CHAPTER 90
K persisted with his questions about Okusan and Ojōsan. Eventually he began to ask the kind of personal question that I had no way of answering. I was not so much annoyed as astonished. There was a glaring contrast between his indifference whenever I had brought up the subject of these two on previous occasions, and his very different attitude now. Finally I asked why he was suddenly so obsessed with the subject today. He instantly fell silent, but his closed mouth twitched tremulously. He never spoke much, and when he did, he had the habit of first working his mouth around. The weight of his utterances was no doubt evidenced in the way the lips resisted his will and opened only reluctantly. The voice that finally broke through was twice as strong as that of an average man.
Seeing his mouth working now, I knew that something was coming, but I had no clue what was in store. You can imagine my amazement when K launched into a ponderous confession of his agonized love for Ojōsan. I froze, as if his words were a magic wand that turned me instantly to stone. My mouth failed to so much as twitch in an effort to respond.
My whole being was reduced to a single concentrated point—of terror, of pain. I stiffened instantaneously from head to foot, like stone or steel. So rigid was I that I almost lost the power of breath. Luckily, however, this state quickly passed. A moment later I had returned to human feelings. And now a bitter regret swept over me. He had beaten me to it.
I had no idea what my next move should be, however. I was too distressed, I suppose, to think coherently. I simply remained frozen, uncomfortably aware of the nasty sweat that was soaking the armpits of my shirt. K, meanwhile, was continuing the faltering confession of his love, pausing from time to time to grope for words. I was in agony. My distress must have been written on my face as blatantly as some advertising poster, I thought. Even K must surely notice it. But it seemed in fact that his attention was too deeply focused on himself to register my expression. His confession never varied in tone. There was a heavy dullness to it, it seemed to me, and a kind of unyielding inertia. While part of me listened to this faltering declaration, my heart was seething with the question What shall I do, oh, what shall I do? so that I scarcely comprehended the details of what K was saying. The overall tone of his words, however, struck me to the core. So my pain was now mixed with a kind of terror—the beginnings of a horrified recognition that he was stronger than I.
When K finished, I could say nothing. I was not struck dumb by any internal debate about whether it would be wiser to make the same confession to him or to keep my secret to myself. It was simply that I could not speak. Nor did I wish to.
At lunch K and I faced each other across the table. Served by the maid, we ate what seemed to me an unusually tasteless meal. We spoke barely a word during the meal. We had no idea when Okusan and Ojōsan would return.