Tears rolled down my cheeks, one after the other. If I had actually kissed my sisters, I thought, surely I would have cried even harder. But no, I knew that wasn’t true. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kiss them. And now, I knew, that was precisely why I was crying so wretchedly.
I stood there for the longest time, tears running down my face. Yōko offered me that peach-colored handkerchief of hers. It was so soft, and smelled so nice. She wasn’t using it to attract men. Now, she was handing it to me, her little sister possessed with such obscene thoughts, as if to heal me. She’s cunning, and men, for some reason, find her especially attractive. But looking at her now, what I saw wasn’t that side of her, nor was it a woman for whom men would fall head over heels. She was just her normal self. And yet, she was able to heal me. She’s so strong, I thought. If she had been an average woman, if she had ended up becoming average at the hands of some man, that charm of hers would have completely vanished. But Yōko was different.
Moeko asked me to go with her to Eigakan. I felt a strange incongruity at that. What on earth could have been going through her mind? I mean, Eigakan had always been Mom’s territory.
She ordered a glass of rum, I some lemonade. Neither of us was in the mood for a Denki Bran.
“There’s something that I’ve been wanting to show you all day. That’s why I suggested we come here,” Moeko said, before passing me a small photo album. It was filled with pictures of me as a baby with my three young sisters.
“When you were born, we were all so happy. But you know, Yōko was especially thrilled. She must have been so pleased to finally have a sister younger than herself. She was the one who named you. Nanako.”
Yōko always wanted a younger sister, someone who looked like her, Moeko said. Us sisters, we all look alike, and even our names are similar. It was Yōko who first realized that.
I flicked through the album. I came across a picture of Moeko straddling Yōko. Just as Moeko had pressed her breasts, one of her erogenous zones, against me, I found myself imagining that, in the picture, she was rubbing another one, her clitoris, against Yōko.
Hey, Nanako, do you think Yōko’s okay? Moeko asked. Is it really okay for her to be in love with that stranger? She was talking about Yōko sleeping with S. It was the kind of question that shouldn’t have needed asking.
Moeko. My headstrong sister, who even as a kid, knowing that a woman’s erogenous zone is her clitoris, rubbed herself against her younger sisters. Even she was afraid of having a physical relationship with a stranger.
No, that wasn’t right, I corrected myself. It was precisely because we’re sisters that she could rub her erogenous zones against us. She wouldn’t be able do that with a stranger, maybe not even with a man from around our own neighborhood.
Moeko was saying that her mind and her body were the same. Maybe she was trying to tell us that she loved us sisters more than she could ever love a man, just like I did. And that she would do with us the kind of things that men and women do with each other.
Hey, Nanako, I really do love you all, Moeko said, grasping my hand.
Moeko, unable to express her feelings of love, unsure what to do with her body, was trying the only way she knew how to put those feelings into words. I felt that, until now, I had only ever seen her from behind. No matter what happened, she had always kept moving forward. She had never faltered. But now, I could reach out and touch that kindness of hers. And she looked back, and embraced me. I could feel the warmth of her delicate affection pressing against my skin.
Up until now, she had really just been bumbling her way through things, I thought. Even when her feelings were as benevolent as the Holy Mother’s, she expressed them as if they belonged instead to Eros. But I knew it now, I could feel it. There was no woman more pure or virtuous than her.
Moeko, you should say all that to Yōko. You should tell her what you just told me. It would make her so happy. Your emotions spilling over as you let her know just how strongly you feel. She’ll understand your expression of love. But no, Moeko would be too afraid, afraid that her love might be rejected. Because she wasn’t like me. Until now, I’ve only known one way to express my feelings. If I were a man, I would want to violate you. That’s what I would have said. But Moeko is different, so delicate, so pure.
One day, she’ll no doubt return to her usual self. To that sister of mine who rubs her erogenous zones against us. But I won’t forget. I could never forget just how immaculate her feelings are.
Moeko herself hadn’t realized it. She had no idea just how pure she was. And I had no way of conveying it to her.
I went with Mom to the Queen’s Isetan department store to buy something for dinner, the same as always. Why don’t we make a paella tonight? Mom asked. So we walked through the aisles, picking out saffron, paprika, mussels, and the rest, putting them into the shopping basket one after the other.
Mom turned toward me after we finished up at the checkout. We always end up buying so much whenever we make paella, don’t we? Why don’t we take a break? she asked, and so we went to a café.
We ordered some coffee. Mom didn’t say anything. There was a recording of a Brahms symphony playing in the background. The heavy sound, like a deep underground rumbling, shook my heart, but strangely it didn’t leave me feeling tense or uneasy. The passions that it called to mind were healthy ones, everyday desires set to music, things like wanting to rise up in the world, or to build a successful romance.
Our drinks finally arrived. The coffee here is famously hot, and it made Mom’s eyelids twitch as she took a sip.
“Hey, Nanako, about Yōko…” Mom, unable to stand the heat any longer, took a mouthful of water. “It sounds like she’s broken up with that boy.”
I sipped at my own coffee in silence. I had expected that this would happen.
“Now that she’s learned things the hard way, I hope she won’t get caught up with another weird guy like that.”
That’s not likely, I whispered in my heart. It’s the weird guys who have all those weird charms. Most women end up falling for them. And Yōko is just like most women. She won’t be able to stop herself from up getting caught up in the wake of another weird guy. I could already imagine it. She has just grown up a little faster than the rest of us sisters. Sooner or later, Meiko and Moeko will surely go the same way. But I wanted to ask Mom something. Even if you wind up with a weird guy, does that really leave you stained? I wanted to tell her that I had never thought of her that way. It seemed to me that no matter how it was abused, the human body wasn’t the kind of thing that could ever be permanently tainted.
I could see them, as if right before my eyes. My sisters, each of them having found partners of their own. Even after getting married, even after having children, still fighting among themselves like children. Still frolicking about like angels. Even if the passage of time left them old and frail, even if they met with such contempt that it left not only their bodies defiled, but their spirits too, one day there they would all be, washed up against the shore, recalling the past—my three sisters, all so beautiful.
The Brahms symphony flowed over me. It sounded almost like a popular ballad, the kind of melody that always brought me to tears. I had hated this kind of song when I was a kid. But now, I felt like I could finally understand why I needed it.
Mom and us four sisters went back to sitting in the living room together, just like we used to. No one said anything about S.