Listening to Tadeshina’s speech, a thrill of joy went through him like a knife. Yet at the same time he felt somehow that he knew it all already, that he was hearing things repeated that were quite clear to him in his heart. He was now finding himself possessed of an acute wisdom he had never suspected before. Thus armed, he felt strong enough to overcome all that the world had to offer in the way of obstacles. His eyes were full of the fire of youth. “She read the letter I begged her to destroy,” he said to himself, “so why shouldn’t I resurrect the letter of hers that I destroyed?”
He stared wordlessly and fixedly at the little old lady with the white-powdered face. Once more she dabbed her reddened eyes with a piece of tissue paper. The room was growing steadily darker with the onset of evening. Her hunched shoulders seemed so frail that he was sure that if he grasped them suddenly, the bones would give way with a hollow crack.
“It’s not too late.”
“But it is.”
“No it isn’t. I wonder what would happen if I were to show Miss Satoko’s last letter to the Prince’s family? Especially when one considers that it was written after the formal request for imperial sanction.”
At these words the blood suddenly drained from Tadeshina’s face.
Neither said anything for a long time. It was no longer the rays of the setting sun but light from the second-floor rooms of the main wing that lit up the window. The lodgers were returning and there was an occasional flash of khaki uniform at a window. Outside the fence a beancurd-seller sounded his bugle. The evening air was characterized by the mild warmth, like flannel, of the few summer days that come before the final end to the rainy season.
From time to time, Tadeshina whispered something to herself which Kiyoaki heard only in snatches: “This is why I tried to stop her . . . this is why I said not to do it.” She was evidently muttering about having opposed Satoko’s writing of that final letter.
He maintained his silence, with increasing confidence that he held the winning hand. A wild animal seemed to be gradually if invisibly rearing its head within him.
“Very well then,” said Tadeshina. “I will arrange just one meeting. And now the young master will, I trust, be kind enough to return the letter.”
“Splendid. But a meeting of itself is not enough,” he answered. “I want the two of us to be alone together—without your being there. And as for the letter, I’ll return that afterwards.”
27
THREE DAYS WENT BY. The rain did not cease. After class, Kiyoaki went to the boarding house in Kasumicho, hiding his school uniform under a raincoat. He had received a message from Tadeshina that today would be Satoko’s sole opportunity to escape from the house, since both her parents would be away.
Even after being shown to the back room in the boarding house by the innkeeper, Kiyoaki felt hesitant about removing his raincoat. Noticing this as he poured out his tea, the old owner reassured him: “Please feel quite comfortable, sir. There’s no cause for concern with someone like me who has renounced the world.”
The innkeeper left him. He looked around the room and noticed that a bamboo blind was now covering the window through which he had looked up at the second floor of the main wing last time. The windows had been shut to keep out the rain, and a damp, oppressive heat filled the room. When he idly opened a lacquered box on the desk, its inside was covered with drops of moisture.
He knew that Satoko had arrived when he heard the rustle of clothing and the sound of whispers coming from the other side of the Genji sliding door.
The panel opened and Tadeshina made him a deep bow. Then without saying a word, she let Satoko into the room and quickly shut the panel again. Before it slid back into place, her upturned eyes momentarily flashed white in the sultry midday gloom of the hallway like a squid.
Satoko sat down on the tatami floor in front of Kiyoaki, her knees primly together. Her head was bent and she hid her face with a handkerchief, letting the other hand rest on the floor. Her body was turned sideways, so that the nape of her neck shone white like a small lake that one sometimes comes upon in the mountains.
He sat facing her in silence, feeling as though they were both submerged in the rain falling on the roof. He could hardly believe that the moment had finally come.
Satoko was bereft of words, and he himself had brought her to this. It had been his most fervent hope to see her reduced to this state, robbed of the power given her by her greater age to drop those little homilies she had been so fond of, capable of nothing but silent tears. At this moment she held an irresistible attraction for him, in her kimono the color of white wisteria, but it was not merely that of a rich prize finally within his grasp; it was the lure of the forbidden, the utterly unattainable, the proscribed. He wanted her this way and no other. And she herself, on the other hand, had always wanted to keep him off balance by playing games. How things had changed now! She could have chosen this beautiful, sacred, inviolable position at any time, but she had always preferred the false role of elder sister, cherishing him with that affectionate condescension he so hated.
Now he realized why he had objected so strongly when his father had proposed to give him an introduction to the pleasures that the women of Yoshiwara had to offer. Just as one can discern the stirrings of a dark green chrysalis inside a cocoon, he had always foreseen the gradual distillation of some ineffably sacred essence in Satoko. And he could give his purity to that essence alone. From that moment on, a dawn of unimaginable brilliance would begin to flood the world of black, inchoate melancholy in which he had imprisoned himself.
The elegance he had absorbed from his infancy under Count Ayakura’s tutelage now became a silken cord in his hands, a noose for his innocence and Satoko’s sanctity. Now at last he had found a valid use for the shining rope whose purpose had puzzled him for so long.
He was sure that he loved Satoko. And so he edged forward on his knees and grasped her by the shoulders. He felt them tense in resistance. This firm rebuff to his fingers delighted him. It was resistance on the grand scale, a ritual of resistance with cosmic significance. The soft shoulders that aroused such desire in him were opposing him with a force that drew on the weight of imperial sanction. For this very reason it had the remarkable power to drive him mad, making his fingertips ache with feverish desire. Her fragrant, jet-black hair, carefully dressed and piled lightly above her forehead, had a full-bodied gloss; glimpsed so briefly at close range, it made him think of being lost in a forest on a bright, moonlit night.
He put his face close to one wet cheek that had escaped the protection of her handkerchief. Still wordless, she began to shake her head in an attempt to ward him off, but her struggles were so mechanical that he knew they were not heartfelt, but imposed from outside. He pushed aside the handkerchief and tried to kiss her, but whereas her lips had been willing on that snowy February morning, they resisted fiercely now, and finally she ducked her head and, like a sleeping fledgling, froze with her chin burrowed in the neck of her kimono.
The drumming of the rain grew louder. Maintaining his grip on her, he paused to assess the strength of her defenses. Her kimono, its neckband embroidered with a design of summer thistles, was chastely gathered at the throat, revealing a tiny triangle of skin. Her wide, tight-wrapped obi was cold and hard to the touch, like the door barring entrance to a sanctuary, and in the center there gleamed a golden clip like the ornamented head of a spike in a pillar of a temple courtyard. Nevertheless, her body gave off the warm scent of flesh. Passing through the inner sleeve openings at her shoulders, it escaped from the wide kimono sleeves, a warm breeze against his cheek.
He took one hand away from her back and gripped her chin firmly. It fitted there as smoothly as a small, rounded ivory chessman. Her nose was wet with tears, and her delicate nostrils flared. He was thus able to kiss her properly.
Suddenly she seemed consumed by a mysterious fire, much as the flame in a stove burns more fiercely when the door is open. Both her hands were now free, and she pr
essed them against Kiyoaki’s cheeks, pushing hard against him, but her lips remained on his, even though she tried to thrust him away. As a result of her resistance, however, her lips, with an incredible, liquid smoothness that intoxicated him, kept twisting one way, then the other against his own. The firm edge of her resolve was melting away like a lump of sugar in hot tea, and now a wonderfully sweet dissolution had begun.
He had no idea whatever of how to unfasten a woman’s obi. Its tightly fastened flared bow at her back defied the efforts of his fingers. But as he groped blindly, trying to undo it by force, she reached behind her and while giving every sign that she was trying desperately to check his fumbling efforts, she subtly guided them in a more profitable direction. Their fingers lay tangled for a few moments in its folds, and then as its clip suddenly fell away, the obi uncoiled in a rustle of silk and sprang away from her body as though it had a life of its own. It was the beginning of a confused riot of uncontrollable movements. Her entire kimono swirled in revolt as he tore frantically at the folds of silk that bound her breasts, rebuffed at every turn by a whole network of straps that tightened as others came loose. But then right before his eyes, he saw the tiny, well-guarded triangle of white below her throat spread into a rich and fragrant expanse of skin.
She did not actually utter a word of protest. There was nothing to prove whether it was silent resistance or silent seduction. She seemed to be drawing him on at the same time as she was fighting him off. He sensed, however, that the strength underlying his assault upon her sacred inviolability was not wholly his own.
What was its source, then? As he looked at her face, it gradually flooded crimson, and her desire was unmistakable. He had one hand under her back to support her, and felt her lean on it more strongly, though with shy subtlety, until, as if giving up all hope of resistance, she fell back on the floor.
He parted the skirts of her kimono and began pushing aside the printed silk of her Yuzen underskirts in a dazzling tangle of fretted patterns and brilliant phoenixes soaring above stylized cloud formations. A distant vision of her thighs wrapped in fold after fold of silk drew him on as he fought his way through more and more layers of the clouds. Some secret hidden core was cunningly maintaining the complex arrangements with which he was struggling, and the key to it kept eluding him as his breath grew harsher and more irregular.
Finally, however, he was drawing closer to her body, slowly lowering himself onto her thighs, which had the faint sheen of a pale dawn horizon, when she raised her hands and gently helped him; this intended kindness ruined the moment, for at the instant when he merged with the dawn, whether he was touching her or not, it all ended abruptly.
∗
The two lay side by side on the tatami floor staring up at the ceiling. The rain had become torrential again and was beating on the roof. The pounding of their hearts had scarcely subsided. Kiyoaki felt an exaltation that overrode not only his momentary exhaustion but even the realization that something had come to an end. However, a lingering sense of shared regret still hung over them, as palpable as the shadows now gradually forming in the darkening room. He thought he heard the faint sound of an old woman clearing her throat on the other side of the Genji panel. As he was about to sit up, however, Satoko reached over to stop him with a gentle grasp of his shoulder.
And then, without a word, she dispelled every vestige of regret. He was delighted to follow her lead. From that moment on, there was nothing he could not forgive her.
He was young; his desire quickly revived, and this time she was receptive and everything went smoothly. Under her sure, feminine guidance, he sensed that for the first time every barrier was gone and that he had found himself in a rich new world. In the heat of the room he had already stripped off the last of his clothes and now he felt the immediacy of flesh on flesh, firm but yielding, with the resistance of water and clinging plants to the advancing prow of a boat. He saw that there was no trace of distress in her face. She was even smiling faintly but this gave him no misgivings now. His heart was completely at rest.
∗
Afterwards, he took her, rumpled, in his arms and pressed his cheek against hers, feeling the wetness of fresh tears. He knew that they were tears of joy, but still, nothing could better convey in silence their mutual consciousness of having committed unpardonable sin than her tears quietly rolling down his cheek as well as her own. For Kiyoaki, however, this sense of sin increased his already rising courage.
“Here,” she said, picking up his shirt, “it won’t do for you to catch cold.”
Just as he was about to snatch it roughly from her, she checked him for a moment, and pressed the shirt to her face with a deep breath. When she handed it to him, it was wet with tears.
When he had put on his school uniform and finished dressing, he was startled by the sudden sound of her clapping her hands. Then, after a significant pause, the Genji panel slid open a fraction and Tadeshina’s head appeared.
“Did you call me, Miss Satoko?”
Satoko nodded and with a quick glance indicated her obi, which lay on the floor in a tangle around her. Tadeshina slid the door shut behind her and edged across the tatami floor to Satoko without looking in Kiyoaki’s direction. She helped her mistress to dress and fastened her obi. Then she brought over the mirror from a corner of the room and began to arrange Satoko’s hair. Meanwhile Kiyoaki was in acute embarrassment, at a loss as to what he should do; so while the two women performed their long-drawn-out ritual in the nowlighted room, he felt quite superfluous.
When everything was finally in order, Satoko, more beautiful than ever, sat with drooping head.
“I’m afraid, young master, that we have to go now,” the old woman began. “The promise I made has been kept. From now on, please, I beg you, try to forget Miss Satoko. And now if you would be so kind, would you please return the letter as you promised?”
Kiyoaki sat cross-legged in silence. He did not answer.
“As you promised, would you please return the letter?” Tadeshina asked again.
Kiyoaki remained silent, as if he were deaf. He was staring at Satoko, who sat calmly without a single hair out of place and her beautiful kimono in perfect order. All at once she raised her eyes. They met Kiyoaki’s. A brilliant piercing flash passed between them and in that instant he knew just how she felt.
“I’m not returning the letter. Because I want to meet her again, just like this,” he said, drawing on his newfound courage.
“Young master!” Tadeshina made no attempt to hide her anger. “What do you think will happen? Only a spoiled child would say such a thing! You know what terrible things will come about, don’t you? It’s not just Tadeshina who will be destroyed.”
Then Satoko stopped her, her voice so composed, so otherworldly, that the sound of it sent a chill down his spine.
“It’s all right, Tadeshina. Until Master Kiyo wishes to return the letter, there’s nothing we can do but agree to keep meeting him. There’s no other way to save both you and me—that is, if you intend to save me too.”
28
KIYOAKI’S VISIT to his house to confide in him in such detail was so rare an event that Honda not only asked his mother to invite his guest to stay for dinner but even went so far as to forego the work for the entrance examinations that normally occupied his entire evening. The mere prospect of Kiyoaki’s arrival somehow charged the sedate atmosphere of the house with expectancy.
Throughout the day the sun, engulfed in cloud, had shone like white gold and now in the evening the sultry heat it had left behind was not appreciably diminished. As they sat talking, the two young men wore light summer kimonos with a Kasuri pattern.
Honda had had some sort of premonition about Kiyoaki’s visit, but it had by no means prepared him for what was to come. As soon as Kiyoaki began to speak, Honda was startled to realize that the young man sitting beside him on the old leather couch along the wall of the reception room was someone radically different from the Kiyoaki he had known before.
He had never seen eyes flash so openly. They were unmistakably the eyes of a worldly adult, but Honda had a lingering regret for the melancholy look and the downcast eyes that he had grown used to in his friend.
Despite this, however, he was delighted that Kiyoaki had chosen to confide in him without reservation what was a secret of the gravest consequence. Honda had been hoping for a gesture like this for a long time, and it had come about without the slightest urging on his part. On reflection, he realized that Kiyoaki had kept his secrets even from his friend, as long as they had concerned nothing but his own inner struggles, but now that it was a matter of reputation and serious wrongdoing, he had poured it all out in an impetuous flood of words. Considering the gravity of the confession and the limitless trust it implied, Kiyoaki could hardly have given him greater cause for happiness. As he studied his friend, he found Kiyoaki noticeably matured, and some of the beauty that had belonged to the face of an irresolute young boy was gone from his features. They now shone with the determination of the passionate young lover, and his words and gestures were free of any hint of reluctance and uncertainty.