South of the Border, West of the Sun Page 0,61

want you ever to leave me.”

After I finished, she closed her eyes. The fire from the stove burned, and Nat King Cole kept on singing his old songs. I should say something more, I thought, but I could think of nothing.

“Hajime,” she began, “this is very important, so listen carefully. As I told you before, there is no middle ground with me. You take either all of me or nothing. That’s the way it works. If you don’t mind continuing the way we are now, I don’t see why we can’t do that. I don’t know how long we’d be able to, but I’ll do everything in my power to see that it happens. When I’m able to come see you, I will. But when I can’t, I can’t. I can’t just come to see you whenever I feel like it. You may not be satisfied with that arrangement, but if you don’t want me to go away again, you have to take all of me. Everything. All the baggage I carry, everything that clings to me. And I will take all of you. Do you understand that? Do you understand what that means?”

“Yes,” I said.

“And you still want to be with me?”

“I’ve already decided, Shimamoto-san,” I said. “I thought about it when you were gone, and I made my decision.”

“But, Hajime, you have a wife and two children. And you love them. You want to do what’s right for them.”

“Of course I love them. Very much. And I want to take care of them. But something’s missing. I have a family, a job, and no complaints about either. You could say I’m happy. Yet I’ve known ever since I met you again that something is missing. The important question is what is missing. Something’s lacking. In me and my life. And that part of me is always hungry, always thirsting. Neither my wife nor my children can fill that gap. In the whole world, there’s only one person who can do that. You. Only now, when that thirst is satisfied, do I realize how empty I was. And how I’ve been hungering, thirsting, for so many years. I can’t go back to that kind of world.”

Shimamoto wrapped both her arms around me and rested her head on my shoulder. I could feel the softness of her body. It pushed against me warmly, insistently.

“I love you too, Hajime. You’re the only person I’ve ever loved. I don’t think you realize how very much I love you. I’ve loved you ever since I was twelve. Whenever anyone else held me, I thought of you. And that’s the reason why I didn’t want to see you again. If I saw you once, I knew I couldn’t stand it anymore. But I couldn’t keep myself away. At first I thought I’d just make sure it was really you, then head home. But once I saw you, I had to talk to you.” She kept her head on my shoulder. “Ever since I was twelve, I wanted you to hold me. You never knew that, did you?”

“No, I didn’t,” I admitted.

“Since I was twelve, I wanted to hold you, naked. You had no idea, I suppose.”

I held her close and kissed her. She closed her eyes, not moving. Our tongues wound round each other, and I could feel her heartbeat just below her breasts. A passionate, warm heartbeat. I closed my eyes and thought of the red blood coursing through her veins. I stroked her soft hair and drank in its fragrance. Her hands wandered over my back. The record finished, and the arm moved back to its base. Once again we were wrapped only in the sound of the rain. After a while, she opened her eyes. “Hajime,” she whispered, “are you sure this is all right? Are you sure you want to throw away everything for my sake?”

I nodded. “Yes. I’ve already made up my mind.”

“But if you’d never met me, you could have had a peaceful life. With no doubts or dissatisfactions. Don’t you think so?”

“Maybe. But I did meet you. And we can’t undo that,” I said. “Just as you told me once, there are certain things you can’t undo. You can only go forward. Shimamoto-san, I don’t care where we end up; I just know I want to go there with you. And begin again.”

“Hajime,” she said, “would you take off your clothes and let me see your body?”

“You want just me to take off my clothes?”

“Yes. First you