The man shrank back and in the interval my husband, flapping the sleeves of his coat like a huge crow, bolted outside.
“Thief!” the man shouted and started to pursue him, but I ran to the front gate in my bare feet and clung to him.
“Please don’t. It won’t help for either of you to get hurt. I will take the responsibility for everything.”
The woman said, “Yes, she’s right. You can never tell what a lunatic will do.”
“Swine! It’s the police this time! I can’t stand any more.” The man stood there staring emptily at the darkness outside and muttering as if to himself. But the force had gone out of his body.
“Please come in and tell me what has happened. I may be able to settle whatever the matter is. The place is a mess, but please come in.”
The two visitors exchanged glances and nodded slightly to one another. The man said, with a changed expression, “I’m afraid that whatever you may say our minds are already made up. But it might be a good idea to tell you, Mrs. Otani, all that has happened.”
“Please do come in and stay for a while.”
“I’m afraid we won’t be able to stay long.” So saying, the man started to remove his overcoat.
“Please keep your coat on. It’s very cold here, and I don’t have any heating in the house.”
“Well then, if you will forgive me.”
“Please, both of you.”
The man and the woman entered my husband’s room. They seemed appalled by the desolation of what they saw. The mats looked as though they were rotting, the paper doors were in shreds, the walls were beginning to fall in, and the paper had peeled away from the storage closet, revealing the framework within. In a corner were a desk and a bookcase—an empty bookcase.
I offered the two visitors some torn cushions from which the stuffing leaked, and said, “Please sit on the cushions—the mats are so dirty.” And I bowed to them again. “I must apologize for all the trouble my husband seems to have been causing you, and for the terrible exhibition he put on tonight, for whatever reason it was. He has such a peculiar disposition.” I choked in the middle of my words and burst into tears.
“Excuse me for asking, Mrs. Otani, but how old are you?” the man asked. He was sitting cross-legged on the torn cushion, with his elbows on his knees, propping up his chin with his fists. As he asked the question he leaned forward toward me.
“I am twenty-six.”
“Is that all you are? I suppose that’s only natural, considering your husband’s about thirty, but it amazes me all the same.”
The woman, showing her face from behind the man’s back, said, “I couldn’t help wondering, when I came in and saw what a fine wife he has, why Mr. Otani behaves the way he does.”
“He’s sick. That’s what it is. He didn’t use to be that way, but he keeps getting worse.” He gave a great sigh, then continued, “Mrs. Otani. My wife and I run a little restaurant near the Nakano station. We both originally came from the country, but I got fed up with dealing with penny-pinching farmers, and came to Tokyo with my wife. After the usual series of hardships and breaks, we managed to save up a little and, along about 1936, opened a cheap little restaurant catering to customers with at most one or two yen to spend at one time for entertainment. By not going in for luxuries and working like slaves, we managed to lay in quite a stock of whiskey and gin. When liquor got short and plenty of other drinking establishments went out of business, we were able to keep going.