Without her eyes Imanishi could not be rid of a feeling of pretense in his union with Mrs. Tsubakihara; they could never escape the complex of being an illicit couple. Those eyes belonged to the most authoritative and dignified of matchmakers, eyes of a perspicacious goddess shining in a corner of the dusky bedroom, they had united and yet rejected them, forgiven and yet disdained them. Such eyes controlled acquiescence by a mysterious and reluctant justice that was set aside somewhere in this world. Only under them was the basis of the couple’s union justifiable. Away from them, the lovers were merely withered grass floating on the waters of phenomena. Their union was an ephemeral contact: a woman, the captive of an irretrievable and illusory past, and a man craving for an illusory future that would never come. It was like the dead clicking of Go stones in their container.
Imanishi felt that Makiko was already seated immobile, waiting, in the adjacent chamber into which the light of this room did not shine. The feeling of her presence became more and more urgent, and he felt that he must confirm it. He went to the trouble to check, and Mrs. Tsubakihara posed no question, probably feeling the same way as he. In a corner niche of the small room of four and a half mats an arrangement of purple irises floated like flying swallows.
As usual when they had finished their lovemaking, they indulged like two women in endless small talk as they lazed about. Imanishi, now sexually released, spoke of Makiko in his worst derogatory manner.
“Makiko’s using you. You’re afraid you can’t be a poet in your own right if you split with her. As a matter of fact, that might have been true up to now, but you must realize that you’ve got to an important turning point. Unless you free yourself from her influence, you’ll never be good.”
“But if I’m conceited enough to be independent, I know my progress in poetry will stop too.”
“Why have you decided that?”
“I haven’t decided, it’s true. Maybe it’s just fate.”
Imanishi wanted to ask whether her poetry had ever actually improved, but his good breeding would not permit such an impertinence. Yet the words he used to pry her free from Makiko held no sincerity. He had the feeling that Mrs. Tsubakihara had answered fully aware of that.
At length she pulled up the sheet and, after tucking it around her neck, recited one of her recent poems, turning her eyes toward the dark ceiling. Imanishi criticized it immediately.
“It’s a nice poem, but I don’t like the petty, smug feeling it gives of dwelling on the mundane; it lacks universality. The reason is probably the last phrase. ‘The blueness of the deep pool’ lacks imagination. It’s too conceptual. It’s not based on life.”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right. I feel hurt if I’m criticized right after creating a poem, but in a couple of weeks I can see its weaknesses. But you know, Makiko praised this one. Unlike you, she said the last part was good, though she thought that ‘blueness is the deep pool’ might be more in keeping.”
Mrs. Tsubakihara’s tone was condescending, as though she were pitting one authority against another. In high spirits she began gossiping in detail about her acquaintances, and that always pleased Imanishi.
“The other day I saw Keiko. She told me something interesting.”
“What?” Imanishi was immediately intrigued. He twisted from his position on his stomach and clumsily dropped long cigarette ash on the sheet around her breast.
“It’s about Mr. Honda and the Thai Princess,” said Mrs. Tsubakihara. “The other day he secretly took her and Keiko’s nephew Katsumi, who is the Princess’s boyfriend, to his Ninooka villa.”
“I wonder if the three of them slept together.”
“Mr. Honda wouldn’t do anything like that! He’s the quiet, intellectual type. He probably wanted to play the generous matchmaker for the two young lovers. Everyone knows he adores the Princess, but they couldn’t even carry on a sensible conversation with such a difference in age.”
“And what was Keiko’s role in the affair?”
“She was nothing more than an innocent bystander, actually. She happened to be at her villa in Ninooka. Jack was off-duty and spending the night there. Suddenly, three o’clock in the morning, there was a knock at the door and the Princess dashed in. Keiko and Jack were awakened from a sound sleep; but no matter how much they coaxed, the Princess absolutely refused to explain the situation. They were at wits’ end. The Princess asked them to let her stay the night, and they did. Keiko intended to get in touch with Mr. Honda in the morning, she said.
“With all of that, she got up late and rushed Jack back to camp after a cup of coffee. As she was seeing him off in a jeep at the gate, Mr. Honda came to the villa looking as white as paper. Keiko laughed and said it was the first time she had ever seen him so upset.
“She knew he was looking for Ying Chan and, wanting to tease him a little, asked what he was up to so early in the morning.
“He said that Ying Chan had got lost, and his voice even quavered. After a while, when Mr. Honda started home—he had given up the search—Keiko told him that Ying Chan had spent the night with her. Mr. Honda blushed like a schoolboy—and at his age!—and said: ‘Did she really!’ He sounded ever so happy.
“When Keiko took him to the guest room and he found the Princess still sound asleep, he nearly collapsed with relief. Ying Chan had not been awakened by all the commotion. She was buried in her black hair, her pretty mouth a little open and her long eyelashes closed. The exhaustion that had been so obvious on her face four or five hours before when she had rushed to the villa was now quite gone, and an innocent youthfulness had returned to her cheeks, and her breathing was peaceful and regular. As if in a pleasant dream she coquettishly turned over in her bed.”
38
PRINCESS YING CHAN was once again unavailable for Honda. The moonless rainy season went on and on.
That morning, when he had seen the sleeping girl’s face, he had not wanted to awaken her. Having asked Keiko to look after her, he returned to Tokyo. Ashamed of himself, he did not see the Princess nor did he hear from her.
When this apparently calm and peaceful period commenced, Rié began to show signs of jealousy.
“We don’t hear from the Thai Princess these days,” she would casually observe during a meal. Her words carried a certain sarcasm, but her eyes were earnestly probing.
Rié had begun to draw free-association paintings on a white wall which reflected nothing for her.
Honda was in the habit of brushing his teeth regularly mornings and evenings. He noticed that his toothbrush was frequently changed, well before it was worn out. He presumed that Rié, probably having purchased a stock of brushes of the same type, color, and hardness, changed them as she saw fit. But the changes seemed too frequent, and though it was of little consequence he brought the matter to her attention.
“How stingy you are! Isn’t it funny for a millionaire to be saving on something like that!” she had answered, almost stammering in her anger. Not comprehending the reason for her fury, he had let her alone. But later he realized that the toothbrushes were changed the mornings after nights when he came in late. Apparently Rié surreptitiously changed them after he had gone to bed. The following day she would carefully inspect the base of each shiny bristle of the old brush to determine whether there were traces of lipstick or the faint fragrance of a young woman and then discard it.
Honda’s gums bled sometimes for one reason or another; and though he did not yet need a full denture, he occasionally complained of pyorrhea. How did Rié interpret the pink stains that sometimes discolored the roots of the bristles?
He was merely conjecturing, but there were times when Rié seemed like a kind of obsessed scientist devoting herself to creating some new compound from the oxygen and nitrogen in the air. She seemed bored with her free time, and yet her eyes and senses were sharp. Though complaining incessantly of headaches, she constantly patrolled with nervous steps the many corridors of the old house.
Once when the subject of the villa happ
ened to come up, Honda remarked that he had built it so that she could recuperate from her kidney condition.
“Are you telling me to go to that graveyard by myself?” she had said in tears, misunderstanding.
She was right in recognizing Honda’s love for Ying Chan that had begun ever since he had gone to Gotemba alone; she had come to this conclusion from his silence about the girl. But she never supposed that he had not seen her since then. She mistakenly assumed that he was seeing her in secrecy and therefore wanted to erase the name from Rié’s thoughts.
Such tranquility was uncanny. It held the false stillness of a hideout for some fugitive emotion afraid of its pursuers. Rié intuitively felt that some exclusive, secretive banquet had been arranged to which she would never be invited.
What was happening?
She had judged correctly also when she thought something had occurred, although Honda himself felt that everything was finished.
Since Rié had completely stopped going out, Honda began to leave the house more frequently than ever, even though he had no purpose. He felt suffocated by the constant presence of his wife who always stayed in under the pretext of illness.
As soon as Honda left the house, Rié would suddenly come alive. Theoretically she should have been worried about the purpose of his unexplained outings, but she had been able to reconcile herself with her now familiar fears. Thus jealousy had become the basis of her freedom.
It was the same as love; her heart was always ensnared, trammeled. She tried to practice calligraphy for a change, but involuntarily her hand would write characters related to the moon . . . “moonshadows” . . . “mountain in the moonlight.”
It was repulsive to her that a girl as young as Ying Chan should have such large breasts. She would conjure up from the characters for “mountain in the moonlight” that she had inadvertently composed a pair of mountains in the shape of breasts quietly bathing in moonlight. This was related to her memory of the Twin Hills in Kyoto. But no matter how innocent, Rié feared anything that evoked memories. She had seen the Twin Hills on a high-school trip; and when she recalled the sway of her own small breasts perspiring under the white summer uniform, she felt herself curl up.
Concerned with Rié’s fragility, Honda had wanted to engage several servants. Rié made the excuse that her worries would be multiplied if she had to oversee so many people, and she had only two maids in the kitchen. The work there that she had loved for many years was now considerably lessened; besides it was not good for her legs to be standing for any length of time on a chilly floor. She had no alternative but to stay in her room. She took up sewing. The drawing room draperies were threadbare and she ordered some silk brocade from Tatsumura in Kyoto. From the fabric with its print of patterns copied from those in the Shoso-in at Nara, she sewed new curtains.
Rié lined the material carefully with a thick black cloth to cut out the light. Honda noted this as she worked.
“You’d think we were still at war,” he teased. As a result, she became even more obstinate in completing what she had begun.
She was not concerned about light leaking out from the inside, but about moonlight seeping in.
Rié stealthily read her husband’s diary when he was out and was infuriated when she could find no mention of Ying Chan in it. Out of reticence, Honda had developed the habit of not writing anything romantic in his diary.
Among her husband’s documents she found an extremely old record entitled “Dream Diary.” Kiyoaki Matsugae was written on it. The name was familiar to her, for Honda had frequently mentioned it. But he had never spoken about the diary, and of course, this was the first time she had set eyes on it.
Looking through it, she was amazed at the absurd fantasies. She carefully replaced it. Rié was seeking no fantasy. The only thing she believed could cure her was the truth.
When, on closing a drawer, a kimono sleeve is caught, the seams of the sleeve and the bodice will tear as one walks away. As similar experiences were repeated, the sleeves of Rié’s heart were torn to bits. She was captivated by something, yet her heart was empty and listless.
The rain continued day and night. She could see from the window the wet hydrangeas. The pastel violet balls of flowers floating in the gloomy day appeared as her own soul gone astray.
There was nothing more insufferable than the idea that Princess Moonlight existed in this world. It was shattered because of her.
Rié had lived her whole life without once knowing the terror of emotions. Thus she was surprised by the eruption of the riotous feelings of solitude within her. The barren woman had given birth for the first time, but to something monstrous.
Thus it was that Rié learned that she too had imagination. What had never been used, what had rusted in a corner of her long and tranquil life was suddenly unearthed out of necessity and polished and sharpened. At any rate, anything born of necessity is accompanied by bitterness, and her propensity toward flights of fancy held no sweetness.
Imagination based on reality might have opened and freed a mind, but that which attempted to come as close to the truth as possible demeaned and dried it up. Furthermore, if that truth did not really exist, everything would at once be transformed into futility.
But imagining a crime in which there was some truth would do no harm. Rié’s imagination was a double-edged sword. She believed that there was truth somewhere and she desired that it not exist. Thus her jealous imagination was trapped by its own self-denial, and yet could not tolerate its own existence. Just as excessive acidity in the stomach gradually eats away the stomach walls, so her imagination eroded the root of its own imaginativeness, and at the same time she was driven by a desire to be saved that was a scream for help. Truth. If there were truth, she would be saved! The desire that appeared at the end of such a one-sided obsessive search inevitably began to resemble an urge for self-punishment. Because that truth—if it really existed—would crush her.
But punishment sought and obtained naturally holds a sense of unfairness. Why should an attorney be punished? That would be a reversal. When what she craved finally came to pass, instead of the delight of fulfillment, dissatisfaction and anger would flare up. Even now she could feel the heat of the burning stake. She must not allow such injustice to occur. She must not expose herself to such incomparably exquisite pain. Suffering from doubt was already enough; why should she pile the pain of recognition upon it?
Desiring to search out the truth, and yet to deny it, wanting to deny the truth, yet seeking only salvation in it. Such emotion went forever around in circles, just as the stray traveler on a mountain road, intending to go forward, somehow always returned to the point he started from.
It was like being enveloped in fog where in one area the details are uncannily distinct. One follows a ray of light only to discover that the moon is not there, rather it is at one’s back and what one sees ahead is its reflection.
Yet Rié had not completely lost all sense of self-examination. Sometimes disgusted with herself, she wanted to cover her face in shame. Yet she felt that it was none of her fault that she had turned into an ugly, unlovable being because of her husband. She felt that her husband had really changed her into something despicable because he had no desire to love her. When she arrived at this realization, hatred welled up in her breast like a gushing spring.
But in her state, she tended to avoid the truth of the matter that even if she had not been turned by jealousy into one so repulsive, there were other causes that had transformed her into what she now was, that even had she stayed unchanged she would no longer have been loved. Her husband was perforce to be despised, but from his own need to turn away from her charms, he could not help but change her into an unlovable creature.
Rié had taken to gazing for long periods into her mirror. Wisps of stray hair emphasized the unloveliness of her cheeks. Everything about her seemed artificial, including the swelling of her face.
Since she had become aware of the bulging years ago, she had made
up rather heavily. She disliked the way her eyes looked hooded, and she would apply dark eyebrow pencil and thick powder. When they had been younger, Honda had teased her by calling her “Moonface.” She was irked at being chided about her affliction, but the night he called her “Moonface” his affection had been particularly warm, and thinking her handicap had probably increased his feeling, Rié had begun to take pride in her face. But on reflection, the sexual passion inspired by her edema contained a certain, subtle cruelty. To be sure, on such nights his lovemaking was passionate, but in view of his admonition that she remain absolutely passive, he might have been entertaining the illusion of a several-day-old corpse with her swollen face.
The reflection in the mirror was a living ruin. Under her lusterless hair, a sinewy malice appeared on her moonlike features like the ribs of a round fan. Her face had gradually turned into one not of a woman, and whatever feminine roundness it had, persisted only in the swelling. Even that was the cold, faded, tiresome roundness of the moon in daylight.
To apply beautifying makeup now would only signal defeat. But being ugly was also a defeat. She had lost all desire for repairing the defects in her present face; so the dents remained dents, the ugliness ugliness, and everything continued tranquilly like the rise and fall of sand dunes. Rié thought that it might just not be her husband’s fault that she was unable to tear herself away from jealousy, but the fault of the enormous boredom that enveloped her like heavy bedding. She felt that she would need a frightening amount of strength to push it away and indolently did nothing about it. But if she was so lazy why could she find not even momentary peace?
Rié suddenly remembered the winter beauty of Mount Fuji, which she had been able to see from the second floor of the house soon after her marriage. She had been told by her mother-in-law to bring down the dinner service reserved for the New Year’s celebrations and had gone obediently up to the storage room on the second floor. She had seen Fuji from there. She had tied a red cord across her sleeves to keep them down as new brides did.
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