When the car started to move, Keiko waved to the courteous soldier and he responded. So did two or three other men in the crowd.

"What popularity!" Honda commented rather flippantly to show himself how quickly he could recover from the traumatic episode.

Keiko laughed contentedly and said: "There is kindness to be found everywhere." In great haste she took out a handkerchief heavily embroidered in the Chinese style and blew her nose loudly like a Westerner. The nose showed no signs of damage afterwards. It was as high and magnificent as usual.

"That's because you sleep naked every night," said Katsumi who was driving.

"What a rude thing to say! As though you've ever seen me . . . By the way, where shall we go?"

Honda was apprehensive about walking around the Ginza area lest they run into the small man again.

"Let's go to that new . . . what's the building? . . . at the corner of Hibiya," he said irritably, unable to remember.

"You mean the Nikkatsu Hotel?" said Katsumi. And soon, glimpsing the soiled mustard color of the river through the crowd, they crossed the Sukiya Bridge.

Keiko was most kind and also intelligent, but that she lacked a certain gentleness was obvious. Of any subject-literature, art, music, or even philosophy-she spoke with her extravagant feminine, pleasure-loving enthusiasm as though she were talking about perfume or necklaces. She never actually paraded her erudition in art or philosophy, and her knowledge was not necessarily well balanced; but in some fields her information was quite thorough.

As he recalled, upper-cla.s.s women of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were either stuffy self-appointed virtuous types or brazen minxes, so Keiko's well-roundedness surprised him. But he could foresee trouble for the man who became her husband. She was never cruel, but in her one sensed a certain intolerable fastidiousness in little things.

Could that be a defense? But for what purpose? To be sure, she had never been raised in such a way that she would require armor. She had never found it necessary to fight the world. Rather, the world always showed her deference, and one felt in her a kind of purity that was overpowering in its authority.

Keiko was congenitally incapable of distinguishing between affection and favor, and thus anyone she granted a boon might a.s.sume that she loved him.

This occasion was no exception. On the mezzanine overlooking the lobby that resembled a new rugby field, Keiko, a gla.s.s of sherry before her, began giving instructions. Honda was overwhelmed. It was as though he were listening to a lecture in a course on French cooking on how to prepare a fowl named Ying Chan.

"You've seen her twice since then. How were things? How far do you think you can go?" she asked Katsumi first. Then she pulled out a large box of cigars, which she seemed to have forgotten about until that moment, and silently placed it in Honda's lap.

"How did it go? I think the time's almost ripe."

Honda traced the pattern on the cigar box with his fingers. It reminded him of the paper currency of some small European country, its gold coins and pink ribbons embossed in golden letters on a green background. He was conjuring up the aroma of cigars; he had not smoked for some time. Simultaneously he sharply repelled Katsumi's words. Nevertheless, he was surprised when he discovered himself enjoying the repugnance like an omen of something.

"Did you at least kiss her?" asked Keiko.

"Yes, once."

"How was it?"

"How was it . . .? Well, I took her back to the Foreign Student Center and kissed her just a little behind the gate."

"Yes? And how was it?"

"She seemed pretty fl.u.s.tered. It was probably her first time."

"That doesn't sound like you. Couldn't you have gone further?"

"But she's special. She's a princess."

Keiko turned to Honda. "The best way," she said, "would be for you to take her to Gotemba. Why don't you say you're throwing a party and invite her to stay overnight? As late as possible. She can't very well turn you down because you know she's stayed out other nights; and besides, she has to make up for the party she stood you up on. If she's alone with Katsumi she'll be on her guard, so you must go with them. Of course, Katsumi will drive. You can tell her that I'll be waiting in Gotemba. It won't be true, but I won't be inconvenienced . . . When you reach your villa she'll find it strange that no one else is there. But even so, a foreign princess can't possibly run away, so it must be left to Katsumi. You can leave her to him for the night and wait for your canard a l'orange to be ready."

36.

IT WAS MIDNIGHT at Ninooka in Gotemba. After putting out the fire in the fireplace, Honda took his umbrella and strolled from the living room out to the terrace.

There, in front, the swimming pool had already taken shape, and the rain was beating on the rough concrete. It was far from completed, and even the ladder was not yet attached. In the light from the terrace the rainy concrete was the color of grayish liquid. The swimming pool was being constructed by workers from Tokyo, and progress was necessarily slow.

It was obvious even in the nocturnal darkness that the swimming pool was not adequately drained. Honda decided he must tell the contractor when he returned to Tokyo. The many puddles in the bottom of the pool were pelted by the rain, producing ripples that wretchedly captured the reflections of light from the distant terrace. Night fog rose from the western end of the valley and hung motionless in the middle of the green. It was extremely cold.

The unfinished pool had begun to look like a gigantic grave pit, big enough and more for a legion of skeletons. Actually it did not begin to appear, it had never been anything else. The water would splash up if skeletons were dropped to the bottom and then grow calm, and the dried bones would immediately soak up the water and become glossy and fresh. Old-time j.a.panese, on reaching Honda's age, would have thought of building a treasury storagehouse celebrating longevity. Honda was building, of all things, a swimming pool! It was a cruel attempt to float his sagging decrepit flesh in an abundance of blue water. Honda had acquired the habit of spending money only for games full of malice. How the Hakone mountains and the summer clouds reflecting in the water of the pool would brighten his old age! And what a grimace Ying Chan would make if she ever discovered that he had built it precisely because he wished to see her naked body at close hand in the summer.

Honda started to return to lock the doors, when, raising the umbrella, he glanced up at the lights on the second floor. Four windows were still bright. They were in the two guest rooms adjacent to the study next to which Ying Chan was staying. Katsumi occupied the room beyond that.

Despite the umbrella, raindrops soaked his trousers and seemed to penetrate to his knees. In the night chill tiny red flowers of pain secretly blossomed in his various joints. He imagined them to be something like miniature higan-bana. The bones that in his youth had modestly hidden in his flesh playing out their roles were now in his old age beginning more and more to claim existence. They had begun to sing and complain, breaking through the deteriorating flesh and attempting to escape from the stubborn darkness of the body. They were constantly watching for opportunities to dash into the outside world where they could bask in the sun as freely as the young leaves, rocks, and trees that enjoyed sunshine all the time. Doubtless they knew that the day was not far off when they would realize their dreams.

Watching the lights on the second floor, Honda suddenly became warm as he thought of Ying Chan disrobing. Did bones take on heat? Had the red flowers in his joints developed hay fever? Honda quickly locked the doors, turned out the lights in the living room, and stealthily went upstairs. He entered from the bedroom door so that he could proceed noiselessly to the study. He felt his way to the bookcases in the darkness. His hands trembled as he removed one after the other the thick foreign volumes. At last he put his eye to the peephole in the back of the case.

Ying Chan entered the circle of dim light humming a song; he had never craved for any moment so much as this. It was the yearning one felt while waiting for a calabash flower to bloom on the verge of a summer evening. It was the moment at which a slowly opening fan revealed its complete picture. Honda was going to see Ying Chan in a state that as yet had been seen by no one. This was what he wanted more than anything else in the world. By his act of watching, this unseen condition was already destroyed. Being seen by absolutely no one and being unaware of being seen were similar, yet basically different.

Ying Chan had been surprisingly calm when she arrived at the villa and learned that the plans for the party were untrue.

From the time of their arrival Honda had worried about the explanation he must make. Katsumi had left all that to him in order to remain blameless in the matter. However, explanations were unnecessary. When Honda started a fire in the fireplace and gave her a drink, Ying Chan smiled happily and asked no questions. She might have thought that she had misunderstood his j.a.panese when she had originally been invited. Invitations extended in a foreign language often lead to misunderstandings and confusion. The reason Ying Chan had renewed acquaintance with Honda when she first came to j.a.pan was because the j.a.panese amba.s.sador to Thailand, having heard from others about Honda's former connections with Thai royalty, had written a letter of introduction. He had requested that Honda speak j.a.panese as much as possible so that the Princess might improve her command of the language.

As he watched Ying Chan, who seemed quite unaware of any danger, Honda was filled with a kind of pity. She was crouching by a fire in a strange country, involuntarily involved in a conspiracy of the flesh that was far from tender. The flames reflected on the sides of her bronze cheeks, and her hair seemed to smolder. Her constant smile and her beautiful white teeth produced in him an indescribable sense of pity.

"When your father was in j.a.pan, he was always frozen in winter. He couldn't wait for summer. You must feel that way too."

"Yes. I don't like cold weather."

"Well, it'll last only a little longer. In two months it will not be very different here from summer in Bangkok. As I look at you now I remember your father in cold weather. And I remember when I was young," said Honda, going to the fireplace to flick the ash from his cigar. He stole a glance at Ying Chan's lap from above. Whereupon her knees that had been open closed like sensitive mimosa leaves.

All three had pushed aside the chairs and were sitting on the rug in front of the fire, and Honda could see Ying Chan in her various postures. She could, for example, sit n.o.bly erect in a chair or relax on her side, her lovely legs crossed on the floor, playing the seductive Western woman. But sometimes she would suddenly break these patterns and surprise Honda, as when she had first come to the fire. She had hunched her shoulders from the cold, thrusting out her chin, miserably burying her neck; the way she talked and waved her thin wrists in the air suggested a certain Chinese-type shallowness. She had gradually drawn closer to the fire and sat facing it like the women who sold fruit in the deep green shade of the tropical afternoon markets with the blazing sunlight before them. With both legs rigid, hips suspended in the air, she bent over so that her voluptuous b.r.e.a.s.t.s and full thighs pushed against each other. The center of gravity lay at the contact point of crushed breast and thigh, around which her body swayed slightly in an incredibly vulgar manner. At such times the tension of her flesh was concentrated in her b.u.t.tocks, her thighs, her back, in all the ign.o.ble places of her body, and Honda sensed a sharp odor of wilderness like that created by the heaps of dead leaves in the jungle.

Katsumi feigned calmness, and the patterns of the cut-gla.s.s brandy tumbler reflected on his white hand, but he was obviously irritable. Honda disdained his s.e.xual desire.

"It'll be all right tonight. I'll have your room very warm," said Honda, forestalling the question of her staying overnight before it came up. "There'll be two big electric heaters. Thanks to Keiko's connections we were given an electric capacity as big as the one at Occupation Forces' quarters."

But Honda did not explain why this Western-style house did not have a Western heating system or even a Korean or a Chinese one. People had suggested a wall system using coal instead of oil, which was so difficult to obtain. His wife too had liked the idea, but Honda had not agreed. Wall heating consisted of pa.s.sing hot air through double walls, and it was essential for him to have walls of only one thickness.

He had pretended to his wife that he was making the trip alone, claiming he wanted to do some research undisturbed. Her words when he was about to leave, ordinary considerate words, had remained in his mind like curses: "Don't catch cold. It's frigid at Gotemba. On a rainy day like this it'll be colder than you think. Take good care of yourself."

Honda put his eye against the peephole. His eyelashes, turning inward, p.r.i.c.ked his thin eyelids.

Ying Chan had not yet changed her clothes. The night kimono that had been laid out still lay on the bed. She was seated in a chair in front of the mirror and was earnestly gazing at something. He first thought it was a book, but it was much smaller and thinner and looked rather like a photograph. Curious to know whose picture it was, he tried all angles, but he could not manage to see it.

She was humming a monotonous melody to herself. It sounded like a Thai song. Honda had heard such popular tunes in Bangkok, sung in the high, squeaky tone of a Chinese fiddle. It suddenly brought back memories of the brilliant metal links in the chains around the banks at night or the boisterous scenes of the ca.n.a.l markets in the mornings.

Ying Chan put the photograph in her purse and walked two or three steps toward the bed; that is, toward the peephole. Honda's heart leaped. It seemed as though she would break through the wall and attack him. But instead, she jumped up on the farther of the two beds which was still covered by a spread and leaped from it to the one by the wall, which had already been made up for her. He could only see her legs.

Ying Chan bounced two or three times on the bed, turning with each leap in a different direction. He could see that the seams of her stockings were twisted.

Her beautiful legs were encased in gleaming nylon; her calves were smooth and tapered to firm ankles. Her soles were still in contact with the mattress, and she bounced by lightly bending her knees, her fluttering skirt momentarily exposing areas far above her knees. On the upper part of her stockings, where the texture was different and the beige darker, garter b.u.t.tons like pale green peas were visible. Farther up, the bare dark skin of her thighs was like a dusky dawn sky seen through a skylight.

As she jumped, Ying Chan appeared to lose her balance, and the legs before his eyes began to fall to the right as if to disappear; but she descended from the bed without mishap. This was probably her childish habit of testing an unfamiliar bed.

Next she inspected the details of the night kimono Honda had put out for her. She placed it over her dress and looked at herself from all angles in front of the mirror. Then she removed it and settled down in the chair before the mirror. With both hands she grasped the clasp of the gold necklace behind her neck and skillfully undid it. She raised her fingers before the mirror and started to take off the ring, but then stopped. For Honda, watching her mirror image, Ying Chan's slow movements and her expression were as if under water or possibly maneuvered by remote control.

Instead of taking off the band, she raised her hand high toward the ceiling light. The man's emerald ring, conspicuous on her finger, sparkled greenly, and the monstrous faces of the golden protector yakshas glowed.

Finally, reaching back with both hands, she began to undo the small hook above the fastener of her dress. Honda held his breath.

Ying Chan stopped her movement and turned her face toward the door on the right. It was being unlocked with the spare key Honda had provided and Katsumi was opening it. Honda bit his lip, vexed by the bad timing. If Katsumi had come two or three minutes later, Ying Chan would have had her clothes off.

The sudden apprehension of the innocent girl was transformed in the dim round frame of the peephole into a painting of a critical moment. She did not yet know who might be coming through the door. Perhaps a great white peac.o.c.k would strut arrogantly in, filling the room with the fragrance of lilies. And the flutter of its wings and its cries, like the squeaking of a pulley, would transform the entire room into the quiet hall of the Rosette Palace that one afternoon . . .

But what entered the room was an overly affected mediocrity. Katsumi did not so much as excuse himself for opening the door without knocking, but awkwardly mumbled that not being able to sleep, he had come to talk with her. The girl, resuming her smile, offered him a chair, and the two began a long conversation. Katsumi spoke flatteringly in English and Ying Chan became suddenly talkative. Peeping through his hole, Honda yawned.

Katsumi placed his hand on hers, and as she did not withdraw it, Honda watched intently. But he could not maintain the position for long, for it strained his neck.

He leaned against the bookcase and tried to follow what was going on by the sounds. The darkness released his imagination, and in his thoughts things progressed step by step much more rationally than what was really happening in the room. In his imagination Ying Chan's disrobing had already begun, and her brilliant nakedness had flowered. When she raised her left arm and smiled, the three moles appeared on her left side, symbols of the stars in the seductive tropical night sky, symbols of his proscription. He covered his eyes, and the image of the stars immediately shattered in the darkness.

There was a stir.

Honda hastily put his eye to the hole and in so doing b.u.mped his head on the corner of the bookcase. The noise worried him more than the pain, but the situation on the other side of the wall was beyond any concern about small noises.

Katsumi was holding onto a resisting Ying Chan. The two bodies struggled in and out of the circular field of the peephole. The girl's dress was unzipped and her brown, perspiring, angular back with bra.s.siere straps was visible. She freed her right hand and lashed out with clenched fist. The green emerald sparkled like a flying beetle and sc.r.a.ped along Katsumi's cheek. He drew back, putting his hand to Ms face. Soon there was the noise of him opening the door and leaving the room. Ying Chan was out of breath. Looking about, she dragged away one of the chairs, probably to prop against the door.

Honda panicked. Katsumi, who pretended to be so mature, was really a spoiled child, and he might well come by to borrow a first aid kit for his cheek.

Honda went to work at once. One by one he returned the thick books to the bookcase and with the meticulousness of a criminal checked that none of the t.i.tles had been replaced upside down. He verified that the door to the study was locked, turned off the heater, and stole back to his bedroom. He changed into pajamas, threw his clothes on the dresser, and crept into bed. He was prepared to act like someone interrupted in sleep when Katsumi's knock came at the door.

This became an experience of Honda's unknown "youth." The swiftness and nimbleness of a dormitory student who has violated the rules and crept back to bed with an air of innocence. Though he lay quietly, his heart palpitated so rapidly that the pillow, alive, seemed to jump up and down. It did not quiet for some time.

Katsumi was probably hesitating whether to come to see him or not. This long hesitation must be the result of calculation, the weighing of the advantages and disadvantages of an impulsive visit. While he was waiting, but not really expecting Katsumi, Honda fell asleep.

The rain had stopped by morning and a golden brocade of sunlight cascaded through the gap between the curtains over the east window.

Honda wrapped a scarf about his neck and in his thick gown went down to the kitchen, intending to prepare breakfast for the young people. He found Katsumi already sitting in a chair in the living room neatly dressed.

"Well, you're up early," Honda called halfway down the staircase, glancing swiftly at his pale cheeks.

Katsumi had already built a fire in the fireplace. He did not actually seem to be hiding his left cheek, and Honda was disappointed not to see a large scar in the firelight. There was a light scratch that could be explained away by any simple story.

"Won't you sit down for a while?" Katsumi indicated a chair as though he were the host.

"Good morning," Honda said again in greeting and sat down.

"I felt I ought to talk with you alone. I got up particularly early," said Katsumi as if he had done Honda a great favor.

"And . . . how was it?"

"Good."

"What do you mean 'good'?"

"Just as I expected." The young man smiled, suggesting something profoundly significant. "She looks like a mere child, but she really isn't."

"Did it seem like the first time for her?"

"I'm the first . . . My successors will be green with envy, I'm sure."

It seemed needless to pursue the matter further, and Honda changed the subject. "By the way, did you happen to notice, she has some peculiar marks . . . on her left side . . . three, almost artificially magnificent moles all in a line. Didn't you see them?"

A momentary confusion crossed Katsumi's smug face. Many answers were possible, and there was the question of saving face too. He quickly concluded that the telling of lies had better be sacrificed for a more important occasion. It was interesting to speculate on the many possible responses pa.s.sing through the young man's mind. Suddenly Katsumi leaned back on his chair with an exaggerated gesture of surprise.

"You win!" he said in a high voice. "You're a hard man, Mr. Honda! I'm losing my grip. I was fooled by her English when she seemed to say that it was the first time. You know her body already!"

It was Honda's turn to smile suggestively.

"I'm asking whether you saw the moles."

The young man answered tensely. He was being pressed to test his feigned composure. "Of course I saw them. They were slightly wet with perspiration and all three of them moving together in the dim light. With her dark skin they had a sort of mysterious and unforgettable beauty."

Honda went to the kitchen and prepared breakfast of coffee and croissants. Katsumi volunteered to help, but his anxiousness to do so was quite uncharacteristic of him. As if forced by a sense of obligation, he set out the plates, asked Honda where the teaspoons were kept, and arranged them on the table. For the first time Honda felt something akin to friendship bordering on pity toward the young man.

They argued about who should take the breakfast to Ying Chan's room. Claiming the host's prerogative, Honda placed the dishes on a tray and slowly carried it upstairs.

He knocked on Ying Chan's door. There was no answer. Putting the tray down on the floor, he opened the door with a duplicate pa.s.skey. Wedged shut by something on the inside, it was difficult to force.

Honda looked around the room filled with morning light. She was gone.

37.

OF LATE Mrs. Tsubakihara had been meeting Imanishi frequently.

She was quite blind. She was unable to form intelligent opinions about men. Nor could she judge one by sight and tell what kind of person he was . . . pig or wolf or vegetable. And such a woman was trying to write poetry of all things.

If awareness of suitability was the indication of a proud love affair, no one could appease Imanishi's self-consciousness as much as this woman, blind to any kind of suitability. She had begun to love the forty-year-old man like a son.