Authors: Yukio Mishima
Runaway Horses (60 page)
Isao spoke out, like a dog yelping with eager restlessness: “I’ve lived for the sake of an illusion. I’ve patterned my life upon an illusion. And this punishment has come on me because of this illusion. . . . How I wish I had something that’s not an illusion.”
“If you become an adult, you’ll get it.”
“An adult? I’d rather . . . Yes! Maybe I ought to be reborn a woman. If I were a woman, I could live without chasing after illusions. Couldn’t I, Mother?”
Isao laughed suddenly, as if something had cracked.
“What are you saying?” Miné answered, rather angrily. “Reborn a woman! How silly of you! You’re drunk, aren’t you—to come out with something like that.”
Soon, after more saké, Isao fell asleep with his cheek upon the quilt that covered the
kotatsu
. Sawa took charge of him and led him to his room. The concerned Honda, deciding to make this the occasion for his own going, got up and followed them.
kotatsu
. Sawa took charge of him and led him to his room. The concerned Honda, deciding to make this the occasion for his own going, got up and followed them.
Showing a tender solicitude, Sawa, without a word, put Isao to bed for the night. When he had done so, Iinuma called him from the other end of the corridor, and Honda found himself alone with the sleeping Isao.
Isao’s sleeping face, his skin flushed from drink, showed signs of distress, and his breathing was harsh. But even as he slept, his brows were contracted in manly fashion. Suddenly, as he tossed about on his
futon
, Isao shouted out in his sleep, loudly but too indistinct for Honda to hear clearly: “Far to the south. Very hot . . . in the rose sunshine of a southern land . . .”
futon
, Isao shouted out in his sleep, loudly but too indistinct for Honda to hear clearly: “Far to the south. Very hot . . . in the rose sunshine of a southern land . . .”
At that point Sawa returned for Honda. And so, even though this confused message cried out from a drunken sleep lingered in his mind, Honda begged Sawa to look after Isao, and turned his steps toward the entrance hall. He had risked everything in coming to Isao’s rescue, and today he had at last won his gamble. Honda wondered, therefore, why he felt such a sense of futility.
39
THE FOLLOWING DAY
was fair.
In the morning there was a visitor, Detective Tsuboi from the neighborhood police station. This middle-aged man, who had risen to second degree in kendo, relayed to Isao the message that the police chief hoped once again that Isao would be kind enough to come to the drill hall on Sundays to instruct the neighborhood boys in kendo.
“Yes, indeed,” he said, “though his position prevents him coming out to praise you publicly, the Chief tells us in private that he’s struck with admiration for you. And the parents of the boys too are anxious for somebody like you to instruct their sons in kendo, so that the true Japanese spirit will be instilled in them. If there’s no appeal, we would like you to come as soon as the new year is underway. Of course I don’t think there’s much chance of an appeal.”
Isao studied the trousers of the plainclothesman, in which a crease was only dimly visible, and, as he did, he thought of himself as he might look teaching children kendo, with age overtaking him. His white hair in a purple headband would shine wherever it was not covered by the towel bound in Kansai manner behind his mask.
After the detective had gone, Sawa asked Isao to come to his room, and said: “It certainly feels good to flop down on a tatami again, with a cushion under my head, and skim through a whole year’s stack of
Kodan Club
. By the way, even if you’re supposed to be on your good behavior, a young fellow like you can’t stay around the house like this. You’re allowed to go out as long as I accompany you. So what do you say to us going to see a movie or something tonight?”
Kodan Club
. By the way, even if you’re supposed to be on your good behavior, a young fellow like you can’t stay around the house like this. You’re allowed to go out as long as I accompany you. So what do you say to us going to see a movie or something tonight?”
“Well, maybe,” said Isao vaguely. Then he added, to be more polite, “I could go to visit my friend, though.”
“Oh, no, not that! The best thing is for you not to see each other for the time being. You might say something that’s better left unsaid.”
“I suppose so.” Isao had not mentioned the name of the person he wanted very much to see.
“Is there anything you’d like to ask me?” Sawa said after a somewhat uncomfortable silence.
“Yes. There’s one thing I still don’t understand in what my father said. Who told my father what we were up to? It must have been just before we were arrested.”
Sawa’s hitherto carefree manner vanished. The sudden, withdrawn silence made Isao uneasy. It was a silence that seemed to poison the atmosphere. Isao found it hard to bear, and he stared intently at the faded brown binding of the tatami where the bright sunshine that poured through the clear glass of the window seemed to dig its claws into the fabric.
“Do you really want to know? If I tell you, you’ll have no regrets?”
“No, I want to know the whole truth.”
“All right. I’ll tell you what I know. I’m saying this because the master himself went as far with you as he did. What happened was that the night before the arrest, on the night of November thirtieth of last year, that is, a call came for the master from Miss Makiko. I answered the phone. The master came to the phone, and what they talked about, I don’t know. But afterwards, the master got ready to go out, and he left without taking anybody with him. And that’s all I know.”
As he continued, Sawa’s kindliness took on the steadfast warmth of a blanket draped over the shoulders of a shivering man.
“I realize that you’re fond of Miss Makiko. And that Miss Makiko is fond of you. Maybe on her side the fervor is a good deal stronger. But it’s because she feels the way she does that we have this terrible result. I sized up her true nature when she stepped into the witness box during the trial. A frightful woman, I thought to myself. That was my honest feeling, I tell you. She was gambling all she had on saving your life, but, at the same time, the truth is that she was happy to see you in a prison cell. Do you follow me?
“What I mean is, that marriage of hers—you’ve got to understand why it ended so tragically in divorce. Her husband loved Makiko, but at the same time he was quite a playboy. The ordinary wife would have put up with it, but this one was proud, and she wouldn’t have it. She loved him, and that made it even harder to bear. So, not caring what people might say, she went home to her family’s house.
“Because she’s that kind of person, then, when she falls in love with another man, it’s no ordinary matter. The more she loves, the more anxious she becomes about the future when she might lose her lover. Because she’s had an unhappy experience, she’ll never believe in a man again. And so naturally, when a man she loves does come along, she wants to make sure that he stays hers and hers alone, even if he is put out of her reach, even if she has to bear the infinite suffering of not being able to be with this man. And as for a place where a man has no chance at all to play around, a place where, as far as a woman’s concerned, there’s the least cause for worry—where would that be, do you think? Jail, where else? She fell in love with you, so you landed in jail. What more could a man want, come to think of it? I wish I were in your shoes.”
Not looking at Isao, Sawa chattered on heedlessly as he rubbed the pale skin of his swollen cheek.
“Keep clear of a dangerous woman like that from now on. I’ll see that you meet lots of lovely women. The master said something to me about this, and he’s given me plenty of spending money. Sure, it must have come from Kurahara, indirectly, but it’s just as the master said: Money is money; fidelity is fidelity. You’ve never been with a woman, I bet.
“Will you come along to a movie tonight? At the Shibazono there’s a foreign film. Or there’s the Hikawa Theater, near the college, where we could see a movie starring Chiezo. Then we could have a drink at Hyakkendana and head for Maruyama. We’ve got to perform the ‘coming of age ceremony,’ just as the master said. If there’s an appeal, the game will be up. So now’s the time to get it over with.”
“Let’s talk about this once the appeal is dropped.”
“But look, if there is one, what then?”
“We’ll worry about that when the time comes,” Isao answered stubbornly.
40
ON
D
ECEMBER TWENTY-EIGHTH
too the sun was shining. Isao held back. The next day, December twenty-ninth, was the day on which the ceremonies attending the naming of the Crown Prince would take place, and rather than darken the morning papers with an ominous headline on such a festive day, it would be more excusable to act later on the festive day itself, as long as the ceremonies were completed and the celebration at an end. Because of the possibility of an appeal, it was dangerous to wait any longer.
December twenty-ninth was still another clear day.
He asked Sawa to participate with him in a lantern procession to the Imperial Palace, and when the two left the house, Isao was wearing his overcoat over his school uniform, and they both were carrying lanterns decorated with the characters for “celebration.” While they were eating an early dinner in a Ginza restaurant, they watched a streetcar float decorated with chrysanthemums making its way through the crowds in the street outside, the sign “
CONGRATULATIONS
” glowing in lights, and its motorman standing with his chest thrust out proudly beneath his blue uniform and brass buttons.
CONGRATULATIONS
” glowing in lights, and its motorman standing with his chest thrust out proudly beneath his blue uniform and brass buttons.
The human wave of lantern-bearers surged forward from Sukiyabashi toward the Imperial Palace. The lanterns with the sun emblem that each one held above his head were reflected in the waters of the moat, and lit up the pines standing in the winter twilight. The many lanterns massed in the plaza before the palace put to flight the shadows lingering beneath the trees and filled the whole area with a shifting brightness at variance with the time of day. The shouts of Banzai went on, never abating. The flames in the uplifted lanterns of the marchers highlighted the shadows of their mouths and throats. Now the faces were steeped in shadow; now they were suddenly lit with shimmering brilliance.
Before long, Sawa was torn away from Isao. After searching hopelessly in the vast throng for some four hours, Sawa returned to the Academy to report what happened.
Isao went back to the Ginza, and at a shop there he bought a dagger and a knife, both with plain wooden sheaths. The knife he put into the inside pocket of his jacket, and the dagger he concealed in his overcoat pocket.
In a hurry, he hailed a cab to Shimbashi Station, where he boarded a train for Atami. It was empty. He had a four-passenger compartment all to himself as he pulled a clipping from his pocket and read it once again. It was a page taken from the New Year’s issue of
Kodan Club
borrowed from Sawa, and on it was a boxed item entitled “How the Big Shots in Politics and Finance Greet the New Year.”
Kodan Club
borrowed from Sawa, and on it was a boxed item entitled “How the Big Shots in Politics and Finance Greet the New Year.”
“Busuké Kurahara customarily sees the old year out in very simple fashion,” read the portion that Isao was concerned with. “Having no liking even for golf, at the end of every year, as soon as offices are closed, he slips away to his villa at Inamura in Izusan. His greatest pleasure is looking after the tangerine orchards there in which he takes such pride. The orchards in the neighborhood are usually harvested before the year is out, but Kurahara likes to leave the tangerines hanging in bunches so that he may admire them up until the New Year’s holidays are well underway. Then, except for giving some to his friends, he donates the entire harvest to welfare hospitals and orphanages. This amply bespeaks the unassuming personality and the admirable warmth of this man, who could be called the Pope of the world of finance.”
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