“He’s young, isn’t he?”
Then Ichiko married Chiba and moved in. Not long after the Hiratas had
become acquainted with her, Takako said to Hirata, “She’s not at all like
Mr. Chiba, is she? I’m a little disappointed.”
“No—but they’re the kind of couple where everything that doesn’t seem
to match in them ends up matching. Call it heaven’s dispensation, or
something like that—after all, that’s what marriage is. You might think it’d
be better if a woman more like you had married him, but actually that
wouldn’t work out at all. Yes, I think he’s done all right,” Hirata said,
nodding in agreement with himself.
Hirata had underestimated Takako, assuming that as a woman she was
unable to understand the allure of Ichiko’s physique. He would say nothing
of this to her, for while he kept tight control over her, he also recognized
that she was superior to him in certain ways. And besides, he never
discussed sexual matters with her. He thought he saw pleasure in the mix of
things that filled Takako and flowed from her as he drew her gradually on,
a little and then a little more, in contented silence. He assumed that she
herself found satisfaction in polite self-control, that the key to a long future
as husband and wife lay in her self-control.
But now, suddenly, Takako seemed to have changed. Sometimes she
would reveal an aspect of this change in some careless act, and Hirata
would feel his body tightening.
Another man had laid his hands on Takako—he could conceive of no
other explanation. And he could imagine only that this man was Chiba. He
knew nothing of Fujiki.
Suddenly it occurred to him that he might have ended up in this taxi
because Takako was secretly wishing that he would die in an accident—it
was a morbid and unjust suspicion, lacking in dignity— and it seemed as
though his body were going numb from the feet up.
