Temple Of Dawn (29 page)
Authors: Yukio Mishima
Honda soon realized that they were surreptitiously looking at the opposite bank. The former Imperial Japanese Naval Hospital with its statue of some erstwhile admiral still on display had now been turned into an American military hospital and was filled with soldiers wounded in the Korean War. The spring sun gleamed on the half-open cherry blossoms in the front garden, under which young soldiers were being pushed in wheelchairs. Some walked with the aid of crutches, while others strolled about with only their arms in pure white slings. No voices called from across the river to the two exquisitely dressed young women, nor was there the sound of cheerful American whistles. Like a scene from another world, the opposite bank bathed in brilliant sunshine was completely quiet, manned as it was by the forms of maimed young soldiers purposely pretending nonchalance.
The two geisha obviously enjoyed the contrast. Covered in white powder and silk, indulging in spring idleness and extravagant living, they feasted on the spectacle of those who only yesterday had been the proud victors with their injuries, pain, dismembered arms and legs. Such subtle malice and exquisite viciousness were their specialty.
From his vantage point as a bystander, Honda could discern the extravagance of the contrast between the theater garden and the scene on the far bank. Over there existed the dust, blood, misery, injured pride, irretrievable misfortune, tears, heartache, and the mangled male sexuality of the soldiers who had controlled Japan for the last seven years; while on this side, women of the defeated country paraded their overrefined, arrogant sensuality, relishing the blood of the erstwhile conquerors drenched in their own perspiration. They were flies eating at the wounds, spreading the transparent black wings of their
haori
like the wings of magnificent black butterflies. The river breeze was of no use to bring them together. It was easy to imagine the frustration of the Americans, who had so futilely shed their blood to create this useless brilliance to which they had no access, to engender the vanity and extravagance of this insensitive display.
haori
like the wings of magnificent black butterflies. The river breeze was of no use to bring them together. It was easy to imagine the frustration of the Americans, who had so futilely shed their blood to create this useless brilliance to which they had no access, to engender the vanity and extravagance of this insensitive display.
“It really doesn’t seem to be true,” Honda heard one of the women remark.
“Yes. They’re too miserable to look at. Foreigners are so big and all the more pitiful in that condition. But misery is mutual. We have gone through a lot.”
“Well, that is what they get for biting off more than they can chew,” the other woman coldly declared. They watched with intensified interest, but this soon passed and faded. As if in competition they each produced compacts and squinted obliquely into the mirrors as they powdered their noses. The heavily scented powder, caught by the river breeze, sifted down along the hem of their
haori
, to be carried even to the sleeve opening of Honda’s coat. He noticed that the little mirrors, though covered with a thin film of powder, still managed to cast a wan reflection on the bush at his feet, quite like the fluttering of tiny ants.
haori
, to be carried even to the sleeve opening of Honda’s coat. He noticed that the little mirrors, though covered with a thin film of powder, still managed to cast a wan reflection on the bush at his feet, quite like the fluttering of tiny ants.
The faint ringing of a distant bell signified that the curtain was about to rise on the next act. Only the final part of
Horikawa
remained. As he turned his steps back toward the theater, resigned that Ying Chan would not put in an appearance this late, Honda suddenly realized that he had experienced a sensual pleasure in her wonderful absence. Ying Chan was standing inside, half hidden in the shadow of a pillar; it was as if she were trying to avoid the light streaming in.
Horikawa
remained. As he turned his steps back toward the theater, resigned that Ying Chan would not put in an appearance this late, Honda suddenly realized that he had experienced a sensual pleasure in her wonderful absence. Ying Chan was standing inside, half hidden in the shadow of a pillar; it was as if she were trying to avoid the light streaming in.
Honda’s eyes had not yet adjusted themselves to the obscurity, and all he saw was the black of her hair and the luminous darkness of her large eyes as though they were a blur of opacity. Her hair oil gave off a strong fragrance. Ying Chan smiled, showing a blurred whiteness of lovely teeth.
30
THAT EVENING
they had dinner at the Imperial Hotel. It had been devastated. The Occupation Forces had claimed to understand the creative genius of Frank Lloyd Wright, but they had not hesitated to cover the stone lantern in the garden with white paint. The pseudo-Gothic ceiling of the dining hall was even more gloomy and in worse repair than ever. The only patches of freshness were provided by the white linen cloths that glistened ostentatiously on the rows of dining tables.
When Honda had ordered, he immediately drew from an inner pocket the small box and placed it directly in front of Ying Chan. She opened it and cried out.
“It was inevitable that the ring should be returned to you.” Speaking in the simplest language, Honda told her its history. The smile that flickered over her features as she listened did not always coincide with his narration, and it occurred to him that she might not be comprehending all he was saying.
Her breasts, visible above the level of the table, were, quite unlike her face which was childish, magnificently developed, like those of a figurehead on a ship. He knew without seeing that the body of one of the goddesses in the Ajanta murals lay beneath the simple student’s blouse across from him.
The deceptively light but solid flesh seemed to have the weightiness of some dark fruit . . . the almost stifling black hair and the ambiguous, wistful lines from the slightly flared nostrils down to the upper lip . . . She seemed to be just as casually oblivious to the words that her body spoke as she was when she listened to Honda’s recital. Her enormous, jet-black eyes transcended intelligence, and they somehow gave her the appearance of being blind. What mystery of forms! That Ying Chan should present to him a body that one sensed was overly fragrant was due to the spell of the distant jungle which reached as far as Japan. Honda felt that what people called blood lineage was perhaps a deep, formless voice that pursued one eternally. Sometimes a passionate whisper, sometimes a hoarse cry, it was the very origin of all beautiful physical forms and the wellspring of the charm they emitted.
When he placed the dark green emerald ring on Ying Chan’s finger, he had the sensation that he was witness to the moment when the deep, far-off voice and the girl’s physical being were at long last perfectly fused.
“Thank you,” said Ying Chan with a fawning smile that might have marred her dignity. Honda realized that it was the expression that always appeared when she felt sure that her selfish feelings were understood. But no sooner did he try to capture it than the smile was already gone like a swiftly withdrawing wave.
“When you were a child you claimed to be the reincarnation of a Japanese boy I knew very well; you annoyed everyone by insisting that Japan was your real home and that you wanted to return. Now that you are here and that ring is on your finger, it means that for you too a great circle has been joined.”
“I don’t really understand,” answered Ying Chan with not a trace of emotion. “I don’t remember anything of my childhood. I really don’t. They all tease me about having been slightly mad and laugh at me when they tell what you’ve just been saying. But I’ve completely forgotten everything. I went to Switzerland as soon as the war broke out and stayed there until the end, and the only thing I remember about Japan is that I used to love a Japanese doll someone gave me.”
Honda felt an urge to tell her that it had been sent by him, but checked himself.
“My father told me that Japanese schools were good, so I came here to study. Recently I’ve had the idea that perhaps when I was a child I was like a mirror reflecting everything in people’s minds, and I simply said what occurred to me. For instance, if you had an idea, it might have been reflected in me. That was probably what happened, I imagine. What do you think?”
Ying Chan had the habit of terminating a question with an English rising inflection. Her ultimas reminded Honda of the sharply curling tails of the golden serpents at the tips of the red Chinese-tile roofs of Thai temples reaching into the blue sky.
Honda was suddenly aware of a family at a nearby table. The head, probably some businessman, his wife and their grown sons were having dinner. Their fine clothes notwithstanding, he could discern something vulgar in their faces. He surmised that they had become wealthy through the Korean War. The faces of the sons were particularly flabby, like that of a dog that has just been awakened, and their lips and eyes reflected a complete lack of breeding. They were all noisily sipping their soup.
From time to time, the sons would nudge each other and steal a glance at Honda’s table. Their eyes were mocking: an old man having dinner with a concubine that looked like a schoolgirl. Their eyes seemed to have nothing better to say. Honda could not but recall Imanishi’s exasperating inadequacy that midnight in Ninooka and compare it to himself.
There are rules more severe in this world than those of morality, Honda felt at such moments. Unsuitable lovers were punished by the fact that they would never be the source of dreams, but merely evoke disgust in others. The people of those times when one knew nothing of humanism were surely much more cruel to all ugly creatures than modern man.
After dinner Ying Chan excused herself to go to the powder room, and Honda remained alone in the lobby. He suddenly felt relaxed. From that moment on, he could enjoy Ying Chan’s absence without compunction.
A question sprang to his mind: he had not yet learned where Ying Chan had stayed the night before the house-warming.
She did not return to the lobby for some time. He remembered the occasion when the little girl had relieved herself at Bang Pa In surrounded by her ladies. Then he recalled the naked Princess bathing in the brown river along which coiled the roots of mangroves. No matter how hard he had stared, he had not been able to make out the three black moles he had expected to find on her left side.
Honda’s wants were quite simple, and it would have been incorrect to label his emotion “love.” He wished only to look at the completely naked form of the Princess, aware that the once flat breasts had ripened, thrusting out like the heads of fledglings peeping from their nest; to see how the pink nipples pouted discontentedly and how the brown underarms lay in faint shadow; to watch the manner in which the underside of her arms carried wave patterns like a sensitive, sandy shore; to be aware of how every step toward maturity progressed in the dusky light; and then to quiver in the presence of that body, comparing it to that of the little girl. That was all. In her belly, floating in pure softness, the navel would be deep-set like a small coral atoll. Protected by thick hair instead of
yakshas
, that which once had been sober, hard silence would now be turned into constant, moist smiles. The way her beautiful toes would open up one by one, the way her thighs would shine, and the way her mature legs would extend to support earnestly the discipline and dreams of the dance of life. He wanted to compare all of those with her figure as a little girl. This was to know time, to know what time had wrought, what time had ripened. If those moles were not to be found on her left side after careful inspection, he would then fall in love with her completely and finally. Transmigration stood barring the way to his love, and samsara held his passion in check.
yakshas
, that which once had been sober, hard silence would now be turned into constant, moist smiles. The way her beautiful toes would open up one by one, the way her thighs would shine, and the way her mature legs would extend to support earnestly the discipline and dreams of the dance of life. He wanted to compare all of those with her figure as a little girl. This was to know time, to know what time had wrought, what time had ripened. If those moles were not to be found on her left side after careful inspection, he would then fall in love with her completely and finally. Transmigration stood barring the way to his love, and samsara held his passion in check.
Awakened from his dreams by Ying Chan’s return to the lobby, Honda suddenly voiced what was occupying his thoughts. Despite everything, his words were sharp with the pangs of jealousy.
“I forgot to ask. I heard that you stayed out all night before the party at Gotemba without reporting in at the Foreign Student Center. Was it at a Japanese house?”
“Yes, it was,” Ying Chan responded without hesitation, sitting in the armchair next to Honda’s, hunching her back a little and scrutinizing her beautiful legs that she held neatly together. “A Thai friend is staying there. The family all insisted I spend the night, so I did.”
“It must be an entertaining household with a lot of young people.”
“Not exactly. The two sons, the daughter, my Thai friend, and I all played charades. The father heads a big business concern in Southeast Asia, so they’re very kind to Southeast Asians.”
“Is your Thai friend a boy?”
“No, a girl. Why?”
Again Ying Chan abruptly raised the last syllable of her question.
Then Honda expressed disapproval that she had made so few Japanese friends. He warned her that living abroad made no sense unless she cultivated a variety of people in the country where she was studying. As she might possibly be uncomfortable having dinner with him alone, he offered to bring some young friends along the next time, unconsciously scheming for another opportunity to see her. He extracted from her a promise that at the same day the following week she would come to the lobby of the Imperial at seven o’clock. The thought of Rié made him hesitant to invite her to his own house.
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