Masks (2 page)

“ ‘I came from the mountain, I go to the mountain’—wasn’t that it?” Yasuko’s hand had touched his knee at that moment.

“Yes, it was. I might say something like that myself if I were drunk enough. Who knows? Maybe to a medium the voices of drunks come in best. In any case, I don’t think it’s anything to get excited about. Like Saeki raving about worlds beyond the range of human understanding and how terrific the Buddhist concept of infinite cosmos is even now that we have dogs riding around outer space in satellites.”

“Maybe you’re right. But Yasuko said when she heard the medium’s first words translated as ‘I came from the mountain,’ she froze.”

“She probably thought it was Akio, talking French. By the way, speaking of Yasuko…when the lights came on, you were holding her hand, weren’t you?” Mikamé blurted the words out clumsily, eyes averted, in a sudden show of emotion that Ibuki found not in the least surprising, aware as he was that Mikamé, too, was in love with Yasuko. A reaction of such intensity, he reflected, was only to be expected. “I could hardly believe it. All I could think was ‘Damn him.’ ”

“It was strange. As soon as she heard that part about the mountain, she started moving restlessly, and then—don’t ask me why—all of a sudden she reached over and touched my knee, then my hands, which were folded on my lap. Then she slipped her hand in between mine. Her fingers were cold, I remember, but not shaking. My only guess is that she was thinking of Akio, and the loneliness got to be too much for her.”

“Hmm.” Mikamé tilted his head, clearly unsatisfied. “And after that?”

“What? Nothing. I didn’t see her again before coming here, and she’s the same as ever.”

“That’s because she’s with Mieko now.”

“You could be right. She was certainly in love with Akio, but now—even more—she’s unable to escape the influence of his mother. Look at her work on spirit possession: the one who’s really determined to take up Akio’s achievements and bring them to a finish is Mieko, and it’s her influence more than anything else that motivates Yasuko. If Yasuko is the medium, then Mieko Toganō is the spirit itself.”

“Do you really think Mieko has that much of the shamaness in her? To me she seems the essence of composure, the sort who pays no attention to small matters. It wouldn’t surprise me if it were Yasuko who dominated
her,
behind the scenes. That’s what her pupils will tell you.”

“I disagree.” Ibuki stubbed out a smoldering butt in the ashtray with the end of his cigarette. “Yasuko is an ordinary woman. She’s simply not on Mieko’s scale. Yes, that’s it, like an old painting.” Pleased with his sudden idea, Ibuki waved a hand in the air; the long yellowish fingers with their large knuckles had the look of polished bamboo. “In T’ang and Sung paintings of beautiful women or in a Moronobu print of a courtesan, the main figure is always twice the size of her attendants. It’s the same with Buddhist triads: the sheer size of the main image makes the smaller bodhisattvas on either side that much more approachable. Perspective has nothing to do with it, so at first the imbalance is disturbing, but then it has a way of drawing you in….Anyway, to me Mieko is the large-sized courtesan, and Yasuko is the little-girl attendant at her side.”

“Which is only a poetic way of saying you’re in love. These days it’s the style for women to be glamorous, but I think ultimately a man’s love for a woman is based on a kind of instinctive yearning for smallness and fragility; the feeling manifests itself in a hundred ways. And that’s
why you prefer to see Yasuko as a child. As a matter of fact, she’s a far stronger person than you give her credit for.”

“Strong? Of course she is, but only on one level. Inside, she has no sense of independence, of being her own woman. And that’s why she can never leave Mieko Toganō.”

“Not necessarily. I think it’s that she hasn’t got over Akio yet. Once she falls in love with someone else, Mieko’s influence will disappear. It stands to reason. A woman can’t help being attracted more to men than she is to other women.”

“You think so?”

“Absolutely.” Mikamé nodded firmly, as if to convince himself. The two men were the same age—thirty-three—but while Ibuki was married and the father of a three-year-old girl, Mikamé was a bachelor living alone in a comfortable apartment. They might be equally drawn to Yasuko, but Mikamé stood a far greater chance of winning her.

Just then a flame-red shadow passed over the frosted glass window near their booth. The door swung open, and in hurried Yasuko, wearing a scarlet coat.

Although nearsighted, Yasuko seldom bothered with glasses, so she squinted slightly as she stood by the counter, scanning booths across the room. Her wide-collared light-weight red coat brought out the curve of her cheeks in strong relief. There emanated from her an attractiveness and warmth strangely out of keeping with the word “widow.”

“Yasuko, over here.” Ibuki called to her, grinning, and she blinked and moved toward him, a deep dimple appearing in one round cheek.

“Have you waited long?”

“I’ve had company.”

“Oh!” Noticing Mikamé across the table, she nodded
politely, then turned back inquiringly to Ibuki. “Has he been in Kyoto, too?”

“Osaka, he says.”

“I happened to come in here a little while ago, and whom do I see but Ibuki. We were just talking about that séance the other day.”

As Mikamé spoke, his fingers itched with a desire to touch the dimple coming and going in her soft fair-skinned cheek like a small insect ready for the taking. To his mind there were four kinds of beautiful skin. The first he likened to porcelain: finely grained and flawless in sheen, but marked by a hardness and chill. The second he compared to snow: duller and more coarsely grained, with a deep whiteness and an inner warmth and softness that belied its cold surface. Next was what he called the textile look, what others called silken; this was the complexion most prized by Japanese women, yet it had no virtue in Mikamé’s eyes beyond a flat, smooth prettiness. To be supremely beautiful, he thought, a woman’s skin had to glow with the internal life-force of spring’s earliest buds unfolding naturally in the sun. But city women, too clever with makeup, lost that perishable, flowerlike beauty at a surprisingly early age—and rare indeed was the woman past twenty-five whose skin had kept the freshness of youth. So musing, Mikamé gazed fixedly at Yasuko, her face clear and moist as just-opened petals.

“Ah, the séance.” She nodded. “That’s right, we haven’t seen you since then, have we?” She turned again to Ibuki. “Why doesn’t Toyoki come along with us now?”

“Exactly what I thought. Where’s Mieko?”

“Waiting in the car.” She turned to Mikamé. “Please come. It’s quite all right. Mother will be glad to see you—and I’ve heard the masks are stunning. Say you’ll come, please?” She made the appeal prettily, her head tilted to
one side, but to Ibuki her soft smile was repugnant, seeming to reveal within her an unconscious hint of the harlot.

“Come on, you might as well,” he said curtly, and abruptly stood up. “You’ve got till ten before that train leaves, haven’t you?”

Yasuko squeezed through the ticket gate and darted ahead as far as the station entrance, then stood facing the parking lot with one arm in the air, beckoning energetically. Her small figure, enveloped in the wide-skirted red coat, seemed from behind to flutter like a narrow triangular flag.

When a large automobile slid up to the curb, she swung open the rear door and launched into a hasty explanation of the situation.

“How nice! Certainly, by all means he must come.” A gay and youthful voice came floating toward them from the interior of the car, and then, as Yasuko’s red overcoat moved aside, no longer blocking the way, the face of Mieko Toganō appeared. “Get in, everybody. There’s room back here for Yasuko and one other person.”

“I’ll sit in front,” said Mikamé, quickly climbing in by the driver. Ibuki followed, sitting next to him.

“Oh, but really, there’s plenty of room back here—”

“That’s all right. I like to see where I’m going.” Mikamé twisted around, facing the back seat, to greet Mieko more formally. “How have you been, Mrs. Toganō? I ran into Ibuki in the station coffee shop just now, and this expedition to the Nō master’s house sounded interesting—but I suppose that’s not the right word, is it? Anyway, I’m delighted to be able to go along. You’re sure it’s all right?”

Listening, Ibuki observed with a faint smile that in speaking to Mieko, Mikamé suddenly took on the smoothly sociable manner of his profession.

“Do you know the way?”

“Yes, Mr. Yakushiji sent the car around to get us.”

It was Yasuko who responded directly to Mikamé’s attempts at conversation. Mieko only lay back languorously, deep in the cushions, nodding slowly or smiling in agreement with everything Yasuko said. Next to her, Yasuko seemed alert and vivid. Mikamé thought of Ibuki’s analogy to off-scale portraits of women in old Chinese paintings and Japanese ukiyo-e; but to him Mieko resembled less an outsize drawing of a beautiful woman than a slightly vulgar background of some sort—a heavy, ornate tapestry or a large blossoming tree—against which Yasuko’s youth and charm showed off to heightened advantage.

A long bridge with ornamental post knobs appeared outside the car window, then the tiled roofs of a large temple complex. Mikamé had no idea what part of the city this might be. Eventually, after numberless twists in a road barely wide enough to squeeze through, the car stopped, and everyone got out. They followed a small stone path ten or twenty feet to the entrance of a latticed town house whose doorplate read “Yakushiji.” Standing in front of the door was a young woman with large eyes and thin eyebrows, who bowed deeply at the sight of Mieko and her party.

“Welcome! I’m so glad you could come. My father and brother have been looking forward to this, too.” Toé, the daughter, spoke Tokyo Japanese with a distinct Kyoto flavor. Still bowing, she ushered them inside the house.

To Ibuki and Mikamé, familiar with the world of No only as it appeared onstage, the house was surprisingly like that of a tradesman. They followed a narrow veranda around a corner and into a sitting room roughly three yards by four, so small that cushions for the four guests took up most of the floor space. Mikamé, a big man, knelt on his cushion with knees pressed closely together, looking more cramped than the others.

“Father has been bedridden for a long time now,” said Toé, bringing in tea and cakes. “He’s very sorry not to be able to meet you today.” The sight of a middle-aged woman in an apron, probably a maid, disappearing down the hallway with a tray of food gave further evidence of an invalid in the house.

“What’s wrong with your father?” asked Yasuko.

“It’s cancer of the stomach. He’s been ill for so long that his face is quite thin and sunken.” She knitted her eyebrows. “Sometimes in his sleep he looks so much like the mask of the Wasted Man that it frightens me. I can’t bear the sight of that mask anymore.”

“I can well imagine.” Mieko nodded sympathetically. Yasuko quickly joined in.

“That was in your poem, wasn’t it? Remember, Mother, the one last month—” She looked at Mieko.

“I’m afraid it wasn’t a very good idea for us to descend on you like this, was it?”

“Oh, not at all!” Toé opened her clear eyes wide in seeming surprise. “The costumes are out of storage now for their fall airing anyway, and Father thought this would be a good chance for you to see them, Mrs. Toganō. Last year we enlarged the stage (at the expense of the rest of the house, unfortunately), and we’d like you to see that, too, while you’re here.”

A young man who appeared to be a live-in pupil entered the room, carrying a bundle. “Miss, the young master says he’ll show the costumes here and leave the masks for later, on the stage.”

“Oh? All right then. The guests are here, so you may tell him to come in.”

“Yes, miss.”

No sooner had the pupil departed with a perfunctory bow than Yorikata Yakushiji walked into the room, muscular
and erect as a swordsman. He greeted Mieko brusquely, without a word in reference to her status as his sister’s poetry teacher. To Yasuko’s introduction of Ibuki and Mikamé he responded with a stiff seated bow, arms squarely akimbo. Then he gave a wry smile and said, “Father tells me to show you the costumes—not that we have much to show.” Shyness emanated from his dark features; he seemed a good-hearted sort. Perhaps, thought Mikamé, this slightly odd affability of Yorikata’s accounted for the decreasing prosperity of this school of Nō—an impression made all the stronger by the faint atmosphere of gloom that had at once made itself felt within the house.

Yorikata untied the bundle, which was wrapped in a cloth imprinted with the family crest. Inside was a pile of four or five costumes for female roles. Sliding closer to the pile, he lifted the topmost silken garment and inserted his arms into the sleeves, spreading it out for them to see.

“How beautiful!” said Mieko with a sharp intake of breath. The material was gray figured satin, stamped with a heavy gold-leaf pattern and embroidered with bunches of large, drooping white lilies. The vermilion of the stamens was faded and yellow; the gold leaf, blackened as if by soot. Both the subdued damask and the embroidery bespoke a quiet elegance like that of old screen paintings.

“This dates from around the Keichō era, which is early seventeenth century. We call it the Lily Robe. The lining is finely woven silk, but even inside what was once scarlet has faded to a pale reddish yellow. Pick it up and see for yourselves.” He removed his arms from the sleeves and laid the garment down carefully next to Mieko, before spreading out the next: a brocade robe in large alternating squares of straw and vermilion, across which tiny woven chrysanthemums were thickly scattered.

“This one is quite a bit later. It’s from the late Kyōho
era, around 1730. Yoriyasu, who was the fifth head of our school, received it as a gift from the Nishi Honganji Temple for a performance of
Chrysanthemum Youth
at the Sento Imperial Palace. Supposedly, one of the Nishijin weavers worked so hard to have it ready on time that he fell ill, hemorrhaged, and died. Then, the story goes, while Yoriyasu was dancing on stage, the weaver’s ghost came and watched the performance from the imperial box. Yoriyasu hadn’t been told the story behind his new robe, and while he danced, he kept wondering about that pale little man in a plain cotton robe, sitting without a sword in the imperial box alongside the retired emperor, the regents, and the priests of the Honganji.”