always getting into trouble that way, aren’t you. I suppose I’m one of your little lapses, too.”
“That was a long time ago. I’ve forgotten all about it.”
“Not that long—it was just three years ago, you know, and now you’re asking me to dispose of a pregnant girl. Men are awful, they really are.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
He slipped off his cushion, put both hands to the floor, and bowed his balding his head low before her. “Please,” he said, “I will be grateful for anything you can do to help.”
For Oriku, Monnosuke and Matsushima were both partners in pleasure, and she had a bond with both. She could not very well abandon either.
“Get Monnosuke and Ohisa together before anyone finds out about the baby, give them just enough of a wedding reception to keep up appearances, and buy them a little house—anything will do. Then, in exchange for Monnosuke’s taking on your child, look after him for the rest of his life.” Oriku laid down the conditions she had worked out beforehand.
Matsushima accepted them as a matter of course. “I understand all that without your telling me. Obviously I’ll look after him, considering the burden involved. He’ll have a monthly allowance, too. You needn’t worry about that.”
“Forgive me. I was sure you’d say that, knowing you as well as I do. Obviously, an actor works only half the year. His wallet’s thin, however brilliant a show he may make. To him, marriage means debt.”
“I know, I know. Stop harping on it.”
“Fine, I will. I gather Monnosuke would be glad to have the child, since it’s yours, even if he had to ask for it himself.”
“Anyway, I’ll appreciate whatever you can do. It will be a relief to have you step in. I feel as though a great weight is off my shoulders.”
“A woman from your past comes in handy at a time like this, doesn’t she. This isn’t the sort of thing you can discuss with family.”
“You’re absolutely right about that.”
“This is why it’s important to stay friends, so you can talk things over calmly, even after you split up. It’s no good for either the man or the woman to end up glaring at each other in silence. I’m the living proof of that. I’m sure it’s only because we were together once that we can talk this way.”
She was repeating herself, but on this subject that was her way. She was always telling young people, too, how essential it was that if they had to part, they do so on friendly terms.
For a man and a woman to cross the last barrier and sleep together, their bodies merged, creates a bond beyond the reach of any calculation, a bond achieved under the guidance of natural affection. Once that depth of relationship is reached, honor it forever! Such was the philosophy of love that Oriku had defined and upheld ever since the days when she managed the Silver Flower.
Matsushima laughed. “All this heartwarming talk of yours just makes me want to get in bed with you again!”
“You must be joking! There’s nothing more pathetic than relighting an old flame.”
“As things are now, though, I’ll never be able to look you in the eye for the rest of my life. I just won’t feel right until I’ve gotten you where I want you again, in bed.”
“And you think I’ll go along with that, to make you feel better?” Matsushima roared with laughter.
So their talk ended in merriment on both sides, and it got things moving in the right direction. Ohisa became Monnosuke’s bride, and no one was the wiser. The reception was a small, private affair, and in due course she had a son. Monnosuke was overjoyed.
When an actor had a son the event was celebrated with red rice, but there was no joy for a daughter, since she could not become his heir. In other lines of business, the young man who joined the family by marrying a daughter could be officially as a son, to assure succession, but in the world of kabuki this was not possible. Sometimes an actor could perpetuate his name by adopting a fellow actor’s son, and this worked well enough if he actually knew a suitable boy; but if he did not, that was that. Monnosuke and Ohisa had both been praying that it would be a boy, so they were very happy indeed. As for Mr. Matsushima, he gave them a formally wrapped present of a hundred yen—the equivalent of a million yen these days. For an actor’s family a son was a golden egg, while a daughter made just another mouth to feed and was treated as a nuisance.
So Monnosuke was delighted, and when the boy was a month old Monnosuke brought him in his arms to Mukōjima, to show Oriku. He was a pretty, pale-skinned baby, with a distinct resemblance to Matsushima.
“You’ll have to take proper care of your wife, now that she’s laid you a golden egg,” Oriku reminded him. That had been her greatest concern. Ohisa had already been pregnant with Matsushima’s child when Monnosuke married her, and Monnosuke might sometimes say cruel things to her. The thought made Oriku feel sorry for Ohisa.
“Oh no,” Monnosuke assured her, “I’m very happy, really. She looks after everything so beautifully I feel like telling her she should be a restaurant maid, and she’s a marvelous cook too. That’s not surprising, I suppose, since she spent all that time in a restaurant, but even so, she misses nothing, and on top of that she’s brought me this lovely little boy! I can only thank both you and Mr. Matsushima.” His joy was unrestrained.
“Mr. Matsushima will be so relieved to hear you say all this! Ohisa will be wanting to do her very best for you, considering the condition she was in when you accepted her, so make sure you’re always good to her, since you are so pleased with her.”
In short, it was a fine case of “all’s well that ends well.” Still, the whole thing made Oriku want to laugh. Monnosuke and Matsushima, both men with whom she had no trivial bond, had apparently been destined to become entangled with each other in this way.
“It couldn’t have worked out better, and let’s hope that it keeps going well from here,” she would say to herself with a wry smile. “My little flings turned out to mean something after all!”
Thereafter, Matsushima and Monnosuke continued their visits to Mukōjima, making the long trip out there whenever they tired of fancy food and felt like some clam chazuke instead. From spring through autumn the place was full, but the stream of customers dried up when the cold set in. The menu on offer was hardly dazzling enough to bring people all the way from Azuma Bridge through the freezing river wind, and the sleepy faces of patrons crossing on the Hashiba ferry, homeward-bound from the Yoshiwara, disappeared when winter came. Silence settled over the place during the winter months. Nonetheless, mornings when it snowed were special. Quite a few fanciers of fine scenery would come out to view the snow at Mukōjima.
Oriku had this to say on the subject. “Nowadays the snow doesn’t stay even when it falls, so there’s nothing to talk about. The cars keep driving by and messing it up, so there’s no time for it to accumulate. You can’t enjoy a snowy scene if the road isn’t thickly covered with snow. Maybe there are just too many people now, or the sun’s hotter, or something, but anyway, what snow does fall melts right away, and it just doesn’t feel like the old days. And it isn’t just snow either. The way the view changes with the seasons is losing its charm too. Speaking of how pretty the snow was—people would come from far and wide to enjoy it, and of course, there’s still that haiku of Bashō’s, engraved
