Temple Of Dawn (30 page)
Authors: Yukio Mishima
31
HE RETURNED HOME
He got out of the car and felt the drizzle moisten his temples. The houseboy met him in the vestibule and informed him that Mrs. Honda was tired and had retired early. He also reported that a persistent guest had insisted on waiting more than an hour and was in the small living room to which the houseboy had been obliged to usher him. Did he recognize the name Iinuma? asked the youth. At once Honda surmised that the man had come to ask for money.
It was four years since Honda had last seen Iinuma at the fifteenth anniversary memorial service for Isao. At that time it was obvious that Iinuma was quite without funds after the war. Yet he had been favorably impressed by the tasteful, simple memorial service held at a shrine.
Honda had at once thought it was about money, for recently people who had not visited him for years would turn up for no other reason than to ask him for funds. Unsuccessful lawyers, former attorneys who had become vagrants, unsuccessful court reporters—all came flocking. Each had heard of Honda’s good fortune and each seemed to think he had some right to a share, since Honda had come into the money by sheer luck. He responded only to the requests of the truly humble.
When he entered the reception room, Iinuma rose from the chair and made a deep obeisance, showing the back of his wilted suit up to the nape of his gray-haired neck. Playing the role of a poor man suited him more than poverty itself. Honda urged him to sit down and ordered the house-boy to bring whiskey.
Iinuma offered an obvious lie, saying that he had been just passing by and could not resist the urge to see Honda. One glass and he pretended to be drunk. As Honda started to pour another drink, he held the glass with his right hand and respectfully supported the bottom with the left. This struck Honda unpleasantly. A rat often held his loot in just such a fashion. Then Iinuma found a cue to start his harangue.
“Well, it seems to me that ‘following the reverse course’ has come to be the cliché of the day. But the government will start revising the constitution by next year at the latest, I think. The reason everybody’s talking about the revival of conscription is because there are really grounds for it. But the infuriating thing is that the foundation can’t be brought out in the open and is still underground. By contrast, how do you like how powerful the Reds are getting? How about the disorders in the anti-draft demonstration in Kobe the other day? They called it an ‘anti-draft youth rally,’ but the strange thing was that a lot of Koreans took part. They fought against the police with not only rocks, but hot pepper, Molotov cocktails, bamboo lances, and everything else. I heard that some three hundred students, children, and Koreans invaded Hyogo Police Station and demanded the release of the ones who had been arrested.”
He wants money, Honda thought, paying little attention to what Iinuma was saying. But, he deliberated, he must let Iinuma know that no matter how the New Dealers controlled things with their socialistic policies, no matter how much noise the Reds made, the basis of the private property system would never be shaken. The drizzle outside the window seemed to thicken as though a multilayered curtain of rain was enveloping the house. He had seen Ying Chan off to the Foreign Student Center in a taxi. Since then the thought had not left his mind that this spring rain must have seeped into her simple room in the students’ quarters and made it damp. What sort of subtle effect would the humidity have on the girl’s body that had matured in the tropics? How did she sleep? Facing the ceiling and breathing hard? Or coiled up with a smile on her lips? Or on her side like the golden reclining figure of Shakyamuni in the Nirvana Hall, arm under head, supine, showing the brilliant soles of her feet?
“The General Rally for the Banishment of Oppressive Laws by the Kyoto Branch of the General Council of Japanese Labor Unions has got violent too,” continued Iinuma. “At this rate, May Day this year isn’t going to be any too peaceful; you just can’t predict how much violence will break out. Red students take over school buildings in the universities and have confrontations with the police. And this, sir, right after the signing of the Japanese-American Peace Treaty and the Mutual Security Pact. How ironic.”
He wants money, thought Honda.
“I’m all in favor of Prime Minister Yoshida’s idea about declaring the Communist Party illegal,” Iinuma went on. “Japan’s in turmoil again. If we let things go on, now that the Peace Treaty is signed, we’re going to be thrown headlong into a Communist revolution. Most of the American troops will be gone, and how are you going to control a general strike? I lose a lot of sleep over Japan’s future.
What’s learned in the cradle is carried to the grave
is true even now.”
What’s learned in the cradle is carried to the grave
is true even now.”
He wants money, Honda kept thinking. But even after several more drinks Iinuma still did not bring the subject up.
He talked briefly about his divorce two years ago, then suddenly changed the subject to bygone days, and started on a dogged confession how he would never in his life forget the obligation he felt toward Honda, who had given up his judgeship and volunteered to conduct Isao’s defense without remuneration. Honda could not bear the thought of Iinuma talking about Isao and he hurriedly interrupted.
Iinuma suddenly took off his jacket. The room was not warm enough to be uncomfortable, but Honda presumed that he was drunk. He took off his necktie next and unbuttoned his white shirt, unfastening even his undershirt to expose a chest which had turned red from the alcohol. Honda could see the almost completely white hairs scattering the light like so many needles.
“To be honest with you, I came to show you this. I have no greater shame. If I could, I would have preferred to hide it from you all my life, but I have been thinking for some time that I would reveal it only to you and let you have a good laugh. I thought only you would really understand me, even my failures. You would know what kind of man I am. I’m honestly and truly ashamed, when I compare myself to my dead son who died so nobly. I have no words to express adequately the depth of my shame at still being alive like this.”
Tears ran down his cheeks, and his words came pell-mell:
“This is the scar from when I tried to commit suicide right after the war. My mistake was thinking I might not succeed in committing seppuku, so instead I plunged a dagger into my chest, but missed my heart. I bled like a pig, but I didn’t die.”
As though showing off, Iinuma caressed the scar that glistened a purplish blue. As a matter of fact, even Honda could see that something had been irreversibly terminated. Iinuma’s ruddy, coarse skin had puckered, surrounding the wound and closing it clumsily, underscoring the unsuccessfulness of the attempt.
However, Iinuma’s obdurate chest, now covered with white hair, still was proud of what it had once been. Honda finally realized that it was not at all money for which he had come, still he did not feel ashamed for having misjudged his purpose. Iinuma had not changed. Honda found it understandable that even such a man as he should be compelled to distill and crystallize a desperate, soiled, and humiliating deed, that he should strive by so doing to transmute shame into a rare gem, and that he should gradually be overcome by the desire, the need to display it to a trustworthy witness. Whether he was serious or merely pretending, the fact remained that the purple scar on his chest was in the final analysis the only precious thing that remained in his life. Honda had been selected for the unwelcome honor of being witness to this noble action of many years ago.
Iinuma, seeming to have rapidly sobered, put on his clothes, apologized for having overstayed, and extended thanks for the drinks. He was about to leave when Honda stopped him. Wrapping up some fifty thousand yen in bills, he thrust the packet into the pocket of Iinuma’s seedy coat despite the protestations of his visitor.
“In that case,” said Iinuma finally, thanking Honda with extreme formality, “I accept your kindness with gratitude. It will be a privilege to use it to help revive the Seiken School.”
Honda accompanied him to the entrance in the rain. Iinuma’s silhouette disappeared through the side gate beneath the pomegranate leaves. It reminded him, for some reason, of one of those countless nocturnal islands that dot the gloomy waters around Japan. An outlying island with no water except the rain—mad, wild, starving.
32
FAR FROM THE PEACE
he had expected on placing the ring on Ying Chan’s finger, Honda was filled with fear.
He was concerned with the difficult question of how to conceal himself to view her nude. How wonderful it would be if, unaware of him, she would move about full of life or take her self-indulgent ease, revealing every secret in her heart, being completely natural. How wonderful to observe like a biologist every detail. But should his presence be known, then everything would at once collapse.
A perfect crystal of quartz, a glass bowl in which nothing exists but the free play of lovely, subjective being. Ying Chan should be in just such a bowl.
Honda was certain that he had played a part in the crystallization of Kiyoaki’s and Isao’s transparent lives. In them he had been the extended helping hand, even though it had proven ineffectual and useless. The important thing was that Honda himself had been unaware of his role; he had played his part quite naturally, as a matter of fact quite idiotically, though he himself was convinced that he had been intelligent about it. But after he had become aware! After a torrid India had unsparingly taught him, what help could he have rendered to life? What kind of intervention, what engagement could there be?
Furthermore, Ying Chan was a woman. Hers was a body which filled the cup to its very brim with the unknown darkness of charm. It seduced him. It attracted him constantly toward life. For what purpose? he wondered. He did not know, but one of the reasons was probably that the life to which he was attracted was destined to involve others through the charm it exuded; it was fated to destroy its own roots. Another reason was that he was obliged to realize completely this time the impossibility of involvement in another’s life.
Of course Honda was convinced that having Ying Chan in a transparent crystal would constitute the core of his pleasure, but he could not separate that from his innate desire for investigation. Was there no way by which he could harmoniously reconcile these two contradictory tastes and overcome Ying Chan, this black lotus that had bloomed from the mud of life’s flow?
In this respect, it would have been better if she had shown some clear sign of being the transmigration of Isao and Kiyoaki. Then Honda’s passion would be cooled. Yet on the other hand, had she simply been a girl who had nothing to do with the mystery of rebirth Honda had witnessed, he would not have been so strongly attracted to her. Perhaps the origin of that strength which sternly held his passion in check and that of the extraordinarily powerful attraction existed together in the same samsara. The source of awakening and the origin of samsara and delusion were both samsara.
As he thought of it, Honda strongly wished that he were a man approaching the end of life, someone propertied and totally complacent. Honda knew a number of such people. Many were discernment itself in turning a profit and rising in the world or in struggling for power; they were adept in grasping the psychology of formidable competitors. Yet when it came to women they were completely ignorant, even though they had slept with several hundreds. Such men were satisfied to surround themselves with the screens of women and flatterers whom they bought with their money and power. Like loons, the women would sit around, showing only one side of their faces. Such men are not free; they’re in a cage! thought Honda. They sit in cages made of things that only
their
eyes can see, that void the world and shut it out.
their
eyes can see, that void the world and shut it out.
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