Immaculate

Abstract

Immaculate Oda Sakunosuke (bio) Translated by Marissa Skeels (bio) Everyone was making fun of me for how my brow was beaded with sweat and how I was gulping my breaths and flitting about like a baby bird, saying I must have been over the moon to be going to a marriage matchmaking meet, but that wasn't the case. I was nothing of the sort. I mean, I accept that women of a certain age do tend to go over the top, and say, No, no, I don't want to!—those words are false. I hate to admit it, but having reached the age I was without having ever been in marriage talks for whatever reason, while I was nowhere near as worked up as a 20-year-old would get, as a normal 24-year-old I did feel a spark of hope. But I was never over the moon. I have to wonder why people said such a thing. I'd never voiced aloud that I didn't want to get married, but nor had I ever imagined being swept off my feet into some glorious coupling. Even stories about some young hero or knight fill me with unease. But I too was an ordinary girl, and though I used to deride the act of wishing for something to happen and letting anticipation prey on one's mind, I had expectations of my own. That's why, when I was shown a tasteless photo out of the blue and told I'd be going to matchmaking without being given a chance to say either yes or no, I didn't exactly need my arm twisted to go along. But calling me over the moon went too far. There are in fact no words used by those of my gender which might adequately describe my feelings upon seeing how conspicuously he lacked refinement in that photo. People ought to have called me put out, instead. If they'd [End Page 412] been aware of how I truly felt, then they'd have soon cut short their gossip about how I was sweating. The man in the photo wore glasses. Saying only that isn't a readily comprehensible description, I know, but to me, he was wearing glasses. All right, no, that's a somewhat nasty way of putting it. What I mean is, why on earth was a 29-year-old wearing glasses the way he wore them? It isn't proper to cover the fine crow's-feet of a young man with thick plastic frames, and look for all the world like a fashion-conscious elderly gent. My first thought, and what I wanted to think, was that he must have worn them in an attempt to ruin his photo. They looked like they were about to slip down at any second. I could picture him removing their thin arms, which looped around his delicate ears and dripped with a watery cord to keep them from falling, in order to cry, and smudging their lenses with short fat thumbs, making them cloudy while his puffy eyelids twitched. That's how I imagined him acting. If I had to sum up my impression of him in a single word, it would have been doddering—no, that's not strong enough a term. A person can look bad in all sorts of ways, but it's rare to find someone who looks bad all over. That much was obvious to anyone who saw that photo, let alone me with my hopes—no, I'll stop. I'm not the slightest bit pretty. Maybe if I had my teeth straightened, I might be more attractive—no, it wouldn't make a difference. I'm ugly. Homely. It's likely that even he was disappointed when he saw my photo. All I could really say was that we were evenly matched. When I thought of it that way, the situation was amusing. So amusing that tears escaped me. My emotions regarding finally entering into matchmaking came flooding out. Serves you right. The low class of the words that sprang to my mind made me sad. I was in no way...