Book Girl and the Scribe Who Faced God, Part 2

by Mizuki Nomura

  “He loved her, but he wrote in his diary about how he felt no desire for a refined lady like her, without givin’ her a second thought.

  “He published memoirs about how he liked men, or about how he did it out in a field on a trip he took, or a story about how he went with Oscar Wilde, who was a famous pederast, to buy a little boy together. He killed a character in one of his stories that was pretty obviously modeled on Madeleine. He did whatever he wanted. He’d write just about anythin’ about his private life in his diary or his novels, and the feelings he wrote about are the most thoughtless ones.

  “They say Alissa and Jerome are modeled on Madeleine and Gide, too. The way she’s his cousin and two years older than him and the way she turned down Gide’s marriage proposal are exactly the same. But Madeleine wasn’t as selfish as Alissa. She was reserved and kind—she was a lovin’ wife, but Gide wrote it the way he wanted it to be! And then Alissa became a selfish woman who chooses God and casts Jerome aside.

  “Alissa’s cruel, but Gide is the worst. You agree! Don’cha, Konoha?”

  I helplessly, emptily murmured, “Yeah, you’re right,” patting Ryuto on the back as I said it.

  What was I doing?

  How had I been reduced to comforting the guy who’d been threatening me mercilessly up until yesterday?

  Ryuto buried his face against my neck and wept.

  The thing with Maki had really upset him…

  I recalled the frigid reaction I’d seen Maki give him in the workroom, and it made me sympathize with Ryuto a little.

  If I’d been tossed out like that, I’d probably want to cry, too. Though with Ryuto, there was a little bit of just deserts involved.

  “… They’re all awful. Gide an’ Alissa an’ Jerome an’ Princess Himekura, too.

  “The reason Maki did all that with me was to rebel against her family.

  “By goin’ out with me, she just wanted to prove that she wasn’t gonna do whatever they told her to, since I don’t fit in with them at all. She used me.”

  Yeah, that might be part of it…

  From what I’d glimpsed of the situation in Maki’s family at her estate over the summer… I recalled her relationship with her grandfather, who ruled with absolute authority, and I had to agree.

  Maki seemed like she wanted to be free of the Himekura family.

  “—Chee doesn’t care about me, either,” Ryuto proclaimed between sobs. “After Maki chased me off, I went to Chee’s class, but she’d already left with her friends.”

  “Well, that… she can’t help that. You guys didn’t have plans to meet up or anything.”

  “But when I called her and told her I wanted to see her, she said she couldn’t ’cos she was gonna go see a movie with her friends. And then she hung up! She was like, we were together a whole bunch yesterday, so I’m gonna pass today—even though her man was hurtin’ so bad and torn up and puttin’ out the SOS!”

  He seemed genuinely in despair somehow. I was fed up.

  “Y’know… it’s wrong to try to get Takeda to comfort you. If you tell her you got another girl pregnant and she was mean to you—any normal girl would get mad and break up with you. Well, Takeda might be forgiving about it, but…”

  “I mean, she doesn’t care no matter who I go out with, so she’d be able to just watch a blowup with another woman totally calmly. Chee doesn’t wanna tie me down or monopolize me or nothin’ like that. Even though I told her that she could if she wanted… Even if it is just pretend, she’s my girlfriend, so she oughta at least be nice at a time like this. Even if it is a lie! I care about her! And I care about Maki, too. But it doesn’t even matter.”

  “Whaaaa—? Really? You care about Maki?”

  “I do. That wrong?”

  “I, uh, didn’t mean—”

  But he cared about Takeda, and he cared about Maki, and he cared about Amemiya, who had passed away, and he probably cared about other girls, too. He just had too big of a heart.

  I couldn’t handle the fact that he had no sense of guilt.

  Ah, but…

  Takeda had said as much.

  That there was someone special that Ryuto truly cared about. That he couldn’t have that person and so everyone else was a replacement for her.

  Someone that Ryuto had truly cared about.

  It was probably Tohko’s mother, Yui.

  The woman who had been Ryuto’s first love.

  “Everyone tosses me aside in the end. Yui’s the only one who ever loved me. Yui gave me everythin’… kind words, warmth, all of it. And yet because Jerome cared for Alissa, Juliette couldn’t help but get hurt and broken. If I were Jerome, I woulda loved Juliette. I woulda made Juliette happy.”

  A chill went through my heart.

  When Ryuto had talked about Juliette before, I hadn’t known whom he meant by “Juliette marrying Jerome.”

  But now that I knew Fumiharu was Jerome, Kanako was Alissa, and Yui was Juliette, Ryuto’s words became cloaked in a different meaning.

  Jerome loved Alissa and didn’t love Juliette.

  Which meant Fumiharu Amano loved Kanako Sakurai and wasn’t in love with Yui Amano—

  It was as if a pitch-black shadow had fallen over me; I could barely breathe, and I quickly denied the thoughts rising in my heart.

  I didn’t want to think that the memories of her parents that Tohko had recounted so joyfully were a lie.

  Her voice kind, as if a tender past had risen in the back of her mind. Sweet yearning coloring her eyes.

  “When my dad proposed to my mom, he said, ‘I want you to be my author. Just mine.’ My dad and I both loved the meals my mom wrote for us.”

  The photo of her parents that I’d found in Tohko’s room had looked happy, too.

  But immediately after denying this, doubts bubbled up once more.

  How my literary agent Mr. Sasaki had said Fumiharu and Kanako’s relationship was a “chaste union.”

  And how he had said that maybe Fumiharu understood Kanako as an author better than anyone and also how Kanako had often done things to rub Yui’s nose in her relationship with Fumiharu—

  A shuddering chill crawled up my spine.

  As I wavered, Ryuto whispered the seeds of a fresh doubt into my ear with his humid breath.

  “Juliette was such a truly kind woman. She couldn’t take it forever, the way Jerome had eyes only for Alissa… In order to have Jerome all for herself, she poisoned him.”

  Maybe he was worn out from crying, but he didn’t wail the way he had been. Instead, he whispered in a low, rough voice, almost a pant. It was pretty unsettling, and I had the impression that poison was being dripped into my ear, drop by drop.

  Drip… drip…

  “Konoha… Juliette kept the violet, heart-shaped bottle full of poison in a drawer of her dressin’ table in her bedroom. She put it in her jewelry box and locked it.

  “Takin’ it out when no one else was around, she would gaze at it, entranced—and one day she mixed it into the coffee she and Jerome were gonna drink.”

  Reality was probably getting mixed up with fantasy because he was drunk. He described the scene back then as if speaking in a dream.

  “She stuck a spoon into the coffeepot and swirled it around… and the silver dust spun in a smooth circle, dissolvin’ into it.

  “Yui’s hands were pale and silky—the sleeve of her sweater ended in a bloodred cuff, and the poison cascaded down from it…

  “Spilling… spilling… shining silver sand…

  “Yui watched it with a soft smile. Now I won’t have to suffer. I’ll be able to sleep in peace… Her face joyful with that thought… When I tried to help her put it in the cups, she told me I was too little and I might hurt myself. Then she picked up the coffeepot and poured it into some cups with flowers on them. That’s when the earth cracked open and turned dark.

  “Every day… I have the same dream… every day.

  “I dream that I give Yui the bottle.

  “I dream
that I die alone in a hospital.

  “And then someone points at a shelf—”

  Ryuto lifted his face and pointed unsteadily toward the top of the wall.

  “—and they tell me. The sleepin’ powder of Ole Lukøje is up there—”

  I gulped at the dangerous look in his eyes, as if he was possessed by something—as if he was seeing a vision.

  But it didn’t feel right.

  “I thought the heart-shaped bottle was shut inside a drawer in her dressing table? That’s what you said before.”

  “That’s true… I wonder why that is.”

  Confusion came over Ryuto’s face. But his eyes immediately turned dark and dangerous again, as if he’d slipped back inside himself, and his gaze fell to the carpet. With a frightened expression he murmured, “I’m positive… it’s gonna happen again. If I… have a kid with Maki, it’s gonna be a boy.”

  The air grew thick and murky. I could feel my skin humming and the dryness in my throat. His head still bowed, Ryuto shook it side to side.

  “No… if I don’t cut this off somehow… there’s no meaning in getting reborn…”

  No… no…

  I listened to the words Ryuto continued to groan in a low voice, as if listening to an ominous prophesy, my body growing cold and stiff.

  Even after Ryuto fell asleep, his voice lingered in my mind.

  No… no…

  Happiness as an author—I wonder what that is.

  Last night I reread Strait Is the Gate.

  Something more important than happiness—Alissa’s answer was sanctity.

  I wonder why she had to go so far in turning her back on Jerome when she did love him.

  The stories you make with Fumiharu are more and more luminous and you’re getting closer to the supreme story.

  No matter how repulsive the thing you write about, there’s no immediacy. It stabs straight into the reader’s heart and excites a transparent ache.

  But I feel as though the more you write, the more alone you become, and I worry.

  I get so uneasy I can’t stand it, like Juliette who could do nothing but stand by and watch as Alissa went through the narrow gate.

  In my head, I understand that going down that path is the right thing for you, Kana, but my heart is practically being torn apart.

  I’m practically screaming at you, with all the strength in my voice, “Don’t go that way! Don’t go through the gate! Please, come back!”

  I was the one who brought you and Fumiharu together.

  Fumiharu read an essay you had in our club magazine and said he wanted to meet you.

  The first time all three of us ate out together, you barely spoke and you glowered at Fumiharu, so I was on pins and needles.

  I knew you were shy in front of strangers, so I thought you wouldn’t really want to meet Fumiharu, either. And yet when I said, “Do you want to get something to eat, the three of us?” you agreed without any fuss, so I was relieved.

  And then you were sullen as soon as we sat down, so my stomach was really tight and I could hardly taste the food.

  Though it didn’t look like Fumiharu was worried about it. He was smiling placidly.

  “She’s a lovely woman. And extremely intelligent to boot.”

  When he complimented you afterward—“Isn’t she?!”—my voice rose accidentally.

  I was thrilled that Fumiharu was taken with my best friend, whom I was so proud of.

  I never thought he would contact you…

  That he would have you write that novel.

  That the two of you were meeting up in secret.

  I became Fumiharu’s wife, and you, Kana, became an author.

  Was that truly the best thing for you, Kana?

  Fumiharu gently admonished that pestering you about all this would only interfere with you.

  It was the same with Takumi.

  He said you could make decisions for yourself, so I shouldn’t meddle…

  But…

  Chapter 3—Words Hidden

  Ryuto’s assault ended and days went by in peace.

  When I asked Takeda after school in the library how he was doing, she told me with a distant expression, “He’s drowning in the dumps.

  “He went to see Himekura again yesterday, and I guess she chased him off.”

  “… Are you mad?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “I think Ryuto wants you to comfort him.”

  “If you spoil him, you get into the habit of doing it, so I’m going to let him be depressed awhile. That makes things more peaceful for you guys, too, right?”

  “That’s true…”

  My voice choked off.

  “Takeda… what will you do if Maki has Ryuto’s baby?”

  “I’m not going to do anything. Ryu just isn’t capable of going out with one girl, and I bet he’ll have oodles of babies on the side later on. I can’t let every single one of them bother me.”

  I felt a little sorry for Ryuto after all.

  Takeda went back to the checkout desk, so while I waited for Kotobuki, I walked around scanning the shelves for something to read.

  My breath caught when I found Strait Is the Gate, and unconsciously I came to a stop.

  My pulse quickened and something deep in my chest squeezed tight.

  Beside it was a thin volume with the title A Hidden Diary. The author was Gide.

  I’d been trying not to think about Tohko or the Amanos this whole time.

  It was better not to get involved any further.

  And yet my fingers stretched out hesitantly for the book again and again.

  I took it down with a feeling of shame, as if I were doing something I shouldn’t, and I turned back the drab green cover.

  “I was thinking about her last night. As I often do, I was having a discussion with her in my mind, more at my ease than when I stand before her in reality. But abruptly I said to myself, ‘But she’s dead…’ ”

  This… was a novel?

  “I won’t deny that I have frequently lived at a distance from her for long periods. However, ever since my youth it has been my habit to report to her the conquests of the day and to share with her the sorrows and joys within my solitary breast. So I did again last night, but abruptly I recalled that she was dead.”

  While I moved to a table to continue reading, I realized that it was a diary Gide had written in the style of a memoir about his wife, Madeleine. When I looked at the explanatory notes, they said the book had been published after his death.

  Ryuto had said that Gide was a homosexual and that he’d had no marital relations with Madeleine. Had said he was awful for writing down anything and everything in his diaries and novels… But in his diary, Madeleine was the person Gide loved best and he had lamented her death.

  “Everything has faded and lost its luster.”

  “Because I have lost her, I have no reason to live. I no longer know for what reason I would go on living hereafter.”

  Sadness that dug at my chest. Despair. The shriek of a soul that could not set aside its pen—each word that Gide wrote racked my heart.

  He recorded how he had made Madeleine the point of departure for Alissa in Strait Is the Gate, but that she was not Madeleine herself. She hadn’t appeared to find anything of herself in it, and during her life, she never spoke a word about the book.

  Still, as I read through the diary, I also realized that things that had actually happened to Gide and Madeleine had been liberally mixed into episodes between Alissa and Jerome.

  The part where Alissa is hurt when she discovers her mother’s unfaithfulness and Jerome promises to protect her for the rest of his life was identical, and Gide told a story similar to the scene with the cross in his diary. I felt as if Jerome’s psychology in continuing to love Alissa as something saintly mirrored Gide’s feelings, loving Madeleine for being immaculate.

  “I thought that if I drew closer to God, it would bring me that much closer to her. And while I did so, slowly
ascending to heaven, I felt that the land around us was gradually narrowing. I was overjoyed.”

  Even though he loved her that much, Gide was unable to see Madeleine as a sexual object.

  That fact brought sorrow and discord into their relationship.

  “I’ve been so naive, I never even once considered whether or not love without physicality would satisfy her.”

  “I thought desire was the purview of men. It was more reassuring to think that women were incapable of experiencing that sort of desire; that even if they could, it was only ‘women of the evening.’ ”

  Gide’s excuse was selfish. I wondered how Madeleine must have felt as a wife whose husband never sought physical relations from her.

  Plus, in the notes it said that it wasn’t even as if Gide only had sexual intercourse with men; he had a child with a girl who was young enough to be his daughter.

  So then why was Madeleine the only one he’d been unable to sleep with? Was it because Madeleine had such a saintly role for him?

  From an old photograph, Madeleine spoke to Gide, who was sunk into melancholy. She told him, “My greatest joys are thanks to you.”

  “And my greatest sorrows, as well. So both the best and the most painful.”

  The relationship was suffering as well as joy for both of them—even when he was away from her, Gide sent Madeleine letters. For him, they were special letters. He wrote down “the best of himself” in his letters. His spirit, his joys, changes in his mood, the work of the day: everything.

  But after Gide left on a trip with a man who was his lover, Madeleine burned all the letters he had sent her.

  Gide took such a shock from that act that it almost drove him insane, and he slipped into despondency, saying, “The best parts of myself have been eradicated.”

  But Madeleine experienced such pain that she could do nothing else. She appealed to him.

  “They were the most important things in the world to me.”

  “After you left, I knew not what I ought to do nor what would become of me in this huge house you had abandoned, with no one in it I might rely upon. At my most desolate moment… for the first time I thought there was nothing for me but to die.”