Runaway Horses Page 33

  Honda felt that he had to hear a frank word about Isao from Iinuma.

  “Would you say,” he asked, “that the truth is that your son fulfills a dream that you’ve had ever since the days when you were Matsugae’s tutor?”

  “No,” answered Iinuma with a touch of defiance. “He’s my son. That’s all he is.” But then after this denial, he began to talk of Kiyoaki. “When I stop and think today, the young master dying the way he did was probably the only thing that could have happened. It must have been the will of heaven. As for Isao, well, he’s pretty much like his father. He’s young, and the times are different, so he’s got involved in something like this. Yes, I tried to instill the samurai virtues in the young master, but maybe it was my own boorishness that pushed me to do it. I suppose the young master did die of frustration . . .” Here Iinuma’s voice broke as his emotions got the better of him. As soon as he yielded in the least to his feelings, the result, it seemed, was like a dam giving way. “But still . . . he acted as his heart told him to act, and I’m sure that, if nothing else, he had that much satisfaction. At least, as time goes by, that’s what I find myself wanting more and more to believe. Otherwise, I would find it unbearable, though that’s my own selfish view. At any rate, the young master lived and died in a way suited to himself. As for me, an outsider, and all my anxiety, everything I tried was pointless and a waste of effort.

  “Isao, though, is my own son. I raised him very strictly in accordance with my beliefs. And his response was all that I could have wanted. I was delighted at his reaching the third degree in kendo before he was out of his teens, but since then, needless to say, he’s gotten out of hand. Perhaps he was too deeply influenced by my own life. But there was more to it than that. He was too anxious to be freed from his father’s guidance. He put too much trust in himself, and this was the root cause of his going astray. Now in this affair, if through your great effort, Judge Honda, the sentence imposed is somehow a light one, the chastisement will do that boy a world of good. Surely there’s no chance of the death penalty or life imprisonment, is there?”

  “You needn’t worry about that,” said Honda in laconic reassurance.

  “Ah, Judge Honda! Thank you for everything. Father and son, Isao and I have had no greater benefactor in our lives than you.”

  “You’d do well to spare your gratitude until after the trial.”

  Iinuma bowed his head again. Now that he had let himself indulge in sentiment, the conventional vulgarity of his expression suddenly vanished. As he became drunker, his eyes began to water in an unsettling manner, and his whole body seemed to give off the feeling, like an invisible vapor, that there was something he wanted to say.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Judge Honda,” Iinuma finally declared. The pitch of his voice rose somewhat as he went on. “I know, I tell you. It’s that I’m impure beyond words and my son is pure. That’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Not really.” Somewhat irked, Honda made his reply vague.

  “No, that’s it. There’s no doubt about it. And since I’ve gone so far, let me go further: my boy was arrested just two days before they were to strike. Who do you think he has to thank for that?”

  “Well now . . .” Honda knew that Iinuma was on the verge of saying something better left unsaid, but there was no way to stop him.

  “You’re doing so much for us, Judge, I find it painful to make this revelation after all your kindness, but I suppose a client shouldn’t keep anything from his lawyer. So I’ll make a clean breast of it. I’m the one. I secretly reported my son to the police. At the last possible moment I saved my son’s life.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “Why? Because if I hadn’t, my son’s life would have ended.”

  “But, putting aside the good or evil of what had been planned, didn’t you feel in any way that perhaps you should let your son achieve what he set out to do?”

  “It was because I looked ahead. I’m always looking ahead, Judge.” Flushed from drink, Iinuma abruptly reached for his seal-collared inverness which lay upon a clothing box in the corner of the room. Heedless of the dust he scattered, he shook open the coat with a flapping noise and held it up like a mantle. “Here,” he said. “This is me. This inverness is myself. There is no sleight-of-hand involved. The inverness is the father. It’s like the dark sky of a winter night. So the folds of the inverness reach far and wide, covering whatever spot the son might place his foot upon. The son runs about wanting to see the light, but he cannot. The huge black inverness is spread wide over his head. As long as the night continues, the inverness sternly makes him acknowledge the night. When the morning comes, the inverness falls to earth and lets the son’s eyes be dazzled by the light. Such is the father. Am I not right, Judge Honda? My son didn’t want to acknowledge this inverness, and he did what he wanted to do. Therefore it’s only natural that he be taken to task. For it’s still night, and the inverness knows this and wants to prevent the son from going to his death.

  “These leftist scum—the more pressure you put on them, the stronger they get. Japan is invaded by their germs and those who made Japan so weak as to be susceptible to them are the politicians and the businessmen. I knew all about it without my son telling me. And those in the advance guard ready to leap to the defense of the Imperial Family when a crisis threatens the nation are, as hardly needs saying, we ourselves. But there’s the matter of picking the time. There’s such a thing as the favorable moment. Determination alone counts for nothing. Thus I have to conclude that my son is too young. The necessary discernment is still beyond him.

  “I, the father, have the determination. Indeed, I may say that my patriotism, my agony of soul, exceeds that of my son. My son tried to hide everything from me that he was intent on carrying out—wouldn’t you say he was blind to his father?

  “I always look ahead. Rather than take action, the best course is to achieve results without acting. Am I right or not? I heard that at the time of the May Fifteenth Incident there was a flood of petitions asking leniency. So the naïve purity of the young defendants will surely evoke public sympathy. We can count on that. And my boy, rather than losing his life, will come home covered with glory. His whole life long, he’ll have no worries as to where his next meal is coming from. Because the world will forever hold him in awe as Isao Iinuma of the Showa League of the Divine Wind.”

  Honda was at first struck dumb, but then he wondered if Iinuma was being altogether candid.

  By Iinuma’s account, the primary savior of Isao was Isao’s father, and Honda, in coming to the son’s rescue, was merely an agent assigned to bring about the realization of Iinuma’s plan. No words could more effectively negate the goodwill shown by Honda in throwing aside his career and undertaking Isao’s defense without a fee. Nor could any words more defile the nobility in Honda’s action.

  But, oddly enough, Honda was not angered. The person he was concerned about defending was Isao, not his father. However blemished the father, his blemishes had nothing to do with his son. They had not the least effect upon the son’s purity of intention.

  Beyond this, Honda, who should have been offended to some degree by Iinuma’s boorish display, had another reason for remaining unperturbed. For as Iinuma, having said all this, kept hastily pouring himself more to drink in this little room from which he had long since excluded the waitress, Honda was aware of a tremor in his hairy hands. And here Honda perceived a sentiment that Iinuma would never voice, something that was probably the deepest motive of his betrayal. The son, in other words, had been on the verge of achieving a bloody glory and a sublime death, and the father had been unable to restrain his jealousy.

  32

  HIS HIGHNESS Prince Harunori Toin was another to whom the affair had been a severe shock. He was not apt to remember those who came once or twice to pay their respects, but the memory of Isao’s visit that night was still vivid in his mind. And, especially since Lieutenant Hori had brought the boy, he could not take a det
ached view of this incident. Naturally, as soon as the affair broke, the Prince made a long-distance telephone call to his steward to seal his lips about Isao’s visit. But since the steward was, in effect, a minion of the Imperial Household Ministry, the Prince could put little trust in him.

  For some time now, the Prince had found in the Lieutenant a like-minded companion with whom he could deplore the times. The gentlemen of the Imperial Household Ministry were not amused at this. They frequently admonished him for granting audiences indiscriminately, without regard to rank. But this very conduct grew out of resentment at the Ministry’s constraints, requiring him to report even the shortest trip, and so he could hardly be expected to listen meekly to this advice.

  Since his appointment as regimental commander in Yamaguchi, the Prince had shown a certain intemperance in speech and action which had not gone unnoticed by the Imperial Household Minister and the Director of the Division of Special Affairs. Waiting until Harunori came up to Tokyo, they arranged to call on him for a friendly visit, in order to admonish him gently. The Prince heard them out without a word, and made no reply even after they were finished. A long silence ensued.

  The Minister and the Director had expected the Prince to charge them angrily with meddling in military affairs. If he did so, their resources were at an end.

  The Prince’s expression was extremely subdued, however, and the moment for him to lash out at them was already past. Finally, his slender eyes half open but radiating dignity, the Prince looked from one official to the other and then said: “This is not the first time I have had to suffer your interference. If you must interfere, I hope you will devote equal attention to the rest of the Imperial Family. How is it that I alone have long had to bear the brunt of this?”

  Before the Minister could so much as protest, the Prince, struggling to keep his deep anger in check, began to deliver a tirade.

  “Years ago, when Marquis Matsugae affronted me with the greatest impertinence regarding the woman who was to be my wife, the Imperial Household Ministry supported the Marquis and gave me no help whatsoever. It was a blatant case of the Imperial Family being insulted by one of its own subjects! Who is the Imperial Household Ministry meant to serve? Should it be any cause for wonder that since then I have viewed the maneuverings of you gentlemen with suspicion?”

  The Imperial Household Minister and the Director of the Division of Special Affairs could offer nothing in reply, and they hastily took their leave.

  Lending an ear to the violent words of Lieutenant Hori and two or three other young officers had been a great diversion for the Prince, and he enjoyed being looked up to as the blue sky showing through the dark clouds that hung over Japan. A grievous wound lay deep within his heart. He was happy that this was a kind of beacon to some men, and that his sad, maverick spirit had become the source of hope for many. However, he was not at all inclined to take action.

  Once the affair of Isao and his companions had come to light, nothing more was heard from Lieutenant Hori in Manchuria. The Prince had only his memory of that single audience granted Isao to draw on, but now, when he recalled the light blazing in the young man’s clear eyes on that summer night, he realized that they had been the eyes of one sworn to die.

  The copy of The League of the Divine Wind given to him by Isao, which he had read only hastily at the time, was still on the book shelf in the commandant’s room. And so the Prince, hoping to search out the true meaning of the affair, took up the book again and read through it during his spare moments away from his military duties. More than the force of the story itself, what seemed to flare out from every line of the book was the intensity of Isao’s eyes that night and the fire of his words.

  The rough simplicity of a shared military life was something of a boon to the Prince, who had been altogether sheltered from the world, and he found it extremely congenial. Yet here too, there was deference and regard for rank. Not until he met that young civilian had he encountered such burning purity, and at searingly close range. And so the conversation of that night had been unforgettable.

  What was loyalty? Soldiers had no need to wonder about that, the fiery young man had said. Their loyalty as soldiers was part of their duty.

  Those words, the Prince realized, had struck home. Adopting a gruff, martial manner, the Prince had fitted himself to the obvious standard of loyalty of the soldier. Probably he had sought refuge in it in flight from a host of threatening sorrows. He knew nothing firsthand of the kind of loyalty that burns and destroys the flesh.

  Nor had he had any reason to take notice of its possible existence. The night Isao was brought to him was the first time that the Prince had had an authentic encounter with such fiery loyalty, with such raw and uncontained loyalty. The experience had thrilled him.

  Prince Harunori was, of course, ready at any moment to give his life for the Emperor. Some fourteen years older than His Majesty, who was thirty-one, the Prince had a love for the Emperor like that of an affectionate older brother. But these were serene, quiet feelings, a pleasant loyalty like the shade cast by a huge tree. Then too, the Prince habitually viewed with some suspicion the loyalty of those beneath him, and kept his distance from it.

  Deeply impressed by Isao, Prince Toin had dedicated himself more gladly than ever to the simplicity of the military spirit. And now it occurred to him that the reason no evidence of military involvement in this incident had come to light was that the accused had kept silent to protect Lieutenant Hori. This speculation increased his sympathy all the more.

  Prince Toin recalled a passage from The League of the Divine Wind that Isao must have read with keen appreciation, applying it to himself: “Most of them did not take to refinement. They loved the moon shining on the banks of the Shirakawa with the love of men who believed that it was the last harvest moon they would see in this life. They prized the cherry blossoms like men for whom this spring’s blossoms were the last that would ever bloom.” The hot blood of such young men made the forty-five-year-old regimental commander’s heart stir excitedly within his breast.

  Prince Toin began to ponder earnestly whether or not he could save these boys. All his life, whenever he became weary of thinking, whenever a problem seemed to have no solution, his practice had been to listen to Western-style music.

  He called his orderly and had him light a fire in the chilly parlor of this large official residence. Then he selected a record and laid it on the turntable with his own hand.

  Because he wanted to listen to something pleasant, he had chosen Richard Strauss’s “Till Eulenspiegel” performed by the Berlin Philharmonic under the direction of Wilhelm Furtwängler, and he dismissed his orderly so that he could enjoy it alone.

  “Till Eulenspiegel” was a satiric sixteenth-century folk tale. Hauptmann’s play and Strauss’s tone poem based upon it were famous.

  The late December wind whistled through the broad, dark garden outside the commandant’s residence, and seemed to blend with the sound of the flames in the stove.

  Without so much as loosening the collar of his Army tunic, Prince Toin settled himself in an armchair with a white linen slipcover that was cold to the touch. He crossed his legs in their military breeches, and the tip of one foot in its white cotton sock hung motionless in midair. The buttons at the knee of breeches like these constricted the upper calf, and so one usually unfastened them when one’s boots were off, but the Prince paid no attention to the slight discomfort of this congestion. He caressed the waxed and curled tip of his moustache lightly, as if touching the tail feathers of some fierce bird.

  It was a long time since he had listened to this record. He wanted something entertaining, but when he heard the first weak sounds of the horn that played Till’s theme he had the immediate feeling that his choice had been wrong, that this was not the kind of music he would enjoy hearing now. For this was not a gay and mischievous Till, but a sad and lonely one, as transparent as crystal, a character fashioned by the conductor himself.

  But Prince
Toin kept on listening. From Till’s going into a frenzy, when he seemed to make the silvery bundle of his nerves into a duster that beat its way throughout the parlor, up until the end, when he received his sentence of death and was executed, Prince Toin heard it all. When the record was done, he got to his feet abruptly and rang the bell summoning his orderly. He instructed him to put in a long-distance call to Tokyo and to get his steward on the line.

  The Prince had come to a decision. On the occasion of his return to Tokyo for the approaching New Year’s holidays, he would request a few minutes with His Majesty, during which he would make bold to bring to the Imperial attention the unparalleled loyalty of Isao and his companions. And when some gracious response had come forth from His Majesty, the Prince would convey this in strictest confidence to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. But first, before the year ended, he had to invite the lawyer in charge of Isao’s defense to discuss with him all the ramifications of the case.

  By telephone, then, he ordered the steward to find out the name of the lawyer and to have him come to the Toin residence on a date immediately following the Prince’s arrival in Tokyo on December twenty-ninth.

  Until he was able to find a suitable place of his own, Honda had established himself in a room that was part of the office of a friend of his on the fifth floor of the Marunouchi Building. The friend was also a lawyer, and a college classmate.

  One day an official came from the Toin residence to convey a confidential request from His Highness. Since this was indeed something unprecedented, Honda was startled. When he saw the little man in a black suit walking stealthily across the brown linoleum floor without making a sound, Honda felt an indescribable distaste, and, after he had led him into the conference room, the sensation grew more acute. The little man had a frozen yet uneasy expression as he looked around the small conference room, which was separated from the office by a wall of rippled glass. He was anxious about being overheard.