So I know. I know just how much you’ve been overdoing it trying to meet his expectations. That you were simply playing the role of a Shitamachi woman. Meiko and Moeko may have just been watching him from a distance, that man, that stranger. But I know. I know that you, Yōko, you gave your whole body to him. And, for you, that was your ruin. And for Mom, it no doubt means disgrace.
But the thing is, we’re all dying to know. About this person who has come here to our neighborhood. I wonder whether he has found anything around here that really conjures up the image of a Shitamachi. People call this a town of literati, but I wonder whether there’s anything left of that old-fashioned spirit.
He might be drinking at the Eau de Vie right around now. Or maybe, I wondered, he’ll be making his way up Sansakizaka in the middle of the night, almost all the way to the cemetery. Only an outsider would think to go there.
Please, please sleep with me tonight, begged Yōko, normally so resolute in her solitude. Dressed in a tanktop, I crept into her bed, like I used to so long ago. I was brimming with curiosity, and ended up showering her with questions about S. To the point that even I wondered whether I wasn’t being rude. Where do you go on your dates? How often do you have sex? That kind of thing.
He still acts like a tourist, Yōko answered. He’s so interested in this neighborhood that he just can’t help himself. He started going on about the Yasuda Kusuo Residence, right, and even suggested we go there on one of our days off. Why would you pay to go somewhere like that? No way! Then he started going on about the Shimazono Residence too. That there’s a concert coming up there, or something.
Yōko kept on talking.
I guess we just gradually started having sex more and more. He only really treated me well the first time though. He must have thought that I’d pretty much just offer myself up to him. It’s like he doesn’t have a clue what people are like around here. He doesn’t even understand the difference between a Shitamachi and a loose, sleazy town. He practically sees us Shitamachi women as prostitutes. Guys from around these parts are so much better.
A lot of people think of our town as the quintessential Shitamachi, but that image just leaves us feeling all flustered and confused. Because it couldn’t be any further from the truth. I mean, the vast grounds of Nezu Shrine lie in the middle of a quiet residential area. Like an empty, blank space. Foreigners and tourists from all over the country make their way there, maps in hand. But us, we went there for sketching practice when we were in elementary school. There was never anything particularly special about it for us. We didn’t understand the first thing about it. Now that I thought about it, Yōko’s unhappiness must have started all the way back then.
After a while, Yōko and S’s relationship became more or less official. Mom gave up on trying to get them to break up. S started to come to our house to pick Yōko up whenever they went out on dates. He came across as a decent enough young man, his appearance always neat and tidy. Meiko and Moeko, though, had grown afraid of him. They thought of him now as some kind of delinquent, and did everything they could to avoid him. Whenever he came to pick Yōko up, we would always hide in our rooms and pretend that we weren’t home.
At such times, Meiko’s emotions would start getting the better of her, and she would come stumbling into my room. I’m scared, she would say. Yōko really is going out with him, isn’t she? Her voice would be so calm as she asked me this, as if she had completely forgotten that her own feelings for him had burned so strongly. And I would reach out to hug her. It’s okay, I would say, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Her delicate build is so feminine. I felt like I could read her future. She would probably get married to a childhood friend of hers living somewhere just around the corner.
Meiko. So innocent. She’s thirty-two years old, and still she can’t do anything by herself. She can’t even cook or do her own laundry. Mom’s the one who washes her underwear. But she’s fine this way. That’s what I’ve always thought, ever since I was a kid. But as for how our neighbors see her, none of us has any real idea. Except when it comes to the old woman living next door, that is. That Meiko of yours is such a devoted daughter, I overheard her say once, completely missing the mark. She seemed to think that daughters should stay with their families, and that the fact that Meiko still lived with us all was a sign of her filial dedication. But that wasn’t the case at all.
Even now that Yōko was openly dating S, Meiko didn’t harbor any sense of envy toward her. It would only be natural to be jealous in her situation, but she had never envied anyone anything. It was as if she lacked the basic ability to feel those kinds of emotions. I’m worried about Yōko, was all she said. I feel like she’s drifting away from us, Nanako. I feel like I’m all alone. And I’m scared, so scared. Like something really bad is going to happen, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Ever since she had found out about Yōko and S’s relationship, Meiko had started having nightmares. She had even been prescribed a course of Halcion to help her deal with everything. And whenever she had one of those nightmares, she would come and wake me. Hey, Nanako, I had a bad dream. S was going to kill me. I’ve got a really bad feeling about everything. And I would say to her: I’ll get you some honey tea. It’s okay, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Yōko won’t stay with him forever. Even she must know that.
Really? Meiko would look up at me. She has an intuitive ability to see through people’s lies. So I stared straight into her eyes, to prove to her that what I was saying was true.
Meiko wouldn’t be able to break out of these cycles of anxiety unless she thought that I was telling her the truth. But even though I had basically just made it all up, she didn’t accuse me of trying to trick her. She probably hadn’t even fully realized that she herself had seen through the lie. In her anxiety, she couldn’t fully bring herself to go along with what I had told her, but she had seen through it only vaguely, without fully understanding.
As I watched her, I started wondering how everything would have played out if she had been the one whom S had chosen. I could practically see him, this S who knew nothing about the delicate woman in front of me, rolling up her skirt and snatching her panties. If he did that, Meiko would probably suffer a complete mental breakdown. I felt a strange thrill at the cruelty of my imaginings.
Meiko is so pure that she comes across as simple-minded. She has always known the difference between truth and falsehood. She just hasn’t realized that. She doesn’t understand her own true nature. If someone in the family tells a lie, she gets scared. But she herself doesn’t understand why she ends up feeling that way.