Quicksand Read online

  “You’re putting up quite an argument,” he replied. “But if you’re capable of expressing your ideal, you have no reason to come to this school. Isn’t that why we have you sketch from a model? You don’t need a model if you’re going to paint any way you want, and if this ideal Kannon of yours looks like somebody else, I think you’re being pretty deceitful.”

  “I’m not a bit deceitful! And I don’t see anything wrong artistically, as long as it has the divine features of a Kannon.”

  “It just won’t do,” he insisted. “You’re not yet a full-fledged artist. Even if it seems divine to you, the question is how others see it. That sort of thing leads to misunderstanding.”

  “Oh? And what kind of misunderstanding might that be?” I retorted. “You’re always saying it looks like someone, so would you please tell me who it looks like!”

  That rattled him. “Stubborn, aren’t you?” he said. From then on, the director held his tongue.

  I was elated. Facing down the director made me feel as if I had won a quarrel. But our argument in front of the students caused a sensation, and before long a nasty rumor began to spread. They said I’d made indecent advances to Mitsuko, that Mitsuko and I were altogether too close. . . . As I told you, at that time I’d hardly said a word to her, so the whole thing was nonsense, just an out-and-out lie. Of course I was aware that people were talking behind my back, though I never dreamed they were making such a fuss. But I had nothing on my conscience, so I didn’t care what they said. It was all perfectly ridiculous.

  Well, that’s the way people are—they’re always ready to spread rumors. Still, no matter how much they gossiped, to accuse us of being “altogether too close” when we’d had nothing to do with each other was so absurd that it didn’t even make me angry. I wasn’t concerned for myself—what bothered me was how Mitsuko might take it. It occurred to me that she must be distressed to be drawn into all this, and somehow whenever our paths crossed, going to school or leaving, I couldn’t bring myself to look her in the face the way I used to. And yet to speak up and apologize to her—that might make things worse, cause even more scandal, and that wouldn’t do either. Every time I happened to pass her I tried to seem apologetic, cringing and casting my eyes down, as if I wanted to escape her notice. All the same, I still felt anxious about whether she might be angry, or how she might look at me, so the moment we passed I would steal a glance at her. But Mitsuko’s expression was the same as ever; she didn’t seem in the least annoyed with me.

  Oh yes, I’ve brought along a photograph I’d like to show you. We had it taken of us together when we got our matching kimonos—it’s the one that was in the papers and attracted so much attention. As you can see, standing side by side like this I’m just a foil for Mitsuko; you won’t find another such dazzling beauty among all the young girls around Semba.

  (Author’s note: The “matching kimonos” in the photograph were of the gaudy, colorful sort that is so much to the Osaka taste. Mrs. Kakiuchi wore her hair pulled back in a chignon; Mitsuko’s was done up in a traditional Shimada, but her eyes were rich, liquid, extraordinarily passionate for a young city-bred girl of Osaka. In short, the eyes were fascinating, full of the magnetic power of a love goddess. Certainly she was very beautiful; there was no false modesty in the widow’s remark about being a foil for her. But whether her face was in fact suitable for the beging features of the Willow Kannon was perhaps another matter.)

  But what do you think? An elaborate Japanese hairstyle is quite becoming to her, don’t you agree?

  . . . Yes, she sometimes wore it that way even to school. She said her mother liked her in it. Anyway, it was the kind of school that didn’t require students to wear a uniform, and nobody cared if you had a Japanese coiffure or wore a plain kimono with no hakama skirt; whatever you liked. I never wore a hakama myself. Now and then Mitsuko came in Western clothes, but when she dressed in Japanese style it was always just a kimono. In this picture her hairdo makes her look several years younger, though actually she was twenty-two, only a year younger than myself—if she were still alive now, in 1928, she’d be twenty-three this year. But Mitsuko was an inch or two taller, and a beauty like that, even if she doesn’t mean to be vain, always seems to have a confident air, doesn’t she? Or maybe that’s just my own sense of inferiority. Even later, after we were close, I always felt a little deferential toward her, like her younger sister, in spite of being the older one.

  Well, around that time—to go back to when we’d hardly spoken, that is—it seemed that Mitsuko hadn’t heard those nasty rumors I mentioned, since there wasn’t the slightest change in her attitude. I had long ago been attracted by her beauty, and before the rumors started I used to edge near her whenever she came by. Mitsuko herself always walked straight on, as if she didn’t even see me, but everything around seemed brighter and fresher after she passed. If she had heard those rumors, she would at least have paid some attention to me, I thought. I’d have noticed something in her manner, whether she loathed me or felt sorry for me, but there wasn’t a hint of her feelings, so little by little I grew bolder, bold enough to edge near and peep into that lovely face again. One day during the lunch break we ran into each other in the student lounge, and instead of going coolly by, as usual, for some reason she gave me an enchanting smile. Instinctively I bowed, and then Mitsuko came up to me and said:

  “I’m terribly sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you. Please don’t hold it against me.”

  “Whatever are you saying?” I replied. “I’m the one to apologize.”

  “You have nothing to apologize for. If you only knew what’s going on . . . Be careful, someone’s trying to trap us!”

  “Really? Who could that be?” I asked.

  “It’s the director,” she said. “I can’t explain here—shall we go out somewhere for lunch? Then you can hear all about it.”

  “I’ll go anywhere you like,” I told her.

  After that the two of us went to a restaurant near Tennoji Park. As we were eating lunch, Mitsuko began by saying that it was the director himself who started those malicious rumors. Of course I’d found it irritating, the way he kept coming into the classroom and embarrassing me before everyone, and I couldn’t help feeling he was up to no good. But when I asked why on earth he wanted to spread a rumor like that, she said that the whole thing was aimed at her, that one way or another he wanted to damage her reputation. And the reason for that was talk of a marriage proposal, a proposal from the young man who was heir to the fortune of the M family, one of the richest and most famous families in Osaka.

  Mitsuko said that she herself wasn’t interested, but her own family was very much in favor of the match, and the other party seemed equally eager to have her. But apparently the daughter of a certain municipal councilman had also been offered for marriage to this Mr. M, which meant that she was in competition with Mitsuko. Even though Mitsuko had no desire to be a rival, the councilman’s family must have felt they were up against a formidable enemy. Anyway, the young Mr. M was enthralled by Mitsuko’s beauty and had even sent her love letters, so no doubt she was a formidable enemy.

  Now the councilman’s people were bustling about, doing their best to find some flaw in Mitsuko, and had tried everything they could think of, even spreading lies about involvement with another man; not content, they had finally turned to bribing the director of our school. Oh yes, and before that—this is getting to be hopelessly confused, I’m afraid—sometime before that, she said, the director had asked her father if he couldn’t lend the school a thousand yen, to repair the building. Mitsuko’s family had so much money that a thousand yen meant nothing to them, and they might have listened to an open request for a donation. But asking for a loan was strange enough, in the first place, and you couldn’t begin to repair a building that size for a thousand yen. It all seemed so nonsensical that her father flatly refused. According to Mitsuko, the director often called on the families of students who were well off, asking for loans like tha
t, but had never once returned any borrowed money. If he’d used the money properly it would have been different, but he let things run down till the building was just a pigsty, a dilapidated one at that!

  . . . What? No, it seems he used all that money for personal expenses. She said the director was a real expert at toadying to wealthy students; and then there was his wife, the school’s embroidery teacher: those two were always arranging little Sunday outings to curry favor. Actually, it was quite extravagant, the way they lived. If you lent them money they were very friendly, but if you refused them they would say unpleasant things about you behind your back. In Mitsuko’s case, they not only had that grudge against her, they’d also been approached by the councilman, so there was no limit to the kind of thing they’d stoop to.

  “That’s why they used you to trap me, you see,” Mitsuko said.

  “To think there was all that behind it! I had no idea. It’s so ridiculous, isn’t it, when you and I didn’t really know each other until today. Making up a story like that is bad enough, but I can’t imagine anybody believing it.”

  “That’s why you’re easily taken in,” Mitsuko replied. “People are saying it’s only because of the rumors that we don’t talk to each other at school. Why, someone even claimed they saw us getting on the train to Nara together last Sunday.”

  I was appalled. “Now who would say a thing like that?”

  “Apparently it came from the director’s wife. They’re a great deal craftier than you think—so do be careful!”

  3

  WELL, MITSUKO kept begging me to forgive her, repeating how sorry she was, and that made me feel all the more sympathetic. “No, no, you haven’t done anything wrong,” I said to console her. “It’s that dreadful man. And he’s supposed to be an educator! . . . But it doesn’t matter what they say about me—you’re young and not yet married, so don’t let yourself be victimized by such spiteful people!”

  “I’m glad I had a chance to tell you the whole story. It’s taken a weight off my mind.” Then she smiled. “But if we meet again like this there’ll be more gossip, so maybe we’d better not.”

  “What a shame, now that we’ve finally become friends!” Somehow the thought really bothered me.

  “I do want to be your friend, if it’s all right with you,” Mitsuko said. “Next time, won’t you come to my house? I’m not a bit afraid of what people say.”

  “And I’m not afraid either. If the gossip gets too bad, I’ll just stop going to that miserable school.”

  “Listen, Kakiuchi-san, I have an idea. Wouldn’t you just love to make fun of everyone by showing them what good friends we are? How does that appeal to you?”

  “It’s fine with me,” I said, “and I’d like to see the director’s face when we do.” I was quite taken with the notion.

  “And this would be fun too!” said Mitsuko, clapping her hands like a mischievous child. “How about actually going to Nara together this Sunday?”

  “Yes, let’s do it! Just think of what they’ll say when they hear that!”

  And so, within less than an hour, we had thrown off the last trace of reserve between us.

  By then it was much too late to go back to school, and one of us suggested seeing a movie at the Shochiku. We spent the rest of the afternoon together, until Mitsuko announced that she had some shopping to do and walked off along Shinsaibashi. I took a taxi from Nippombashi to the Imabashi office. As usual, I called for my husband and we went to the Hanshin station for the train home.

  But this time he remarked: “You seem all excited today. What happened to make you look so cheerful?”

  Do I really? I thought to myself. Is that all because of Mitsuko?

  “Well,” I said, “today I made a marvelous new friend.”

  “And who would that be?”

  “A real beauty, that’s who! You know that woolens merchant Tokumitsu in Semba? She’s their daughter.”

  “How did you get to know her?”

  “She goes to my school—the fact is, somebody started an ugly rumor about us. . . .” I had nothing to hide, so I told him everything, beginning with that silly argument I’d had with the director.

  “What a school!” my husband said. “But if she’s so beautiful, I’d like to meet her myself,” he added jokingly.

  “I’m sure she’ll be visiting us soon. I promised to go to Nara with her next Sunday, if that’s all right.”

  “Of course.” My husband laughed. “I warn you, you’ll make the director angry!”

  At school the next day, word had already got around about our lunch together and our going to the movies. There were all sorts of catty comments—you know how women are.

  “You were strolling along Dotombori yesterday, weren’t you, Kakiuchi-san?”

  “You must have been having fun.”

  “Who could that have been with you?”

  But Mitsuko enjoyed it and deliberately came over to me, as if to flaunt our friendship. Things went on like that for two or three days, by which time we were fast friends. The director seemed furious, but only glowered at us and didn’t say a word. Mitsuko asked if I couldn’t make my Kannon portrait look even more like her. “I wonder what he’d say then.” So I tried to make the resemblance closer, but the director stopped coming into the classroom altogether. That delighted us.

  We really needn’t have gone to Nara, but since it happened to be a lovely late-April Sunday, I phoned her and arranged to meet at the Ueroku terminus, and we spent the afternoon wandering around the gentle slopes of Mount Wakakusa. Sophisticated as she was, there was still something childlike about Mitsuko, and when we got to the top she bought half a dozen tangerines and began rolling them down the hill, crying out: “Watch this!” The tangerines would roll on and on, down to the bottom; one of them even jumped across the road and through the open gate of a house on the other side. She seemed to find it all very amusing.

  “Mitsuko, how about gathering some bracken?” I suggested. “I know there’s a lot of bracken and horsetail on the next hill.” We stayed till evening, picking quantities of bracken and flowering ferns and horsetail.

  . . . Where were we on Mount Wakakusa? It has three peaks, you know, and we were in the hollow between the first two—you can see young herbs all over; they’re especially delicious because the dead grass is burned off every spring. Anyway, it had begun to get dark by the time we came back over the first hill, and we were both so tired that we sat down to rest for a while when we were about halfway down the slope.

  Suddenly Mitsuko looked serious.

  “Kakiuchi-san, there’s something I want to thank you for.” When I asked her what that could be, she smiled knowingly and said: “Well, thanks to you, it looks as if I won’t have to marry that horrid man.”

  “Really? And how did that happen?”

  “Rumors get around fast. Those people have already heard all about you and me.”

  4

  “I HAD TO LISTEN to the same thing at home last night,” Mitsuko went on. “My mother took me aside and asked about that rumor circulating at school—was it true? There was a rumor, all right, I said, but how did you hear about it, Mother? That doesn’t matter, she insisted; just tell me whether or not it’s true. I admitted that you and I were good friends—what was wrong with that? For a moment she seemed at a loss. Well, now, there’s nothing wrong with being good friends, she said, but aren’t they accusing you of something improper? When I asked her what that meant, Mother replied that she didn’t know anything more, but still there must be some reason why the rumor started. Oh, now I understand, I said. My friend liked my looks enough to use me as her model, and after that everybody began to shun us. That school is full of busybodies; if you’re even a little pretty they say spiteful things about you—so yes, I can see how that kind of talk might get started. My mother was beginning to be convinced. Then it’s not your fault, she said, but I wouldn’t be too close to that Mrs. So-and-so. You’ve got to be awfully careful about your reputation
, especially at this stage in your life, so don’t let yourself in for foolish gossip. And that was the end of that. Obviously the councilman’s people got word of the rumor and passed it on to M and his family, before my mother heard it. So I’m sure she thinks the marriage plans are off.”

  That made me uneasy.

  “I know you must be pleased,” I said, “but what about your mother? Just wait; she’ll probably tell you to have nothing to do with me. I’d hate to give her the wrong idea about us.”

  “You needn’t worry,” Mitsuko assured me. “I’ve thought of telling her all about that greedy director, who tries to be so clever—about how he goes around talking behind your back if you won’t lend him money and how he was bribed by the councilman. But I haven’t. I’m afraid she might make me stop going to such an awful school, and then I wouldn’t be able to see you.”

  “You’re pretty clever yourself, aren’t you!”

  “Well, maybe I do know a thing or two,” Mitsuko said, with a giggle. “If you don’t fight fire with fire, it’s your loss.”

  “Anyway, if your marriage talks have broken off, the councilman’s daughter must be happy.”

  “Then both of us should thank you!”

  We kept on chatting there for over an hour. I’d been up Mount Wakakusa often but had never stayed until dusk, so it was really the first time I saw that broad landscape bathed in the evening haze. Until only a little while before, a few people had been lingering on the hillside, but by now, all the way down from the summit, there wasn’t a soul. Quite a crowd had been out that day, so the green hillside was littered with tangerine peels, sake bottles, and other picnic leavings. Although the sky still had a twilight glow, you could see the city lights of Nara glimmering below us; in the distance, just across the valley, the lights of the Mount Ikoma cable car stretched in a long arc like a rosary, flickering in and out of view through the purple haze. As I gazed at those flickering lights I had a kind of choking feeling, and Mitsuko said: “My, it’s already evening. It seems so lonely.”