“Akio, Akio. Forgive me . . .” Her words were muffled in sobs, but Imanishi was not affected in the least.
Honda, suddenly recognizing the solemnity and loathsomeness of the situation, bit his lips. It was now clear. Whether Makiko had ordered her to perform or not, it was obviously not the first time that Mrs. Tsubakihara had been involved in this sort of exhibition for Makiko and probably only for her. This was the very essence of the teacher-student relationship between Makiko and Mrs. Tsubakihara, their contempt and dedication.
Honda looked at Makiko again. She was looking down serenely, her silvery hair shining and floating over her head. They were of a different sex, but Honda realized that Makiko was his exact counterpart.
28
THE NEXT DAY was beautiful and sunny. The Hondas had invited their three overnight guests and Keiko to drive in two separate cars to the Sengen Shrine at Fuji-Yoshida. Except for Keiko, they all planned to depart for Tokyo from there, and Honda had locked up before leaving the villa. Just as he was closing the door, he had the sudden premonition that Ying Chan would come during his absence; but that was most unlikely.
Honda had just been reading the Honcho monzui, “Compositions of Elegance Composed in Japan,” which Imanishi had brought for him. Of course, he had wished to read the “Essays on Mount Fuji” by Yoshika no Miyako and had asked Imanishi to get him a copy.
“Mount Fuji is located in the province of Suruga; its peak, as if sharpened, towers high into the heavens.” Such descriptions held little interest, but then a passage followed that struck Honda so strongly that it had long remained in his memory; he had not had the chance of reading it again since then.
An old man recounted: On the fifth day of the eleventh month in the seventeenth year of Jokan (A.D. 875), officials and people gathered to hold a celebration in accordance with tradition. The sun emerged around noon, and the sky was extremely beautiful and clear. As the spectators looked up to the summit of the mountain, they saw two beautiful women in white garments dancing together. Both were floating more than a foot above the peak. All the inhabitants of the land saw them.
It was not strange that such optical illusions should occur on a fine day at Mount Fuji, for it often produced various chimera. Frequently a quiet wind at the sloping foot of the mountain would develop into a strong gale at the top, carrying a mist of snow into the blue sky. It was probably this snow dust that had appeared in the form of two beautiful women to the inhabitants’ eyes.
Fuji was cold and self-assured, but through its confident coldness and whiteness it permitted all possible fantasies. In ultimate frigidity is vertigo, just as delirium characterizes the extreme of reason. Fuji was a mysterious ultimate of perfection and its beauty verged on a vague lyricism. It was at once infinite and finite. It was quite possible that two beautiful women in white garments had danced there.
In addition, Honda was charmed by the fact that the spirit enshrined at the Sengen Shrine was a goddess called Konohana Sakuya.
Mrs. Tsubakihara, Makiko, and Imanishi rode in Mrs. Tsubakihara’s car, and the Hondas and Keiko took the limousine Honda had engaged for his return to Tokyo. This was a natural arrangement, but Honda had vaguely wanted to be in the same car as Makiko and experienced a pang of regret. He had wanted to sit next to her and look into the intense eyes he had seen the night before, the eyes of a huntress ready to launch her arrow.
The drive to Fuji-Yoshida, however, was not an easy one. The national highway, the former Kamakura Road, climbed over the Kagosaka Pass from Subashiri and passed northward along Lake Yamanaka. It was mostly unpaved and mountainous. The prefectural boundary between Shizuoka and Yamanashi ran along the ridge of Kagosaka.
While Keiko and Rié sat next to each other and made their small woman-talk, Honda looked out the window with childlike earnestness. Keiko’s presence was very useful in forestalling Rié’s complaints. Rié had become like a bottle of beer that overflowed the moment the cap was removed. Since morning she had been objecting to the idea of driving back to Tokyo, insisting that not since childhood had she taken such a long, meaningless, and extravagant drive.
This same Rié became quite docile, even charming, as she talked with Keiko.
“You don’t have to worry about kidney trouble,” Keiko said bluntly.
“Do you think so? When I hear you talk like that, I’m rather encouraged. It’s strange. I get angry when my husband speaks to me sweetly with his dishonest, exaggerated sympathy and pretended concern.”
Probably out of tact, Keiko would never come to Honda’s defense when Rié attacked him.
“Mr. Honda has no head for anything but logical thinking, and there’s nothing you can do about it,” said Keiko.
Once across the dividing line, one could see that the northern slope of the mountain was completely blanketed in hard-frozen snow that, in contracting, had become etched in a snakeskin pattern. It resembled the backs of Rié’s hands when the swelling subsided.
At the moment, however, Rié had become more bearable to Honda. To be with two women who, in his hearing, were talking so unflatteringly—especially when one was his own wife—somehow provided him a passing feeling of contentment.
Beyond the Kagosaka Pass, a heavy layer of snow lay over everything, and the ground in the sparse grove at Lake Yamanaka looked as if it were covered by frozen crepe de chine. The pine needles were yellow, and only in the water of the lake was the color bright and clear. As he looked back, the white surface of Fuji, the origin of all the whiteness in this area, was glowing as if it had been brushed with oil.
It was about half past three in the afternoon when they arrived at the Sengen Shrine. As he glanced back at the three passengers emerging from the black Chrysler, Honda experienced an ominous feeling as if he were watching corpses suddenly rising from a black coffin. This morning it was imperative for the three that they wipe clean the memory of the previous night. But confinement in the close quarters of the limousine for the entire journey had made the episode even more odious, like the waters of abdominal dropsy that accumulate immediately, no matter how frequently they are tapped. The three blinked as though bothered by the glare from the snow at the roadside. Nevertheless, Makiko was standing rigidly erect. Honda was repelled by the sight of Imanishi’s sallow, unresilient skin. He had blasphemed against the beauty of that tragic fantasy of the flesh, of which he had spoken so elatedly the previous day; this had been proven by his complete lack of qualifications as a lover. He compounded the outrage by his conviction that his ugliness would remain undetected.
In any event, Honda had witnessed it. The one who sees and the one who had unknowingly been seen were already conjoined at the limits of this double world. Makiko glanced up at the gigantic stone torii with “Mount Fuji” carved on a framed rock and again took out the notebook she always carried for jotting down her poetical thoughts. A delicate pencil was permanently attached to it by a purple string.
Helping each other, the six walked along the damp, snowy path leading to the shrine. Here and there the sun penetrated through the branches, highlighting patches of snow. The lofty limbs of the old cryptomerias continued to release their dead brown needles that fell on the little heaps of tenacious snow. There was a misty light that made it seem that they were enveloped in a greenish haze. At the far end of the path a red torii surrounded by snow came into view.
This sign of divinity evoked in Honda the memory of Isao Iinuma. Again he looked at Makiko. Momentarily he felt he could forget her eyes at midnight, now that she was imbued with divine power. Isao, adored by those changing eyes, had perhaps been slain by them.
Keiko maintained a calm and self-possessed attitude no matter what she saw.
“How beautiful! Wonderful. How Japanese!” she said expansively.
Makiko actually seemed to wince on hearing her conclusive way of speaking and glanced at her somewhat fretfully. Rié detachedly watched from her position at the rear.
Each tottering step Mrs. Tsubakihara took along the path
to the shrine gave her the appearance of a sorrowful crane with drooping feathers. She offhandedly refused the assistance proferred by Imanishi and placed her hand on Honda’s arm. She was in no mood to compose poetry.
Her grief was too genuine to be a pose, and Honda was almost touched as he gazed down at her doleful profile. His eyes met Makiko’s who had chosen that instant to glance from the other side at her dejected disciple. As usual, Makiko had discovered poetry in the woman’s sad face lit by light reflecting from the snow. She composed a poem.
When they reached the sacred bridge that crossed the road to the top of Mount Fuji, Mrs. Tsubakihara spoke to Honda in a quavering voice.
“Please forgive me. When I think that this is the shrine of Mount Fuji I feel as though a smiling Akio should be meeting me. He was so fond of Fuji.”
Her grief was strangely vacant; sadness seemed to blow through the empty woman like a gust of wind swirling through a vacant arbor. And she was almost inordinately quiet, quite like after a séance—devastation in the wake of the ghostly spirit. Her dry cheeks in the shadow of strands of hair appeared absorbent, like pieces of rice paper. Quietly, unhindered, her sorrow seemed to flow freely in and out through them almost like breath.
Observing this scene had made Rié forget her own illness. She was the very picture of health. Honda in such moments suspected that his wife was a hypochondriac, that even her swelling was probably not genuine.
The party finally reached the great red torii that towered nearly sixty feet high. When they had passed through it, they found themselves directly in front of the pavilion where the sacred dances were performed; it was surrounded by soiled snow that had been piled in front of the red gate. Sacred rope was strung along three sides of the pavilion under the eaves, and from the tops of the tall cryptomerias a ray of clear sunshine fell on the sacred strips of paper gohei which stood out against the unpainted offering table on the floor. The pavilion up to its latticed ceiling was lit by the reflection from the snow, but the sunlight that reached the paper was especially bright. The strips swayed lightly in the breeze.
Momentarily Honda felt the pure white paper to be alive.
Mrs. Tsubakihara’s tears broke the spell. No one was particularly surprised by the sound of her sobs.
No sooner had she caught sight of the holy paper than she was stricken with fear. She ran to the front of the red main shrine guarded by reliefs of Chinese lions and dragons, and prostrating herself in prayer, burst into tears.
Honda no longer wondered why her grief had not healed so long after the war. He was witness to the secret whereby, as yesterday, it was revived and freshened.
29
THE NEXT DAY, Keiko telephoned from Ninooka in Gotemba. Honda was out. Rié was home in bed, still exhausted from the party. When she heard it was Keiko, however, she came to the phone.
Keiko had called to relate that Ying Chan had come to Gotemba that day alone.
“When I was walking the dog, I saw a young lady wandering about the gate of your villa. Somehow she didn’t look Japanese. I called to her, and she said she was from Thailand. She told me she had been invited by Mr. Honda but that she had been prevented from coming. She arrived today because she thought that everyone was still here. I was surprised at her cheerfulness; but she had come alone all that way, and I felt sorry that she had to go back again. I offered her some tea at home and took her to the station. I’ve just returned from seeing her off. She said she would apologize to Mr. Honda after she got back to Tokyo. But she claims she doesn’t like to use the telephone. Talking in Japanese on the phone gives her a headache. She’s very charming. Her hair is so black and her eyes so large.”
After chattering on, Keiko thanked Rié for the party again, added that she was busy preparing a poker game that night for her American officer and his friends, and then hung up.
Rié faithfully reported the entire conversation to Honda when he arrived. He listened, grimacing as if inhaling smoke. Of course he did not tell his wife that he had dreamt of Ying Chan that night.
One of the advantages of age was knowing how to be patient. Still he did have some social obligations in addition to work. He could not wait forever for the unpredictable Ying Chan. He could have entrusted the ring to his wife, but wanting to present it himself, he carried it in the inside pocket of his suit coat.
Some ten days later, Rié reported that during his absence Ying Chan had made a visit, the purpose of which had not been altogether clear. Dressed in her mourning kimono, Rié had just been leaving the house to attend the funeral of a former classmate when she saw Ying Chan entering the gate.
“Was she alone?” asked Honda.
“Yes, she seemed to be.”
“It’s too bad she made the trip. We’ll have to invite her to dinner or something next time.”
“I wonder if she’ll come,” Rié said with a vague smile.
Honda was fully aware that a telephone call would create psychological problems for Ying Chan. Thus he arbitrarily selected a date and sent her a ticket to the Shimbashi Theater, leaving it up to her whether she came or not. The road company of the traditional Osaka puppet theater had opened in Tokyo; he wanted her to see a performance. He sent her one of the matinee tickets he had bought, intending afterwards to take her to dine at the Imperial Hotel, which had recently been returned by the Occupation Forces to Japanese management.
The particular performance that day was Mount Kagami and The Monkey Leader of Horikawa. Having previously experienced her irresponsibility, he was not surprised when Ying Chan failed to put in an appearance. Sitting alone, he leisurely watched the scene known as “Women’s Quarters.” During the long intermission before the presentation of Horikawa, he strolled out to the garden. It was a fine, clear day and many people had come out to enjoy the fresh air.
He was impressed to see that the appearance of the audience here had, compared to several years ago, improved considerably of late. Perhaps it was because there were many geisha, but kimonos had become more sumptuous and ostentatious as memories of the terrible ruins faded. Women’s tastes in these postwar days had become especially colorful, no matter what their age. There was a decidedly more opulent display of bright fabrics than in the audiences of the Imperial Theater during the twenties.
If Honda had been so inclined, he could have selected the most beautiful of the young geishas and become her patron. It would be a pleasure to buy her anything she requested and enjoy her coquetry, tenuous as a spring cloud . . . those tiny feet so neatly clad in white custom-made tabi. She would be a perfectly dressed doll in her kimono. All this could belong to him. But he could at once foresee the conclusion. Boiling water of passion would overflow and the dancing ashes of death would fly up to blind him.
The charm of this theater lay in the manner in which the garden gave onto the river; there during the hot summer months one could enjoy the cool breezes wafting up from the water. But now the river was stagnant, and barges and garbage floated slowly downstream. Honda well remembered the rivers in Tokyo during the war with the bodies of those killed in the bombing drifting along. There was no longer any factory smoke, and the water had become ominously cleansed, reflecting the strangely blue sky overhead said to occur at the moment of death. In comparison, this muddied, polluted water was the very symbol of prosperity.
Two geisha were leaning against the balustrade, enjoying the river breeze. One was wearing a silk kimono with a small design scattered with cherry petals and a Nagoya cherry-pattern obi in black. It was most probably hand-painted. She was tiny with a round face. The other exhibited a taste for color in her choice of clothing. A cold smile played on her face from the bridge of her nose, which was slightly too high, down to her thin lips. The two kept up an incessant chatter, punctuated by exaggerated exclamations. Two curls of smoke mounted from their cigarettes—imported brands with gold tips—which they held between fingers that never fluttered in surprise.
Honda soon realized that they were surreptitiously looking at
the opposite bank. The former Imperial Japanese Naval Hospital with its statue of some erstwhile admiral still on display had now been turned into an American military hospital and was filled with soldiers wounded in the Korean War. The spring sun gleamed on the half-open cherry blossoms in the front garden, under which young soldiers were being pushed in wheelchairs. Some walked with the aid of crutches, while others strolled about with only their arms in pure white slings. No voices called from across the river to the two exquisitely dressed young women, nor was there the sound of cheerful American whistles. Like a scene from another world, the opposite bank bathed in brilliant sunshine was completely quiet, manned as it was by the forms of maimed young soldiers purposely pretending nonchalance.
The two geisha obviously enjoyed the contrast. Covered in white powder and silk, indulging in spring idleness and extravagant living, they feasted on the spectacle of those who only yesterday had been the proud victors with their injuries, pain, dismembered arms and legs. Such subtle malice and exquisite viciousness were their specialty.
From his vantage point as a bystander, Honda could discern the extravagance of the contrast between the theater garden and the scene on the far bank. Over there existed the dust, blood, misery, injured pride, irretrievable misfortune, tears, heartache, and the mangled male sexuality of the soldiers who had controlled Japan for the last seven years; while on this side, women of the defeated country paraded their overrefined, arrogant sensuality, relishing the blood of the erstwhile conquerors drenched in their own perspiration. They were flies eating at the wounds, spreading the transparent black wings of their haori like the wings of magnificent black butterflies. The river breeze was of no use to bring them together. It was easy to imagine the frustration of the Americans, who had so futilely shed their blood to create this useless brilliance to which they had no access, to engender the vanity and extravagance of this insensitive display.