Summary
This section starts with an echo of the previous one. Whereas the first section began with Ono giving directions to his house, this one starts with him traversing part of the same landscape, including the evocatively named "Bridge of Hesitation." He talks about the way he sometimes habitually walks over that bridge, and explains its name: the bridge leads to the old pleasure district, so that men were often seen hesitating there, deciding between a night at home or a night of revelry. Ono often stands on the bridge to survey the city, including new construction that is indistinguishable from bombed buildings. While ruins are growing rarer, only a year ago they were very common. The old pleasure district around Mrs. Kawakami's place, for instance, is full of new construction. It's been several months since the previous chapter, and now a corporation is buying Mrs. Kawakami's property. This makes sense, since Ono is now her only customer. Shintaro has stopped coming to the bar ever since the winter. Ono describes the circumstances that led to his departure. Shintaro has begun to look for a teaching job at a high school, and Ono is surprised that he never reaches out for advice, though he knows that he's no longer Shintaro's teacher.
Still, when Shintaro shows up at his house looking for help, Ono is comforted by the familiar dynamic. The two go to Ono's reception room, where Shintaro praises and thanks Ono extensively, and Ono rebuffs his praise, pointing out that he neglected Shintaro for a long time and wants to make it up to him now. After stalling a bit, Shintaro vaguely requests that Ono write to the hiring committee at the school where he wants to teach. He wants Ono to support some of the facts that Shintaro provided in his application, concerning "the past" and a disagreement the two of them had in the past about "the China crisis." Ono requires some nudging to remember, or acknowledge, the event in question, but it boils down to this: Shintaro wants Ono to tell the school about the disagreement they had, thus making it clear that Shintaro was opposed to Ono's decisions in the matter. In this way, Shintaro can distance himself from his former teacher. Ono tries to convince Shintaro that it would be best to simply own up to his past, but Shintaro disagrees, and the two part frostily.
Ono justifies his harshness towards Shintaro by discussing his state of mind that day. He had only recently attended Noriko's miai, the traditional meeting between the families of a couple during the engagement process. Noriko's negotiations with Taro Saito have been going well, although Ono finds the hotel where the Saitos have asked to hold the miai a bit vulgar. Also, Noriko knew in the lead-up to the event that she and her family would be outnumbered by the Saitos, especially since Setsuko lives too far away to attend. Ono speculates that this might be the reason for her tense, critical mood before the miai. As an example, he recalls an afternoon when Noriko was excessively harsh with him about the way he had trimmed some plants in the garden. Ono thinks that Noriko would be more grateful to him if she knew what he had been up to in secret for the sake of her marriage negotiations. Just that day, before she criticized his gardening, he had gone to visit Kuroda. Since the war, Ono has learned recently, Kuroda has been doing rather well. At the moment, he's an art teacher at a college in town. Ono feels proud of Kuroda, as his former teacher, despite their estrangement.
When he arrives at Kuroda's apartment, a young man, Mr. Enchi, answers the door. Enchi says that Kuroda isn't home but insists that Ono wait inside, since Kuroda will be upset if he doesn't get a chance to see him. Ono chats for a while with Enchi, a protégé of Kuroda's who is working on his own art career. Eventually, though, we discover that Enchi has been under the impression that Ono is from a group called the "Cordon Society." When Ono actually offers his name, the man coldly asks him to leave. Ono argues that he should stay and speak to Kuroda, but Enchi clearly has heard terrible things about Ono. He blames Ono for physical and emotional suffering that Kuroda endured in prison, and he calls Ono a traitor. Ono leaves and writes a letter asking Kuroda to meet with him, to which he receives a curt refusal. He doesn't tell Noriko about any of this conflict, but he feels that she has gathered at least some of what is going on, making her even tenser. On the day of the miai, he pokes fun at her for taking a long time to get ready, and she snaps at him. He tells us that this behavior is very different from her mood last year, when she was sure that she would become engaged to Jiro Miyake.
Ono and Noriko arrive at the hotel where the miai is to be held, which Ono thinks caters to Americans by being stereotypically Japanese. He is so nervous that he drinks more than he should before, and he becomes worried that Taro Saito, like Setsuko's husband Suichi, will develop troubling new traits after Noriko marries him. Still, Taro is charming and polite, as are his parents. His younger brother is less so, but Ono realizes that the brother reacts to things visibly exactly as the entire family is reacting internally—therefore, by looking at him, Ono can tell what they're all thinking. In spite of earlier discussions with Noriko about how the Saitos would prefer her to act bold and outgoing, she is in fact shy and awkward throughout the meal. Dr. Saito keeps the conversation going, though. At one point he asks Ono's opinion about some demonstrations that are taking place in town. Ono weakly replies that he is sorry that people have been injured at these protests. Dr. Saito is in favor of the protests, which, the conversation indicates, are pro-democracy demonstrations. His son Taro and his wife are more skeptical about them, but Ono feels that the Saitos don't disagree as much as they are pretending to.
Then Saito brings up his acquaintance Kuroda. He doesn't know him well, but his younger son Mitsuo is a student at the college where Kuroda teaches, though he's never taken a class with him. The conversation seems to have fizzled for a moment, and Taro begins chatting with Noriko, who is still awkward and quiet. Then Ono suddenly guides the topic back to Kuroda. He plainly explains that Kuroda has a low opinion of him, and goes on to say that Kuroda is one of the many people who believe that Ono's legacy is harmful and should be erased. Ono says that he is aware of all the pain he caused with his art and politics, and that he did what he did only because he thought it was best at the time. Dr. Saito seems satisfied suddenly and jokes to Noriko about her father being harsh on himself. After Ono's short speech, the whole dinner becomes far more comfortable, and Noriko relaxes visibly.
Ono thinks to himself that, while he made the announcement mainly because it was a diplomatic choice, there is also a certain intrinsic relief in acknowledging one's mistakes. It is better to own up to the mistakes one has made in spite of good intentions, he thinks, than to insist that no mistake was ever made. Shintaro, he thinks, exemplifies this latter attitude with his desire to pretend the past never happened. He recalls talking to Mrs. Kawakami about this, telling her all about how he now knows that Shintaro was sneaky and underhanded all along. He pointed out to Mrs. Kawakami that Shintaro, for instance, purposely avoided fighting in the war. Mrs. Kawakami defends Shintaro, arguing that he has a bad leg, but Ono thinks that she is only defending him out of loyalty, since he was her customer for so long. He then tells Mrs. Kawakami that she should consider selling her bar to the developers who want to buy it. Mrs. Kawakami tries to reminisce with him about the old pleasure district, but Ono cannot bring himself to join. He feels that those days are too far gone, and that Mrs. Kawakami is simply unable to accept the loss.
Analysis
Within the structure of our novel, this short section serves a specific, important purpose. Within these pages we see Ono interacting with various acquaintances outside of his family: Shintaro, Kuroda, Enchi, and the Saitos. Through these interactions, Ishiguro shows us just how alienated his protagonist has become from his wider social circle. It doesn't dive deeply into Ono's past or tell us much about what he's done to make himself so unpopular. Rather, this section focuses on the here and now, or at least on the last several months of Ono's life. It shows us the kinds of choices that he has to make: apologize for the past, or defend it? Acknowledge the awkwardness his presence can create, or ignore it? Accommodate those who want to distance themselves from him, or confront them? The stakes are clarified and raised here, so that when we continue reading, we feel more curious about and invested in the stories of Ono's controversial past.
In every interaction Ono has within these pages, he's confronted with euphemistic, avoidant language. Ishiguro is particularly attentive to the way that language is used to obscure as well as reveal, and to the ways in which it can be weaponized to defend the speaker rather than make him more vulnerable. What this means on a narrative level is that people rarely say what they mean. Moreover, some words and phrases are repeated, so that they come to take on an outsize significance that goes far beyond their literal meaning. In this sense, these words and phrases are not only motifs—they are, in a sense, symbols, standing in for an abstract concept. The best instance of such a phrase is "the past." Repeatedly, characters refer to "the past," using these vague words to stand in for an unspeakable history of war, nationalism, loss, and shame. We can see this in Shintaro's request to Ono. Shintaro says "Perhaps I should be frank. The small points I refer to concern the past." Of course, this is a deeply ironic thing to say. The euphemism that Shintaro uses makes this statement anything but frank. But by using euphemistic language, Shintaro seems to hope that he can avoid a direct confrontation with Ono.
Ono, meanwhile, takes a certain pleasure in forcing people like Shintaro to say exactly what they mean. He essentially does this by refusing to acknowledge that he understands their euphemism. When Shintaro references "the past," Ono responds, "the past?" and then continues by telling Shintaro that he remembers none of the events Shintaro mentions. It isn't entirely clear to us just how honest he's being in this moment—is he pretending not to remember in order to antagonize his former student, or does he truly not remember? The answer is, we have to assume, somewhere in the middle. While Ono is clearly not as obtuse as he's letting on, he also lives in a state of emotional uncertainty. He seems bewildered by the changes that have taken place in his life, and unsure about which choices from his past were right and which ones were wrong. It seems that, by trying to force others to speak with him more honestly, he is hoping that someone might shed some light on the answers to these questions.
In some regards, Ono would even prefer to experience open antagonism than awkward avoidance. He enjoys the praise he gets from people like Shintaro, but he knows it to be a compromised flattery. Shintaro uses deference and praise as a kind of insurance, hoping that he will then be able to ask Ono for favors. Ono feels a temporary relief when he is treated like this, but he knows that it's a shallow version of the respect he craves. Similarly, he reaches out to Kuroda even after Enchi throws him out of Kuroda's apartment. It's clear that he'll hear only insults and painful war stories from Kuroda, since this is what he hears from Enchi, and since Kuroda refuses to meet with him. Ishiguro inserts Enchi instead of Kuroda into this scene on purpose—one gets the impression that Kuroda and Ono, because of their once-close relationship, would necessarily have a real and climactic confrontation if they ended up in the same room. Enchi can be completely honest with Ono, but since he's a stranger, his honestly doesn't have the piercing clarity that Kuroda's would. Yet Ono would rather have that difficult conversation with Kuroda so that he can fully understand what he's done, or what has been done to him. A certain amount of this desire might come from guilt as much as from a longing to understand. After all, most of the people in Ono's life from before the war either died or suffered terribly, as Kuroda did. When he is treated with mild dislike and spoken to with euphemistic language, Ono ends up in an unpleasant limbo: he is unable to live the kind of life he wants to, but he also isn't punished in a way that suits the crime he's being accused of. If what he's done is so terrible, Ono seems to feel, then he should have to suffer for it, and be given a chance to either defend himself or apologize.
To an extent, Ono creates this chance for himself during Noriko's miai. Dr. Saito, a liberal, respected man who does not face the stigma that Ono faces, tries to press Ono to reveal his political leanings. By bringing up the protest, and by having a suspiciously staged-looking argument with his family in which each member expresses a slightly-different view that nonetheless fits within the spectrum of socially acceptable stances, Saito hopes to prompt an honest statement from Ono. This situation isn't exactly like the conversation with Shintaro: Saito doesn't want the same thing that Shintaro wants, and he's a much more charming person, able to speak in a veiled manner with less obvious discomfort. Yet the veiled language is the same, and, just as he does with Shintaro, Ono steers the conversation by refusing to speak in euphemism and insisting on directness. Ono owns up to the suffering his actions caused, and he declares that he acted in such a way out of good intentions. This seems like the "correct" response, both in terms of Ono achieving emotional clarity and in terms of reassuring the Saitos that he's a trustworthy person. The question, though, is this: does Ono truly believe what he's saying? More likely, he knows that this is what the Saitos want to hear, and what he needs to say for his daughter's sake. The rest of the novel, in a sense, will largely be about whether this statement is honest. Ono will have to delve into his past to decide just how much harm he's caused, what his motives were, and whether those motives justify his actions.
