Kurahara could not have committed a greater sacrilege. Tsumura’s indignation was reasonable enough. Even though it was a simple blunder on Kurahara’s part, the night before he was to offer worship he had filled his belly with the flesh of beasts, and, furthermore, rather than begging forgiveness for the breach that he had committed before the gods, he had dared to advance with his second sakaki sprig into the very presence of divinity, and, as men looked on, had committed the still greater sin of glossing over his previous transgressions with a solemnly enacted sacrilege. Still, Isao concluded, this was not reason enough to kill him. But then, turning to look at young Tsumura, he noticed the boyish anger in those clear eyes. Somehow Isao felt ashamed.
This momentary misgiving seemed to rob the hand that held the newspaper of its strength. Sawa reached out the next instant and snatched the paper away.
“Forget it. Forget it. Don’t bother your head about it,” said Sawa. Isao could not be sure how drunk the man really was as he wrapped a fat, too white arm around his shoulder and urged saké upon him. For the first time Isao noticed how somberly pale Sawa’s skin had become.
The saké bottle made its rounds, everyone sang and clapped, some stood up to entertain, and, at length, the headmaster declared that the party was over. Then Iinuma suggested that Honda, Isao, and Sawa join him around the kotatsu table in his own room to resume drinking while his wife served them.
This was the first time Honda had set foot in this room. It was ten mats in size, and in its center he was startled to find, spread in bright splendor, a Yuzen silk kotatsu quilt of sensuous beauty with the palace oxcart pattern. Perceptive as he was, Honda immediately guessed that this was a product of the taste for aristocratic indulgence that Miné still clung to. At the banquet too, Honda had been taken aback to see how the wooden rice tubs were covered with quilted blue cotton.
When he observed the interchanges between husband and wife, Honda’s intuition told him that Iinuma, somewhere in his heart, had never forgiven his wife’s past. Whether it was the distant past, which involved Marquis Matsugae, or some event in the more recent past, he did not know. For Iinuma’s unrelenting attitude was somehow evident in his manner, and, correspondingly, Miné had a certain obsequiousness that seemed to keep on begging her husband’s forgiveness. Nonetheless, it was odd that Iinuma should tolerate all over his house, reminders of the source of his wife’s youthful lewdness, that gaudy style of beauty, so contrary to his own tastes, that could be seen in this sort of kotatsu quilt. Perhaps, Honda thought, Iinuma himself, in the depths of his heart, concealed a nostalgia for this kind of taste appropriate to a maid in the service of a noble household.
Honda was invited to sit in front of the tokonoma. Miné kept her gaze fastened to the large bottle of saké resting in the copper kettle on the hibachi, from time to time touching it quickly with the tips of her long, skillful fingers as though it were an easily aroused animal. No matter how extreme her politeness, Honda felt, she had something of the mischievous young girl about her. The four men, warming themselves in the kotatsu, began to drink saké, taking some dried mullet roe with it.
“Tonight, Isao, drink as much as you want.” As Iinuma offered the bottle to his son, he darted a stealthy glance at Honda. Apparently this was the start of the “rough treatment” that he had given notice of earlier. “Tonight, in front of Mr. Honda here, I am going to say something that will probably set you back on your heels. I’m doing it because from today on, you’re an adult in mind and body, and, as your father, I’m going to treat you as a full-fledged man so that you’ll know all the ins and outs of life, and can become a worthy successor to me. I’ll put it to you bluntly: it’s obvious that the police got you a year ago because somebody had informed. Who do you think that somebody was? If you have any idea, tell me.”
“I have no idea.”
“Don’t hold back. If you think you know, tell me. It’s all right.”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll tell you. It was your father here. Well, are you surprised?”
“Yes. . . .”
Honda noticed with a sense of foreboding that at that moment Isao’s expression bore not a trace of real surprise. That same instant Iinuma turned his eyes away from Isao and hurried on with what he was saying.
“Well? What do you think? Do you think there could be a father so cold-hearted as to hand over his own beloved son to the police? A father who, with a laugh, could turn his son over to the police? Eh? Well, I dared to do just that. But . . . I did it weeping. It’s the truth. Isn’t it, Miné?”
“Yes, it’s the truth. Your father was weeping as he did it,” said Miné, chiming in from across the hibachi. Coolly, but with no sign of disrespect, Isao put a question to his father.
“I see now that it was you who reported us to the police, Father. But who reported what we were planning to you?”
Iinuma’s neat moustache trembled slightly. Startled, he put a hand to it as though pressing down a butterfly that was trying to fly away.
“I started keeping a close watch on it long ago. It was your mistake to think your father’s eyes were like two knotholes.”
“Is that right?”
“Of course that’s right. But why in the world did I hurry out and get you arrested? That’s what I really want you to understand.
“To tell the truth, I was greatly impressed by what you intended to do. I thought it was magnificent. I even envied you. I wanted to let you go through with it, if only I could. But that meant sitting and watching you rush to your death. If I’d left you alone, you’d have gone through with it. You’d have died.
“But you’ve got to understand that I’m not like other fathers, not wanting to lose their boys, who would even frustrate their sons’ greatest hopes just to save their lives. Get this point straight. I wanted to save your life, and I wanted to see your plan go through. But what should I do? I thought about it all night long, and finally I arrived at a solution. Saving you like this means, in the long run, taking everything into consideration, the fulfillment of your plan in an even greater way.
“Do you understand, Isao? Just to die isn’t everything. Just holding your life cheap isn’t loyalty. In the eys of The Most Revered Son of Heaven, the life of each of the Emperor’s treasures is a precious thing.
It’s been obvious since the May Fifteenth Incident, people are fed up with political corruption. They have admired and applauded incidents like this. Then, too, you and your companions were young. You were pure. You had everything needed for sympathy and appreciation. Furthermore, if you were apprehended one step away from your goal, people would have a sense of relief, all the more reason to applaud you. Not by committing the act, but by being caught on the verge of it, you could become greater heroes. And because of this, to strike in the future will be easier. When a truly large-scale Restoration takes place, you will be a force to be reckoned with, and then you can fight magnificently. I was right. The number of letters that came in asking for a reduction of sentence after your arrest, the tenor of the newspaper accounts—everything showed how much people were on your side. I did what was best, Isao.
“What I did, in other words, was in imitation of the lion who heaves the cub he loves so much down into a deep ravine in order to toughen him up. Now you’ve made your way from the bottom of the ravine in splendid fashion. You’ve proved yourself a man. Isn’t that right, Miné?”
“Yes, it’s just as your father says, Isao. You’ve come through in splendid fashion. It’s all due to your father’s love, like the love of the lion for its cub. You must thank him for what he did. It was all done out of love for you.”
Just as, when one digs a hole in the sand by the water’s edge, however hard one tries, the sides give way before the water that wells up, so the elaborate speech that Iinuma had begun to deliver so triumphantly, Honda thought, was giving way before the uncomfortable silence of the listener at his side. Indeed as soon as the words had passed Iinuma’s lips, the sands of silence wer
e already trickling down upon the watery surface gleaming in the sun. Honda looked at Isao. He looked at Sawa. Shoulders squared, Isao was letting his head hang forward. Sawa was taking a surreptitious drink from his saké cup.
Honda had no idea whether or not Iinuma had intended from the beginning to say what he said next, but, whatever the case, Iinuma feared silence.
“Now listen. Up to now, I’ve been talking about something that you could understand well. But, Isao, here is something more you need to know to become an adult. You’ve got to swallow the bitter wisdom that women and children never taste. There’s a gate that every man has to go through. With your experience this past year, you’ve gone through it in body. Now your soul has to go through it too.
“Up to now I have said nothing about this, but . . . the Academy of Patriotism—who do you suppose is the man responsible for its present prosperity? Whom do we have to thank, do you suppose?”
“I don’t know.”
“If I say it, the name is going to set you back on your heels. But it is nobody else but Baron Shinkawa. Don’t either you or Sawa ever mention a word of this to the students. This is the Academy’s greatest secret. This building—the truth is that it’s due to an anonymous contribution of Baron Shinkawa. And I in my turn, of course, have had to hustle in various ways on his behalf. The Baron, on his part, has not thrown money away in vain. Otherwise, how do you think he could have pulled through the recent storm of abuse over dollar buying?”
Honda looked at Isao’s face once again. This time the coldness and utter lack of surprise made Honda shudder. Iinuma was still talking.
“So that was the relationship with Baron Shinkawa, and shortly before the May Fifteenth Incident I got a summons from the Baron. Since the money was passed to me every month secretly through his secretary, it was something extraordinary that made him want to meet with me face to face.
“I won’t mention the amount, but he handed over to me a huge stack of bills and said: ‘This money has nothing to do with my safety. I’ll tell you frankly: it’s to protect Busuké Kurahara. Because he’s the sort of person he is, you see, he’d never pay out money for his safety. I have received many favors from Mr. Kurahara which I should repay. And so, without telling him, I’m giving you this on my own. So please, then, let this money act as a safeguard for Kurahara. If it’s not enough, just let me know, and I’ll give you more.’ And so, then, I——”
“So you took it, Father?”
“I did. I took it. Because I was so moved by Baron Shinkawa’s feeling for his old friend. From then on, things went very well indeed with the Academy, as you and Sawa know.”
“That’s why you reported us to the police then, to protect Kurahara?”
“So you’d think, I imagine. That’s the way a child would see it. No matter how much money they gave me, whom do you think I’d put first: a big shot of the world of finance who is no relative of mine, or my own boy?”
“I see. You took the best possible course, one that insured saving your son’s life as well as saving Kurahara’s and honoring your obligation to Baron Shinkawa.”
Honda was finally heartened to see for the first time in Isao’s eyes the fire that had once been there.
“No. That shows how naïvely you look at things. Do you understand me? You’ve got to learn that in this world of ours everything is tangled and twisted together. You’ll never get free of all that until you go up to heaven. The harder you try to shake it off, the tighter it will cling to you. But as long as you keep your faith, the tangle is nothing to worry about. It doesn’t worry me a bit, Isao.
“As far as I was concerned, no matter how much money I took, you could have cut down Shinkawa and Kurahara, and it wouldn’t have bothered me. Afterwards I’d make amends by cutting open my own belly. I was prepared for something like that from the moment I took the money. If a merchant doesn’t hand over the goods when he receives payment, that’s fraud. But it’s different with a patriot. Money is money, fidelity is fidelity. Two different things. Money is used in money matters, and fidelity can be kept by seppuku. That’s all.
“You see, I want you to be prepared for these situations. That’s why I’m telling you all this. To defile yourself, yet not really be defiled—that’s true purity. If you’re fastidious about defilement, you’re not going to do anything. You’ll never become a real man, Isao.
“Having said this much, I think you must understand my intentions. I didn’t turn you in to save Kurahara’s life. Nor was it to save your own life either. If I had thought that that was the way to eternal glory for you, to throw away your life in that action, I would have rejoiced and let you go to your death. I didn’t do that simply because I didn’t think it was. Do you understand me? I said it before, so I won’t repeat myself. I prized your goal, I cherished you as my son—and precisely because of this I took the step of denouncing you. I took the step, drinking tears of blood. Didn’t I, Miné?”
“Isao, you’ll suffer for it, if you don’t show gratitude for your father’s affection.”
His head hanging, Isao said nothing. The saké he had drunk had brought a rosy flush to his cheeks. His hands on the kotatsu quilt trembled slightly.
Honda, looking at Isao, suddenly realized what it was that he had been wanting so earnestly to tell him. Throughout Iinuma’s long, self-seeking admonition, Honda had been bursting to say something. Once he said it, Isao’s world would crumble, and his eyes might be opened, so that he could race across the wide fields in the bright light of the sun, afraid of nothing. And yet, if he said it to console Isao, who sat there with drooping head, there was the danger that what he told him might instead turn Isao’s supreme moment of suffering, never to be lived again, into something altogether meaningless. What Honda wanted to communicate was the secret of Kiyoaki’s rebirth in Isao. But when Isao raised his head and there were tears running down his cheeks, Honda completely lost the urge to free the secret he had guarded until now and let it beat its wings like a released bird.
Isao spoke out, like a dog yelping with eager restlessness: “I’ve lived for the sake of an illusion. I’ve patterned my life upon an illusion. And this punishment has come on me because of this illusion. . . . How I wish I had something that’s not an illusion.”
“If you become an adult, you’ll get it.”
“An adult? I’d rather . . . Yes! Maybe I ought to be reborn a woman. If I were a woman, I could live without chasing after illusions. Couldn’t I, Mother?”
Isao laughed suddenly, as if something had cracked.
“What are you saying?” Miné answered, rather angrily. “Reborn a woman! How silly of you! You’re drunk, aren’t you—to come out with something like that.”
Soon, after more saké, Isao fell asleep with his cheek upon the quilt that covered the kotatsu. Sawa took charge of him and led him to his room. The concerned Honda, deciding to make this the occasion for his own going, got up and followed them.
Showing a tender solicitude, Sawa, without a word, put Isao to bed for the night. When he had done so, Iinuma called him from the other end of the corridor, and Honda found himself alone with the sleeping Isao.
Isao’s sleeping face, his skin flushed from drink, showed signs of distress, and his breathing was harsh. But even as he slept, his brows were contracted in manly fashion. Suddenly, as he tossed about on his futon, Isao shouted out in his sleep, loudly but too indistinct for Honda to hear clearly: “Far to the south. Very hot . . . in the rose sunshine of a southern land . . .”
At that point Sawa returned for Honda. And so, even though this confused message cried out from a drunken sleep lingered in his mind, Honda begged Sawa to look after Isao, and turned his steps toward the entrance hall. He had risked everything in coming to Isao’s rescue, and today he had at last won his gamble. Honda wondered, therefore, why he felt such a sense of futility.
39
THE FOLLOWING DAY was fair.
In the morning there was a visitor, Detective Tsuboi from the neighbor
hood police station. This middle-aged man, who had risen to second degree in kendo, relayed to Isao the message that the police chief hoped once again that Isao would be kind enough to come to the drill hall on Sundays to instruct the neighborhood boys in kendo.
“Yes, indeed,” he said, “though his position prevents him coming out to praise you publicly, the Chief tells us in private that he’s struck with admiration for you. And the parents of the boys too are anxious for somebody like you to instruct their sons in kendo, so that the true Japanese spirit will be instilled in them. If there’s no appeal, we would like you to come as soon as the new year is underway. Of course I don’t think there’s much chance of an appeal.”
Isao studied the trousers of the plainclothesman, in which a crease was only dimly visible, and, as he did, he thought of himself as he might look teaching children kendo, with age overtaking him. His white hair in a purple headband would shine wherever it was not covered by the towel bound in Kansai manner behind his mask.
After the detective had gone, Sawa asked Isao to come to his room, and said: “It certainly feels good to flop down on a tatami again, with a cushion under my head, and skim through a whole year’s stack of Kodan Club. By the way, even if you’re supposed to be on your good behavior, a young fellow like you can’t stay around the house like this. You’re allowed to go out as long as I accompany you. So what do you say to us going to see a movie or something tonight?”