Part 10 (1/2)
”Yes.”
”They say you sing in the bath before you go to bed.”
”Really! They accuse me of having such bad manners?” The voice was astonis.h.i.+ngly beautiful.
”I feel I know everything about you.”
”Oh? And have you asked Komako, then?”
”She won't say a thing. She seems to dislike talking about you.”
”I see.” Yoko turned quickly away. ”Komako is a fine person, but she's not been lucky. Be good to her.” She spoke rapidly, and her voice trembled very slightly on the last words.
”But there's nothing I can do for her.”
It seemed that the girl's whole body must soon be trembling. s.h.i.+mamura looked away, fearful that a dangerous light would be breaking out on the too-earnest face.
He laughed. ”I think I'd best go back to Tokyo soon.”
”I'm going to Tokyo myself.”
”When?”
”It doesn't matter.”
”Shall I see you to Tokyo when I go back?”
”Please do.” The seriousness was intense, and at the same time her tone suggested that the matter was after all trivial. s.h.i.+mamura was startled.
”If it will be all right with your family.”
”The brother who works on the railroad is all the family I have. I can decide for myself.”
”Have you made arrangements in Tokyo?”
”No.”
”Have you talked to Komako, then?”
”To Komako? I don't like Komako. I haven't talked to her.”
She looked up at him with moist eyes-a sign perhaps that her defenses were breaking down-and he found in them an uncanny sort of beauty. But at that moment his affection for Komako welled up violently. To run off to Tokyo, as if eloping, with a nondescript woman would somehow be in the nature of an intense apology to Komako, and a penance for s.h.i.+mamura himself.
”It doesn't frighten you to go off alone with a man?”
”Why should it?”
”It doesn't seem dangerous to go to Tokyo without at least deciding where you will stay and what you might want to do?”
”A woman by herself can always get by.” There was a delicious lilt in her speech. Her eyes were fixed on his as she spoke again: ”You won't hire me as a maid?”
”Really, now. Hire you as a maid?”
”But I don't want to be a maid.”
”What were you in Tokyo before?”
”A nurse.”
”You were in a hospital? Or in nursing school?”
”I just thought I'd like to be a nurse.”
s.h.i.+mamura smiled. This perhaps explained the earnestness with which she had taken care of the music teacher's son on the train.
”And you still want to be a nurse?”
”I won't be a nurse now.”
”But you'll have to make up your mind. This indecisiveness will never do.”
”Indecisiveness? It has nothing to do with indecisiveness.” Her laugh threw back the accusation.
Her laugh, like her voice, was so high and clear that it was almost lonely. There was not a suggestion in it of the dull or the simple-minded; but it struck emptily at the sh.e.l.l of s.h.i.+mamura's heart, and fell away in silence.
”What's funny?”
”But there has only been one man I could possibly nurse.”
Again s.h.i.+mamura was startled.
”I could never again.”
”I see.” His answer was quiet. He had been caught off guard. ”They say you spend all your time at the cemetery.”
”I do.”
”And for the rest of your life you can never nurse anyone else, or visit anyone else's grave?”
”Never again.”
”How can you leave the grave and go off to Tokyo, then?”
”I'm sorry. Do take me with you.”
”Komako says you're frightfully jealous. Wasn't the man her fiance?”
”Yukio? It's a lie. It's a lie.”
”Why do you dislike Komako, then?”