The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (9 page)

It was then that the unbelievable thing happened. Still sitting absolutely straight, the woman suddenly loosened the collar of her kimono. I could almost hear the rustling of the silk as she pulled the material of her dress from under the stiff sash. Then I saw her white breasts. I held my breath. The woman took one of her full white breasts in her own hands. The officer held out the dark, deep-colored teacup, and knelt before her. The woman rubbed her breast with both hands.

I cannot say that I saw it all, but I felt distinctly, as though it had all happened directly before my eyes, how the white warm milk gushed forth from her breast into the deep-green tea which foamed inside that cup, how it settled into the liquid, leaving white drops on the top, how the quiet surface of the tea was made turbid and foamy by that white breast.

The man held the cup to his mouth and drank every drop of that mysterious tea. The woman hid her full breast in the kimono.

Tsurukawa and I gazed tensely at the scene. Later when We examined the matter systematically, we decided that this must have been a farewell ceremony between an officer who was leaving for the front and the woman who had conceived his child. But our emotions at that moment made any logical explanation impossible. Because we were staring so hard, we did not have time to notice that the man and woman had gone out of the room, leaving nothing but the great red carpet.

I had seen that white profile of hers in relief and I had seen her magnificent white breast. After the woman left, I thpught persistently of one thing during the remaining hours of that day and also during the next day and the day after. I thought that this woman was none other than Uiko, who had been brought back to life.

CHAPTER THREE

I
T WAS
the anniversary of Father's death. Mother had an odd idea. Since it was difficult for me to go home because of my compulsory labor, she thought of coming to Kyoto herself, bringing along Father's mortuary tablet, so that Father Dosen might chant some sutras before it, if only for a few minutes, on the anniversary or his old friend's death. Of course she did not have enough money to pay for the mass, and she wrote the Superior, throwing herself on his charity. Father Dosen agreed to her request and informed me about it.

I was not pleased at this news. There is a special reason that
I
have until now avoided writing about my mother. I do not particularly feel like touching on what relates to my mother.

Concerning a certain incident, I never addressed a single word of reproof to Mother. I never spoke about it. Mother probably did not even realize that I knew about it. But ever since that incident occurred, I could not bring myself to forgive her.

It happened during my summer holidays when I had gone home for the first time after entering the East Maizuru Middle School and after being entrusted to my uncle's care. At that time, a relative of Mother's called Kurai had returned to Nariu from Osaka, where he had failed in his business. His wife, who was the heiress of a well-to-do family, would not take him back into their house, and Kurai was obliged to stay in Father's temple until the affair subsided.

We did not have much mosquito netting in our temple. It was really a wonder that Mother and I did not catch Father's tuberculosis, since we all slept together under the same net; and now this man Kurai was added to our number. I remember how late one summer night a cicada flew along the trees in the garden, giving out short cries. It was probably those cries that awakened me. The sound of the waves echoed loudly, and the bottom of the light-green mosquito net flapped in the sea breeze. But there was something strange about the way in which the mosquito net was shaking.

The mosquito net would begin to swell with the wind, then it would shake reluctantly as it let the wind filter through it. The way in which the net was blown together into folds was not, therefore, a true reflection of how the wind was blowing; instead, the net seemed to abandon the wind and to deprive it of its power. There was a sound, like the rustling of bamboo, of something rubbing against the straw mats; it was the bottom of the mosquito net as it rubbed against the floor. A certain movement, which did not come from the wind, was being transmitted to the mosquito net. A movement that was more subtle than the wind's; a movement that spread like rippling waves along the whole length of the mosquito net, making the rough material contract spasmodically and causing the huge expanse of the net to look from the inside like the surface of a lake that is swollen with uneasiness. Was it the head of some wave created by a ship as it plowed its way far off through the lake; or was it the distant reflection of a wave left in the wake of a ship that had already passed this place?

Fearfully I turned my eyes to its source. Then, as I gazed through the darkness with wide-open eyes I felt as though a gimlet was drilling into the very center of my eyeballs.

I was lying next to Father; the mosquito net was far too small for four people, and in my sleep I must have turned over
and pushed him over to one corner. Accordingly, there was a
large white expanse of crumpled sheet separating me from
the thing that I now saw; and Father, who lay curled up behind me, was breathing right down my neck.

What made me realize that Father was actually awake was the irregular, jumping rhythm of his breath against my back; for I could tell that he was trying to stop himself from coughing. All of a sudden my open eyes were covered by something large and warm, and I could see nothing. I understood at once. Father had stretched his hands out from behind to cut off my vision.

This happened many years ago when I was only thirteen, but the memory of those hands is still alive within me. Incomparably large hands. Hands that had been put round me
from behind, blotting out in one second the sight of that hell which I had seen. Hands from another world. Whether it was
from love or compassion or shame, I do not know; but those
hands had instantaneously cut off the terrifying world with which I was confronted and had buried it in darkness.

I nodded slightly within those hands. From that nodding of
my small head, Father could instantly tell that I had understood and that I was ready to acquiesce; he removed his hands. And, afterwards, just as those hands had ordered, I kept my eyes obstinately closed, and thus lay there sleeplessly until morning came and the dazzling light from outside forced its way through my eyelids.

Please remember that years later, when Father's coffin was being carried out of the house, I was so busy
looking
at the dead face, that I did not shed a single tear. Please remember that with his death I was freed from the fetters of his hands, and that by looking intently at his face, I was able to confirm my own existence. To this extent did I remember to wreak my proper revenge on those hands, that is, on what the people of this world would call love; but so far as Mother was concerned, apart from the fact that I could not forgive her for that memory, I never once thought of avenging myself on her.

It had been arranged that Mother would come to the Golden Temple on the day before the memorial service and that she could spend the night in the temple. The Superior had written to my school so that they might let me be absent on the day of the anniversary. Those of us who were liable for compulsory labor did not stay at our place of work, but would report there at the appointed time and would then return to wherever We happened to be living. On the day before the anniversary, I was reluctant to return to the temple.

Tsurukawa, with his clear simple heart, was pleased for my sake that I was to see my mother again after such a long time, and my fellow acolytes were curious about her. But I hated to have such a poor and shabby mother. I was at a loss about how I should explain to the kind-hearted Tsurukawa why I did not want to see my mother.

To make matters worse, as soon as we had finished our work at the factory, Tsurukawa seized my arm and said: ‘‘Come on, let's run back!"

It would be an exaggeration to say that I did not want to see Mother in the slightest. It was not that I had no feeling for her. The fact was probably that I disliked being confronted with the straightforward expression of love that one receives from one's blood relatives, and that I was simply trying to rationalize this dislike in various ways. Therein lay my bad character. It was all right that I should try to justify my honest feelings by all sorts of rationalizations. But sometimes the multifarious motives that my brain spun out would force feelings on me that came as a shock even to myself; and those feelings were not originally my own.

Only in my hatred was there something authentic. For I myself was a person who should be moved with hate.

"There's no point running," I replied. “It only makes one tired. Let's take our time going back!”

“I see," said Tsurukawa. "So you want to make up to your mother and get her sympathy by pretending to be too exhausted to walk fast."

Thus Tsurukawa was invariably interpreting my behavior and was invariably mistaken about it. But he did not bother me in the slightest and had in fact become indispensable. For he was truly my well-intentioned interpreter-an irreplaceable friend who could translate my words for me into the language of the real world.

Yes, Tsurukawa sometimes seemed to me like an alchemist who could transform tin into gold. I was the negative of the picture; he was the positive. How often had I not been amazed to see how my dark, turbid feelings could become clear and radiant by being filtered through Tsurukawa's heart! While I hesitated and stuttered, he would take my feelings in his hand, turn them round and transmit them to the outside world. What I learned from this amazing process was that so far as feelings were concerned, there was no discrepancy between the very finest feeling in this world and the very worst; that their effect was the same; that no visible difference existed between murderous intent and feelings of deep compassion. Tsurukawa could never have believed such a thing, even if I had been able to explain it in words, but for me it was a fearful discovery. If it had now come about that I did not mind Tsurukawa's taking me for a hypocrite, it was because hypocrisy had in my mind become merely a relative offense.

In Kyoto I never experienced an air raid, but once when I was sent to the main factory in Osaka with some orders for spare parts for aircraft, there happened to be an attack and I saw one of the factory workers being carried out on a stretcher with his intestines exposed.

What is so ghastly about exposed intestines? Why, when We see the insides of a human being, do we have to cover our eyes in terror? Why are people so shocked at the sight of blood pouring out? Why are a man's intestines ugly? Is it not exactly the same in quality as the beauty of youthful, glossy skin?
What sort of a face would Tsurukawa make if I were to say that it was from him that
I had learned this manner of thinking—a manner of thinking that transformed my own ugliness into nothingness? Why does there seem to be something inhuman about regarding human beings like roses and refusing to make any distinction between the inside of their bodies and the outside?
If only human beings could reverse their spirits and their bodies, could gracefully turn them inside out like rose petals and expose them to the spring breeze and to the sun....

Mother had already arrived and was talking to the Superior in his room. Tsurukawa and I knelt outside in the corridor in the early summer gloaming and announced our return.

The Superior invited only me into the room. In front of Mother, he said something to the effect that I was doing very well at my temple duties. I kept my head bowed and hardly looked at Mother. Out of the corner of my eyes, I could see the faded blue cotton of her baggy wartime trousers and the dirty fingers of her hands that lay on them.

Father Dosen told us that we might retire to our quarters. We bowed repeatedly ana left the room. I lived in a tiny five-mat room, south of the small
library
and facing a courtyard. As soon as we were there by ourselves, Mother began to cry. Having anticipated this, I was able to remain quite unperturbed.

“I am now under the care of the Rokuonji,
"
I told her, “and I wish you would not visit me until I become a full-fledged priest."

"I understand, I understand," said Mother.

I was pleased that I had managed to receive my mother with such harsh words. But it annoyed me that, just as in the old days, she gave no sign of feeling or of resisting. At the same time, when I imagined the mere possibility that Mother might cross the threshold and penetrate my mind, I felt frightened.

Looking at Mother's sunburned face, I saw her small, cunning, hollow eyes. Only her lips were red and shiny, as though they possessed a life all of their own; she had the strong, large teeth of a countrywoman. She was at an age when, if she had been a city-dweller, it would not have been strange to use heavy make-up. Mother had made her face look as ugly as possible. I was keenly aware that a fleshy quality remained somewhere in that face like a sediment; and I hated it.

Having retired from Father Dosen's presence and having had a good cry, Mother now produced a towel, which she had brought from our home village, and began wiping her bare, sunburned breast. The towel was of the type that one received on the ration and was made of staple fiber. The material had an animalian gloss and when it was wet with perspiration, it became even more shiny.

Then Mother took some rice out of her haversack. She said that she was going to offer it to the Superior. I did not say a word. Next she extracted Father's mortuary tablet, which had been carefully wrapped in a piece of old gray cloth, and placed it on my bookshelf.

"I'm ever so pleased about all this,"
she said. "Father'll be real happy to know the Superior is saying Mass for him.”

"Will you be going back to Nariu after the anniversary, Mother?" I asked.

Her answer came as a surprise. It turned out that Mother had already handed over the rights of the Nariu temple to someone else and had sold the small plot of land. She had paid off all Father's medical expenses and had arranged to go and live by herself at an uncle's house in Kasagun near Kyoto. So the temple where I was to return was no longer ours! In that village on the lonely cape there was nothing left to greet me.