Quicksand (20 page)

“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.

“
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.

“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?”