Temple Of Dawn (46 page)
Authors: Yukio Mishima
Honda removed some ten Western books from the shelf to free the opening of the peephole. The number of books and the titles were always the same. They were invariably old leather-bound tomes with gilt lettering on law in German that had come to him from his father. His fingers could tell each and every one by the difference in thickness. The order in which he removed them never varied. He could guess the exact weight of each and he knew the odor of accumulated dust. The touch and the weight of these solemn and imposing volumes and the precision of their arrangements were the indispensable formalities of his pleasure. There was no more important ceremony than that of reverently removing these stone walls of concepts and transforming the grim pleasure he would have in reading them into his wretched infatuation. Carefully, making no noise, he lowered each volume to the floor. With each book the pounding of his heart increased. The eighth was a particularly heavy tome. When he pulled it out, his hand felt numb from the dusty golden weight of the pleasure he experienced.
He completed the task faultlessly and then placed his eye to the peephole without bumping his head. The subtlety of this skill was also of great consequence. How important each of these trifling matters seemed! As in some ritual, no detail could be omitted so that he might glimpse this other brilliant world. He was a lone priest left in the darkness. Strictly adhering to the ceremonial procedures long rehearsed in his head—he was plagued by the belief that if he should forget any part of the ritual the whole structure would collapse—he carefully put his right eye to the hole.
One of the bedside lamps seemed to be lit and a dim light mottled the room. He had been clever to have Matsudo move the wall bed so that both now stood in his field of vision.
In the dusky light inextricably entangled limbs writhed on the bed immediately before him. A white plump body and a dusky one lay with heads in opposite directions, exhausting their wanton desires. It was a position naturally assumed when the mind tied to the flesh and the brain that engendered love attempted to obtain balance by reaching out to the farthest point in order to taste the wine fermented by that love. Two heads of black shadowy hair were intimately pressed against two black pubescent mounds also filled with shadows. The annoying wisps of disheveled hair strewn across the cheeks had become signs of love. Smooth, burning thighs lay in intimate contact with smooth, burning cheeks, while the soft bellies heaved like moonlit inlets. He could not hear distinct voices, but a sobbing, neither pleasure nor sorrow, vibrated the length of the torsos. Breasts now abandoned by the partners innocently turned their nipples toward the light, trembling at times as though under an electrical charge. The depth of the night concealed in the aureoles around the nipples, the distance of the pleasure that made the breasts shudder, testified to the fact that every atom of their bodies was still isolated in maddening aloneness. They were feverishly striving to come closer, toward a greater intimacy, to fuse one into the other, but to no avail. Far away Keiko’s red-lacquered toes flexed as if she were dancing on a sheet of hot iron, and yet they merely trod the empty twilight.
Honda realized that the room was filled with cool mountain air, but he felt as though the center of a furnace lay beyond the peephole. A shining furnace. He regretted that Ying Chan’s back that he had examined so carefully during the day at the pool, perspiration flowing slowly down the spine, was turned toward him. Shortly the perspiration was diverted from its channel and trickled down the dark flank against the bed. It seemed as though he could smell the fragrance of some rich, ripe tropical fruit that had just split open.
Keiko shifted her body slightly to be on top, and Ying Chan tilted her neck, thrusting her head between Keiko’s shining thighs. Naturally her breasts came into view. Her right arm encircled Keiko’s hip, while her left hand gently caressed her belly. Intermittently little nocturnal lappings could be heard licking the banks of the harbor.
So beautiful was Ying Chan’s sincerity that he was seeing for the first time that Honda even forgot to be surprised by this so treacherous conclusion to his love.
Her closed eyes were turned toward the ceiling, and her forehead was half buried in Keiko’s sporadically convulsing thighs. Keiko’s mimosalike hair almost completely covered her lovely, peaceful nostrils, now no longer cold and narrow. Ying Chan’s bow-shaped upper lip was open and moist, and a busy sucking movement extended from her delicate chin to her cheeks that gleamed darkly. Presently Honda saw a line of tears flowing like some living animal from the shadow of her long eyelashes along her tightly closed eyes and down her cheek.
Within the limitless movement of waves everything was directed toward an as yet unknown summit. The two women seemed to be desperately striving to reach ultimate limits neither had ever dreamt of or hoped for. Honda felt as if there were some unknown pinnacle poised in the space of the dark room like a brilliant crown. It was probably the Thai full-moon diadem suspended there above the two writhing women; only Honda’s eyes were able to envision it.
The bodies of both women alternately extended and contracted and then collapsed as they buried themselves again in sighs and perspiration. The crown floated indifferently in the space which their straining fingers almost reached. When the envisioned summit, that unknown golden limit was manifest, the scene was completely transformed, and Honda could see the two women entangled beneath his gaze only in their suffering and torture. They were battered by the dissatisfaction of the flesh, their gathered brows were filled with pain, and their hot limbs seemed to writhe as though trying to escape from what seared them. They possessed no wings. They continued their futile thrashings to escape from their bonds, from their suffering; and yet their flesh firmly retained them. Only rapture could bring release.
Ying Chan’s beautiful, dark breasts were drenched in perspiration, the right one crushed and disfigured beneath Keiko’s body, while the left, heaving vigorously, lay voluptuously on her left arm with which she was caressing Keiko’s belly. On the constantly trembling mound the nipple slumbered, and with the perspiration the sphere glowed as if bright with rain.
At that moment Ying Chan, perhaps jealous that Keiko’s thigh had freedom of movement, raised her left arm high and grasped it as though to claim it as her own. She placed it firmly over her head as if she could do without breathing. The imposing white thigh completely covered her face.
Ying Chan’s whole side was exposed. To the left of her bare breast, an area her arm had previously concealed, three extremely small moles appeared distinctly, like the Pleiades in the dusky sky of her brown skin that resembled the dying evening glow.
Honda was shocked. It was as if his eyes had been pierced with arrows.
Just as he ducked his head and was about to leave the bookcase, he felt a light tap on his back. On withdrawing his head he discovered Rié standing there in her nightdress, her face frighteningly pale.
“What are you doing? I suspected as much.”
Honda felt no guilt as he turned his perspiring forehead to his wife. He had already seen the moles.
“Look. Look at the moles . . .”
“Are you telling me to peek?”
“Go ahead. It’s just as I thought.”
Caught between dignity and curiosity, Rié hesitated for some time. Ignoring her, Honda walked to the bay window and seated himself on the built-in bench. Rié put her eye to the peephole. Having been unable to see his own posture when he had done the same thing, Honda could not bear to witness the demeaning position of his wife. Nevertheless, they had come to the point of sharing the same deed.
He looked for the moon concealed by a cloud through the metal screen in the bay window. Behind the cloud, edged in light, the moon sent forth beams in all directions and cloud clusters trailed away in similar stateliness. The stars were few, and he saw only one shining brightly, scarcely touching the tops of the cypress trees.
When Rié had done peeping, she lit the lamp in the room. Her face was shining with joy.
She walked to the bench and sat down. Already she was cured.
“I’m stunned. . . . Did you know about that?” she said in a warm, low voice.
“No. I just found out.”
“But you said it was just as you thought.”
“That’s not what I meant, Rié. I was talking about the moles. Some time ago you raked through my study in Tokyo and read Matsugae’s diary, didn’t you?”
“
I
hunted through your study?”
I
hunted through your study?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m asking if you read Matsugae’s diary.”
“I . . . I don’t remember. I’m not interested in other people’s diaries.”
When Honda asked her to bring him a cigar from the bedroom, she obediently followed his command. She even lighted it, shielding it with her hand from the wind that came through the window screen.
“The key to transmigration is in Matsugae’s diary. You saw them too, didn’t you? The three black moles on her left side? Those moles were originally on Matsugae.”
Rié, thinking of other things, was indifferent to what Honda was saying. She probably thought her husband was looking for excuses. Honda pressed her, wishing them to have the memory in common.
“Well, you did see them, didn’t you?”
“I can’t say. But the scene was horrible. You never know about people, do you!”
“That’s why I’m saying that Ying Chan is the reincarnation of Matsugae.”
Rié gazed at her husband with pity. It was only natural that a woman who believed herself cured should try in turn to act as such. This woman who had so savagely confirmed reality was now ready to infect her husband with the roughness that burned her skin like salt water. Rié was no longer the Rié of old. Although she had once desired to transform reality she had wisely learned to believe in it. She had learned that without changing herself, the world could be transformed through observation. She rather looked down on her husband’s world, without realizing that she had in fact become a co-conspirator by having been a voyeur too.
“What’s all this about reincarnation? How ridiculous! I didn’t read any diary. At any rate, I’ve finally calmed down. Your eyes must have been opened too, but I was suffering from something that didn’t exist at all. I was wrestling with an illusion. Now that I realize it, I suddenly feel tired. But everything turned out for the best. There’s nothing to worry about any more.”
The two were sitting at either end of the bench, an ashtray between them. Honda, concerned that Rié might be cold, closed the window; the smoke from his cigar slowly eddied up under the light. They were silent, but the silence was not the same as that which had occurred that morning.
Their hearts were bound together by the odiousness of what they had observed, and Honda felt momentarily how good it would have been if they could have been like so many other couples in the world, if they could flaunt their impeccable moral rectitude like immaculately white aprons across their chests, sit at table three times a day and proudly eat to their satisfaction, if they could assume the right to disdain other things in the world. But in reality they had merely been transformed into a couple of voyeurs.
Yet each of them had not seen the same thing. Where Honda had discovered reality, Rié had found out her illusions. The process whereby they had reached this common point was the same for both in that they had not yet recuperated from their fatigue and their work had been futile. What remained now was mutual consolation.
After a while Rié yawned so widely one could see to the back of her mouth.
“Don’t you think we should start thinking about adopting a child?” she said most appropriately, combing back her disheveled hair.
Death had flown from Honda’s heart the moment he had seen Keiko and Ying Chan together. Now there was reason to believe that he might be immortal. “No,” he said with determination, plucking a piece of tobacco from his lip, “it’s better to live by ourselves. I prefer not having any heir.”
Honda and Rié were no sooner awakened by a violent pounding on the door than they smelled the smoke.
“Fire! Fire!” a woman was shouting. When the couple, joining hands, ran out the door, the second-floor corridor was already filled with swirling smoke, and the person who had roused them was gone. Covering their mouths with their sleeves, the two ran coughing and choking down the stairs. The pool with its water flashed through Honda’s mind. They would be safe only if they could reach it without delay.
As they burst out onto the terrace and looked at the pool, they saw Keiko holding Ying Chan and crying to them from the far side. That the fire was already sweeping through the house was obvious, for though the lights had not been turned on, the reflections of the two women were nonetheless clearly visible on the surface of the water. Honda was amazed by the personal appearance of both Keiko and Ying Chan. Their hair was disheveled, but both were wearing the dressing gowns they had brought with them. Honda was clad only in his pajamas and Rié was wearing her night kimono.
“I woke up coughing because of the smoke. It must have come from Mr. Imanishi’s room,” said Keiko.
“Who knocked on our door?”
“I did. I knocked on Mr. Imanishi’s too, but he hasn’t come down. What shall we do?”
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