Authors: Yukio Mishima

Temple Of Dawn (36 page)

BOOK: Temple Of Dawn

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“How could something like this fall off? Do you think it’s possible?”

Of course it was not. Brassieres, even the strapless type, were firmly fastened by several hooks. No matter how low the neckline, the brassiere 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 breasts had been sliced off. Only their satin shell 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 brassiere 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 breasts themselves—their warmth, their cunning elusiveness, and memories of lust came swarming like moths about a lamp. Imanishi casually put the brassiere 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 prostitute 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 breasts.

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, hell 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 brassiere 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 hell 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 masses 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 saké. 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 brassiere 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 god . . . 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 passed and that she was prepared to accept anything.

“I wish I could die soon,” said Imanishi sentimentally as they sat drinking saké 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 goddess 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 grass 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 sexually 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.”