Masks (4 page)

“Oh? How so?” Ibuki was able, despite the critical turn in the conversation, to sound coolly objective, the shadow of a smile even crossing his face. “Because I’m married, you mean? Because I have a family already, so I can’t ask you to be my wife? But I don’t believe that married life is what
you really want. That’s one thing about you I’ve always liked: you don’t seem infatuated with the idea of marriage for its own sake.”

“True. The marriage ritual has no intrinsic appeal for me at all. It’s only that—” She would have gone on, but just then an American couple came in from the dining car and sat down across the aisle. The young man, whose short-cropped hair resembled the fur of a small animal, sat with one arm around the woman and said something to her in a nasal voice, all the while fondling her hand as if loath to give it up even for a moment. Ibuki glanced coldly in their direction before completing Yasuko’s unfinished statement.

“Only what? You don’t like committing yourself without a promissory note, is that it?”

“No.” Yasuko shook her head slowly and gave him a pensive look. “Our marriage was short, but Akio and I were happy together, and if I became independent now, I’m sure I could earn at least enough to support myself. So you see, even if I did care for you—even supposing we were lovers—I’d never show such lack of good sense as to ask you to leave your wife for me.”

“Take me that lightly, and I might be the one to lose my good sense.” He laughed, even as he felt something in him flinch at the suggestion.

“No, you aren’t that brave, and I know it. That possibility wouldn’t worry me. As far as marrying Mikamé goes, there are two reasons: first, I’m not in love with him, and secondly, that way once and for all I can dissolve my ties to the Toganō family, and Mieko.”

“And why is that so vital?”

Yasuko made no reply, only turned her eyes wordlessly in his direction.

“As long as you don’t remarry, what harm is there in keeping the Toganō name? Or is Mieko so old-fashioned
that she expects you to belong to Akio forever and never to anyone else? She doesn’t seem to me to think that way, but who knows? Maybe it would offend her if you started seeing another man. I don’t pretend to understand a woman’s feelings. Mikamé talks as if he did, but he doesn’t fool me.”

“Well, speaking as another woman, I’m certainly very far from understanding how she feels myself.” With her eyes on the hands folded in her lap, Yasuko went on slowly and deliberately. “But I do understand more than I once did, and that’s why I think now is the time to leave. It’s not that she pries into my affairs, really; nothing of the kind. She’s hardly that small-minded. She has a peculiar power to move events in whatever direction she pleases, while she stays motionless. She’s like a quiet mountain lake whose waters are rushing beneath the surface toward a waterfall. She’s like the face on a Nō mask, wrapped in her own secrets.”

“Go on.” Ibuki looked at Yasuko with interest. Beyond her head he could see the American woman’s flaxen hair swaying playfully against the man’s shoulder. They were asleep, leaning against one another like a pair of tame animals. “What do you mean? How does she move other people without giving any sign?”

“You’re an example yourself. You’re following exactly the path she’s laid out for you.”

“I am?” Ibuki shook his head and looked at her un-comprehendingly.

“You don’t know it, do you? I only realized it myself a little while ago. It goes back to what you said before: if I started seeing you, it would hardly offend her. On the contrary, that’s precisely what she wants. Getting us to ride alone together on the train like this is part of it. It wasn’t only that she had to go to Nara all of a sudden, I’m sure of that.”

“Wait a minute. I suppose it’s obvious that Mikamé and I are both in love with you, but why should she want you to take up with me and not him? Is it because I already have a family, so she thinks there’d be no risk of your marrying me and she could keep you with her for as long as she liked?”

“I suppose that’s part of it. But there’s something more devious going on in her mind. I don’t understand it yet myself….”

Still talking, Yasuko dropped her hand casually in Ibuki’s lap and took his hand, cigarette and all, in hers; then skillfully she pried the cigarette from his fingers and lifted it to her mouth. He looked on in startled silence as her small lips, round and pink, tightened on the cigarette which moments ago had been his. Through the cloud of smoke that veiled her profile momentarily, he watched a slow smile settle on her face.

Ibuki took her hand and pressed it tightly in both of his, as he had done once before in the dark of the séance. “I’m surprised at you, Yasuko,” he said. “No self-respecting bar hostess would do a thing like that.” His hands, curiously at odds with his words, moved gently back and forth, fondling the smooth skin of her palm and the back of her hand. “Tell me, the day of the séance, what made you reach out suddenly and hold my hand? Mikamé remembers it, too.”

“I don’t know why myself. Oh, of course I do like you, Tsuneo, but when I act this way, it’s as if some outside force has taken over my mind and my body.”

“Are you saying that this force is the will of Mieko Toganō?”

“No, I’m not. Just because I’m studying spirit possession doesn’t mean that I think I’m under the spell of my own mother-in-law.”

“Good. Then I’ll assume you’re acting on your own.” He reclaimed the cigarette, which she had taken from her lips, and inserted its lipstick-stained end in his mouth. “Not much of a kiss…All this talk about spirit possession is affecting you, Yasuko. You’ve got to pull yourself back into the real world. One minute you threaten to marry Mikamé, the next you’re seducing me; it’s you who’s acting strangely, not your mother-in-law.”

“But it’s true; I
am
thinking of marrying Mikamé. If I hadn’t wanted to tell you so, I probably wouldn’t have come with you on this train ride today. Still, it does seem queer—here we are talking, and all of a sudden I do a thing like that. Perhaps underneath I do want you to love me. But somehow I can’t help feeling that these things happen because she’s there in the background, arranging for them to. That’s what I hate.”

“I don’t follow you. You say she stayed in Nara deliberately, so you and I could be alone. But why should a person like Mieko Toganō play silly games like that?”

“It’s no game. Believe me, she is a woman of far greater complexity than you—or anyone—realize. The secrets inside her mind are like flowers in a garden at nighttime, filling the darkness with perfume. Oh, she has extraordinary charm. Next to that secret charm of hers, her talent as a poet is really only a sort of costume.”

“I have a rough idea of what you’re saying, Yasuko, but I can’t be sure unless you talk more plainly….In any case, I do care for you very, very much. Ever since that moment you reached out to me, I’ve felt the barriers between us falling, and now this talk of marrying Mikamé only makes me want you more. That’s why it’s so important that I know more about Mieko. If you won’t tell me, I’ll have to find out for myself.”

“Try if you like, but I warn you, you won’t get very far.
Besides, you know very well that as soon as you get back to Tokyo, you’ll be in no position to pursue the matter.”

She hesitated, frowning and biting her lip as if she would have said more. Just then, however, her eyes turned toward the window and she caught sight of Mount Fuji. Struck by the rays of the setting sun, the mountain stood swathed in deep red clouds, as if it had risen that very moment from the earth, the classic curve of its slopes sweeping gracefully to the flatlands.

“Tsuneo, look!” she said, pointing in awe.

“Beautiful, isn’t it? Fuji at sunset,” he said, also looking out the window and thinking nothing more until a glance at Yasuko’s tense and solemn face reminded him that early one winter four years ago an avalanche on those slopes had cost Akio his life. “It must be painful for you still, seeing Fuji at such close range.”

“It happened on the way to station eight on the trail. By the time we reached the foot of the mountain the storm was over, and the path of the avalanche looked as if somebody had swept it clean of snow. It was right there, in that spot where the snow has melted and you can see that blue-black patch of ground. I remember thinking, This shining white snow has swallowed Akio,’ and feeling almost glad, for that one moment.” She turned dreamy, slightly misted eyes back to the mountain.

The expedition leader, a friend of Akio’s, had invited him to go along with the student group on their high-altitude drill. They had left Tokyo on a Saturday; the accident took place Sunday morning.

The rescue team labored for nearly a week, to little avail; of the thirteen members in the party, the bodies of only three were recovered. The remaining ten had had to be left buried beneath the steadily falling snow until the spring thaw.

“That was when the sight of Mount Fuji hurt most, during those five months, but I always felt as though I had to look. Day after day I would go up somewhere high to stare at it. The mountain seemed like a snow goddess, clutching Akio tightly to her and refusing to give him up. ‘How cold her arms must be,’ I thought, feeling the chill in my own body; then little by little it would give way to a delicious kind of warmth, like being pleasantly drunk. I thought that freezing to death must be like that. The days turned slowly into months, and at last, when the notice came that they had found him, I hardly had the courage to go look.”

“Did Mieko go, too?”

“Yes, although at first she didn’t want to go either. In the end we went together, holding hands like blind people. I was surprised by how frightened I was at the sight of his body—more frightened than sad. She told me afterward that she’d felt the same way. Maybe that was when we realized that our thoughts and feelings were so much in tune. By rights, Akio’s death should have canceled any bond between us, but instead, it was like becoming mother and daughter all over again. It made me so happy to think Akio was born to a woman like her.”

“Are you sure you weren’t in love with her?” Ibuki spoke half-scornfully, but Yasuko gave her head a thoughtful tilt as she considered the question.

“In love? Perhaps I was, in a way. Whatever you want to call it, I discovered she was a woman of extraordinary abilities, and that discovery was a source of courage for me. It was what gave me the assurance to take up Akio’s study of Heian spirit possession and go on with it. I was really very lucky to have her by me then. Lately, though, I’ve recognized something else: the possibility that all his life Akio was under her power too, and I think toward the
end it must have been harder and harder for him to bear. He had always liked mountain-climbing, but just before he died, it grew into a passion. He went on his first winter climb just shortly before the accident. That wasn’t all; sometimes he used to talk about going off to live together in South America, just the two of us. I think now that was part of an attempt to get away from his mother, although he never came right out and said so. At the time I never realized it. I was still very young. I used to tell him to buckle down and finish his research, not to let himself be distracted by so many things. Now I know how he must have felt.”

“It’s impossible to tell what you’re driving at, Yasuko. You do nothing but hint at what you mean. I’ll never understand why Akio wanted to escape from Mieko then, or why you do now, unless you tell me more about her. But this much I think I do understand.” Speaking with slow and careful emphasis, he took her small hand back on his knee. “Mieko Toganō has no objection to a romance between you and me; in fact, she’s trying to tempt us into one.”

“You hardly do her justice,” said Yasuko coolly, pulling her hand away. “Her will is far more absolute than that. Issuing us orders is more like it.”

“Orders? I’d like to see her try to order me around.”

“Oh dear. That only proves how little you really know her.” She gave him a pitying look and smiled.

“But, Yasuko, I swear that one way or another I’ll stop you from marrying Mikamé. Even if it means siding temporarily with Mieko.”

“There. You see? You’re already a pawn in her hands.” She paused. “But you’re not the only one. I am too. I can’t escape after all. The more I want to, the more impossible it is. It’s awful; it’s as if my own will were paralyzed.” She closed her eyes and shook her head, as if to free herself
from some encumbrance. The action had a startling violence. Then for a while she was still, before turning to face Ibuki once again.

“Tsuneo, you don’t know that Akio had a sister, do you?”

“What? Of course not. No one’s ever said anything about a sister. Is it true?”

Yasuko looked down and nodded once.

“I had no idea. And is Mieko the mother?”

“Yes. Harumé is the image of Akio—as she ought to be. After all…” She fell silent, hesitating, then fixed her eyes again on Ibuki and blurted out, “She and Akio were twins.”

“Twins?” he countered in surprise. “Akio had a twin sister?”

“Yes, and you’ve met her. Do you remember the party we gave at home during the firefly season? In early summer.”

“Ah. The time you set all those fireflies loose in the garden.”

It had been toward the end of June. One of Mieko’s pupils in Shiga had sent her a large shipment of fireflies, and early one evening a dozen or so guests had gathered to admire the creatures hanging suspended in cages along the veranda and dancing about in the garden. At Mieko’s request Professor Makino, an authority on Japanese literature, had given a talk on the “Fireflies” chapter in
The Tale of Genji.
Mieko introduced him to the gathering in her usual serene drawl.

“Long ago, people often held ghost-story parties on a summer’s night. One after another, each guest would tell a story and then extinguish a large candle, till all the candles had gone out. This evening, however, I have invited you here not to tell ghost stories but to listen to Professor Makino tell us about
The Tale of Genji.
” Afterward, Yasuko had introduced the brightly dressed women and girls to the members of the spirit possession study group.