Quicksand Read online

  “I can’t tell how I’d behave until the time came, and I won’t make any promises to others or let them interfere with what I do. All the more so because relations between husband and wife ought to be settled between themselves.”

  “But still, no matter what happens, you don’t intend to divorce your wife, do you?”

  Watanuki’s officious manner was so exasperating that my husband told him to stop worrying; it was none of his business whether or not he divorced his wife.

  But Watanuki kept right on: “No, I suppose you’re far too beholden to her family,” and “You’d be showing a lack of gratitude, wouldn’t you, if you threw her out just because of some indiscretion”—things like that. Probably he’d heard enough about us from Mitsuko to be well aware of our family affairs.

  “You’re such a fine gentleman I can’t believe you’d do anything unworthy of you.”

  That kind of talk was more than my husband could stand.

  “Why the devil did you come here?” he exploded. “Must you keep blabbing on and on about something that’s none of your business? I’ll do my duty as a gentleman without any instruction from you! But please understand, I can’t guarantee it’ll serve your interests.”

  “Oh? Well, in that case, I’m sorry but I can’t lend my copy to you.” Then Watanuki took up the document, carefully reinserted it in its envelope, and put it away in an inside pocket.

  My husband had indeed wanted it, but now he decided there was no use pursuing the matter. That would only have shown weakness.

  “All right. I won’t ask you to lend it to me against your will,” he said. “Please feel free to take it back with you. Only, there’s one thing you need to understand: since I’ve been prevented from showing it to my wife, I can hardly accept it as genuine if she denies what you say. Naturally I would take her word over a stranger’s.”

  “Well, doting on a woman is a man’s undoing,” Watanuki muttered, as if to himself. “Anyway, your wife has a copy; if you look for it, it’ll certainly turn up. Of course you needn’t really bother to do that. Just have her show you her arm, and I’m sure you’ll find the proof still there.”

  With that ugly insinuation, he politely excused himself: “I’m very sorry to have disturbed you.” And he took his leave.

  My husband saw him out to the corridor and came back into his office with a sigh of relief, thinking: What a dreadful fellow! But about five minutes later he heard another knock at the door, and it was Watanuki again.

  “Hello. I’m sorry to keep bothering you,” he said, with a curiously amiable smile. “Could I just have a little more of your time?” For some reason, he seemed an entirely different person.

  Startled, and once again repelled by his manner, my husband watched in silence as Watanuki came up to the table, bowed, and, without waiting to be invited, sat down in the same chair as before.

  “I was in the wrong just now,” he said. “But I’m on the verge of losing the woman I’d give my life for, so I’ve been blinded by my own feelings and couldn’t appreciate how you must feel. I didn’t mean any harm by it—please forgive my rudeness.”

  “Is that what you came back to tell me?”

  “Yes. After I left your office I thought it over and realized I was wrong. Somehow I couldn’t rest until I came to apologize.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” my husband replied sarcastically.

  “Uh, yes. . . .” Watanuki sat there squirming hesitantly, still with that odd forced smile. “The fact is, you see, I came here partly to make that request of you and partly to apologize, all because I’m in such an agonizing predicament that I can’t find a way out. Just try to imagine my wretchedness, the tears I can’t begin to shed! If you understand how miserable I feel, I’m willing to lend you the document.”

  “And how, exactly, am I supposed to understand that?”

  “I’ll be honest with you: what I fear most is that you might divorce your wife. If you do, she’ll be so desperate she’ll cause even more trouble, and I’ll lose all hope of marrying Mitsuko. Not that I think you’re likely to divorce her, but I can’t help worrying about Mrs. Kakiuchi running off somewhere with Mitsuko. I’m sorry to have to insist on this, but if you don’t keep a strict watch over your wife, she’ll be sure to run away one of these days; when that happens, even if you want to forgive her, you may find it’s impossible, considering other people’s attitudes. Just to think of it makes me feel the danger pressing in on me. It’s so bad I can’t sleep at night!”

  As he spoke, Watanuki bowed over till his forehead touched the table.

  “Please, I’m begging you,” he whimpered. “That’s how it is, though you may think I’m being selfish, just asking for what I want. But consider my predicament, and start to take responsibility for controlling your wife. Don’t let her get away from you, ever. I know you can’t tie her down, maybe you can’t prevent her from escaping, but promise me that if she does, you’ll go right after her and bring her safely home. If you agree to that, I’ll turn my copy of the vow over to you.”

  And he added: “I don’t need to repeat myself. I know you love your wife very much and you’d never divorce her, but I’d like it to come from your own mouth. If you have any sympathy for me, can’t you please tell me what is in your heart?”

  The more my husband heard, the more disgusted he felt. Why couldn’t the man simply have said what he meant all along, instead of prying into their affairs and rubbing him the wrong way? What a slippery fellow—changing his attitude with every change in your response. Any woman would be irritated by that, Mitsuko too, no doubt. That was another of his disagreeable traits.

  By then my husband was beginning to feel almost sorry for him.

  “Then will you swear you’ll never make this document public?” he asked. “Will you leave it in my custody as long as I wish? If you agree, I’m prepared to accept your conditions.”

  “As you’ve seen, our vow itself says it can’t be shown to anyone without the prior consent of the other party, but it’s clear that Mrs. Kakiuchi has broken faith, so I can do anything I like with it. I could use it to make trouble for both of you. But I’m not a vengeful person, you know; that’s why I brought it here, ready to entrust it to you. Anyway, no agreement is more than a scrap of paper unless you’re sincere. So go ahead and take it home, if it’s any use to you. I’ll be satisfied as long as you promise to observe the conditions I’ve mentioned.”

  Why didn’t he tell me that in the first place? my husband wondered. “Very well, then,” he said. “I’ll take charge of it for the present.”

  But as he was about to hand over the document, Watanuki hesitated. “Just a moment, please. I’m sorry to have to ask this, but could you make out a receipt, for future reference?”

  My husband agreed, and wrote: “I hereby acknowledge receipt of the following . . .” At which point Watanuki interrupted him.

  “Please add a little more to that.”

  “What do you want me to write?”

  Then Watanuki dictated a whole series of requirements:

  The undersigned pledges to observe the following conditions so long as he has custody of this document:

  1. He will take responsibility for his wife and will see that she does not violate proper wifely behavior.

  2. He will not under any circumstances divorce his wife.

  3. He will assume the obligation to present the document, or to return it, at any time upon demand of its rightful owner.

  4. In case of loss of the document while in his custody, he will not be released from the obligations specified in the first and second provisions until he has given other satisfactory guarantees to its rightful owner.

  That wasn’t something Watanuki came out with smoothly, all at once. As soon as my husband wrote down one condition, he would ponder for a moment, and say: “Oh yes, please add another one,” as the number grew.

  What nonsense! my husband thought. That rascal sounds like a cheap shyster. Half amused, he let
him dictate whatever he pleased, and wrote it all down. But then he said: “I’d like to add a proviso of my own: ‘However, if the document proves to be false, all pledges herein will be rendered null and void.’ How about it? You don’t object to putting that in writing, do you?”

  Watanuki seemed caught off guard and a bit confused, but my husband quickly wrote down the proviso and handed over the receipt. Again Watanuki hesitated, but in the end he reluctantly put down the papers and left.

  My husband told me all this in a rush, and then demanded:

  “What about it? Didn’t you actually sign such a document? If you have a copy of your own, let me see it.” Then he quietly waited for me to answer.

  I got up without a word, opened the locked drawer, brought out the copy I had hidden there, and, still keeping my silence, placed it on the table before him.

  27

  “WELL, YOU DO HAVE another copy; so this one isn’t a fake, is it?”

  Even then I kept silent and only nodded. My husband couldn’t tell what I was thinking and leveled a suspicious glace at me. “So all of this is true?” he asked.

  ‘Some of it is,” I admitted, “but we were lying to each other too.”

  As I was listening to my husband, I had made up my mind that by now there was no use trying to hide anything more; better for me to strike back at Watanuki by telling the whole story, every last detail, good or bad, whether it showed me in a favorable light or not. I’d let matters take their course—maybe it would turn out better than I feared; it might even be to my advantage.

  First of all, I told him about Watanuki’s secret. Mitsuko had lied about being pregnant, I went on; and I explained that she had stuffed padding over her stomach the time he called on us, that she had never really gone to live in the Kasayamachi inn, and that I’d been frightened into swearing in blood to that agreement. I told him everything, from how I had been deceived by Mitsuko and Watanuki to how I had deceived him. For over two hours I talked on and on, spilling out everything I knew, while he only grunted in response and sighed occasionally as he listened.

  “So I can believe what you’ve just told me?” he asked. “You’re sure about Watanuki?” And then: “The fact is, I’ve been looking into it myself.”

  The reason why he had pretended ignorance and let the matter lie until now, four or five days after their meeting, was that Watanuki’s behavior was so strange that he felt there must be something deeper behind it. He decided to hire a private detective to investigate further before confronting me. But even in Osaka there aren’t many in that line of work, and he wound up going to the same one Mitsuko had hired.

  “If that’s the man you’re interested in, I know all about him,” the detective had said immediately. “I investigated him once before.”

  As a result, by evening of the very day Watanuki called at his office, my husband had a full report on him. It seemed such a bizarre account that at first he thought it might be a different man with the same name, but the detective knew about the involvement with Mitsuko, so there was no room for doubt. . . . Still, it raised so many questions that were hard to fathom—questions about Mitsuko’s pregnancy, about the place in Kasayamachi, and about my relations with Mitsuko—that my husband decided to have him investigate Mitsuko herself. That report had arrived the morning of our talk, but because he felt rather dubious about it and wanted to have a look for himself, he had paid his surprise visit to Kasayamachi.

  “You already knew Mitsuko had padded out her stomach, did you?” I asked, trying to sound completely open and frank.

  At first my husband didn’t answer. Then he said: “I can see that today you’re being unusually straightforward. But please tell me clearly if that’s because you feel remorse for your past offenses. I know you realize without my saying so how dishonorably you behaved. I’m not interested in digging into such unpleasant matters, so all I ask is for you to sincerely resolve to make amends. Of course we don’t have to worry about keeping any promises to Watanuki, but I did swear to him that I wouldn’t divorce you. I can see I’ve had my own failings. There’s some truth to the argument that I neglected my responsibilities as a husband; in fact, it seems to me that I owe an apology to Mitsuko’s family, even more than you do. I feel that both of us are to blame for what happened. Above all, how could I defend myself to your parents if this got into the papers? Even then, if it only amounted to a love affair, an ordinary triangle, there might be some room for understanding, and for sympathy, but anyone who read that agreement would have to conclude it was insane! Maybe I’m just prejudiced, but from what you tell me, that slimy Watanuki caused all the trouble; he’s the one that’s really to blame. If neither you nor Mitsuko had been involved with him, I’m sure it would never have come to this. . . . I wonder how the Tokumitsus would feel, if they knew. Up till now I’ve thought Mitsuko was at fault, that she was a delinquent young girl who was having a bad influence on you, but I imagine her parents would want to tear Watanuki limb from limb! To have such a beautiful daughter, one you could be proud of anywhere, and then see her ruined by a scoundrel like that—they’d have suffered most of all. . . .”

  I knew this was a kind of strategy on my husband’s part: he was afraid to say anything contrary to my own feelings, which were always so easily aroused, and he was trying to play on my emotions rather than to appeal to reason. Still, the fact that he brought up her parents, and especially that he seemed sympathetic to Mitsuko, couldn’t help affecting me, since his words echoed what I myself felt. Tears had welled up in my eyes as I listened.

  “Isn’t that so?” he asked, looking at my tear-stained cheeks. “It won’t do any good to go on crying. Please make up your mind to be honest with me, and this time, for once, just tell me the truth. If you’re determined to leave me, I know I can’t stop you. But actually, the only one I hate is that man—I think both you and Mitsuko are to be pitied. Even if we finally have to part, and you go your way with Mitsuko, I’ll always feel pity for you. I’ll suffer a lot myself, but you will too, you know. After all, you can never marry her, can you? You may be free from the bonds of marriage to me, but you can’t expect others to forgive you. So it’s up to you whether to wait till you’re forced to give in to society, after worrying so many people and covering yourself with shame, or to come to your senses before that happens. It’s your choice.”

  “Yes . . . but it was my fate that caused things to turn out this way. . . . I’ll have to die to make amends!”

  My husband was so shocked he all but leapt out of his chair, and I burst into tears again, dropping my head down on the table.

  “What can I do now? Everybody will abandon me; I’ll never dare show my face in public. . . . Please, just let me die. You needn’t grieve over losing such a depraved woman. . . .”

  “Who ever said I’d abandon you? If that’s what I meant to do, would I be talking like this?”

  “I’m grateful to you. But if I turn over a new leaf, what will become of Mitsuko? . . . You yourself said it wasn’t her fault, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did, and that’s why I want to save you both. . . . Now listen to me: you’re making a terrible mistake. Your kind of love won’t save Mitsuko. It’s not only you I’m worried about. I think it’s my duty to explain this whole state of affairs to the Tokumitsu family and warn them to keep a tight rein on her, so that she’ll never go near that man again—and won’t keep on seeing you either. That would be for Mitsuko’s benefit, wouldn’t it?”

  “If you do, she’ll kill herself. . . .”

  “Oh? Why would she?”

  “She just would. . . . She’s been threatening suicide all along. I’ve barely been able to stop her. . . . So then I’ll die too. I’ll apologize to everyone by dying.”

  “Don’t be absurd! What sort of apology would that be, causing nothing but heartache for your parents and me?”

  28

  I PAID NO ATTENTION to my husband. Head down on the table, I sobbed like a spoiled child, and I kept repeating:
“I want to die! Just let me die!”

  By that point, saying I wanted to die was the best tactic. What else could I do? . . . All I thought of was how I could go on seeing Mitsuko the same as before—really, what I feared most was being divorced. Anyway, now that he knew all this, surely our married life would be harmonious. I’d be very considerate of him, if only he would understand my attachment to her and accept it. Watanuki might try to interfere, but now we had both copies of that incriminating document, and no one would believe anything a man like that said. Even if Mitsuko married into another family, who could criticize two such model housewives, however friendly they were? Not only would we be as close as ever, but our relationship would be much smoother. That would be far better than stirring up more trouble. I knew very well that my husband was the kind of man who longed for a peaceful solution. His worst fear was that I might do something rash, and so, deep in his heart, he was more afraid of a divorce than I was. “If you try to tie me down, I really will run away!” I would tell him, and then I’d present my demands, little by little. . . . That was more or less what I had in mind, feeling confident that after a few days he would do whatever I asked. So I tried not to antagonize him. No matter what he said that night, I only went on weeping quietly, as if I’d already made a firm decision and was doing my best to hide it. That bothered my husband so much that he stayed by my side until dawn, without a wink of sleep. He even went along with me to the bathroom.

  The next day he stayed home from the office and had all our meals brought upstairs, as we sat there watching each other. Sometimes he would look searchingly at me and say: “If you go on like this you’ll wear yourself out—get a little sleep and then think things over when your mind is clear.” Or: “At least, promise me you’ll give up the idea of dying or running away!” But I would only shake my head and refuse to answer. I thought that at this rate I would soon have him where I wanted him.