
Dead silence. Matsushima put down his cup.
“Monnosuke told me the whole story. It was a sudden shock for him, and he needed someone to talk it over with, so for one reason or another he came straight to me.”
“He’s completely lost his mind!”
“I don’t see the problem. You needn’t worry that I’ll let this go any further, but it certainly might have if he’d told someone less reliable.”
“Well, I suppose you’re right, but I don’t see why he had to tell you.”
“I didn’t want to hear about it, either, but now that I have, I’m concerned. You’re not just anybody to me, and Monnosuke knows that. That’s why he came to me.”
“Does he know about you and me?”
“He wouldn’t have come to me if he didn’t. He came because he knew that here he could safely wash your dirty linen in private.”
“So he knows, does he, about you and me.”
He gave the cup back to Ohisa. “I’m a sloppy drunk, you know. Even with Ohisa, it isn’t as if I had planned to get involved with her that way. Oh, I had
