Quicksand (6 page)

(May 6, from Mrs. Kakiuchi Sonoko to Mitsuko. The dimensions of the envelope are
5
inches in length by 2¾ inches in width, with cherry and heart-shaped designs on a pink ground. There are five cherries in all, bright-red fruit on black stems. The hearts, of which there are ten, overlap vertically in pairs: those above are pale purple; those below, gold. The notched top and bottom of the envelope is also edged in gold. Ivy leaves printed in very light green cover the surface of the letter paper, over which ruled lines are drawn in silver dots. Mrs. Kakiuchi writes by pen, but the precision of her abbreviated characters shows that she must have had considerable training in calligraphy and no doubt excelled in the subject at school. Her writing suggests a softer version of the calligraphic style of Ono Gado—elegantly flowing, one might say, or, to put it less kindly, somewhat slippery and unctuous. It is singularly well matched to the design of the envelope.)

(May 11, from Mitsuko to Sonoko. Envelope length, 5½ inches; width, 3 inches. Centered on a ground of dusky rose, a checkerboard pattern two inches wide is scattered with four-leaf clovers; below it are two overlapping playing cards, an ace of hearts and a six of spades. The checkerboard and the clovers are silver, the heart card red, the spade black; and the letter paper is a plain dark brown, the text written on a slant, by pen with white ink, sloping down to the lower-right-hand corner. The writing is less skillful than Sonoko's and seems to have been rapidly scribbled, but the large, bold characters give an agreeable impression of uninhibited liveliness.)

(
Ta soeur
is of course French for “Your sister,” and
Clair
, or “light,” comes from the literal meaning of the name Mitsuko.
Ma cbére soeur
, “My dear sister,” and
Mlle Jardin
, “Miss Garden,” similarly refer to Sonoko. The reason for writing “Mlle Jardin” rather than “Mme Jardin” is explained as follows in a postscript.)

(May 18, from Sonoko to Mitsuko. Envelope length,
5
inches; width, 2
_7/8
inches. The design is crosswise on a crimson ground dotted in a silver splash pattern: above the tips of three large cherry blossom petals appears the upper half of a maiko dancing girl, seen from the back. This is an exceptionally rich five-color print of crimson, purple, black, silver, and blue; and the address is on the other side, since any writing on the face would be difficult to read. As for the letter itself, a sheet of paper 8½ by 5½ inches bears an almost 10-inch-long design of a white lily with a curved stem stretching off to the left, against a shaded border of faint pink, leaving only a third of the space ruled. Minute, delicate handwriting, its characters smaller than 8-point type, covers the page.)

. . . Now I'd like to tell you more about the quarrel I described in that letter. Maybe I'm repeating myself, but my husband and I were basically incompatible; it seemed to be physiological too. We never enjoyed a happy marital life. According to him, I was too self-centered. It's not that we're incompatible, he said; you just won't make an effort. Even though I'm trying my best, it's impossible, with your attitude. There's no such thing as a perfect marriage. That's how it may look from outside, but do you suppose anybody has no complaints, if you really knew them? I wouldn't be surprised if people envied us too; maybe we
are
happy, compared with most. You've been so spoiled by your sheltered upbringing that you expect too much, you don't know how lucky you are. A person like you would never be satisfied, even if she had an ideal husband.

That's the kind of thing he kept saying, but his worldly-wise, know-it-all manner only provoked me all the more. “I don't think you've ever felt deeply about
anything
,” I told him scathingly. “A man like you is simply not human.” Maybe he
was
trying to get along with me, but our temperaments clashed. He treated me like a child, as if he was humoring me, and that always got on my nerves. Once I even said: “No wonder you think I'm childish, since you were so brilliant at college, but to me you're a living fossil!”

Did that man have any
passion
in his heart? I asked myself. Did he ever cry or show anger or astonishment, like other people? My husband's cold nature didn't just make me feel miserable and lonely; before long it stimulated a kind of spiteful curiosity in me. And that was what led to my earlier love affair, and to the one with Mitsuko, and to everything that happened afterward.

ANYWAY
, that earlier affair began right after we were married. I was an innocent young girl, still a little timid and naive, and I felt guilty toward my husband. But by this time, as my letter shows, I had no such feeling. To tell the truth, I'd gone through so much, all unknown to him, that I myself had become quite worldly and more than a little clever at concealing what I was up to. He was blind to that and kept on treating me like a child. At first I could hardly bear his condescending manner, but when I got annoyed he made fun of me even more, until finally I thought: All right, if I seem childish to you, I'll encourage it, I'll pull the wool over your eyes! I can put on a show of being a horribly spoiled little girl, and fret and coax whenever I want to get my own way. So just go ahead, if it pleases you to consider me a child, I said to myself, but aren't
you
the gullible one? Getting around a man like you is the easiest thing in the world!

Mocking him became more and more enjoyable, and I amazed myself by own own skill at playacting. After even a few words from him I would burst into tears or begin shouting angrily. . . .

I'm sure you know this better than I, since you're a novelist, but our state of mind does seem to change completely, depending on circumstances, doesn't it? Before, I would have felt a pang of regret, and thought: Ah, I shouldn't have done that. But by then I was rebellious enough to ridicule my own faintheartedness, asking myself why I was so weak, how I could be so easily intimidated. . . . And even if it was wrong to be secretly in love with another man, what was so bad about being in love with a woman, someone of my own sex? No matter how close we became, a husband had no right to interfere—that was the kind of argument I used to deceive myself. The truth is, my feeling for Mitsuko was ten times, a hundred times stronger than what I had felt for that other man.

Another reason for my boldness was that from his student days my husband was such a dreadfully fussy, proper person that he had no trouble winning my father's confidence. He was so devoted to “common sense,” so incapable of understanding anything the least strange or out of the ordinary, that I was sure he would never question my relations with Mitsuko. He would think we were just friends. That's how it was at first—he had no idea how intimate we were—but as time went on he must have begun to be suspicious. No wonder, since I always used to stop at his office on my way home from school, but lately I'd go back alone, ahead of him. And then, about once every three days, Mitsuko would be sure to come over, and the two of us would spend hours closeted together in that upstairs room. It was only to be expected that he'd find it curious, what with the picture never getting done, although I said I was using her as a model. Of course I occasionally went to Mitsuko's house, after I warned her that he seemed to suspect something.

“We have to be careful, Mitsu,” I'd say. “Today I'll come to your place, shall I?”

. . . No, Mitsuko's mother didn't have any qualms about me. She knew it was the city councilman who was behind those rumors at school. And I didn't want to stir up any doubts either, so when I visited them I always tried to ingratiate myself. She became a great admirer of “Mrs. Kakiuchi” and told Mitsuko: “I'm glad you've made such a good friend.” As things stood, nothing kept me from telephoning or visiting their house every day . . . but besides her mother there was her maid, Ume, the one mentioned in the letter, and other prying eyes. It wasn't the same as being at my house.

“This won't do after all,” Mitsuko declared. “Now that my mother trusts you, it'll be a shame if we spoil it.” Then she had a suggestion. “I know! How about the new hot-spring resort at Takarazuka?”

So we went off to Takarazuka. As we were going into one of the private baths there, Mitsuko said: “You're so unfair, Sister! You always want to look at me naked, but you never show yourself to me.”

“I'm not being unfair,” I protested. “Your skin is so beautiful I'm embarrassed to let you see how much darker mine is. I just hope it won't disgust you.”

And in fact when I bared myself completely to her for the first time, I did feel uncomfortable beside her. Not only was Mitsuko's skin a flawless creamy white; she had a slender, superbly proportioned body. By comparison, my own body suddenly seemed ugly. . . .

“You're beautiful yourself, Sister!” she told me. “We're really no different.” Later I came to believe her and thought nothing of it. But that first time I felt myself shrink back.