Touring the Land of the Dead (and Ninety-Nine Kisses)

by Maki Kashimada

  And then it occurred to me. These emotions, this sense of fear, they had all arisen from the realization that I shouldn’t kiss her. This time of my life when I could do anything, this age of innocence, was for me, it seemed, nearing its end.

  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. Yo¯ko 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 Yo¯ko 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, Yo¯ko 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.”

  Yo¯ko 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 Yo¯ko who first realized that.

  I flicked through the album. I came across a picture of Moeko straddling Yo¯ko. 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 Yo¯ko.

  Hey, Nanako, do you think Yo¯ko’s okay? Moeko asked. Is it really okay for her to be in love with that stranger? She was talking about Yo¯ko 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 Yo¯ko. 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 Yo¯ko . . .” 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 Yo¯ko 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.

  Earlier that day, we had received a sample of several lipsticks in the mail. Small circles of paste on a piece of cardboard, like paints on a palette. Meiko had brought it inside and put it on the table.

  She didn’t wait even a
moment before picking up a lip brush. Moeko was just playing around, smearing the lipstick on her lips with her finger. Yo¯ko had her head tilted to one side, reading the text on the pasteboard under the title Six New Shades of Autumn. I sat watching my sisters fondly.

  Mom had begun to sing “Fly Me to the Moon.” It was the kind of melody that hits you like a cold, wintry wind. And then I started thinking: What was she doing? Isn’t that the kind of song that a prostitute would sing? But I stopped myself. That couldn’t be right. If it were a prostitute’s song, she wouldn’t be able to sing it in front of her four daughters. And no sooner had I realized this than my memories all began to blur together.

  Six years ago, Mom had come out with an announcement. “Listen carefully, you four. Your father and I have decided to get a divorce.”

  Meiko immediately burst into tears. Moeko immediately went to hug her. Yo¯ko wore a detached expression. I looked at my three sisters, completely exhausted, thinking that everything was going to descend into pandemonium all over again.

  “That’s fine, I guess, if it’s what you’ve both decided. But you need to tell us why,” Moeko said, her voice filled with frustration. But why on earth was she so disgruntled? It probably wasn’t the fact that they were getting divorced that had upset her, but rather that news of it had made Meiko cry.

  “There’s no one reason,” Mom said. “Is there ever really a single reason why you would break up with someone?”

  Moeko was silent.

  “All kinds of things happen between men and women, piling on top of one other, and people end up growing apart, you know? That’s just how they are.”

  Hearing this, Moeko burst into tears too. Because what Mom had said was so true.

  Mom had never treated us like kids. Most parents only start thinking about the budding sexuality of their children when it’s already too late. But Mom was different. She had treated us like women from the very beginning. So she was breaking up with Dad the same way that any of us might break up with a boyfriend, because things had just piled up until they had become unbearable. That’s what she had meant.

  “Hey, Mom,” Moeko said. “Did Dad give you a hard time? Did he do anything to you? If he did, tell me. I’ll sue him. I’ll take him to court.”

  “A hard time . . . ?” Mom wiped away her tears. “Of course there have been hard times. But there’s been so many, I can’t even remember them anymore.”

  A while after that, when I went into Yo¯ko’s room one day, she said to me: “Dad’s got another woman. You know, apart from Mom.”

  I was taken aback.

  “But I can’t work out who’s in the wrong.” She was playing around with one of her desk drawers. “I’m going to see his new wife this weekend. I’ve already met her a few times, actually.”

  “How can you put up with her?”

  “She’s a good person. Dad said that he loved her, but that he loved Mom too. So it isn’t like Mom did anything wrong. That’s what he said to me.” She opened the window and lit up a cigarette. “You don’t like it when I smoke, do you?”

  “I’m okay.”

  I didn’t like it, but now wasn’t the time to admit that.

  “Yo¯ko, when did you start smoking?”

  “The guy I’m going out with is a smoker. I didn’t like it at first either, but before I knew it, I’d picked up the habit myself.” She took one more long drag from the cigarette, before crushing it out. “Hey, Nanako. You don’t think very much of me, do you?”

  I shook my head, taken aback by her question.

  “It’s okay. I understand. You don’t like me, because I’m always letting these men change who I am.”

  “It isn’t you I don’t like. It’s all this stuff that happens between men and women.”

  “I hate it too, to be honest.” She lit a fresh cigarette. “You know, sometimes I get jealous of Meiko and Moeko. Like when they fight with each other. Or their idealistic view of men and all that. I’m just completely disillusioned with it all.”

  But you’ll still keep falling in love, I thought. Yo¯ko was made up of a lot of parts, parts that couldn’t be explained through logic or reason.

  My sisters all picked out their favorite colors. For Meiko, it was pink, for Moeko, brown, and for Yo¯ko, it was a clear gloss.

  Moeko and Yo¯ko took out a pair of small brushes and began to enthusiastically apply the makeup to their lips. The three of them all jostled with one another over a small hand mirror. It was like watching them pour their burning passions into a single point, a small point of lipstick. It was like the flowers fighting among themselves at Nezu Shrine, back when S had first appeared in town. They were all staring deeply into the mirror, as if each of them was spellbound with desire for themselves.

  There was nothing unusual about that. My sisters did want themselves, desperately. But they knew that they would never be able to grasp what they saw in that image.

  Meiko, Moeko, and Yo¯ko scrambled over the colors, trying first one, then the next, glancing back into the mirror with each freshly applied coat. It was as if the three of them were staring into a stained-glass window filled with the faces of saints, as if they didn’t really care which of them they saw staring back.

  “Meiko,” I called out.

  “Sorry, I’m a bit busy right now,” she said without even glancing my way.

  “Why don’t you go watch some TV?” Even Moeko wasn’t paying attention to me.

  When I turned to Yo¯ko, she didn’t even respond.

  I approached Mom. “This is so boring!”

  “Truly,” she sighed. “Those three really do go crazy about their makeup,” she said, sounding strangely happy about it.

  The weather forecast was showing on the TV. “We can look forward to blue skies today, not a cloud in sight,” the announcer said decisively. The woman’s voice seemed to pierce the cloudless sky, to tear into my eardrums. The sound left me feeling like I was listening to a soprano singing an aria, to the cruel, enthusiastic cries of women.

  “We’re done.”

  Moeko appeared by my side, Meiko and Yo¯ko tagging along behind her.

  “What do you think?” she asked. She no doubt wanted to hear which of them I thought was the most beautiful.

  Neither Meiko nor Yo¯ko said anything to challenge that. They wanted to know too. All three of them wanted to hear what I thought.

  “Moeko’s color is a bit plain,” Meiko said. “But then your sense of fashion has always been like that.”

  “How rude,” Moeko replied angrily. “Yours is too gaudy. Why don’t you try picking something more suitable for your age, for once?”

  “Come on, you two. Stop criticizing each other all the time,” Yo¯ko said.

  “You’re a nasty one, Moeko. Give me back that suede miniskirt I let you have last winter.”

  “I thought you gave it to me. You know, seeing as it’s too gaudy for you these days,” Moeko responded defiantly.

  “But I bought it at that secondhand store the first time I went to Paris. I’ve been meaning to save it, as a memento. Give it back.”

  “A memento? Don’t be stupid. Besides, miniskirts don’t suit you anymore, not at your age.”

  “What did you say?”

  The two of them started scuffling with one another right in the middle of the living room.

  Meiko had worn that miniskirt all the time when she had been a bit younger, matching it with a pair of long boots. The outfit had really suited her. But then she had decided to hand it down. And when Moeko had gotten her hands on it, she had gone looking for the exact same pair of boots too, wearing them all over the place as if trying to show her elder sister up.

  I remember Yo¯ko and Mom saying to each other that she shouldn’t do that sort of thing, that it wasn’t very nice to Meiko.

  “This always happens with you two. That’s why I don’t use any of your things—not your makeup, not your clothes. I don’t care how poor I am, I’ll buy whatever I want myself,” Yo¯ko decl
ared.

  “Anyway,” Moeko said. “Let’s get Nanako to decide who’s the most beautiful.”

  The three of them finally fell silent.

  “You’re all pretty, all three of you. So stop fighting.” It was obvious what my answer would be, but still they insisted on asking me that mean-spirited question.

  “You’re such a flirt,” Moeko teased.

  “Really, you three,” Mom sighed. “Can’t you go even one day without fighting?”

  “Maybe not,” Yo¯ko said. “Maybe we can’t live without fighting. I mean, it’s fun.”

  “Nanako,” Moeko said, hugging me from behind, kissing my cheek. Did she leave a trace of her lipstick there? I found myself glancing down at my feet.

  “Not fair, Moeko,” Meiko said, kissing me on the forehead.

  “Me too,” Yo¯ko added, kissing the back of my hand.

  I felt suddenly embarrassed. I could hardly sit still. My cheeks were starting to burn. I wanted to run away somewhere and hide, but there was nowhere to go. That was how I felt. Why? I wondered. A feast—my three sisters and me. Even though it should have been me who had been longing for this moment for so long. Even though this should have been the realization of that sacred dream that I had thought would never come true. My sisters, on some kind of whim, had ended up carrying out this sacred ceremony. My sisters, calculating, forceful, impure, and yet also beautiful.

  I wouldn’t be able to withstand their malicious kisses. I was sure of it.

  Moeko hugged me from behind, her arms holding me tight. “Hey, Nanako. Why don’t you try putting some on as well?”