I broke out into laughter. What she was saying was just so strange.
“Maybe it’s a man who’s been touching them,” I joked.
One afternoon, Meiko came home in a really good mood, carrying a freshly cooked taiyaki. She set the fish-shaped cake down on the table oh-so-carefully, humming to herself as she went to boil some water.
“I’m making tea. Do you want some?” she asked.
“Yes,” I answered. “Where did you get that?”
“I was walking by that place, you know, Kasenke, the one that makes the golden taiyaki? S was there. He gave it to me.”
“Oh?” I murmured curtly.
I often went to Kasenke with Meiko, just the two of us. Out of all us sisters, Meiko is the biggest sweet-tooth. She would often buy things for me when I was a kid. She must have thought, since she liked sweet things, that everyone else must too. I wasn’t particularly fond of taiyaki, but I was so happy whenever she would buy me one.
“Oh, I picked up this map outside the shop,” Meiko said, unfolding it and passing to me. It was a literature-themed map of the Shitamachi, pointing out where this or that famous author used to live around Bunkyō Ward.
Did S take one of those maps too? That’s what I wanted to ask, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. He had almost certainly taken one. After all, he had only just moved here, so of course he would want a map of the neighborhood.
My sister, my beloved Meiko. Were all her memories of going to buy taiyaki with me being painted over by this new one, of this one time that she had been given one from S? Was he in love with her? Was that why he had given it to her? I don’t know. I just wish that he would stop, that he would stop acting like he’s hinting at something else. I mean, he might have just been seeing the sights. He might have just been in a good mood, having stumbled upon a local taiyaki store. But my sister, my dear sister—she’s in love with him, and now that he has gone and done this, she’s probably going to end up thinking that he’s in love with her too.
Strange visions kept racing through my mind. Of my sister, her body stuck to mine. We were being pulled apart. Why did he have to be so nice to her? It isn’t like he’s in love with her or anything. I’m the one who has always been in love with her. So why does he have to go and do that, like he’s trying to hint at something more?
Meiko, I thought we had agreed, as a family, that none of us would ever fall in love? After Dad left, Mom and us four sisters—we had all been doing so well as a family of women. Isn’t that the future that we were all looking forward to? Didn’t we promise each other that we would all go to the same neighborhood old people’s home?
I turned toward her. I want her so badly. I remembered us often getting into the same bed together, naked. When I told Tamura about it, he called me a pervert. Your love for her is sexual, he said. But he’s wrong. I’m not lusting after some stranger I barely know. I mean, she’s my sister. They’re all my sisters. We were all one body to begin with. But then we were born, cut away from each other one by one. That’s why I want him to stop, this S—to stop planting these seeds of love inside them. We don’t need all that. But the visions kept racing through my head. I was teasing Meiko, sexually. Not by penetrating her with a penis or anything, but by whispering in her ear, filling her up with a poem that I had written to embarrass her. So Meiko, you don’t need a man. In this community, this body just of women, any one of us can play that role. I wouldn’t even mind playing it all the time. Because I don’t need sexual pleasure. Because I’m not interested in that. It would be enough for me just to give you all pleasure. You see, we’re all one person. So long as one of us sisters played the role of the man, it would be all self-contained. We ought to be able to do that. We’re a perfect whole. Like Adam before Eve. Or like a hermaphrodite.
When I came back to my senses, I realized that Meiko had taken a bite out of that taiyaki as she waited for the water to boil. If I had been my usual self, I would have wanted to put that taiyaki that had been in her mouth between my own lips. But not now, not something that S had given her.
I went shopping one evening, to the Yanaka Ginza, when I saw Yōko and S sitting on the steps at the end of the street where you can see the sun setting over the town, smoking together. I should have just called out to her, to my beloved sister, like I normally would. But instead, and I don’t really know why, the moment I saw them, I went and hid.
Yōko was petting a stray cat. I knew that she didn’t have any real interest in animals. Normally, if us sisters were to go out for a walk and happened to see a dog, Yōko wouldn’t want to pet it. Not at all. But S, he didn’t know that. He didn’t have the faintest clue. He just sat there, watching her pet that stray cat so joyfully, watching her with that content little smile of his. Did he like women who were fond of animals? I don’t know. But that must have been what Yōko was thinking. She was quizzing out what made him tick.
She had decided that he was the kind of guy who likes women who dote on animals, that was why she was playing with the stray cat. Even though she didn’t really like it herself. It was a calculated move. She had no taste for cats, but even so, she was willing to act as if she did in front of him. If another woman were to see her, they would probably be disgusted. But Yōko doesn’t care what other women think of her, whether they’re put off by what she does. She doesn’t let things like that bother her. She doesn’t think that there’s anything wrong with her actions. For her, it was nothing more serious than petty fraud. She isn’t particularly feminine, but she was willing to act feminine in front of this guy. Playing hard-to-get, pretending to be aloof. The loveliness of a peach-colored handkerchief, makeup applied so lightly that men wouldn’t notice it. My sister was laying her traps, one after the next, all in an effort to make this man her own. My sister, chatting with S, sitting there smoking with him, pretending to act cool. That must be it, that’s the kind of woman that he likes. Yōko had worked him out, right down to the smallest detail, and was busy now reeling him in.
I tried to ask her about it once: How do you do it, how do you see through all these men, how do you know how to act to get them interested? And she responded, with a completely expressionless face: How do I get them interested? I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Liar. You lied to me. You can see through them, through all these men, you know how to draw them in. I can see through you, Yōko, I can see through all my sisters, just like you can see through all these men. That’s what I wanted to say. But by the look of things, no one else in my family understood her the way I do. They don’t know exactly why, but they know that men like her. And they haven’t realized anything deeper than that.
My other sisters have a complex about this. Especially now that S has popped up. Why is it only Yōko who gets all the guys? Meiko asked with a troubled look. These men, all they ever talk about is Yōko this, Yōko that, Moeko said bitterly. They must have both thought that all women needed to be as popular as Yōko.
I’m the only one who knows just how much effort she puts into it, into getting guys to like her. I’m the only one who can see through that seemingly carefree attitude of hers. I felt like I could do something cruel to her, holding onto her secrets like that. I could take all her secrets, bit by bit, filing them all away—and then, one day, maybe I would expose her in front of the whole family. I kept trying to imagine what would happen. But then, her reaction probably wouldn’t be as straightforward as my other sisters. If I exposed Meiko’s darkest secrets, she would just end up breaking down into tears. And if it were Moeko, she would see straight through what I was doing and get angry right back at me. But Yōko, if it were Yōko… For some reason, picturing how she would react made me feel better. She would probably feign ignorance. You think I’m trying to get men to like me? I don’t know how to do that. If there’s a way, I’d love to know it. She would probably just say something like that.