Quicksand Read online

  As for the time the three of us went to the Shochiku Theater, not so long before, it was Mitsuko who brought us together:

  “Why don’t you meet Sister for once,” she had told him, “instead of being so prejudiced against her? Just by talking to her you could tell what sort of person she is and whether or not she knows your secret.” She thought it would keep him from saying anything to me in private, but all evening he was strangely morose and silent.

  “Do you suppose he was being so quiet because he already meant to approach me behind your back?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, but he was always afraid I might throw him over and run away with you, Sister.”

  “I’m sure that once he brought off the marriage he’d have nothing more to do with me. I don’t need you anymore, he’d say.”

  “All that talk about getting married was just to convince himself; he really doesn’t believe it’s possible. He knows if he tried to force me I’d rather die. But with you there, Sister, he doesn’t have to worry about my being stolen by another man, so he’d like us to go on the way we are.”

  That day, too, Watanuki was waiting for Mitsuko, but she said she hated the thought of seeing him and hoped I could get him to leave. I told her it would only make him more suspicious than ever; things would get even worse. Better not to mention what we talked about that day, and let me help her find a way to break off with him—I’d manage it somehow, even if it killed me! I’d kill him, if I had to! Now Mitsuko and I were both crying, but I did my best to encourage her before I left.

  . . . Well, judging by the date on the vow—July 18, that is—it must have been the nineteenth, the next day, that Mitsuko and I had our talk. Around then my husband finished up a case that had been keeping him very busy, and he suggested taking a summer vacation.

  “How about going to Karuizawa this year?” he asked.

  That was the last thing I wanted to do. Mitsuko seems to be feeling awfully lonely these days, I told him; she can’t go anywhere in her present condition, and she keeps saying how much she envies me. If we must leave, I’d rather wait till it’s cooler and go to the mountains in a place like Hakone, not so far away. My husband looked disappointed, but I ignored him and for another two weeks hurried off to Kasayamachi every morning as soon as he left the house. Anyway, from that time on, Mitsuko was like a different person, gentler, more vulnerable: not just a devastating beauty but now suddenly like a dove under the eye of a hawk, all the more touching, but anxious-looking whenever we met, without even the ghost of her old radiant smile. I felt devoured by anxiety myself, from the fear, much as I tried to deny the thought, that she might do something rash.

  “Mitsu,” I told her, “at least be a little more cheerful in front of Eijiro. If you’re not, he’ll get suspicious and there’s no telling what he may do. I’ll deal with him, I promise you—after I’ve finished, he won’t dare show his face in public! Just bear up a little longer, even if it makes you so miserable.”

  But how could I attack Watanuki? He was far more skillful at manipulating people, getting them under his control, and I had no idea how to go about it. Even as I spoke out so defiantly, I was wondering what to say if he happened to be waiting for me in the street outside the inn. There was nothing shameful about refusing to honor that kind of deceitful agreement, but still I felt vaguely guilty for having broken my word, and every time I went out I shuddered to think I might hear that repulsive voice calling “Sister” behind me. Fortunately I never did. Once we had exchanged vows, he seemed to feel he had accomplished his aim. That was lucky for me, I thought.

  Meanwhile, day after day, Mitsuko kept asking if I couldn’t think of something. “I can’t stand it anymore, Sister!” she would say. At last she came up with the desperate plan of enticing Watanuki to run away with her. She’d tell me in advance where they were going, and then when the time was ripe, after it got into the newspapers and caused a stir, I was to lead the police to them. . . . Watanuki wouldn’t venture near her again after that experience! And she was quite ready to sacrifice her own reputation.

  “He seems to have guessed what we’ve been talking about, so we’d better act quickly,” Mitsuko said.

  “If he has, I’m sure he’ll come to see me about our agreement. Let’s just wait to use your plan as a last resort.”

  . . . To tell the truth, at that time I was so worried I almost came to ask your advice again. But I didn’t have the nerve, and Ume said she didn’t know what to do either. Finally I was at my wit’s end; I thought I’d have to ask for my husband’s help. Maybe I could confess my lies, up to a point, and see if he knew some legal means of protecting us—maybe I could even persuade him to sympathize with Mitsuko.

  But then one day while I was at the Kasayamachi inn, my husband suddenly turned up, without even telephoning ahead. It was around four-thirty; he was on his way home from the office. I was with Mitsuko when one of the maids came rushing upstairs, calling my name:

  “Mrs. Kakiuchi! Your husband is here! He says he wants to see you both—what should I do?”

  Mitsuko and I looked at each other, stunned.

  “Why on earth did he come here?” I exclaimed. “Anyway, I’ll go talk to him—just stay where you are, Mitsu.” And I went down to the entrance.

  25

  “THIS WAS REALLY HARD to find!” my husband said, standing by the lattice door at the entranceway. He had just been to the Minatomachi station to see someone off to Ise, he told me, and as he walked along Shinsaibashi on his way back, it occurred to him that the place where Mitsuko was staying must be nearby. I’d certainly be here too, he thought, and so on the spur of the moment he decided to drop in. He had no particular business, but since I was always going there to visit her, he felt it would be impolite of him not to stop in while he was in the neighborhood. And he wanted by all means to pay his respects to Mitsuko and to inquire how she was getting along. If possible, he’d like to take us to dinner. Wouldn’t she be able to go out for a little? he asked, as innocent as could be. But it seemed to me there was more to it than that.

  “Lately she’s got so big she doesn’t want to meet anyone,” I said. “She never thinks of going out.”

  “Well, in that case, I’ll only talk to her a moment.”

  I couldn’t refuse.

  “Let me go see how she feels.”

  “What shall we do, Mitsu?” I asked her, after telling her what my husband had said.

  “What shall we do, really? . . . What did you say to him, Sister?”

  “I told him you were so big you weren’t seeing anyone, but he insisted.”

  “Maybe he has some reason.”

  “Yes, that’s what I think.”

  “I’d better see him, then. . . . I was asking Haru, and she suggested tying a piece of sash-filler around my waist and putting my kimono on over it. I think I’ll try that—now I really am stuffing padding around my stomach!”

  Mitsuko borrowed the padding from Haru, one of the inn maids, and told her to have the visitor wait downstairs. I began helping Mitsuko get dressed, and Haru came back up and said: “I asked him to come inside, but he didn’t want to. He told me he’d say hello to you at the entrance, since it would only be for a minute or two.”

  Then we’d have to hurry, we said, and the maid and I hastily finished dressing Mitsuko. If it had been winter, we could have easily fooled him somehow or other, but she was only wearing a thin undergarment and an unlined kimono of Akashi silk crepe, and we simply couldn’t make her look pregnant.

  “Sister, what month did you tell him I was in?”

  “I forget exactly what I said, but I told him it was noticeable, so you ought to be six or seven months along.”

  “I wonder if this makes me look like six months.”

  “The whole thing has to be puffed out rounder.”

  With that, all three of us began to giggle.

  “Why don’t I bring some more stuffing?” Haru said, and she came back with towels and other things.
r />   “Go downstairs again and tell him the young lady doesn’t want anyone else to see her,” Mitsuko said. “Tell him she rarely goes near the front entrance, and ask him to please come in. Show him to the darkest room you have, so I won’t be too visible.”

  After we had kept him waiting about half an hour, we managed to finish making a six-months’ stomach for her and went to meet him.

  “I told her it didn’t matter, but she said she couldn’t receive you until she changed to a proper kimono,” I explained, looking closely at my husband to see how he would react.

  He was sitting there stiffly in his business suit, knees together, with his briefcase at his side.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you,” he told Mitsuko. “For a long time I’ve been wanting to come to see how you are, and I happened to be going by just now.” Maybe it was only my imagination, but he seemed to be staring at her stomach.

  “You’re very kind,” Mitsuko said. “I’m afraid I’ve been imposing on Sister.” And she murmured a few ingratiating remarks to apologize for spoiling our vacation plans and then said how grateful she was to me for coming to cheer her up. All the while she was delicately screening her stomach with her fan. Haru had been clever enough to choose a room so dim that it seemed to need a lamp even in daytime. Mitsuko was sitting in its farthest corner, and what with that airless room and all the stuffing inside her kimono, she was panting and dripping with sweat. She looked utterly convincing. A first-rate performance, I thought.

  My husband promptly got up to leave. “I’m really very sorry to have bothered you,” he said. “Please visit us as soon as you’re able to go out.” Then he said curtly to me: “It’s getting late; why don’t you come along?”

  “Something seems to be up, so I’ll go home now,” I whispered to Mitsuko. “Be sure to wait for me here tomorrow.”

  Reluctantly I went along with him from the inn. “Let’s take a bus,” he said, and we walked to the car stop at Yotsubashi. After that we took the Hanshin train home. All the way, my husband maintained a bad-humored silence; he would barely answer when I tried to talk to him.

  As soon as we entered the house he asked me to come along upstairs; without even pausing to change into a kimono, he started marching up the steps. I followed him, ready for the worst. He banged the bedroom door shut behind us and, indicating a chair facing him, told me to sit down. For a while he said nothing and seemed lost in thought, breathing heavily.

  I spoke up first, to break the painful silence:

  “Tell me, why did you suddenly come to that place today?”

  “Mm . . .” Still looking thoughtful, he said: “I have something I’d like to show you.” He took a manila envelope from his pocket and spread its contents out on the table before us. When I saw it, I turned pale. How on earth had that got into his hands? “It’s definitely your signature here, isn’t it?” he demanded, thrusting that written oath before my eyes.

  “I want you to know I don’t expect to lose my temper over this, depending on your attitude,” he went on. “And if you wonder how I got hold of it, I’ll tell you. Only, first of all, I want you to make clear whether you actually signed this document or whether it’s a forgery.”

  Ah, I had been forestalled by Watanuki! My copy was hidden away in a locked drawer, so this must be Watanuki’s—maybe he had drawn it up just for this purpose! Of course I’d been thinking of having my husband intervene, and even of confiding in him about Mitsuko, but after his surprise visit to Kasayamachi I could hardly tell him that her pregnancy was just a fake. That would only make the lying worse—if I’d known it would come to this, I would have confessed to him at the time!

  “Listen, I won’t know what to believe if you refuse to talk. Hadn’t you better be honest with me?”

  My husband tried to suppress his anger. His tone softened, and he said quietly: “Since you don’t answer, I suppose I can assume that you signed it.”

  After that, he began to tell me what had happened. Five or six days earlier, Watanuki suddenly appeared at his office in Imabashi and asked to see him. Wondering what his business could be, my husband had him shown into the reception room and went to talk to him.

  “The fact is, I came to call on you today because I have an urgent request to make,” Watanuki had said. “Probably you’re aware that I am engaged to be married to Tokumitsu Mitsuko, and Mitsuko is already carrying my child, and your wife has come between us and caused all sorts of trouble. Recently Mitsuko has been getting colder toward me day by day; as things stand, I don’t know if she’ll be willing to marry me. So won’t you please speak to your wife about it?”

  “How can my wife be causing you any trouble?” my husband asked. “I’m not familiar with the details of the situation, but she tells me she sympathizes with you both and hopes you’ll be married as soon as possible.”

  Then Watanuki said: “You don’t seem to understand the actual relationship between your wife and Mitsuko.” He was hinting that we were back on the same old terms.

  My husband was not inclined to trust a man he had never met before; and it was hard to imagine that a woman who was carrying his child could be so closely involved with another woman. He began to wonder if the man was out of his mind.

  “It’s natural for you to doubt me,” Watanuki went on, “but here is the clear proof.” Then he showed him the document.

  When my husband read it, he felt distressed that his own wife was still deceiving him, but what distressed him even more was that, quite unknown to him, she and a total stranger had sealed a pledge of kinship. To begin with, it really angered him to think how this fellow, who had exchanged vows with another man’s wife, had boldly come in to his office and displayed it to him, without a word of apology, grinning triumphantly, for all the world like a detective who has just got his hands on a damning piece of evidence.

  “I think you’ll agree that the signature is your wife’s, won’t you?”

  “Yes, I suppose it looks like her handwriting,” my husband replied icily. “But first of all I want to know about the man who signed it.”

  “That is myself. I am Watanuki.” He looked as calm as if the sarcasm was lost on him.

  “And what are these brownish marks below the signatures?”

  Watanuki nonchalantly started to describe the process of sealing the pledge in blood, but my husband angrily interrupted him.

  “According to this document, the relations between you and Mitsuko and my wife, Sonoko, are prescribed in minute detail, but there’s no consideration whatever for me as her husband. My position is disregarded. Since you are also one of the signatories, you obviously share responsibility for it, and I’d like you to explain your role in the matter. All the more so because it appears that this wasn’t Sonoko’s idea; she seems to have been drawn into it against her will.”

  Far from showing any sign of shame, Watanuki responded with another self-satisfied grin.

  “As you can see in our agreement, Sonoko and I are linked by Mitsuko, and that relationship has always been in conflict with your interests as Sonoko’s husband. If your wife had had any regard for you, she wouldn’t have formed such a close tie with Mitsuko, and she would never have exchanged a vow like this. That’s precisely what I would have wished, but I have no way to prevent another man’s wife from doing as she pleases. In my opinion, this agreement recognizing their relationship amounts to a great concession to Mrs. Kakiuchi.”

  Now he was implying that he resented my husband’s failure to control me. There was nothing illicit about forming a bond of kinship, he said, and so he himself felt he had not behaved immorally.

  26

  AND SO, as much as my husband loathed that document, he decided he had better try to get it into his possession. He felt he was dealing with an irrational person, and there was no telling what a fellow like that would do with it.

  “I understand completely,” he assured Watanuki. “If everything is as you say, I’ll fulfill my responsibilities without any urging. But I’m
in the position of having met you for the first time today, and I need to hear my wife’s side of the story. So won’t you lend me this copy for a while? If I show it to her, she may very well confess. But if I don’t, she can be extremely stubborn.”

  At that, before saying whether he would lend it, Watanuki cautiously put the document down on his lap.

  “And what are you going to do if Mrs. Kakiuchi confesses?”

  “What I’ll do depends on the circumstances. I can’t tell you now. I’m not going to accuse my wife just because you asked me to. Please understand that I’m not acting out of your interests; I’m acting for the sake of my own honor and the happiness of my family.”

  Watanuki frowned slightly.

  “I’m not asking you to do anything for my sake,” he said. “I came to see you because I thought your interests and mine happened to coincide. Surely you must recognize that.”

  “I haven’t time to worry about your interests,” my husband then declared, “and I don’t want to either. Excuse me, but I refuse to be dragged into this affair by you. I’ll deal with my wife as I see fit.”

  “Oh, if that’s how you feel, it can’t be helped,” Watanuki replied. “The fact is, I have no connection with you myself, so I’m under no obligation to you. But if your wife runs away with Mitsuko, I won’t be the only one to suffer. I began to think it would be wrong of me to keep silent, knowing what I do.” He peered intently into my husband’s eyes. “Once it came to that, you’d be dragged into the affair whether you liked it or not.”

  “Yes, I understand your concern,” my husband said, being sarcastic again. “Thank you for your kindness.”

  “Thanking me isn’t enough! I don’t believe you’d be so foolish as to let your wife run off, but just suppose she did. What would you do then? Would you resign yourself to it and say good riddance, or would you go after her wherever she went and bring her back home? You’ve got to make that decision!”