“You mean—this has all just been a game for you?
Kiriko firmly denied this. “It’s not a game. Men may play games like
that, they may fool around and everything—but women aren’t like that. At
least I’m not like that.”
“I don’t see how you can say that. What you said just now—you could
only have meant you think of this as a game. If it isn’t a game ...”
“I don’t know how to explain. There’s just something about it—there’s
this aura of secrecy,” she mumbled. “You really don’t have the slightest
idea how many constraints and burdens a woman my age has to deal with,
do you? And in that oppressive pain there’s a secret. But I see now that it
would have been better if it had ended as it was—as a secret daydream.”
“You’re sorry that you slept with me?”
Kiriko laughed at this trite, childish line.
“Asking me something like that—if I’m sorry I slept with you! Aren’t
you just insulting yourself? Even if I criticize myself and even if I feel pain
—1 still wouldn’t want to say that I regret what I did. Regret is the easiest
excuse of all. It’s just a convenient way to escape . . . .”
“So that’s all this was? I just happened to end up playing opposite you in
these secret daydreams of yours?”
“You didn’t find it at all strange that I started seeing you like that? It
didn’t seem strange that it all happened so easily? I had never had an affair,
you know.”
“Think about it—I told you about my late daughter the very first time I
met you. . . .”
This had happened on a train on the Yokosuka line. Junji had attended a
class on Western-style painting that day on an invitation from a friend.
They had learned to sketch female nudes. There were four or five young
women in the class, but Kiriko was the only one in Japanese dress, and she
