Temple Of Dawn (24 page)
Authors: Yukio Mishima
To begin with, it was the wealth into which Honda had unexpectedly come and the ugliness of age which Rié had begun to notice in herself that had removed the framed portrait of the quiet submissive wife from the wall. As her husband grew rich, Rié became afraid of him. But the more fearful she was, the more arrogant she became, showing unconscious hostility to everyone, talking constantly of her chronic kidney ailment, and yet more than ever wanting affection. This desire for love made her even more homely.
As soon as she arrived at the villa and had carried the packages of food to the kitchen, Rié began noisily to wash Honda’s breakfast dishes. She was sure her fatigue would aggravate her illness and was preparing the excuse of being made to work too hard though no one had ordered her to do so. She kept doing what was harmful to her health, expecting Honda to stop her. If he did not do so now, things would be difficult later.
“Why don’t you rest a while and do that later?” he said kindly. “We have plenty of time. Ying Chan really causes a lot of trouble, doesn’t she? She was saying she wanted so much to help. After all that, I have to pitch in at the last minute.”
“Your help will make things worse.”
Rié returned to the living room wiping her wet hands.
In the dusky chamber where a patch of afternoon sun lay by the window, Rié’s eyes under her puffy lids looked like the small holes in a woman’s No mask. The regrets of a barren woman, uncured, worsening over the years, a body bloated with regrets like a billowing tarpaulin. “I am right, but I’m a failure.” The unchanging gentleness she had shown her deceased mother-in-law had come from this self-reproach. If she had had children, if only she had had many children, she would have been able to melt her husband with the accumulation of their soft, sweet flesh. But deterioration had long since begun in a world where propagation was denied, just as a fish cast up from the sea on an autumn afternoon gradually rots away. Rié shuddered before this rich husband of hers.
Honda had thoughtfully ignored the distress of his wife, who was always hoping for the impossible. Now he could not bear the truth that he craved that too and in so doing was reduced to her level. But this fresh abhorrence made the existence of Rié quite important.
“Where did Ying Chan stay last night? Why did she stay away? There’s a housemother at the Foreign Student Center and supervision is probably strict. Why did she? Who was she with?” said Honda, pursuing his thought.
It was simply uneasiness. It was the same daily unsettled feeling, the precise category of emotion he experienced mornings when he shaved himself badly or nights when he could not find a comfortable position for his head on the pillow. It was a far cry from concern for a fellow human; it was somewhat detached and yet it seemed to conform to an urgent necessity in life. He had felt as though some foreign object had been cast into his mind, something like a small black Buddha image carved in black ebony from the Thai jungles.
His wife continued to prattle on about insignificant details such as how to receive the guests and which rooms should be given to those who were spending the night. All that was of no interest to Honda.
Gradually Rié became aware that her husband’s mind had wandered. In the past she had never felt any suspicion about her husband when he ensconced himself in his study, for it was certain that his law studies had bound him there; but now his absentmindedness signified the burning of an invisible flame, and his silence betokened some kind of scheme.
Rié’s eyes followed her husband’s gaze in an effort to find the source of his distraction. But there beyond the window lay only the garden with its dead grass on which two or three little birds had come to sport.
The guests had been invited to come at four, since Honda wanted them to see the view while the sun was still in the sky. Keiko came at one with an offer to help. Both Honda and Rié were pleased with this unexpected assistance.
Among all her husband’s new friends, strangely, it was only to Keiko that Rié opened up. She felt intuitively that Keiko was not an enemy. The reason was Keiko’s kindness, her great bosom and huge hips, her calm speech. Even the fragrance of her perfume seemed to lend a sort of security to Rié’s innate modesty, like the official red seal of approval stamped conspicuously on certificates hung in bakeries.
Seated next to the fireplace Honda, mellowed, opened the morning paper that Rié had brought from Tokyo, listening absently to the women’s conversation in the kitchen.
The headline on the first page was: E
NTIRE
A
DMINISTRATIVE
T
REATY
A
PPENDICES
, according to which sixteen American Air Force bases were to be retained after the Japanese-American peace treaty went into effect. Printed to one side was a talk by Senator Smith expressing American determination—O
BLIGATION TO
P
ROTECT
J
APAN
. W
ILL NOT
T
OLERATE
C
OMMUNIST
A
GGRESSION
. On the second page American economic trends were reported under the title D
ECREASE IN
C
IVILIAN
P
RODUCTION
: N
EW
R
EVERSAL
R
ESULTS FROM
E
CONOMIC
S
LUMP IN
W
ESTERN
E
UROPE
, which appeared in bold print and showed definite concern.
NTIRE
A
DMINISTRATIVE
T
REATY
A
PPENDICES
, according to which sixteen American Air Force bases were to be retained after the Japanese-American peace treaty went into effect. Printed to one side was a talk by Senator Smith expressing American determination—O
BLIGATION TO
P
ROTECT
J
APAN
. W
ILL NOT
T
OLERATE
C
OMMUNIST
A
GGRESSION
. On the second page American economic trends were reported under the title D
ECREASE IN
C
IVILIAN
P
RODUCTION
: N
EW
R
EVERSAL
R
ESULTS FROM
E
CONOMIC
S
LUMP IN
W
ESTERN
E
UROPE
, which appeared in bold print and showed definite concern.
But Honda’s mind was constantly brought back to Ying Chan’s absence. He conjured up all sorts of situations and his unshackled imagination made him uneasy. From the most ominous to the most obscene, reality had the multilayered cross section of wood agate. He had never seen reality take such form insofar as he could recall.
Honda was startled by the loud crackling of the newspaper as he folded it. The page facing the fire was hot and dry. He idly mused that it was impossible for a newspaper to be so hot. The sensation was strangely bound with the sluggishness that lingered deep in his slackened body. Then the flames curling over a fresh log suddenly reminded him of the funeral pyres at Benares.
Keiko appeared in a large apron and said: “How about serving sherry and whiskey and water, and perhaps some Dubonnet for aperitifs? Cocktails are too much trouble. Let’s not serve them.”
“I leave everything up to you.”
“And what about the Thai princess? We should have a few soft drinks in case she doesn’t indulge.”
“She might not come,” Honda answered placidly.
“Oh?” Keiko said calmly and withdrew. Her impeccable courtesy made her perspicacity rather uncanny. Honda thought that one would often overestimate a woman like her because of this elegant nonchalance.
Makiko Kito was the first to arrive. She was accompanied by her pupil Mrs. Tsubakihara, in whose chauffeured car they had driven over the Hakone mountains.
Makiko’s reputation as a poetess was at its height. Honda had no standards for measuring poetic values; but when he heard Makiko’s name repeated by the most unexpected people, he realized how highly she must be regarded. Mrs. Tsubakihara, from a former
zaibatsu
family, was about fifty, the same age as Makiko. But she showed deference to Makiko as if she were a goddess.
zaibatsu
family, was about fifty, the same age as Makiko. But she showed deference to Makiko as if she were a goddess.
Mrs. Tsubakihara was in perpetual mourning for her son, a Navy ensign, who had died seven years ago. Honda knew nothing of her past, but she seemed like a sad bit of fruit pickled in the vinegar of grief.
Makiko was still beautiful. Her pellucid skin showed signs of aging, but it retained the freshness of lingering snow; and the creeping gray in her hair, untouched by artificial coloring, gave the stamp of sincerity to her poetry. Her behavior was natural, but she emitted a sense of mystery. She never overlooked strategic presents or dinner invitations to important personalities. She won over those who might speak ill of her. Though all real emotion had long since dried up, she preserved a lingering hint of sorrow and the illusion of being alone.
Compared to her grief, that of Mrs. Tsubakihara seemed immature. The comparison was indeed cruel; Makiko’s aesthetic sorrow, which had been distilled into a mask, produced masterpieces, while the fresh, unhealed grief of her disciple remained in a raw, unformed state, providing no inspiration for the creation of moving poetry. Whatever slight reputation Mrs. Tsubakihara enjoyed as a poetess would at once disappear were it not for Makiko’s support.
Makiko extracted poetic emotion from the raw grief of this constant companion, drawing forth an abstracted sadness that no longer was the possession of anyone and labeling it with her own name. Thus, the unworked gem of sorrow and the skilled craftsman combined to bring forth innumerable masterpieces—mufflers that succeeded in concealing the aging necks that carried them year after year.
Makiko was irritated to have arrived early.
“The chauffeur drove too fast,” she said, looking at Mrs. Tsubakihara beside her.
“Quite so. The traffic was not so congested as we expected.”
“Let’s see the garden first. We were looking forward to that,” she said to Honda. “Please don’t bother, we’ll just take our time and stroll about and maybe write a little poetry.”
Honda insisted on showing them around and took along a bottle of sherry and some tidbits, intending to serve them in the arbor. The afternoon had grown warm. Beyond the garden, which narrowed as it sloped gently to the valley, one could see Mount Fuji to the west. It was veiled by the cotton clouds of spring, and only the snow-clad summit was sharply limned against the azure sky.
“By summer I plan to have a swimming pool built in front of the terrace where the birdhouse is,” Honda explained on the way.
But the ladies’ response was chill, and he suddenly felt like a clerk at some inn escorting guests on a tour of the premises.
Artists and their ilk proved most difficult for Honda to deal with. He had resumed relations with Makiko at the time of the fifteenth memorial service for Isao in 1948. Japanese poetry had not been the cause, as one might have expected. The former perfunctory relationship of counselor and witness (even though it held undertones of conniving) had actually blossomed into friendship, for they both held unvoiced affection for Isao. Honda was at a complete loss for words and had thus broached the inane subject of a swimming pool. Makiko with her pupil at her side stood facing the spectacle of Mount Fuji in the spring.
He knew that the women did not quite feel contemptuous of him, yet he realized they felt easy enough with him to act without constraint. He was outside their circle, alien to their way of life. He could easily imagine Makiko speaking to someone involved in a difficult case: “Mr. Honda’s a friend of mine. No, he doesn’t write poetry. But he’s very understanding, and he’s excellent in both civil and criminal cases. I’ll speak to him for you.”
But within, Honda was afraid of Makiko, and she probably was just as frightened of him. She had revived the old association with him in order to protect her name. Honda had no illusions as to her true character; he knew that she was quite capable of bearing false witness, of telling at the critical moment the most thoroughly believable lies.
Other than that, Honda was likable, unobjectionable to the women. How freely they talked in front of him, whereas they at once hid behind innocuous social chatter when Rié approached. Honda liked to observe these once beautiful, but no longer young women, their perpetual sad conversations, their confusion of their own sensuality with the past, memories and realities encroaching one upon the other, and their habit of distorting nature and reality to suit their whim. He also liked their ability to bestow automatic lyricism on everything beautiful they saw, like a bailiff stamping every piece of furniture he finds. As if this were a way of protecting themselves from whatever beauty they might perceive. Honda liked to see them romp and gambol like two inspired waterfowl who, having stumbled clumsily onto land, slip back into the water, exhibiting forthwith unexpected grace and nimbleness as they swim and dive with abandon. When they composed a poem, they would display unreserved freedom in mental sunbathing, quite without fear of the resultant exposure. It brought to mind the young Princess and the old ladies at Bang Pa In.
Would Ying Chan really come? Where had she stayed the night? Concern suddenly inserted a rough wooden wedge into his mind.
“What a beautiful garden! Hakoné to the east and Fuji to the west. It’s a crime that you dawdle around without writing a single poem. While we’re forced to produce poetry under the polluted skies of Tokyo, you read law books here. What an unfair world!”
“I gave up on legal books long ago,” said Honda, offering them some sherry. The movement of kimono sleeves and the graceful motion of their fingers as the two women accepted the sherry glasses were extremely lovely. Actually Mrs. Tsubakihara slavishly aped Makiko, from the gesture of lightly holding up her sleeve to the way she curled her ringed fingers when picking up the glass.
“How happy Akio would have been to see this garden!” said Mrs. Tsubakihara, mentioning her dead son. “He adored Mount Fuji, and even before entering the Navy, he had a framed photograph of it in his study so he could always look at it. Such clean-cut, youthful tastes.”
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