Part 19 (1/2)
The oldest villa owners were Prince and Princess Kaori and the aged widow of Kanzaemon Mas.h.i.+ba, founder of the Mas.h.i.+ba Bank. Mrs. Mas.h.i.+ba had announced that she would bring along her three grandchildren. There were several other guests from the area. In addition to Keiko and Ying Chan, Imanis.h.i.+ and Mrs. Tsubakihara were expected from Tokyo. Makiko had replied quite early that she would be traveling abroad. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances Makiko would have been accompanied by Mrs. Tsubakihara on her trip, but this time she had chosen another disciple as her companion.
Once a servant became a permanent employee, Honda was amused to note, Rie could drive her rather mercilessly, though she never gave up her sweet smile for outside help such as the chef and the waiters. She spoke politely and showed consideration in everything, anxious to prove to herself and others that she was beloved by one and all.
”Madame. What are we to do about the arbor? Shall I prepare drinks there too?” asked one of the waiters, already dressed in his white uniform.
”Please do.”
”But it will be difficult for just the three of us to cover so much ground. Would it be satisfactory if we just left ice in the thermos bucket and requested the guests to help themselves?”
”Surely. The ones who stray as far as the arbor will probably be young couples anyway, and it might be just as well not to disturb them. Be doubly sure not to forget the mosquito repellent when it starts to get dark.”
Honda was truly shocked to hear his wife speaking in such a manner. Her voice was pitched unnaturally high and her words floated on the air. The frivolity she had presumably despised more than anything in the world over the years now so infused her voice and words that he suspected her of sarcasm.
The alert movements of the waiters in their white uniforms seemed to have charged the household with straight lines. Their well-starched jackets, their youthful efficiency of movement, their apparent respectfulness, and their professional polish turned the household into a strange and refres.h.i.+ng world. All private matters were swept aside, and arrangements, consultation, commands, and orders flew about as if they were indeed the b.u.t.terflies in whose shape the white napkins had been folded.
A buffet had been set up beside the pool to permit the guests to eat in their swimming suits. The familiar appearance of the house had instantly changed. Honda's treasured desk, covered with a white tablecloth, now served as an outdoor bar. Although he himself had directed the alterations, once underway they turned into a kind of violent transformation.
Driven back by the gradually intensifying sunlight, he watched everything in amazement. Who had planned all this? And to what end? To spend money? to invite impressive guests? to play the role of the complacent bourgeois? to boast of the completed swimming pool? As a matter of fact, this was the first private pool in Ninooka either before or since the war. There are many generous people in this world who will forgive another's wealth if only they are invited to his house.
”Dear, please put these on,” said Rie, bringing him a pair of dark-brown summer worsted trousers, a white s.h.i.+rt, and a bow tie with tiny brown polka dots. She placed them on the table under the beach umbrella.
”You want me to change here?”
”Why not? There are only the waiters. Besides I'm going to ask them to take an early lunch break now.”
He took up the bow tie, the extremities of which were shaped like gourds. Holding one end between two fingers, he playfully held it up to the light of the swimming pool. It was an informal, miserable, limp strip of fabric. It reminded him of the procedure of the ”summary order” of a police court. ”Notification of summary procedure and demur of the accused.” It was Honda himself who most detested the approaching party . . . except for one ultimate kernel, one scintillating point of hopelessness.
Old Mrs. Mas.h.i.+ba was the first to arrive with her three grandchildren. These consisted of an unmarried girl and her two extremely ordinary, bespectacled, and studious-looking younger brothers, one a senior and the other a soph.o.m.ore in college. The three immediately retired to the dressing rooms where they changed into swimming suits. The grandmother, wearing a kimono, remained under the umbrella.
”While my husband was alive, especially after the war, we fought at every election. I always voted Communist just to spite him. And then I was a great admirer of Kyuichi Tokuda.”
The old widow adjusted her kimono collars incessantly or nervously tugged at her sleeves like a gra.s.shopper ducking its head and rubbing its wings. She was reputed to be a completely unconventional and entertaining person; hidden behind mauve gla.s.ses, sparkled prying eyes, relentlessly speculating on the finances of one and all. Exposed to her cold gaze, everyone felt as if he were her dependent.
The three young people who returned dressed for swimming possessed bodies typical of good families, modest and sleek-limbed. One after the other they jumped into the water and in a relaxed way began swimming. Honda regretted above all that Ying Chan was not to be the first to enter the water in his pool.
Soon Rie came from the house escorting Prince and Princess Kaori, who were already in their bathing suits. Honda apologized for having been unaware of their arrival and for not having come up to greet them. He scolded Rie for not warning him; but the Prince merely shook hands, dismissing the whole matter, and went into the water. Mrs. Mas.h.i.+ba watched this exchange with a bemused look as though she were observing boorish people. After the Prince had circled the pool once and climbed up on the edge, she spoke to him from where she was in her shrill voice: ”How young and manly you are, Prince! Ten years ago I should have challenged you to a race.”
”I may not be up to you even now, Madame. Just swimming fifty yards and I'm already out of breath, as you see. Anyway, how wonderful that we can swim in Gotemba, though the water's a trifle chilly.”
He shook the drops from his body as though sloughing off ostentation. Black dots spattered on the concrete.
The Prince himself had not noticed that people sometimes regarded him as cold because of his great efforts to behave on all occasions with the nonchalance and informality that had come after the war. When it was no longer necessary to maintain dignity, he became confused about human relations.h.i.+ps. Confident because of his elite position that he had the right to dislike tradition more than anyone else, he slighted those who held it in esteem in this day and age. That might have been all right if when he remarked that someone showed no progressiveness it had not come to mean the same thing as when he had commented in former days that someone was too low-born. The Prince rated all progressives, as he did himself, as ”sufferers in the fetters of tradition.” Thus, paradoxically, the next step would have him thinking of himself as a commoner.
When the Prince removed his gla.s.ses before swimming, Honda saw his face for the first time without them. They were for him a rather important bridge to the world. When his bridge was removed, his plain face held a certain vague melancholy, partly because of the glare. It was a melancholy where the gap between long-gone n.o.bility and the present was somehow confused, out of focus.
In contrast, the Princess, slightly plump in her bathing suit, was imbued with natural grace. When she floated on her back and raised one arm and smiled, she looked like some innocent, lovely waterfowl happily swimming against the background of Hakone. One could but a.s.sume that she was one of those rare people who knew what happiness was.
Honda was mildly irritated by the Mas.h.i.+ba grandchildren who, having emerged from the water, now surrounded their grandmother and were conversing politely with the Prince and Princess. The subject of the young people's conversation was exclusively America. The oldest girl talked about the fas.h.i.+onable private school where she had studied, and her younger brothers only about the universities where they were going once they had graduated from their respective j.a.panese colleges. Everything was America. Television was already widespread there . . . how nice if that were true of j.a.pan . . . but at the present rate it would probably be over ten years before they enjoyed television here . . . and on and on . . .
Mrs. Mas.h.i.+ba did not like conversations about the future. She interrupted immediately.
”You're all laughing at me, thinking I'll not be here to see it anyway. Very well, then. I'll appear as a ghost on your screens when you're watching every night.”
The manner in which the grandmother ruthlessly controlled the young people's conversation was extraordinary, as was the way the youngsters immediately fell silent and listened the moment she spoke. Honda thought they were like three intelligent rabbits.
The host was becoming skilled in greeting his guests as they appeared one after another in their bathing suits at the entrance to the terrace. On the other side of the pool, flanked by two couples from neighboring villas, Imanis.h.i.+ and Mrs. Tsubakihara clad in street clothes raised their hands in greeting. Imanis.h.i.+ was wearing an aloha s.h.i.+rt with a large print design in which he was completely out of character, while Mrs. Tsubakihara wore her usual black kimono of silk gauze that resembled a mourning outfit. She was striving for effect: a single ominous black crystal set in the brilliance of the swimming pool. Honda saw through her right away and concluded that Imanis.h.i.+ had put on his ludicrous s.h.i.+rt to flout his simple mistress who was always trying to play roles quite unsuited to her.
Lagging behind the animated guests in their bathing suits, the couple slowly walked along the edge of the water that made their black and yellow reflections rock.
The Prince and Princess knew Imanis.h.i.+ and Mrs. Tsubakihara well. The Prince frequently attended postwar meetings of the so-called cultural elite and was on sufficiently friendly terms with Imanis.h.i.+ to talk quite informally with him.
”That amusing man has just arrived,” he remarked to Honda.
As soon as Imanis.h.i.+ was seated, he took out the crumpled wrapper from a pack of imported cigarettes, threw it away, and drew out a new package. When he had stripped off the wrapping, he tapped the bottom and skillfully extracted a cigarette. ”I can't sleep at all these nights,” he said perfunctorily as he put it to his lips.
”Are you worried about something?” the Prince asked, placing the plate from which he had just been eating on the table.
”Not especially. But I've got to have someone to talk to in the middle of the night. We talk and talk until morning, and when the sun comes up we feel like committing suicide. Then we solemnly take sleeping pills. But we wake up and nothing has happened. The morning's the same as ever.”
”What sort of conversations do you have night after night?”
”There's ever so much to talk about if you know that this is going to be your last. We cover every possible subject in the world. What we've done, what others have done, what the world has experienced, what mankind has gone through, or things a forgotten continent has dreamt of for several thousands of years. Anything will do. There are all kinds of subjects. The world is going to end tonight.”
The Prince looked most interested and questioned further.
”But if you're alive the next day, what do you talk about then? You've covered everything.”
”That's no problem. You just talk it all over again.”
Amazed by this answer that sounded as though Imanis.h.i.+ were putting him on, the Prince fell silent.
Honda stood to the side listening. He did not know how serious Imanis.h.i.+ was. ”By the way, what ever happened to the Land of the Pomegranate?” he asked, recalling the weird tale he had once heard.
”Ah . . .” said Imanis.h.i.+, turning his cold eyes on him. His face looked more dissipated than ever these days, and it contrasted strangely with the colorful Hawaiian s.h.i.+rt and the American cigarettes, creating, Honda felt, the impression of a certain type of interpreter who worked for the Occupation Forces. ”It's been destroyed! It exists no more.”
This was his usual manner of speaking and the statement in itself did not surprise Honda. But if the millennium of s.e.x, once called the Land of the Pomegranate, had perished in Imanis.h.i.+'s illusions, it also had to disappear in the mind of Honda, who hated these fantasies. It existed no more. Imanis.h.i.+ was guilty of slaughtering the fantasy, and Honda could imagine how he must have been intoxicated by the fanciful bloodletting in destroying the kingdom he had created. He could picture the harrowing scene that night. He had created by words and destroyed by words. Although the kingdom had never possessed reality, still it had once manifested itself somewhere, and now it was destroyed by cruel whim. Seeing Imanis.h.i.+'s drug-roughened yellowish brown tongue lick his lips, Honda vividly pictured imaginary mountains of corpses and rivers of blood.
Compared to the desires of this sallow weakling, his own wants were far more quiet and modest. Yet they were equally impossible of fulfillment. Seeing Imanis.h.i.+ who showed not a trace of sentimentality and hearing him announce with his typically affected nonchalance the destruction of the Land of the Pomegranate, Honda was pierced to the core by the frivolousness of it all.
But his thoughts were immediately interrupted by Mrs. Tsubakihara speaking in his ear. The fact that she whispered in a particularly low voice bespoke the fact that she had nothing of importance to relate.
”This is just between you and me. You know that Makiko's in Europe, don't you?”
”So I hear.”
”I'm not talking about the trip itself. I just wanted to tell you that she didn't invite me to go with her this time. She took some vulgar and untalented pupil along. But of course I'm not criticizing that. Only she didn't tell me anything about her going. Can you believe it? I went to see her off at the airport, but I was so overcome I couldn't say a word.”