Dear Frank,
Last year I mailed you two postcards, “Next year, I want to get my tree with you” and “I will not wear mistletoe to work,” both referring to the same crush.
I was bowled over just now to see that someone had wondered how my first secret turned out.
This year, I will celebrate the holiday with someone wonderful … but he’s not the guy I wrote those secrets about. Even if I hadn’t fallen in love this year, this Christmas would find me fairly indifferent to the person I mentioned in that postcard.
Time work wonders.
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated, as a swallow’d bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
[…]I don’t know if I like this man or hate him. After sitting for awhile, I decide to go back to the café. “I’m going to leave now. I’ll come again soon.” As I speak, Nomura picks up a small knife and flings it at me. The small blade sticks in the tatami. I gasp. So he still has this disgusting habit. When we lived together at Seta, he threw a knife at me several times. I can’t move, knowing that if I stand up, he’ll grab me by the legs and push me down. […]
Nighttime.
Just as I begin to drunkenly sing for the customers, Nomura comes into the café. I stop singing. It’s not my turn to serve the customers, but I know that he has no money. I feel a bitterness in my chest.
Sourly playing the mouth harp, Katsumi brings him sake. My legs feel week. I call Katsumi to the back room and tell her that Nomura knows me and doesn’t have any money. She understands and goes back. I leave the back door just as I am[…]
I take my time returning to the cafe and find that Nomura is still there. He is drinking sake and eating fried rice with a peaceful expression. I think I would sacrifice anything for him. Nomura leaves at about ten p.m.
Feeling that I am about to sink into the ground, I realize that there is no such thing as love.
[translated by Elizabeth Hanson]
And he was distressed that in a situation where a real man would instantly have known how to act, he was vacillating and therefore depriving the most beautiful moments he had ever experienced (kneeling at her bed and thinking he would not survive her death) of their meaning.
He remained annoyed with himself until he realized that not knowing what he wanted was actually quite natural.
We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can never compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.
