No one was further than Imanishi from possessing physical youthfulness, freshness, or courage. He had a weak stomach, sallow, unresilient skin, and was quick to catch colds. His long body, devoid of developed muscles, was like a long, limp sash, and he swayed when he walked. He was, in other words, an intellectual.

It should have been very difficult to love such a man, but just as Mrs. Tsubakihara turned out bad poetry with such ease, so had she fallen in love with no difficulty whatever. In anything and everything, her lack of skill was brilliant. Her docility and self-admitted love of criticism made her listen happily to Imanishi's constant personal rebukes. In all things she espoused the concept that criticism was a shortcut to improvement.

As a matter of fact, Imanishi had something in common with her. He was not annoyed by her girlishness when she talked so seriously about literature and poetry in the bedroom, and he himself chose the same setting to make his ideological confessions. A strange mixture of profound cynicism and immaturity lay behind the sickly youthfulness that flashed across his face from time to time. Now Mrs. Tsubakihara believed that he liked to say things to hurt people because he was pure.

The couple always met at a spruce little inn recently built on the Shibuya Hill. Each room formed an independent building separated from the others by a small stream running through the garden. The woodwork was fresh and clean, and the entrance inconspicuous.

About six o'clock on June sixteenth their taxi pulled up in front of the Shibuya Station and, halted by the crowds, could proceed no farther. The inn was only five or six minutes away by foot, and Imanishi and Mrs. Tsubakihara left the car.

A ma.s.sive chorus singing the "Internationale" overwhelmed them. Banners fluttered in the breeze: "Down with the Law on the Prevention of Subversive Activities!" From the bridge of the Tamagawa Line a large banner was suspended: "Yankees Go Home!" The faces of the people swarming over the square were flushed, cheerful, and lighthearted in their rush toward destruction.

Mrs. Tsubakihara was frightened and hid behind Imanishi, who despite himself felt drawn by fear and anxiety toward the crowd. Light streamed meshlike through the legs of the mob surging across the square, the thump of footsteps increased like a sudden shower, then screams pierced the chorus and the sound of irregular clapping grew louder-all happened simultaneously as the riotous night descended upon the ma.s.sed demonstrators. It reminded Imanishi of the extraordinary shudder he invariably experienced at the onset of his frequent colds with the concomitant rise of fever. Everyone had the horrible sensation of being skinned like rabbits and of having their raw red flesh suddenly exposed to the air.

"Cops! Cops!"

The sound of voices spread and the crowd scattered in confusion. The chorus of the "Internationale" which had been a ma.s.sive wave broke into fragments that lingered here and there like puddles after rain. And these were routed by cries as the rush-hour crowds and those singing inextricably commingled. White police vans roared up, stopping by the statue of the Faithful Dog Hachi in front of Shibuya Station, and members of the police reserve in dark blue helmets popped out of the vehicles like a flock of gra.s.shoppers.

Clutching Mrs. Tsubakihara's hand, Imanishi ran for his life with the crowd that was struggling to get away. When he reached a store front on the opposite side of the square and had caught his breath, he was astonished by his unexpected capacity for running. He too had been able to run! he realized. Thereupon unnatural palpitations abruptly began and his chest ached.

Compared to his own, Mrs. Tsubakihara's fear, like her sorrow, was somewhat stereotyped. Clutching her purse against her breast, she stood at his side as though she would faint at any moment. The purple neon lights reflecting on her powdered cheeks seemed to transform her fear into iridescent sh.e.l.l work. But her eyes never wavered.

Imanishi slipped cautiously along the front of the store and looked across the roiling square in front of the station. Amidst the welling shouts and screams, the great illuminated clock on the station building serenely recorded the time.

A doomsday fragrance was rising. The world was turning red like the eyes of someone in want of sleep. Imanishi felt as though he were listening to the strange noises of silkworms in their raising room nibbling furiously away at mulberry leaves.

Then in the distance flames shot up from a white police van. Probably a Molotov c.o.c.ktail. Angry red tongues and screams rose with the white smoke. Imanishi realized that he was smiling.

At length as they started to walk away from the scene, Mrs. Tsubakihara noticed something hanging from Imanishi's hand.

"What do you have there?"

"I just picked it up."

He opened what seemed like a dark rag as he walked along and showed it to her. It was a black lace bra.s.siere, distinctly different from the type Mrs. Tsubakihara used. It must have belonged to a woman exceptionally confident of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. It was a large-size strapless kind, and the whalebone woven into the cups exaggerated the bulkiness of the two haughty, statuesque hollows.

"How horrible! Where did you pick it up?"

"There, a minute ago, when I ran over to the store. I noticed something clinging to my foot. It must have been stepped on. It's all covered with mud."

"The dirty thing! Throw it away!"

"But how strange! How very peculiar." Imanishi was delighted with the attention of the curious pedestrians pa.s.sing by and proudly exhibited the bra.s.siere as he walked along.

"How could something like this fall off? Do you think it's possible?"

Of course it was not. Bra.s.sieres, even the strapless type, were firmly fastened by several hooks. No matter how low the neckline, the bra.s.siere could simply not get undone and spill out. Buffeted by the crowd, the woman had torn it off herself or someone else had. The latter instance would be unlikely, and it was more plausible that the woman had done so of her own volition.

For what purpose, he had no idea. At any rate, amidst the flames, the darkness, the shouting, a pair of large b.r.e.a.s.t.s had been sliced off. Only their satin sh.e.l.l had come away, but the strong, resilient fullness of the flesh was clearly attested by the black lace molds. The woman had purposely shed her bra.s.siere with pride. The halo had been removed, and the moon now appeared somewhere in the turbulent darkness. Imanishi had picked up only a halo, but by this act he seemed to capture-more so than if he had picked up the b.r.e.a.s.t.s themselves-their warmth, their cunning elusiveness, and memories of l.u.s.t came swarming like moths about a lamp. Imanishi casually put the bra.s.siere to his nose. The smell of cheap perfume had permeated the fabric and was still strong despite the mud. He supposed she must have been a prost.i.tute specializing in American soldiers.

"What a horrible man you are!"

Mrs. Tsubakihara was genuinely angry. His spiteful words always held some note of criticism, but such a sordid act was mean and unforgivable. And this was not criticism but rather a snide insult. She had taken the measure of the cups in a glance and recognized Imanishi's implied disdain for her own aging, withered b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Once away from the square in front of the station nothing had changed on the road from Dogen Hill to Shoto along which small, hastily built shops stood cramped in the ruins of the bombing. Already at this early hour drunkards were loitering about, and neon lights hovered like schools of goldfish above their heads.

"I must hurry to destruction; unless I do, h.e.l.l will return," thought Imanishi. As soon as he had escaped from the danger, the ordeal flushed his cheeks. With no further reproach from Mrs. Tsubakihara, he had already let the black bra.s.siere slip from his fingers to the road where the stagnant air was hot and humid.

Imanishi was obsessed with the idea that unless destruction came to him soon, the h.e.l.l of daily life would quicken and consume him; if destruction did not come at once he would for yet one more day be subject to the fantasy of being consumed by dullness. It was better to be caught in sudden, complete catastrophe than to be gnawed by the cancer of imagination. All this might then be unconscious fear that unless he put an end to himself without delay, his indubitable mediocrity would be revealed.

Imanishi could see signs of world destruction in the most insignificant things. Man always finds the omens he wants.

He wished that revolution would come. Leftist or rightist, it made no difference. How wonderful if it would carry someone like him, a parasite of his father's insurance company, to the guillotine. But no matter how he might proclaim his own shame, he was not sure whether the ma.s.ses would hate him or not. What would he do if they interpreted his confession as a sign of repentance? If a guillotine were to be built in the bustling square in front of the station and days came when blood flowed in the midst of all this mundaneness, he might by his death be able to become "the remembered one." He pictured himself being placed beneath the cutter-scaffold of lumber wrapped in red and white cloth like a lottery booth, adorned with banners announcing a special summer sale in the commercial district, and a large price tag "Special" pasted on the blade. He shuddered.

Mrs. Tsubakihara tugged at his sleeve as he walked along lost in fantasy, calling his attention to the gate of their inn. The maid waiting in the vestibule guided them in silence to their usual room. Once they were alone, Imanishi, still in turmoil, became aware of the gurgle of the stream.

They ordered a plain chicken dish and sake. While they waited through the usual time-consuming preparations of the inn, they usually indulged in some kind of physical exchange. But today Mrs. Tsubakihara forced him into the washroom and made him wash his hands thoroughly, letting the tap water run as he did.

"Go on. Go on," she said.

Imanishi did not at first grasp why he was made to wash his hands so repeatedly, but from her serious expression he gathered that it was because of the bra.s.siere he had picked up.

"No, you must wash them better." She frantically covered his hands with soap and opened the tap wide, disregarding the noise and the splashing on the copper sink. Finally Imanishi's hands felt numb.

"Don't you think that's enough?"

"No, it's not. What do you think will happen if you come near me with hands like that? Touching me means touching the memory of my son that is in me. You'll profane Akio's sacred memory, the memory of a G.o.d . . . with your dirty hands . . ." Turning quickly away, she covered her eyes with a handkerchief.

Rubbing his hands together under the gushing water, Imanishi glanced obliquely at her. If she began to weep, that was a sign that whatever it was had pa.s.sed and that she was prepared to accept anything.

"I wish I could die soon," said Imanishi sentimentally as they sat drinking sake together later.

"So do I," agreed Mrs. Tsubakihara. Her skin, as transparent as rice paper, showed the faint crimson of approaching intoxication.

In the next room where the doors were open the rising and falling contours of the light blue silk quilt gleamed as if it were quietly breathing. On the table slices of abalone with artificial pink in the dusky folds floated in a bowlful of water. And food was simmering in an earthenware pot.

Without speaking, Imanishi and Mrs. Tsubakihara knew that they were both awaiting something-probably the same thing.

She was enraptured with the thrill of sin and its attendant expectation of punishment for these secret meetings behind Makiko's back. She imagined Makiko entering the room, brandishing the brush dipped in red ink with which she corrected poems. "This won't do as poetry. I'll watch. Now try to create poetry with your whole being. I am here to teach you, Mrs. Tsubakihara."

Typically Imanishi had wished to carry the affair to its culmination right before Makiko's disdainful eyes. That first night at Ninooka in Gotemba was the climax of his dream which his affair with Mrs. Tsubakihara must again attain. At the very summit of the climax, Makiko's penetrating eyes had fixed on them both like cold stars. At any cost, her stare was necessary to him.

Without her eyes Imanishi could not be rid of a feeling of pretense in his union with Mrs. Tsubakihara; they could never escape the complex of being an illicit couple. Those eyes belonged to the most authoritative and dignified of matchmakers, eyes of a perspicacious G.o.ddess shining in a corner of the dusky bedroom, they had united and yet rejected them, forgiven and yet disdained them. Such eyes controlled acquiescence by a mysterious and reluctant justice that was set aside somewhere in this world. Only under them was the basis of the couple's union justifiable. Away from them, the lovers were merely withered gra.s.s floating on the waters of phenomena. Their union was an ephemeral contact: a woman, the captive of an irretrievable and illusory past, and a man craving for an illusory future that would never come. It was like the dead clicking of Go stones in their container.

Imanishi felt that Makiko was already seated immobile, waiting, in the adjacent chamber into which the light of this room did not shine. The feeling of her presence became more and more urgent, and he felt that he must confirm it. He went to the trouble to check, and Mrs. Tsubakihara posed no question, probably feeling the same way as he. In a corner niche of the small room of four and a half mats an arrangement of purple irises floated like flying swallows.

As usual when they had finished their lovemaking, they indulged like two women in endless small talk as they lazed about. Imanishi, now s.e.xually released, spoke of Makiko in his worst derogatory manner.

"Makiko's using you. You're afraid you can't be a poet in your own right if you split with her. As a matter of fact, that might have been true up to now, but you must realize that you've got to an important turning point. Unless you free yourself from her influence, you'll never be good."

"But if I'm conceited enough to be independent, I know my progress in poetry will stop too."

"Why have you decided that?"

"I haven't decided, it's true. Maybe it's just fate."

Imanishi wanted to ask whether her poetry had ever actually improved, but his good breeding would not permit such an impertinence. Yet the words he used to pry her free from Makiko held no sincerity. He had the feeling that Mrs. Tsubakihara had answered fully aware of that.

At length she pulled up the sheet and, after tucking it around her neck, recited one of her recent poems, turning her eyes toward the dark ceiling. Imanishi criticized it immediately.

"It's a nice poem, but I don't like the petty, smug feeling it gives of dwelling on the mundane; it lacks universality. The reason is probably the last phrase. 'The blueness of the deep pool' lacks imagination. It's too conceptual. It's not based on life."

"Yes, I suppose you're right. I feel hurt if I'm criticized right after creating a poem, but in a couple of weeks I can see its weaknesses. But you know, Makiko praised this one. Unlike you, she said the last part was good, though she thought that 'blueness is the deep pool' might be more in keeping."

Mrs. Tsubakihara's tone was condescending, as though she were pitting one authority against another. In high spirits she began gossiping in detail about her acquaintances, and that always pleased Imanishi.

"The other day I saw Keiko. She told me something interesting."

"What?" Imanishi was immediately intrigued. He twisted from his position on his stomach and clumsily dropped long cigarette ash on the sheet around her breast.

"It's about Mr. Honda and the Thai Princess," said Mrs. Tsubakihara. "The other day he secretly took her and Keiko's nephew Katsumi, who is the Princess's boyfriend, to his Ninooka villa."

"I wonder if the three of them slept together."

"Mr. Honda wouldn't do anything like that! He's the quiet, intellectual type. He probably wanted to play the generous matchmaker for the two young lovers. Everyone knows he adores the Princess, but they couldn't even carry on a sensible conversation with such a difference in age."

"And what was Keiko's role in the affair?"

"She was nothing more than an innocent bystander, actually. She happened to be at her villa in Ninooka. Jack was off-duty and spending the night there. Suddenly, three o'clock in the morning, there was a knock at the door and the Princess dashed in. Keiko and Jack were awakened from a sound sleep; but no matter how much they coaxed, the Princess absolutely refused to explain the situation. They were at wits' end. The Princess asked them to let her stay the night, and they did. Keiko intended to get in touch with Mr. Honda in the morning, she said.

"With all of that, she got up late and rushed Jack back to camp after a cup of coffee. As she was seeing him off in a jeep at the gate, Mr. Honda came to the villa looking as white as paper. Keiko laughed and said it was the first time she had ever seen him so upset.

"She knew he was looking for Ying Chan and, wanting to tease him a little, asked what he was up to so early in the morning.

"He said that Ying Chan had got lost, and his voice even quavered. After a while, when Mr. Honda started home-he had given up the search-Keiko told him that Ying Chan had spent the night with her. Mr. Honda blushed like a schoolboy-and at his age!-and said: 'Did she really!' He sounded ever so happy.

"When Keiko took him to the guest room and he found the Princess still sound asleep, he nearly collapsed with relief. Ying Chan had not been awakened by all the commotion. She was buried in her black hair, her pretty mouth a little open and her long eyelashes closed. The exhaustion that had been so obvious on her face four or five hours before when she had rushed to the villa was now quite gone, and an innocent youthfulness had returned to her cheeks, and her breathing was peaceful and regular. As if in a pleasant dream she coquettishly turned over in her bed."

38.

PRINCESS YING CHAN was once again unavailable for Honda. The moonless rainy season went on and on.

That morning, when he had seen the sleeping girl's face, he had not wanted to awaken her. Having asked Keiko to look after her, he returned to Tokyo. Ashamed of himself, he did not see the Princess nor did he hear from her.

When this apparently calm and peaceful period commenced, Rie began to show signs of jealousy.

"We don't hear from the Thai Princess these days," she would casually observe during a meal. Her words carried a certain sarcasm, but her eyes were earnestly probing.

Rie had begun to draw free-a.s.sociation paintings on a white wall which reflected nothing for her.

Honda was in the habit of brushing his teeth regularly mornings and evenings. He noticed that his toothbrush was frequently changed, well before it was worn out. He presumed that Rie, probably having purchased a stock of brushes of the same type, color, and hardness, changed them as she saw fit. But the changes seemed too frequent, and though it was of little consequence he brought the matter to her attention.

"How stingy you are! Isn't it funny for a millionaire to be saving on something like that!" she had answered, almost stammering in her anger. Not comprehending the reason for her fury, he had let her alone. But later he realized that the toothbrushes were changed the mornings after nights when he came in late. Apparently Rie surrept.i.tiously changed them after he had gone to bed. The following day she would carefully inspect the base of each shiny bristle of the old brush to determine whether there were traces of lipstick or the faint fragrance of a young woman and then discard it.

Honda's gums bled sometimes for one reason or another; and though he did not yet need a full denture, he occasionally complained of pyorrhea. How did Rie interpret the pink stains that sometimes discolored the roots of the bristles?

He was merely conjecturing, but there were times when Rie seemed like a kind of obsessed scientist devoting herself to creating some new compound from the oxygen and nitrogen in the air. She seemed bored with her free time, and yet her eyes and senses were sharp. Though complaining incessantly of headaches, she constantly patrolled with nervous steps the many corridors of the old house.

Once when the subject of the villa happened to come up, Honda remarked that he had built it so that she could recuperate from her kidney condition.

"Are you telling me to go to that graveyard by myself?" she had said in tears, misunderstanding.

She was right in recognizing Honda's love for Ying Chan that had begun ever since he had gone to Gotemba alone; she had come to this conclusion from his silence about the girl. But she never supposed that he had not seen her since then. She mistakenly a.s.sumed that he was seeing her in secrecy and therefore wanted to erase the name from Rie's thoughts.

Such tranquility was uncanny. It held the false stillness of a hideout for some fugitive emotion afraid of its pursuers. Rie intuitively felt that some exclusive, secretive banquet had been arranged to which she would never be invited.

What was happening?

She had judged correctly also when she thought something had occurred, although Honda himself felt that everything was finished.

Since Rie had completely stopped going out, Honda began to leave the house more frequently than ever, even though he had no purpose. He felt suffocated by the constant presence of his wife who always stayed in under the pretext of illness.

As soon as Honda left the house, Rie would suddenly come alive. Theoretically she should have been worried about the purpose of his unexplained outings, but she had been able to reconcile herself with her now familiar fears. Thus jealousy had become the basis of her freedom.

It was the same as love; her heart was always ensnared, trammeled. She tried to practice calligraphy for a change, but involuntarily her hand would write characters related to the moon . . . "moonshadows" . . . "mountain in the moonlight."

It was repulsive to her that a girl as young as Ying Chan should have such large b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She would conjure up from the characters for "mountain in the moonlight" that she had inadvertently composed a pair of mountains in the shape of b.r.e.a.s.t.s quietly bathing in moonlight. This was related to her memory of the Twin Hills in Kyoto. But no matter how innocent, Rie feared anything that evoked memories. She had seen the Twin Hills on a high-school trip; and when she recalled the sway of her own small b.r.e.a.s.t.s perspiring under the white summer uniform, she felt herself curl up.

Concerned with Rie's fragility, Honda had wanted to engage several servants. Rie made the excuse that her worries would be multiplied if she had to oversee so many people, and she had only two maids in the kitchen. The work there that she had loved for many years was now considerably lessened; besides it was not good for her legs to be standing for any length of time on a chilly floor. She had no alternative but to stay in her room. She took up sewing. The drawing room draperies were threadbare and she ordered some silk brocade from Tatsumura in Kyoto. From the fabric with its print of patterns copied from those in the Shoso-in at Nara, she sewed new curtains.

Rie lined the material carefully with a thick black cloth to cut out the light. Honda noted this as she worked.

"You'd think we were still at war," he teased. As a result, she became even more obstinate in completing what she had begun.

She was not concerned about light leaking out from the inside, but about moonlight seeping in.

Rie stealthily read her husband's diary when he was out and was infuriated when she could find no mention of Ying Chan in it. Out of reticence, Honda had developed the habit of not writing anything romantic in his diary.

Among her husband's doc.u.ments she found an extremely old record ent.i.tled "Dream Diary." Kiyoaki Matsugae was written on it. The name was familiar to her, for Honda had frequently mentioned it. But he had never spoken about the diary, and of course, this was the first time she had set eyes on it.

Looking through it, she was amazed at the absurd fantasies. She carefully replaced it. Rie was seeking no fantasy. The only thing she believed could cure her was the truth.

When, on closing a drawer, a kimono sleeve is caught, the seams of the sleeve and the bodice will tear as one walks away. As similar experiences were repeated, the sleeves of Rie's heart were torn to bits. She was captivated by something, yet her heart was empty and listless.