The Frolic of the Beasts Read online

  However, the couple stopped abruptly just at the point where they could look down on the priest’s living quarters. With no alternative, Kōji came down from the edge of the veranda and stood in the garden. But the couple hadn’t stopped because they had seen him; rather, they had bumped into the wife of the postmaster, who was just then on her way up to the Kusakado greenhouse. The postmaster’s wife was a licensed flower-arrangement teacher who taught the young ladies of the village, and as such, she was a special customer of the greenhouse, buying her flowers direct.

  Yūko started back up the hill in order to show the postmaster’s wife some flowers. But then, noticing Kōji for the first time standing in the back garden of the temple, she called to him.

  “Ah, that’s perfect. Kōji, would you mind accompanying Ippei on his walk today?”

  * * *

  —

  Strangely, although three months had passed since Kōji had first come to these parts, this was the first opportunity he had had of spending any real time alone with Ippei. In fact, it occurred to him that this was the first time since the occasion when Ippei, on a mere whim, had invited Kōji—then still a student—to the bar for a drink.

  Kōji couldn’t help subconsciously comparing Ippei, as he was in the bar that night, with the man who now walked beside him. While this invalid seemed to be the sort who would prefer going for a stroll after sundown, in fact he liked to go out with the westerly sun at its strongest, wearing a straw hat. Ippei was afraid of the vast darkness of the countryside at night.

  The walk took an exceedingly long time, owing largely to the frequent, lengthy stops that Ippei made in order to rest.

  They turned their backs on Yūko and the postmaster’s wife and began to descend the slope. Ippei was placed in Kōji’s care, and an incessant, mellow smile appeared on his face. Amid the dazzling glare of midday, Kōji found it impossible to imagine his sleepless nights. He wondered why, thanks to this invalid with the helpless smile, the nights weighed heavily on him. Why, when the days allowed him so much freedom, did the nights turn so against him? During the nights he couldn’t sleep, Kōji discovered his hearing was sensitive to even the slightest sound, and each time he heard Ippei’s faint snoring or an occasional sigh from Yūko—who also found it difficult to sleep—escape over the top of the sliding door, he felt as though his body was on fire. The twelve-mat room next to his was like one of the greenhouses in the dead of night. Beneath the light of the stars that shone down through the glass roof, the plants continued their subtle chemical action—with little or no movement they dropped leaves, lost petals, and released persistent smells, and some gradually decayed where they stood. The exaggerated rippling noise as Yūko tossed around in her hemp futon. The faint sighs like the flickering of fireflies. The billowing mosquito net…Finally, Yūko had once called Kōji’s name. He had thought his ears were deceiving him, but when he quietly called out Yūko’s name in reply, her voice came to him again, as if searching and hoping for the light of a distant village through the darkness. Just then, Ippei, who had been having a nightmare, cried out in his sleep like an animal and looked as though he would come to, only to settle down again…

  * * *

  —

  They came down to the level ground. The surface of an unharvested paddy field and a cornfield stirred in the wind. As it swept across the green rice paddy, the pliant leaves revealed their white undersides, and each time a cloud passed over, the field appeared desolate. Then the sun would begin to shine again. A white line of parched road stood out in dazzling relief.

  Kōji began to think that speaking slowly and clearly in order to make himself understood for Ippei’s benefit was pointless.

  Rather than telling him what he thought, the effort required to make Ippei understand through this narrow interaction made a mess of his attempted communication.

  There was so much Kōji wanted to say, so much he wanted Ippei to understand, and so much he himself wanted to know. He felt he ought to say candidly exactly what he thought and, suddenly, stepping over the line he had been hesitant to cross, he summoned the courage to speak to Ippei audaciously.

  “Say, I just can’t understand the way you behave. Why do you spend your time tormenting Yūko and me with that simpering grin? I’ve been wondering but…You hate me, don’t you? Well? Isn’t that right? Why not come out with it and say it like a man? When things are going conveniently for you, you make out that’s exactly how you intended it, but when things are not going too well, you blame it on your illness and then just deliberately leave things vague and unresolved. Isn’t that true? Hey!”

  Kōji prodded Ippei lightly on the shoulder as he walked beside him. Reeling, Ippei eventually steadied himself by leaning on his walking stick; he shook his head slightly and uncertainly, and that stubborn smile spread across his face.

  Just talking rapidly this way lifted Kōji’s mood, in addition to which, strangely, he even felt a sort of rough friendship toward his helpless companion.

  “You say it’s not true?” he said, continuing. “Good heavens! You understand everything I say, don’t you? What a despicable guy you are. I’ve never met anyone as loathsome as you.”

  Ippei shook his head helplessly once again. His rough friendship rejected, Kōji felt deflated. Moreover, he felt that when it came down to it, what he really wanted to say was exceedingly simple and didn’t require a great many words. Everything there was to say had been said without saying a thing, and once it was put into words, it all fell apart so easily. And yet, he dared to continue his rant. Kōji reckoned this would be his only chance to talk to this ash-like man, as one human being to another.

  “The truth is, you resent me. You’re angry with me, aren’t you? You don’t even want to look me in the face, and each time you do, all you think is that you can never forgive me. But, when Yūko invited me here, I wanted to see your face. Even though I was afraid of what I might find, for some reason I wanted to see it. I hoped that if I lived my life side by side with you, then I might be able to become a decent person. Do you understand? It’s like making a child regret breaking a toy by forcing him to live with it. You can’t just buy him a new one. So long as I’m with you, I had the feeling I could mend my broken life. Do you see what I’m saying?”

  Still maintaining his smile, Ippei moved his eyes restlessly, as if from the fear of being suddenly confronted by something that was difficult to understand.

  This man’s soul is beginning to struggle behind a wall that has no exit, thought Kōji. Although he is not cognizant of the goings-on in the world, he can hear sounds outside—he can hear the knock at his door.

  Now, Ippei didn’t complain he was tired. If anything, he gave the impression he was trying to get away from Kōji—animatedly thrusting his walking stick and left leg forward and forcing his unwilling right leg to follow as he continued doggedly in his characteristic mechanical gait—striking out along the wide, dusty road that ran past the post office toward the village shrine. On the other side of a small arched stone bridge, surrounded by gigantic camphor trees and ancient cedars, the main building of the shrine stood quietly at the top of just six stone steps. The precincts of the shrine were extremely small, and the calm of the place was disturbed by the noise of mining, coming from a neighboring quarry over to the left. The area produced high-quality pyroxene andesite, which K Stone Merchants dug out and shipped mainly to Chiba Prefecture. Even during the heat of the summer, the noise from the compressor sounded continually, causing a delicate vibration in the air—like the wingbeat of an insect. Having finally walked this far without a break, Ippei sat down on the low stone handrail of the arched bridge, close by the shrine. Shielded by the deep shadows from the trees, from where both the shrine precincts and the quarry could be seen, Ippei liked to watch the stone tumble down as it was hewn from the rock face.

  “It’s hot,” said Ippei.

  “Yes, it is,”
agreed Kōji, applying his handkerchief—which was already dirty from wiping away his own perspiration—to the beads of sweat forming on Ippei’s brow. Compared with the words that Kōji had earnestly spoken up to now, only these words had about them a human quality. Ippei reduced his intercourse with the human world down to this one point, and rejecting everything else, it appeared as if he was trying to control those around him from this narrow perspective.

  “I bet you like to dress up like this for the girls in Ginza, don’t you?” continued Kōji, venomously. “I bet they laugh their socks off when they see those baggy khaki trousers, and those slip-ons, not to mention that uncouth open-collared shirt and that straw hat. And the way you sometimes slobber. Who on earth are you trying to impress in this fancy-dress costume? If you asked Yūko, she’d say you wear this getup because you like it, but what hasn’t changed is your resolutely bad fashion sense. You’re playing out the crime. You’ve assumed the shape of it. And I know you’ve done that to make a point to Yūko and me. I’m going to peel off the layers of your disguise. It’s certainly not my fault you are the way you are. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  “Wa…nt?” said Ippei, dubiously, still smiling.

  But Kōji was no longer prepared to listen.

  “That’s right. You do this of your own free will. I’ve gradually come to realize it. You intimidate us using false pretenses; then you try to convince us that those false pretenses are indispensable. You’re making a real good job of it. Without you, Yūko and I wouldn’t have come together. And yet, so long as you are here, Yūko and I can never be together. This strange relationship has come about because of your machinations. We can’t even kiss each other without thinking of that incident; memories of the crime taint its taste and turn it to ash. You’re conducting yourself just beautifully. You are waiting to see everyone prostrate themselves before you. It’s what you’ve wanted all along. Well, isn’t it?”

  Kōji realized that Ippei wasn’t listening to a thing he said and instead was bent over the stone handrail, staring fixedly at a long-horned beetle that had stopped there for a moment, and because he was motionless—hesitating as if he was about to place his straw hat over it, and the long-horned beetle, too, was stock-still on the surface of the cool stone in the shade of the trees—Ippei looked as though he were waiting for the assistance of some outside force to suddenly shorten the fixed distance between himself and the beetle.

  Kōji seized him by the scruff of the neck and gave him a yank. Ippei lost his balance. With his backside barely remaining on the stone handrail, his withered arms and legs seemed to float in the air, and with his head inclined, he watched Kōji’s face intently.

  “Hey, pay attention to what I’m saying. Don’t look so serious. Try smiling the way you always do.”

  Kōji lightly brushed his left index finger against Ippei’s lower lip. Ippei’s mouth immediately slackened, and as if mirroring Kōji’s own laughing mouth, it took on the shape of his customary smile.

  “All right. Now listen to me carefully,” continued Kōji, moving his hand away. “You are content with things the way they are. You even think that it would be your salvation if everyone followed your example and did as you do. You, at any rate, are alive. However crippled you may be, you’re alive, and that’s something. You’re taking a splendid vacation that has turned up at the end of the things you used to do: the flamboyant life you led when you were young; the artistic literary works you wrote, pouring scorn on others; and your uncontrollable preoccupation with the opposite sex. It’s just one long vacation. You’re forever making a show of that empty, splendid vacation, and now you are able to show off openly all of those thoughts you have harbored for so long. I don’t care much for people…Ah…ah. And then you slobber. You just grunt in response to the notions that people hold dear and turn them into something meaningless. Will?…Ah…ah…You turned the desolation of your soul into your prerogative, and you order others to respect that right. Eh? Yes, everyone makes choices and continues to behave as they wish. So, what’s so bad about me? What is it you hate about me? Come on, out with it! Say it! Say it, won’t you! Was it wrong of me to pick up that wrench from the hospital garden? You put it there, having discovered that was where Yūko and I were to secretly meet, didn’t you? Well? Admit it! Tell me what it is I have done wrong!”

  Just then, the half-naked quarry workers hurriedly divided into two groups and dodged a large rock fall. The stones kicked up a cloud of dust as they rolled down the cliff—revealing a fresh section of rock that glittered in the sunlight—and reached as far as a clump of tall-stemmed summer grasses before subsiding inelegantly.

  The muscular, sweat-soaked backs of the workers were lightly covered in white dust from the stones.

  Having witnessed the rock fall, an almost indescribable expression of delight surfaced on Ippei’s face. His eyes brimmed with ecstasy, while his nose seemed to detect the invigorating stench of death; a faint flush came to his suntanned cheeks. In that instant, Ippei’s trademark smile, which revealed his white teeth, appeared quite beautiful to Kōji.

  As if to spur himself on, Kōji continued to speak. Ippei’s silence, while Kōji was quiet, disoriented him, and he fancied that Ippei, not grasping at all what he was saying, had afforded him a glimpse of the uncanny abyss within him.

  “To tell the truth, thanks to me taking that wrench to your head, your thoughts are now complete; you’ve found a pretext for existing. What does life mean? Life for you is the inability to speak. What is the world to you? The world is your inability to speak. What is history? History is your inability to speak. What about the arts? Love? Politics? Everything and anything is your inability to speak, and so everything is coherent. The things you have been thinking about all along have come to fruition. But that was in the days when I imagined that all that was left intact within you was your intellect, and that, like a clock that has lost its dial, only the mechanism moved with vigor, ‘tick tock’—ticking away time with clockwork precision. But now I realize there is nothing inside you at all. I know it, because I have sniffed it out—like the people of a country who have long been unable to mourn their lost king, his death having been kept a closely guarded secret.

  “Our household has begun to revolve around the hollow cavern that lies inside you. If you try to imagine a house that has a deep and empty well with its mouth agape right in the middle of the parlor, that would be about right. An empty hole. A hole so large it would swallow up the world. You safeguard that dearly, and not only that, but you arranged Yūko and me around the periphery in a manner that suits you and took it into your head to create for yourself an entirely new family of the kind that wouldn’t have occurred to anyone else. An ideal, splendid family centered on that empty well.

  “When you moved your bedroom next to mine, you were at last close to achieving your objective. Before long, three empty holes or wells had been completed, and you intended to create an intimate, happy family that was the envy of others. Even I felt seduced by it. I almost wanted to lend a hand and make it happen. If I’d wanted to do it, it would have been easy. We could have discarded our troubles, dug ourselves a hole as big as yours, and, right in front of your very eyes, Yūko and I could have had done with it and slept together like a pair of frolicking beasts without a care in the world. We could have writhed around in front of you moaning with pleasure and then, finally, fallen asleep snoring. But I couldn’t bring myself to do that. And neither could Yūko. Do you understand? We simply couldn’t do it—afraid as we were of turning into sated beasts and seeing your plan succeed. And what makes it all the more unpleasant is the fact that you are aware of this.

  “I’ve gradually come to realize this since the picnic at the waterfall. When I was talking to you just now, I suddenly felt sure of it. Yūko fell victim to your machinations, and while she came dangerously close to helping you realize your plan, after everything even she couldn’t bring hersel
f to do it. You knew that.

  “What on earth are you hoping for? While realizing we can’t do it, you still seek to entice us. You corner us, knowing that we have nowhere to go. A common spider is better than you. At least a spider spins its own web and tries to ensnare its prey. You, on the other hand, don’t even spin out your empty existence. You don’t expend any effort at all. The vacuous being that you are wants to be at the sacred center of your empty world.

  “What did you expect? Tell me! What do you want?”

  Kōji’s line of questioning became increasingly fervent as he found it more and more difficult to tolerate this monologue that Ippei would never comprehend. He once again fell victim to his own irritation in trying to make Ippei understand his questions, as before, and when this happened, his eager voice faltered and took on a mean-sounding tone again.

  “What is it you want? Well? What do you really want to do?”

  Ippei had been silent for a long while.

  Just then, the western sky above the harbor started to glow with the setting sun, and the pebbles on the road cast their long shadows across its surface; as they did so, the first tears Kōji had seen Ippei shed spread thinly over his eyes.

  “Home…I want to go…back home.”

  Kōji felt betrayed by this childlike supplication and was seized with anger.

  “That’s a lie. Tell me the truth. I won’t let you go back until you do.”

  Once again Ippei fell into a long silence. Then, still sitting diagonally across the stone handrail, he gazed fixedly at the radiant western sky. Normally uncommonly dark and agitated as he tried to express many differing emotions, his eyes—more animated than in the past but not as vivid as those of a healthy person—were now completely still as they regarded the sunset, his irises openly reflecting the radiant western skies. The tightly congealed clouds were edged with yellow and crimson as a yolk-colored blaze of light streamed across the heavens.