Vita Sexualis (14 page)

At that moment Seiha's vehicle had crossed Mihashi Bridge to the north, but it turned back. Seiha cried out from his seat, "Hey! You can't get away like that!"

My jinrikisha followed Seiha's. He repeatedly looked back at me, keeping his eye on my jinrikisha.

I didn't dare try to escape again. If I forced him into a quarrel, he would certainly not have behaved rudely toward me. But certainly he would have done his utmost to try to drag me along with him. I had no desire to argue with him on the streets of Ueno. Furthermore, I was quite obstinate, unyielding in spirit. It was unpleasant to be made a fool of by him. This unyielding obstinacy of mine was a very dangerous thing capable of dragging me to the depths of any sin. It was in fact on account of this unyielding spirit of mine that I was heading toward a place I had no desire to go to. Nor can I forget another factor which forced me to follow him. And that was the same old familiar
Neugierde
I have mentioned, which pulls one toward the strange and unknown.

Our two jinrikishas passed through a large gate. When Seiha's runner said, "Which house?" Seiha shouted out a name as if scolding the man. The name, at any rate, was that of an animal in the Astacidea family, an animal with a hard skin.

It was way past midnight. All the houses on both sides of the street were closed. Our jinrikishas stopped in front of the locked door of a large house. When Seiha knocked, a small private side door opened and a man appeared who was very adept at stretching and contracting himself into respectful bows. He spoke in whispers to Seiha about something to do with the house. After bandying words a while, the man guided the two of us inside.

When we got upstairs, Seiha went off somewhere. A woman approaching middle age appeared and led me into a room. Both sides of the long narrow room had sliding doors, these opening onto corridors. On one side of a wide area a black lacquered chest of drawers with hinged doors was enclosed in a kind of closet, the entire bureau heavily adorned with brass fittings. In the light of the vermilion-lacquered paper lantern, the lacquer and brass took on a bright glow. On the other side of the wide area were four sliding doors. The lantern was beside a brazier enclosed in a wooden frame, and suspended over a low fire in the brazier was a large earthen teapot.

After leading me into this room, the middle-aged woman went off somewhere. Wearing that same coat of black silk with its faded color and holding that long iron pipe in my hand, I was sitting cross-legged on a cushion in front of the brazier.

Since I had been forced at Kanda into drinking five or six cups of distasteful sake, I was thirsty. Touching the earthen teapot with my fingers, I found it just cool enough. After I poured the liquid into a teacup I noticed by my side, I discovered the drink was strong coarse tea. I drank it at a gulp.

Just then the sliding door behind me opened quietly, and a woman came in and stood by the lantern. She was like a high-class prostitute, an
oiran
I had once seen in a play: the large chignon in her hair had large ornamental combs and hairpins, her trailing skirt of special silk was almost all in red. Her white face with its pleasant features looked small. Following her in was that same middle-aged woman, and when the latter arranged a cushion, the
oiran
sat down on it. Without a word she sat there smiling, watching me. I too remained silent, and with a serious look on my face was watching the
oiran.

The middle-aged woman noticed the cup I had used to drink my tea in.

"Did you help yourself from this teapot?"

"Yes. I had some."

"Oh my!"

When the middle-aged woman gave the
oiran
an odd look, she came out with a beautiful smile this time. Her small white teeth glittered in the lantern light.

"What sort of taste did it have?" the elder woman asked.

"It was good."

The women exchanged glances again. Once more the
oiran
smiled her dazzling smile. Again her teeth sparkled. I suspected the stuff inside the teapot wasn't tea. Even now I don't know what I drank. Probably some medical concoction. It certainly wasn't a medicine to be used externally.

The middle-aged woman removed the
oiran's
ornamental hairpins and combs and laid them aside. Then standing up, the elderly woman took a long outer robe from the black-lacquered chest of drawers and dressed the
oiran
in it. It was a gorgeously ornate gown of striped crepe with a purple neckband of satin. This elderly woman was what they call a
banshin,
an assistant to an
oiran
. Without a word the latter slipped her arms through the sleeves of the garment. Her hands were extraordinarily thin, extraordinarily white.

"My dear, it's already quite late," the assistant said to me. "So please move over here a bit."

"Are you asking me to go to bed?"

"Yes."

"I don't need any sleep."

For the third time the women exchanged glances. And for the third time the
oiran
came out with her radiant smile. And for the third time those teeth glittered. Suddenly the assistant came right up next to me.

"My dear, now for your
tabi"

The performance of this old woman in the art of peeling off one's clothes as she removed my blue socks was something that honestly called forth my admiration. Then she led me gently, without even a struggle, beyond the sliding door.

I found myself in an eight-mat room. At the front was an alcove against which a koto wrapped in a cloth bag was leaning. A black-lacquered clothesrack, some of it in gold lacquer, served as a screen to divide the room in two, half of which had a bed already laid out. So gently did the middle-aged woman make me lie down it seemed impossible for me to resist. I must confess something: her skill was a tremendous feat. However, it had not been absolutely impossible for me to offer any resistance. What had paralyzed my resistance was certainly my sexual desire.

Without concerning myself about Seiha, I had them order me a jinrikisha and returned home. When I got back to Kosuge, I found the doors locked, the house all hushed inside. When I knocked, my mother immediately appeared and opened the door for me.

"It's awfully late, isn't it?"

"Yes, I'm quite late."

A peculiar expression appeared on my mother's face. But she said nothing further. I have never been able to forget the expression on her face at that moment. Saying only "Goodnight," I went into my room. According to my watch it was three-thirty. I crawled into bed just as I was and fell into a sound sleep.

When I was eating breakfast in the morning, my father told me Seiha was rumored to lead such a dissolute life that unless he drank sake all night long, nothing was of any interest to him. If that was the case, my father said it would be better for me not to associate with him too much. My mother remained silent. I told my father I had no intention of being on close terms with him because our personalities didn't match. I honestly believed that was so.

After going back to my four-and-a-half mat room, I thought about the previous night's events. Was that the satisfaction of sexual desire? Was the consummation of love no more than what had been achieved then? How ridiculous, I thought. At the same time, contrary to my expectations, I didn't feel even a trace of regret. Not even a pang of conscience. Of course I thought going to that kind of place was wrong. I don't believe anyone ever left the threshold of his own house with the expectation of visiting such a place. My accidental visit was one that simply could not have been avoided. Consider this example: It's not good to quarrel with others. No one goes out with the express purpose of quarreling. But once a person has gone out, it may be that he feels compelled to quarrel with someone. I believe my situation was exactly like that. Concealed at the bottom of my heart was, afterwards, a kind of uneasiness. It concerned the question of whether or not I might pick up some awful disease. Sometimes one suffers an invisible wound in a quarrel; only after a few days does the bruise appear and begin to hurt. If I picked up a disease from the woman, it would be irreparably serious. It even occurred to me that this misfortune would be bequeathed to my descendants. This was the extent of the psychological fluctuation I felt on that first morning after, and it was much slighter than I had thought it would be. Moreover, in the same way that the wave-motion air receives becomes fainter as the distance in space becomes greater, so my psychological fluctuations lessened with the passage of time.

It did produce, on the contrary, one change in my emotional life, one that became more evident with each passing day. Somehow, up to that time, without knowing why, I had always been hesitant in meeting girls. I'd become spineless, my face would get red, my words all twisted up. From that time on, though, all of this was rectified. Everyone everywhere has used this kind of metaphor long ago, but I really felt as if I had been "dubbed" a knight.

After this event and for some time later, my mother became unusually concerned about me. I guess she probably felt, as so often happens in life, that I might wholly give myself over to such infatuations. Her fears were quite groundless.

If I weren't writing about actual facts, I should like to declare that was my first and last experience at Yoshiwara. But having said I would write without the least holding back of anything, I have to add something here. It concerns an event which happened much later, an event that took place before I met the woman who would become my second wife, my first having died. One fall evening Koga visited me at my present home. As he was about to leave, I decided to accompany him as far as Ueno. Just as we were going out the front gate, wc met a man by the name of Saigusa, who just then had appeared to pay me a visit. He was a relative of mine, and because he knew Koga, he said he would come with us. And so the three of us ate dinner at the Iyomon Restaurant on Aoishi-Yokocho. Saigusa was proud of his expertise on low life, so he suggested taking us to some of the interesting places in Yoshiwara. Because I was a widower, he was probably being too considerate to me in suggesting it. Smiling, Koga said, "Let's go." Reluctantly I agreed.

We got off our jinrikishas before a large gate. Leading the way, Saigusa walked along at a leisurely pace. We turned into a lane whose name I didn't know. Behind the lattices of all the houses along the way were women talking to men standing outside. These were probably the so-called
kogoshi,
houses of prostitution of the lowest type. Most of the men were dressed in the short coats of workingmen. Seeing one of these men, Saigusa said, "What a splendid specimen!" The man was the type that might be referred to as "dashing." Apparently to Saigusa the ideal man of great physical attraction seemed to be just such men in these short coats. Saigusa said, "Excuse me a minute," and walked over to an old man parching beans at a narrow crossroad, his sack set down on the road. Saigusa purchased a bag of the beans and put it in his kimono sleeve. Then after walking a slight distance, he looked back at Koga and me and saying, "Here it is!" immediately entered one of the houses. It seemed to be his favorite.

We were shown upstairs. Pinching those beans between his fingers, Saigusa ate them while talking with that same kind of tout who is always bowing. A short time later I was led into a very small room. There I found a lamp and a tobacco tray. A hard thin bed had been laid out on the mats. Because there was no cushion to sit on, all I could do was sit tailor-style in the middle of that bed. I lit a cigarette. Behind me a sliding door opened. A woman came in. She was middle-aged and deathly pale, but she seemed good-natured.

She said while smiling, "Won't you come to bed?"

"I've no intention to."

"My word!"

"You're quite pale, aren't you? Is there anything wrong?"

"Yes. I was in the hospital until a few days ago with pleurisy."

"You were? Then it'll be hard for you to receive customers."

"Oh no. I feel all right now."

"I see."

We looked at each other for a while. Smiling again, the woman said, "You look awfully strange."

"How come?"

"Oh, just sitting here like this."

"If that's the case, let's hand-wrestle."

"I'll be defeated right away."

"Oh no! I'm not that strong either. They say you mustn't make light of a woman's arm!"

"Oh my! That's a nice way of putting it."

"Let's have a go at it."

We clasped each other's right arm, our elbows resting on the thin hard bed. The woman had no strength whatsoever. No matter how much I tried to get her to put more strength into it, it was no use. Without expending any power whatsoever, I easily pinned her down.

Koga and Saigusa called out to me from behind the sliding door. I went home with them. It had been my second visit to Yoshiwara. And it was my last. The time seems convenient to add this postscript.

*
*
*

At long last my going abroad to study was decided. However, I hadn't yet received the official announcement of my government appointment. I had been told that for the convenience of my university the announcement would be made in the summer.

During this time my mother was kept in suspense about several offers of marriage to me.