Part 20 (1/2)

An avalanche. A somber avalanche of honey that, overpowering everything with its suffocating sweetness, crushed the pillars of reason; all emotions were trans.m.u.ted into these mechanical, rapid palpitations. Everything melted. It was useless to struggle against them.

Where did this avalanche come from? Somewhere there existed the secluded dwelling of carnal desire, and when it sent forth orders from afar, no matter how defective the antenna, it stirred sensitively; and abandoning all, one instantly responded. How alike were the voices of pleasure and death! When one is summoned, all work at once becomes unimportant. As on a ghost s.h.i.+p abandoned by its crew, be it the entries in the log, the uneaten food, the half-polished shoes, the comb left before the mirror, or even the partially knotted ropes-everything breathes of the mysteriously departed men, everything is left as it was in the haste of departure.

The palpitations were signs of welling desire. Manifestly only ugliness and disgrace lay in store, yet these palpitations had the richness and the brilliance of a rainbow; something indistinguishable from the sublime burst forth.

Something indistinguishable from the sublime! That was the villain. Nothing was more unattractive than the fact that both the force moving one to the n.o.blest or most just of deeds and that inspiring the most obscene pleasure and the most ugly of dreams should spring from the same source and be accompanied by the same warning palpitations. Base desires merely cast base shadows, and if the temptation of sublimity did not flash in these initial palpitations, a man could still maintain a calm pride in life. Perhaps the root of temptation lay not in carnal desire but in this pretentious illusion of silvery sublimity, this vague and mysterious half-hidden peak among the clouds. It was the birdlime of ”sublimity” that first ensnared a man and then made him yearn with unbearable impatience after the vast light.

Honda, unable to endure it longer, stood up. He peered into the obscurity of the adjacent bedroom to be sure that his wife was asleep. Again he stood alone in the bright study. Since the dawn of history he had been alone in this study, and he would still be alone in it when history came to an end.

He extinguished the light. The moon was bright, and the furniture took on vague contours; the desk made of a single piece of zelkova wood gleamed as though its surface were covered with water.

He leaned against the bookcase on the wall dividing the study from the next room, listening for signs of movement. He could hear something, but it did not seem to be that they were still up and talking. It was conceivable that, unable to sleep, they might be conversing, but not a single distinct word filtered through to him.

Honda removed some ten Western books from the shelf to free the opening of the peephole. The number of books and the t.i.tles were always the same. They were invariably old leather-bound tomes with gilt lettering on law in German that had come to him from his father. His fingers could tell each and every one by the difference in thickness. The order in which he removed them never varied. He could guess the exact weight of each and he knew the odor of acc.u.mulated dust. The touch and the weight of these solemn and imposing volumes and the precision of their arrangements were the indispensable formalities of his pleasure. There was no more important ceremony than that of reverently removing these stone walls of concepts and transforming the grim pleasure he would have in reading them into his wretched infatuation. Carefully, making no noise, he lowered each volume to the floor. With each book the pounding of his heart increased. The eighth was a particularly heavy tome. When he pulled it out, his hand felt numb from the dusty golden weight of the pleasure he experienced.

He completed the task faultlessly and then placed his eye to the peephole without b.u.mping his head. The subtlety of this skill was also of great consequence. How important each of these trifling matters seemed! As in some ritual, no detail could be omitted so that he might glimpse this other brilliant world. He was a lone priest left in the darkness. Strictly adhering to the ceremonial procedures long rehea.r.s.ed in his head-he was plagued by the belief that if he should forget any part of the ritual the whole structure would collapse-he carefully put his right eye to the hole.

One of the bedside lamps seemed to be lit and a dim light mottled the room. He had been clever to have Matsudo move the wall bed so that both now stood in his field of vision.

In the dusky light inextricably entangled limbs writhed on the bed immediately before him. A white plump body and a dusky one lay with heads in opposite directions, exhausting their wanton desires. It was a position naturally a.s.sumed when the mind tied to the flesh and the brain that engendered love attempted to obtain balance by reaching out to the farthest point in order to taste the wine fermented by that love. Two heads of black shadowy hair were intimately pressed against two black p.u.b.escent mounds also filled with shadows. The annoying wisps of disheveled hair strewn across the cheeks had become signs of love. Smooth, burning thighs lay in intimate contact with smooth, burning cheeks, while the soft bellies heaved like moonlit inlets. He could not hear distinct voices, but a sobbing, neither pleasure nor sorrow, vibrated the length of the torsos. b.r.e.a.s.t.s now abandoned by the partners innocently turned their nipples toward the light, trembling at times as though under an electrical charge. The depth of the night concealed in the aureoles around the nipples, the distance of the pleasure that made the b.r.e.a.s.t.s shudder, testified to the fact that every atom of their bodies was still isolated in maddening aloneness. They were feverishly striving to come closer, toward a greater intimacy, to fuse one into the other, but to no avail. Far away Keiko's red-lacquered toes flexed as if she were dancing on a sheet of hot iron, and yet they merely trod the empty twilight.

Honda realized that the room was filled with cool mountain air, but he felt as though the center of a furnace lay beyond the peephole. A s.h.i.+ning furnace. He regretted that Ying Chan's back that he had examined so carefully during the day at the pool, perspiration flowing slowly down the spine, was turned toward him. Shortly the perspiration was diverted from its channel and trickled down the dark flank against the bed. It seemed as though he could smell the fragrance of some rich, ripe tropical fruit that had just split open.

Keiko s.h.i.+fted her body slightly to be on top, and Ying Chan tilted her neck, thrusting her head between Keiko's s.h.i.+ning thighs. Naturally her b.r.e.a.s.t.s came into view. Her right arm encircled Keiko's hip, while her left hand gently caressed her belly. Intermittently little nocturnal lappings could be heard licking the banks of the harbor.

So beautiful was Ying Chan's sincerity that he was seeing for the first time that Honda even forgot to be surprised by this so treacherous conclusion to his love.

Her closed eyes were turned toward the ceiling, and her forehead was half buried in Keiko's sporadically convulsing thighs. Keiko's mimosalike hair almost completely covered her lovely, peaceful nostrils, now no longer cold and narrow. Ying Chan's bow-shaped upper lip was open and moist, and a busy sucking movement extended from her delicate chin to her cheeks that gleamed darkly. Presently Honda saw a line of tears flowing like some living animal from the shadow of her long eyelashes along her tightly closed eyes and down her cheek.

Within the limitless movement of waves everything was directed toward an as yet unknown summit. The two women seemed to be desperately striving to reach ultimate limits neither had ever dreamt of or hoped for. Honda felt as if there were some unknown pinnacle poised in the s.p.a.ce of the dark room like a brilliant crown. It was probably the Thai full-moon diadem suspended there above the two writhing women; only Honda's eyes were able to envision it.

The bodies of both women alternately extended and contracted and then collapsed as they buried themselves again in sighs and perspiration. The crown floated indifferently in the s.p.a.ce which their straining fingers almost reached. When the envisioned summit, that unknown golden limit was manifest, the scene was completely transformed, and Honda could see the two women entangled beneath his gaze only in their suffering and torture. They were battered by the dissatisfaction of the flesh, their gathered brows were filled with pain, and their hot limbs seemed to writhe as though trying to escape from what seared them. They possessed no wings. They continued their futile thras.h.i.+ngs to escape from their bonds, from their suffering; and yet their flesh firmly retained them. Only rapture could bring release.

Ying Chan's beautiful, dark b.r.e.a.s.t.s were drenched in perspiration, the right one crushed and disfigured beneath Keiko's body, while the left, heaving vigorously, lay voluptuously on her left arm with which she was caressing Keiko's belly. On the constantly trembling mound the nipple slumbered, and with the perspiration the sphere glowed as if bright with rain.

At that moment Ying Chan, perhaps jealous that Keiko's thigh had freedom of movement, raised her left arm high and grasped it as though to claim it as her own. She placed it firmly over her head as if she could do without breathing. The imposing white thigh completely covered her face.

Ying Chan's whole side was exposed. To the left of her bare breast, an area her arm had previously concealed, three extremely small moles appeared distinctly, like the Pleiades in the dusky sky of her brown skin that resembled the dying evening glow.

Honda was shocked. It was as if his eyes had been pierced with arrows.

Just as he ducked his head and was about to leave the bookcase, he felt a light tap on his back. On withdrawing his head he discovered Rie standing there in her nightdress, her face frighteningly pale.

”What are you doing? I suspected as much.”

Honda felt no guilt as he turned his perspiring forehead to his wife. He had already seen the moles.

”Look. Look at the moles . . .”

”Are you telling me to peek?”

”Go ahead. It's just as I thought.”

Caught between dignity and curiosity, Rie hesitated for some time. Ignoring her, Honda walked to the bay window and seated himself on the built-in bench. Rie put her eye to the peephole. Having been unable to see his own posture when he had done the same thing, Honda could not bear to witness the demeaning position of his wife. Nevertheless, they had come to the point of sharing the same deed.

He looked for the moon concealed by a cloud through the metal screen in the bay window. Behind the cloud, edged in light, the moon sent forth beams in all directions and cloud cl.u.s.ters trailed away in similar stateliness. The stars were few, and he saw only one s.h.i.+ning brightly, scarcely touching the tops of the cypress trees.

When Rie had done peeping, she lit the lamp in the room. Her face was s.h.i.+ning with joy.

She walked to the bench and sat down. Already she was cured.

”I'm stunned. . . . Did you know about that?” she said in a warm, low voice.

”No. I just found out.”

”But you said it was just as you thought.”

”That's not what I meant, Rie. I was talking about the moles. Some time ago you raked through my study in Tokyo and read Matsugae's diary, didn't you?”

”I hunted through your study?”

”It doesn't matter. I'm asking if you read Matsugae's diary.”

”I . . . I don't remember. I'm not interested in other people's diaries.”

When Honda asked her to bring him a cigar from the bedroom, she obediently followed his command. She even lighted it, s.h.i.+elding it with her hand from the wind that came through the window screen.

”The key to transmigration is in Matsugae's diary. You saw them too, didn't you? The three black moles on her left side? Those moles were originally on Matsugae.”

Rie, thinking of other things, was indifferent to what Honda was saying. She probably thought her husband was looking for excuses. Honda pressed her, wis.h.i.+ng them to have the memory in common.

”Well, you did see them, didn't you?”

”I can't say. But the scene was horrible. You never know about people, do you!”

”That's why I'm saying that Ying Chan is the reincarnation of Matsugae.”

Rie gazed at her husband with pity. It was only natural that a woman who believed herself cured should try in turn to act as such. This woman who had so savagely confirmed reality was now ready to infect her husband with the roughness that burned her skin like salt water. Rie was no longer the Rie of old. Although she had once desired to transform reality she had wisely learned to believe in it. She had learned that without changing herself, the world could be transformed through observation. She rather looked down on her husband's world, without realizing that she had in fact become a co-conspirator by having been a voyeur too.

”What's all this about reincarnation? How ridiculous! I didn't read any diary. At any rate, I've finally calmed down. Your eyes must have been opened too, but I was suffering from something that didn't exist at all. I was wrestling with an illusion. Now that I realize it, I suddenly feel tired. But everything turned out for the best. There's nothing to worry about any more.”

The two were sitting at either end of the bench, an ashtray between them. Honda, concerned that Rie might be cold, closed the window; the smoke from his cigar slowly eddied up under the light. They were silent, but the silence was not the same as that which had occurred that morning.

Their hearts were bound together by the odiousness of what they had observed, and Honda felt momentarily how good it would have been if they could have been like so many other couples in the world, if they could flaunt their impeccable moral rect.i.tude like immaculately white ap.r.o.ns across their chests, sit at table three times a day and proudly eat to their satisfaction, if they could a.s.sume the right to disdain other things in the world. But in reality they had merely been transformed into a couple of voyeurs.

Yet each of them had not seen the same thing. Where Honda had discovered reality, Rie had found out her illusions. The process whereby they had reached this common point was the same for both in that they had not yet recuperated from their fatigue and their work had been futile. What remained now was mutual consolation.