Quicksand (15 page)

Of course I didn't believe that Mitsuko was more in love with me. “You must be mistaken about that,” I said, almost consolingly. “Look, Mr. Watanuki, you've just been worrying too much.”

“No,” he protested. “I'd like to think so, but that's wrong. Sister, you don't know Mitsu's true character.”

In his view, Mitsuko was the sort of person who found it amusing to pretend to me that she loved Watanuki, and to Watanuki that she loved me. But her real preference was for me. Otherwise she wouldn't have made up that story about the hospital and come to see me, would she, after we had broken off like that?

“What did Mitsu say when she came to your house?” he asked me. “How did she ever manage to get back together with you? I heard about it later, but I don't know any of the details.”

So I told him all about the convulsions and hemorrhaging, to his astonishment.

“Is
that
so?” he exclaimed over and over. “I never dreamed she caused such a commotion! Of course I knew she was pregnant, but I thought she should go ahead and have the baby, so I warned her against trying to get rid of it or doing anything unnatural. I was angry when I heard that she went to ask your advice. But still, even if she did secretly take some kind of medicine, I'm sure she was faking all the pain and hemorrhaging. What do you suppose that so-called blood was?”

It seemed unthinkable to him that she would go to such lengths for a reconciliation unless she loved me. I could see that, but then why did she keep on meeting Watanuki? Wouldn't she have given him up long ago, if she
really
loved me? That puzzled me, but he said Mitsuko would never expose her own vulnerability, no matter how much she was attracted by someone; she'd want to manipulate the other person into falling in love with
her
. Since she was as vain as she was beautiful, she felt somehow deprived unless she was being worshiped. She seemed convinced that it diminished her value to yield to anyone. That's why she was using Watanuki to make me jealous, and to preserve her own superiority.

“One thing more,” he said. “She's afraid of what I might do if she talked about leaving me. As matters stand, I don't think she'd dare. But if she ever did, I'd stake my life against it.” As he spoke, he stared hard at me with his reptilian red eyes.

“
IS IT GETTING LATE
for you, Sister?” Watanuki asked me. “Do you mind talking a little longer?”

“Not at all,” I said. “I'm perfectly willing.”

“Then let's go back the same way, shall we?”

We turned back from Kitahama and began walking south, down the same street.

“It's obvious Mitsuko has made us into enemies, and I'm the one who's going to lose out.”

“I can't believe that,” I said. “Even if Mitsu and I were passionately in love with each other, people would say it's unnatural, so I'd be the one she jilted, if it came to that. Even her family would be sympathetic to you, but nobody would sympathize with me.”

“But an unnatural love is to your advantage, Sister. She can find any number of partners of the opposite sex, while there's really no one to take your place. So I could be thrown over anytime, but she won't jilt you.”

. . . Yes, and he told me that Mitsuko could carry on a lesbian love whoever she married. She could run through one husband after another without the slightest effect on it. Our love, Mitsu's and mine, would endure beyond the love of any husband and wife.

“Ah, how unlucky I am!” he sighed, once again in that melodramatic style. Then he thought for a moment and went on quietly: “Please, Sister, be honest with me. Would you rather see Mitsu take me as her husband, or another man?”

Clearly, from my point of view, if Mitsuko married anyone I'd prefer to have her marry Watanuki, who already knew of our relationship. That's what I told him.

“Then there's no reason for us to be enemies, is there?”

From now on let's join forces, he said. If we stop being jealous and work together, neither one of us will be victimized. . . . It's only because we've been rivals that Mitsuko could manipulate us any way she pleased. Why not begin getting together in private now and then, to keep in touch? Of course that means we should come to a complete understanding; it wouldn't do to misinterpret each other's positions. He wasn't just parroting Mitsuko's excuses, he assured me, but it seemed foolish to be jealous, when you consider how different homosexual love is from heterosexual. It would be a fatal mistake to try to monopolize the love of such a dazzlingly beautiful woman. Even to share it between us was a luxury, when you could easily imagine five or ten more admirers idolizing her. If he were the only man and I the only woman, wouldn't we be the two happiest people in the world? That's something we ought to agree on, grasping that happiness for ourselves forever, before someone else takes it away.

“How do you feel about it, Sister?” he asked.

“If that's what you sincerely want, I'll promise to go along with it,” I told him.

“I'm relieved to hear you say that. Otherwise I'd have made the whole affair public, and that would have ruined everything—not just for myself, even for you! But you're like an older sister to Mitsu, and you can be mine too. I don't have a real sister, so I'll look out for you as if you belonged to my family. Think of me as your very own younger brother, and don't hesitate to confide in me if anything troubles you. Someone like me would be a remorseless enemy, but if I'm on your side I'll give my life for you, Sister. If you make it possible for me to marry Mitsu, I'll do whatever you want, even if it means forgoing my marital rights.”

“Would you actually do that for me?”

“Indeed I would! On my honor as a man. As long as I live, I'll never forget my debt to you.”

So we walked all the way back to Umezono, shook hands firmly, and parted, after agreeing to meet there whenever anything important came up.

Somehow, once I was on my way home, my heart began pounding out of sheer joy. Did Mitsuko love me that much? Far more than she loved Watanuki? Oh, could I be dreaming? . . . Only yesterday I'd been convinced they were using me as their plaything, and now, suddenly, everything had changed. I felt almost bewitched. Thinking over what Watanuki told me, I had to admit it was unlikely that Mitsuko would have made such a scene if she didn't love me. Why would she even want to see me, if she already had a man of her own? . . . And another thing, going back to when it all started, the time when those malicious rumors circulated about the model for my Kannon portrait: Mitsuko herself must have realized from my behavior how I felt about her. Maybe when she passed me in the street she thought: That girl has an eye for me! She'd watch out for a chance to lead me on. Of course I was eager to strike up a conversation with her, but even though she had kept her distance, her radiant smile lured me into making an approach. And the first time I saw her in the nude, I was the one who took the initiative, but only after being tempted by her seductive manner. . . . All in all, as much as I adored her, when I asked myself how I got into this relationship, I couldn't help thinking I had been affected by those rumors at school, coming just when I was feeling so dissatisfied with my husband. Mitsuko might have perceived that weakness in me and planted the suggestion before I was aware of it. In fact, even the marriage talk with the M family seemed to have been a pretext. . . .

Anyway, I felt that I'd been caught in my own trap, put in the position of making all the advances. Of course I couldn't believe everything Watanuki told me, but maybe he didn't actually advise Mitsuko what to do the night their clothes were stolen; maybe she even had someone else pretend to call from the SK Hospital for her, if the man's voice wasn't Watanuki's—once I began to have such doubts, there was no end to it, and yet, above all, why would she keep her pregnancy secret from me? To be so coldhearted, after making me worry so much—surely that meant she had nothing but contempt for me. Or could it be that he had revealed her secret out of a wish to drive us apart? Did he only mean to make a temporary ally of me, so I wouldn't interfere with his plans, and then drop me as soon as they were married?

The more I thought about it, the more I distrusted him. But about four or five days later, there was Watanuki waiting for me outside the inn again.

“Just a moment, please,” he said. “I have something I'd like to talk over with you today, Sister. Won't you come along to that tearoom?”

So I went to Umezono with him, up to a quiet room on the second floor, and listened to what he had to say.

“If we don't put our promise to be brother and sister in writing, I'm afraid you'll never really trust me,” he began. “It makes me uneasy too, so why don't we do away with all the suspicion by signing a written oath? In fact, I've already prepared a document with that in mind.”

As he spoke, he took from his pocket what appeared to be a pair of legal contracts.

. . . Just look at this, please. It's one of the vows we signed that day.

(
Author's note
: It seems worthwhile to give the full text of the document that Mrs. Kakiuchi provided, not only to introduce its contents at this stage in her narrative but also because it will serve to indicate something of the character of the man who drafted it, Mr. Watanuki.)

Kakiuchi Sonoko
. Born May 8, 1904. Residence: No. XX, Koroen, Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture. Wife of Kakiuchi Kotaro, Attorney at Law

Watanuki Eijiro
. Born October 21, 1901. Residence: No. XX, 5-chome, Awajicho, Higashi-ku, Osaka. Second son of Watanuki Chosaburo, company employee