Quicksand (4 page)

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.”

“
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.”

“I'm glad I'm
not
alone—I'd be scared to death!”

Mitsuko sighed. “If you're with someone you love, a lonely place like this is just right.”

As long as I'm with you I could stay here forever, I thought to myself. Mitsuko was sitting with her legs stretched out; crouching there in the dusk beside her, I could see her beautiful face in profile, but it was too dark to make out its expression. Beyond the tips of her white tabi socks, silhouetted against the dim twilight sky, there was only the faint glint of the golden dolphins on the roof of the Great Buddha Hall.

“It's late. Let's go back,” she said abruptly. By the time we had walked down the hill to the station, it was around seven o'clock.

“I'm hungry—what about you?” I asked.

Mitsuko seemed worried about the time. “I was supposed to be home early today. I didn't tell anyone I was going to Nara.”

“But I'm starved. If it's already so late, what difference would it make?” And I dragged her along to a little steak house.

“Doesn't your husband complain when you're late getting home?” she asked, as we were eating.

“He's used to it,” I said. “And I've already told him we're friends.”

“What does he think of that?”

“I raved about you so much he even said we should have you over, he'd like to meet you.”

“He sounds awfully good-natured.”

“The fact is, that husband of mine just lets me do as I please; he never complains. He's so good-natured he's boring. . . .”

Until that moment I hadn't said a word to Mitsuko about myself, but then I told her everything: how I happened to marry, and all the trouble I had over my love affair, and even about how kind
you
were to let me ramble on and on about my problems, in spite of your being so busy.

Mitsuko was astonished to hear I knew you.

“Really, you're a friend of his?” she said, and wondered if I wouldn't bring her with me to meet you someday, since she loved your novels. Whenever I saw her she asked me to take her along next time, but somehow we never got around to it.

Mitsuko was terribly curious to hear about that affair.

“Oh? You aren't seeing him anymore?” she asked, and when I told her I wasn't, she said: “Why not, if it's as romantic as all that? If I were you, I'd make a clear distinction between love and marriage.” And then: “Does your husband suspect anything?”

“Possibly, but if he does he's never mentioned it. At least it hasn't caused any trouble between us.”

“He's very trusting!”

“Actually, he treats me like a child,” I said. “That annoys me.”

It was close to ten by the time I got home that night. “Pretty late, aren't you?” my husband said, looking glum.

He seemed so cheerless that I was a little sorry for him. Although I hadn't done anything wrong, I felt a twinge of guilt when I saw that he had just finished dinner, after waiting such a long time for me. Of course when I was meeting my lover, I often used to come home after ten o'clock. But that was all in the past. So maybe he
was
a bit suspicious. Somehow I myself felt just the way I did in those days.

OH YES
, and that was around the time I finished the Kannon picture and showed it to my husband.

“Hmm, so this is a portrait of your friend Mitsuko? I must say, you've outdone yourself.”

We were having dinner, and he had spread the painting out on the tatami mats and would glance at it between one mouthful and the next. “But is she really all that beautiful?” he went on doubtfully. “Are you sure it looks like her?”

“Of course it does, or there wouldn't have been such a fuss over it! Only, the real Mitsuko isn't just an ethereal beauty; there's something sensual about her. You can't bring that out in a Japanese painting.”

I had put a great deal of effort into the picture and couldn't help thinking it had turned out well. My husband praised it lavishly. At any rate, from the time I began to study painting I had never worked so hard or with so much enthusiasm.

“Why don't we have it mounted?” he suggested. “Then when it's ready you can ask Mitsuko over to see it.”

The idea appealed to me, and I put it away, thinking I'd take it to a picture mounter in Kyoto to be done up handsomely. One day I mentioned to Mitsuko what I had in mind.

“If you're going to bother to mount it, how about working on it a little more?” she asked. “Of course it's very nice as it is—the face is good—but the figure doesn't seem quite right.”

“It doesn't? How is that?”

“I can't tell you in so many words.”

She was being perfectly honest; there wasn't the least bit of boastfulness in her tone, the least hint that she thought her own figure was better. But I could see that she felt dissatisfied.

“Well, then, I hope you'll pose in the nude for me sometime.”

She agreed at once. “I don't mind posing for you.”