“It really doesn’t seem to be true,” Honda heard one of the women remark.
“Yes. They’re too miserable to look at. Foreigners are so big and all the more pitiful in that condition. But misery is mutual. We have gone through a lot.”
“Well, that is what they get for biting off more than they can chew,” the other woman coldly declared. They watched with intensified interest, but this soon passed and faded. As if in competition they each produced compacts and squinted obliquely into the mirrors as they powdered their noses. The heavily scented powder, caught by the river breeze, sifted down along the hem of their haori, to be carried even to the sleeve opening of Honda’s coat. He noticed that the little mirrors, though covered with a thin film of powder, still managed to cast a wan reflection on the bush at his feet, quite like the fluttering of tiny ants.
The faint ringing of a distant bell signified that the curtain was about to rise on the next act. Only the final part of Horikawa remained. As he turned his steps back toward the theater, resigned that Ying Chan would not put in an appearance this late, Honda suddenly realized that he had experienced a sensual pleasure in her wonderful absence. Ying Chan was standing inside, half hidden in the shadow of a pillar; it was as if she were trying to avoid the light streaming in.
Honda’s eyes had not yet adjusted themselves to the obscurity, and all he saw was the black of her hair and the luminous darkness of her large eyes as though they were a blur of opacity. Her hair oil gave off a strong fragrance. Ying Chan smiled, showing a blurred whiteness of lovely teeth.
30
THAT EVENING they had dinner at the Imperial Hotel. It had been devastated. The Occupation Forces had claimed to understand the creative genius of Frank Lloyd Wright, but they had not hesitated to cover the stone lantern in the garden with white paint. The pseudo-Gothic ceiling of the dining hall was even more gloomy and in worse repair than ever. The only patches of freshness were provided by the white linen cloths that glistened ostentatiously on the rows of dining tables.
When Honda had ordered, he immediately drew from an inner pocket the small box and placed it directly in front of Ying Chan. She opened it and cried out.
“It was inevitable that the ring should be returned to you.” Speaking in the simplest language, Honda told her its history. The smile that flickered over her features as she listened did not always coincide with his narration, and it occurred to him that she might not be comprehending all he was saying.
Her breasts, visible above the level of the table, were, quite unlike her face which was childish, magnificently developed, like those of a figurehead on a ship. He knew without seeing that the body of one of the goddesses in the Ajanta murals lay beneath the simple student’s blouse across from him.
The deceptively light but solid flesh seemed to have the weightiness of some dark fruit . . . the almost stifling black hair and the ambiguous, wistful lines from the slightly flared nostrils down to the upper lip . . . She seemed to be just as casually oblivious to the words that her body spoke as she was when she listened to Honda’s recital. Her enormous, jet-black eyes transcended intelligence, and they somehow gave her the appearance of being blind. What mystery of forms! That Ying Chan should present to him a body that one sensed was overly fragrant was due to the spell of the distant jungle which reached as far as Japan. Honda felt that what people called blood lineage was perhaps a deep, formless voice that pursued one eternally. Sometimes a passionate whisper, sometimes a hoarse cry, it was the very origin of all beautiful physical forms and the wellspring of the charm they emitted.
When he placed the dark green emerald ring on Ying Chan’s finger, he had the sensation that he was witness to the moment when the deep, far-off voice and the girl’s physical being were at long last perfectly fused.
“Thank you,” said Ying Chan with a fawning smile that might have marred her dignity. Honda realized that it was the expression that always appeared when she felt sure that her selfish feelings were understood. But no sooner did he try to capture it than the smile was already gone like a swiftly withdrawing wave.
“When you were a child you claimed to be the reincarnation of a Japanese boy I knew very well; you annoyed everyone by insisting that Japan was your real home and that you wanted to return. Now that you are here and that ring is on your finger, it means that for you too a great circle has been joined.”
“I don’t really understand,” answered Ying Chan with not a trace of emotion. “I don’t remember anything of my childhood. I really don’t. They all tease me about having been slightly mad and laugh at me when they tell what you’ve just been saying. But I’ve completely forgotten everything. I went to Switzerland as soon as the war broke out and stayed there until the end, and the only thing I remember about Japan is that I used to love a Japanese doll someone gave me.”
Honda felt an urge to tell her that it had been sent by him, but checked himself.
“My father told me that Japanese schools were good, so I came here to study. Recently I’ve had the idea that perhaps when I was a child I was like a mirror reflecting everything in people’s minds, and I simply said what occurred to me. For instance, if you had an idea, it might have been reflected in me. That was probably what happened, I imagine. What do you think?”
Ying Chan had the habit of terminating a question with an English rising inflection. Her ultimas reminded Honda of the sharply curling tails of the golden serpents at the tips of the red Chinese-tile roofs of Thai temples reaching into the blue sky.
Honda was suddenly aware of a family at a nearby table. The head, probably some businessman, his wife and their grown sons were having dinner. Their fine clothes notwithstanding, he could discern something vulgar in their faces. He surmised that they had become wealthy through the Korean War. The faces of the sons were particularly flabby, like that of a dog that has just been awakened, and their lips and eyes reflected a complete lack of breeding. They were all noisily sipping their soup.
From time to time, the sons would nudge each other and steal a glance at Honda’s table. Their eyes were mocking: an old man having dinner with a concubine that looked like a schoolgirl. Their eyes seemed to have nothing better to say. Honda could not but recall Imanishi’s exasperating inadequacy that midnight in Ninooka and compare it to himself.
There are rules more severe in this world than those of morality, Honda felt at such moments. Unsuitable lovers were punished by the fact that they would never be the source of dreams, but merely evoke disgust in others. The people of those times when one knew nothing of humanism were surely much more cruel to all ugly creatures than modern man.
After dinner Ying Chan excused herself to go to the powder room, and Honda remained alone in the lobby. He suddenly felt relaxed. From that moment on, he could enjoy Ying Chan’s absence without compunction.
A question sprang to his mind: he had not yet learned where Ying Chan had stayed the night before the house-warming.
She did not return to the lobby for some time. He remembered the occasion when the little girl had relieved herself at Bang Pa In surrounded by her ladies. Then he recalled the naked Princess bathing in the brown river along which coiled the roots of mangroves. No matter how hard he had stared, he had not been able to make out the three black moles he had expected to find on her left side.
Honda’s wants were quite simple, and it would have been incorrect to label his emotion “love.” He wished only to look at the completely naked form of the Princess, aware that the once flat breasts had ripened, thrusting out like the heads of fledglings peeping from their nest; to see how the pink nipples pouted discontentedly and how the brown underarms lay in faint shadow; to watch the manner in which the underside of her arms carried wave patterns like a sensitive, sandy shore; to be aware of how every step toward maturity progressed in the dusky light; and then to quiver in the presence of that body, comparing it to that of the little girl. That was all. In her belly, floating in pure softness, the navel would be deep-set like a small c
oral atoll. Protected by thick hair instead of yakshas, that which once had been sober, hard silence would now be turned into constant, moist smiles. The way her beautiful toes would open up one by one, the way her thighs would shine, and the way her mature legs would extend to support earnestly the discipline and dreams of the dance of life. He wanted to compare all of those with her figure as a little girl. This was to know time, to know what time had wrought, what time had ripened. If those moles were not to be found on her left side after careful inspection, he would then fall in love with her completely and finally. Transmigration stood barring the way to his love, and samsara held his passion in check.
Awakened from his dreams by Ying Chan’s return to the lobby, Honda suddenly voiced what was occupying his thoughts. Despite everything, his words were sharp with the pangs of jealousy.
“I forgot to ask. I heard that you stayed out all night before the party at Gotemba without reporting in at the Foreign Student Center. Was it at a Japanese house?”
“Yes, it was,” Ying Chan responded without hesitation, sitting in the armchair next to Honda’s, hunching her back a little and scrutinizing her beautiful legs that she held neatly together. “A Thai friend is staying there. The family all insisted I spend the night, so I did.”
“It must be an entertaining household with a lot of young people.”
“Not exactly. The two sons, the daughter, my Thai friend, and I all played charades. The father heads a big business concern in Southeast Asia, so they’re very kind to Southeast Asians.”
“Is your Thai friend a boy?”
“No, a girl. Why?”
Again Ying Chan abruptly raised the last syllable of her question.
Then Honda expressed disapproval that she had made so few Japanese friends. He warned her that living abroad made no sense unless she cultivated a variety of people in the country where she was studying. As she might possibly be uncomfortable having dinner with him alone, he offered to bring some young friends along the next time, unconsciously scheming for another opportunity to see her. He extracted from her a promise that at the same day the following week she would come to the lobby of the Imperial at seven o’clock. The thought of Rié made him hesitant to invite her to his own house.
31
HE RETURNED HOME He got out of the car and felt the drizzle moisten his temples. The houseboy met him in the vestibule and informed him that Mrs. Honda was tired and had retired early. He also reported that a persistent guest had insisted on waiting more than an hour and was in the small living room to which the houseboy had been obliged to usher him. Did he recognize the name Iinuma? asked the youth. At once Honda surmised that the man had come to ask for money.
It was four years since Honda had last seen Iinuma at the fifteenth anniversary memorial service for Isao. At that time it was obvious that Iinuma was quite without funds after the war. Yet he had been favorably impressed by the tasteful, simple memorial service held at a shrine.
Honda had at once thought it was about money, for recently people who had not visited him for years would turn up for no other reason than to ask him for funds. Unsuccessful lawyers, former attorneys who had become vagrants, unsuccessful court reporters—all came flocking. Each had heard of Honda’s good fortune and each seemed to think he had some right to a share, since Honda had come into the money by sheer luck. He responded only to the requests of the truly humble.
When he entered the reception room, Iinuma rose from the chair and made a deep obeisance, showing the back of his wilted suit up to the nape of his gray-haired neck. Playing the role of a poor man suited him more than poverty itself. Honda urged him to sit down and ordered the house-boy to bring whiskey.
Iinuma offered an obvious lie, saying that he had been just passing by and could not resist the urge to see Honda. One glass and he pretended to be drunk. As Honda started to pour another drink, he held the glass with his right hand and respectfully supported the bottom with the left. This struck Honda unpleasantly. A rat often held his loot in just such a fashion. Then Iinuma found a cue to start his harangue.
“Well, it seems to me that ‘following the reverse course’ has come to be the cliché of the day. But the government will start revising the constitution by next year at the latest, I think. The reason everybody’s talking about the revival of conscription is because there are really grounds for it. But the infuriating thing is that the foundation can’t be brought out in the open and is still underground. By contrast, how do you like how powerful the Reds are getting? How about the disorders in the anti-draft demonstration in Kobe the other day? They called it an ‘anti-draft youth rally,’ but the strange thing was that a lot of Koreans took part. They fought against the police with not only rocks, but hot pepper, Molotov cocktails, bamboo lances, and everything else. I heard that some three hundred students, children, and Koreans invaded Hyogo Police Station and demanded the release of the ones who had been arrested.”
He wants money, Honda thought, paying little attention to what Iinuma was saying. But, he deliberated, he must let Iinuma know that no matter how the New Dealers controlled things with their socialistic policies, no matter how much noise the Reds made, the basis of the private property system would never be shaken. The drizzle outside the window seemed to thicken as though a multilayered curtain of rain was enveloping the house. He had seen Ying Chan off to the Foreign Student Center in a taxi. Since then the thought had not left his mind that this spring rain must have seeped into her simple room in the students’ quarters and made it damp. What sort of subtle effect would the humidity have on the girl’s body that had matured in the tropics? How did she sleep? Facing the ceiling and breathing hard? Or coiled up with a smile on her lips? Or on her side like the golden reclining figure of Shakyamuni in the Nirvana Hall, arm under head, supine, showing the brilliant soles of her feet?
“The General Rally for the Banishment of Oppressive Laws by the Kyoto Branch of the General Council of Japanese Labor Unions has got violent too,” continued Iinuma. “At this rate, May Day this year isn’t going to be any too peaceful; you just can’t predict how much violence will break out. Red students take over school buildings in the universities and have confrontations with the police. And this, sir, right after the signing of the Japanese-American Peace Treaty and the Mutual Security Pact. How ironic.”
He wants money, thought Honda.
“I’m all in favor of Prime Minister Yoshida’s idea about declaring the Communist Party illegal,” Iinuma went on. “Japan’s in turmoil again. If we let things go on, now that the Peace Treaty is signed, we’re going to be thrown headlong into a Communist revolution. Most of the American troops will be gone, and how are you going to control a general strike? I lose a lot of sleep over Japan’s future. What’s learned in the cradle is carried to the grave is true even now.”
He wants money, Honda kept thinking. But even after several more drinks Iinuma still did not bring the subject up.
He talked briefly about his divorce two years ago, then suddenly changed the subject to bygone days, and started on a dogged confession how he would never in his life forget the obligation he felt toward Honda, who had given up his judgeship and volunteered to conduct Isao’s defense without remuneration. Honda could not bear the thought of Iinuma talking about Isao and he hurriedly interrupted.
Iinuma suddenly took off his jacket. The room was not warm enough to be uncomfortable, but Honda presumed that he was drunk. He took off his necktie next and unbuttoned his white shirt, unfastening even his undershirt to expose a chest which had turned red from the alcohol. Honda could see the almost completely white hairs scattering the light like so many needles.
“To be honest with you, I came to show you this. I have no greater shame. If I could, I would have preferred to hide it from you all my life, but I have been thinking for some time that I would reveal it only to you and let you have a good laugh. I thought only you would really understand me, even my failures. You would know what kind of man I am. I’m honestly and
truly ashamed, when I compare myself to my dead son who died so nobly. I have no words to express adequately the depth of my shame at still being alive like this.”
Tears ran down his cheeks, and his words came pell-mell:
“This is the scar from when I tried to commit suicide right after the war. My mistake was thinking I might not succeed in committing seppuku, so instead I plunged a dagger into my chest, but missed my heart. I bled like a pig, but I didn’t die.”
As though showing off, Iinuma caressed the scar that glistened a purplish blue. As a matter of fact, even Honda could see that something had been irreversibly terminated. Iinuma’s ruddy, coarse skin had puckered, surrounding the wound and closing it clumsily, underscoring the unsuccessfulness of the attempt.
However, Iinuma’s obdurate chest, now covered with white hair, still was proud of what it had once been. Honda finally realized that it was not at all money for which he had come, still he did not feel ashamed for having misjudged his purpose. Iinuma had not changed. Honda found it understandable that even such a man as he should be compelled to distill and crystallize a desperate, soiled, and humiliating deed, that he should strive by so doing to transmute shame into a rare gem, and that he should gradually be overcome by the desire, the need to display it to a trustworthy witness. Whether he was serious or merely pretending, the fact remained that the purple scar on his chest was in the final analysis the only precious thing that remained in his life. Honda had been selected for the unwelcome honor of being witness to this noble action of many years ago.
Iinuma, seeming to have rapidly sobered, put on his clothes, apologized for having overstayed, and extended thanks for the drinks. He was about to leave when Honda stopped him. Wrapping up some fifty thousand yen in bills, he thrust the packet into the pocket of Iinuma’s seedy coat despite the protestations of his visitor.