Toru Okada’s break with Kumiko’s father was the decisive rupture that ended his formal connection to the Wataya family. It grew out of a marriage initially permitted on the authority of Mr. Honda, but culminated in a violent argument after a year of dutiful family dinners; Toru’s relief at ending the relationship was accompanied by the loss of access to Mr. Honda’s monthly counsel.

Background and Family Conditions

Toru and Kumiko had not sought out Mr. Honda because they believed in his spiritual powers. They visited him because Kumiko’s father made it a condition of their marriage. Toru expected little welcome from the family: he was twenty-four, without professional standing or prospects, while Kumiko’s father had risen from a modest farming family in Niigata to become an elite Ministry of Transport official after studying at the University of Tokyo. Toru regarded him as arrogant and rigidly committed to hierarchy.

The reception Toru received when he formally asked for Kumiko’s hand was exceptionally cold. The eventual permission to marry came through Mr. Honda, who questioned the family about Toru and judged him the best possible partner for Kumiko. Because her parents trusted Mr. Honda, they accepted the match despite their reluctance. The marriage therefore began with Toru admitted into the family on someone else’s authority, not through any warmth between him and Kumiko’s father.

The Break

For a year after the marriage, Toru and Kumiko visited her parents for dinner twice a month. Toru experienced these meals as humiliating and isolating: the dining table seemed to stretch like a railway station, leaving him separated from the family’s conversation at the far end. The visits continued with mechanical regularity until Toru and Kumiko’s father had a violent argument.

The argument made the separation complete. Toru later described himself as someone who rarely argued, but who went all the way once he did. After saying what he needed to say, he found that his anger had disappeared; what remained was relief, as though a long-carried burden had been lifted. He even felt some sympathy for the difficulties his father-in-law had faced, though he continued to regard the life he had made as repellent.

Consequences for Kumiko and the Wataya Family

Toru told Kumiko that he would never see her parents again, while leaving her free to visit them without him. She made no effort to do so, saying she had never particularly enjoyed the visits. The break thus became more than Toru’s personal estrangement: it also coincided with Kumiko’s withdrawal from her parents.

Noboru Wataya was living with his parents when the argument took place. He withdrew without speaking, a response Toru did not find surprising; Noboru had generally avoided personal contact with him unless necessary. Once Toru stopped visiting the family, there was no practical reason for the two men to meet. Kumiko and Noboru were not close, and neither made a point of maintaining contact, so the family rupture also left the siblings with little occasion to see one another.

The Lost Link to Mr. Honda

The break also ended the visits to Mr. Honda. Toru could not continue attending when he knew his father-in-law was paying, and he and Kumiko could not afford to pay for the visits themselves. They gradually forgot about Mr. Honda amid the demands of young adulthood, and Toru later recalled that the monthly meetings had been among his least painful obligations to his wife’s family.

That forgotten connection acquired renewed significance in Toru’s thoughts. After Mr. Honda and Malta Kano had both spoken to him about water, Toru recalled Mr. Honda’s warning and began to worry about the repeated subject. His thoughts turned to the battlefield at Nomonhan, the river beyond the Soviet positions, and the thirst associated with the scene. The severed family relationship had ended the routine through which Mr. Honda’s counsel reached Toru, but it had not erased the warning from his memory.