The Frolic of the Beasts Page 4

  Kōji thought only of Yūko. He wasn’t to know until much later how much of a hopeless love affair theirs would prove to be, and absorbed in his fantasy he formed an exceedingly simple schematic picture in his mind. First of all, there was a miserable, despairing woman. Then there was a self-indulgent, heartless husband. And last, a hot-blooded, sympathetic young man. And with that the scenario was complete.

  * * *

  —

  That summer’s day, which had begun with the assignation at the hospital—Yūko carrying her sky-blue parasol—and which had culminated in the incident at nine o’clock in the evening, took place some six months after Kōji had first met Yūko. That is to say, it occurred after he had taken a shop delivery around to Ippei’s residence in Shibashirogane, where he first made her acquaintance.

  The more frequent their meetings, the more Kōji felt driven to despair, right from the start of the days they were scheduled to meet. It was as if a cold torrent was beginning to flow clamorously in his innermost heart, and he hated himself more than he had done on any other morning. The request for a date would always come from him, and he would importune her before approval was eventually obtained. Moreover, Yūko would take him along only on shopping excursions, trips out for lunch, or else to a dance if he was lucky, and then she would promptly leave whenever it suited her.

  On the morning of their last tryst, Kōji lifted his head out from under his quilt and gazed over at his university notebooks piled up on his desk, their voluminous open pages curling up in the summer sunlight as it came in through the window. As he did so he recalled the bundle of papers that Yūko, after considerable hesitation, had disclosed to him at their last meeting. The papers were a private investigator’s report she had commissioned, a compilation of the names of Ippei’s female acquaintances that detailed the name and address of one girl in particular—Machiko—as well as the fact that Ippei visited her every Tuesday evening.

  “You must never tell my husband about this, do you understand? In any case, I’m content just knowing about it. It’s just that, well, he mustn’t find out I’ve checked up on him like this. That’s all I have to live for at the moment. Promise you will keep it secret? I shall die if you betray me.”

  That was the first time Kōji had seen Yūko cry. It wasn’t a stream; on the contrary, the tears spread out faintly from the corners of her eyes and in an instant had become a sparkling thin film covering the whole of the surface. Kōji felt that, if he were to touch those tears, which had clearly been shed out of pride, his finger would freeze.

  He recalled experiencing a dream at the time. In it, Ippei was gripped by a wild ecstasy, having seen the bundle of papers, and burning with conviction he determined to renounce all the other women and rush back to his wife’s side. Once there, however, he discovered not his wife but her corpse. This quick drama had flashed across Kōji’s mind in one noisy instant. It was like listening to the siren of an ambulance as it dashed along a deserted street late at night. Kōji almost lent a hand in the accomplishment of that tragedy.

  * * *

  —

  “I’m going to go and visit someone in T Hospital at three,” said Yūko, adding that Kōji should wait for her in the front garden of the hospital at three thirty.

  T Hospital was a large, modern building located not very far from Ippei’s residence. It stood roughly halfway up a south-facing slope in the middle of a residential area forming a valley, and a gentle, wide sloping driveway looped its way around the hospital to the front entrance. This newly built five-story hospital had an airy appearance, incorporating the piloti style of architecture, with glass-faced walls, white-tiled pillars, and blue-tiled window frames. There was a lawn on the south-facing slope of the front garden, as well as hemp palms, Himalayan cedars, and a variety of shrubbery. Two or three benches had been set out, although nothing in particular had been provided to block out the intense sunlight of the summer afternoon.

  With one side of his face exposed to the westerly sun, Kōji stared fixedly in the direction of the main entrance and felt as though the light were eating into his face like a red crab, leaving its imprint on his cheek. It was three forty-five, and there was still no sign of Yūko. A pair of kites was flying above the hospital. Cheerless fluorescent lamps shone from within the large, bright windows. One window was closed in by a set of glossy venetian blinds. Another displayed the shining silver of medical instruments. And by the windowsill a kettle was visible, and a red plastic toy.

  Sweat dripped down the collar of Kōji’s suit as he waited. He suddenly felt that what Yūko had told him about visiting someone in the hospital was a lie. Perhaps she’d come here in connection with her own condition. What if by some chance that corruption that had taken such a firm hold of Ippei had also rooted itself inside Yūko and inflamed her soul like a summer sunset?

  * * *

  —

  A sky-blue parasol unfurled near the entrance. Like someone emerging into a heavy downpour, no sooner had Yūko stepped out from behind the large glass doors than she had opened her sun shade. She’s trying to hide her face, thought Kōji, gloomily.

  It was approximately thirty yards between the entrance and the bench, the two locations being intersected by a wide vehicle turnaround. He lacked the courage to fix his eyes on her slowly approaching form and averted his gaze toward the ground. Something by his feet caught his attention. It was a black wrench. It had doubtless been forgotten and left by somebody while they were repairing their car on the driveway.

  Much later while in prison, Kōji repeatedly reflected on the discovery he made at that moment. That wrench was not merely something that had been dropped there; rather it was the manifestation of a material phenomenon making its sudden entry into this world. To all appearances, the wrench, which lay on its side half-buried in the overgrown lawn exactly on the border with the concrete driveway, looked all the more natural in its present position—as though it ought to be there. However, this was merely a splendid deception, for it was undoubtedly some other indescribable substance that had provisionally assumed the form of a wrench. Some form of substance that originally ought not to have been here at all; a substance that, having been excluded from this world’s order, at times suddenly manifests itself in order to upset the very foundations of that order—the purest of pure substances. It was that substance that must have taken the shape of the wrench.

  We normally consider “will” to be something intangible. Take, for instance, a swallow that skims past the eaves, the strange shapes of bright clouds, the sharp ridgeline of a tiled roof, lipstick, a lost button, a single glove, a pencil, or the hard fastener of a flexible curtain. We don’t normally refer to such objects by the term “will.” However, if we assume that not our will, but the will of “something” exists, then it would come as no surprise to find that “something” manifesting itself as some form of material phenomenon. While consciously working to upset our even, everyday sense of order, it becomes stronger, more unifying, waiting for the moment when it can integrate us into its own inevitably full and jostling system, and while it normally scrutinizes us from some invisible form, at the most critical moment it takes on shape and manifests itself as a tangible material object. Where do they come from? Kōji often conjectured, while brooding in his cell, that such objects probably came from the stars.

  That was but a moment. He gazed intently at the black luster of the wrench. The moment was imbued with a quite inexplicable enchantment; time stood still and almost burst with the fascination of the wrench. Time was like a basket piled up with fruit. Thanks to that dirty, black, key-shaped piece of iron, a cool, mellow, charming fascination overflowed from the basket in a mere instant. Without hesitation Kōji picked it up and put it in the inside pocket of his summer jacket. It burned like fire and penetrated his shirt, pleasantly warming the flesh of his chest. Before long, the sky-blue parasol came closely into view, its stretched silk canopy
raised aloft, and Yūko smiled wryly with thickly painted lips.

  “Sorry to have kept you. I should think you were hot, weren’t you? I should have let you borrow this.”

  She held her parasol against the back of the bench and blocked out the westerly sun. At that moment, Kōji had no reason at all to believe that Yūko had witnessed his strange behavior just now.

  * * *

  —

  Kōji vividly recollected what they had discussed at length under the hot sunlight. To begin with, Yūko related how the condition of the patient she had just visited had improved considerably more than she had expected. Kōji listened without believing a word of it. Then, totally out of the blue, she said that she thought she had aged, a notion that Kōji enthusiastically denied.

  “But when I look at my husband’s face I don’t think there’s any doubt about it,” said Yūko, as always, gradually broaching the topic of conversation Kōji most disliked. Whenever she began talking about Ippei, she appeared to Kōji like a woman who was rapidly sinking in a swamp right in front of him. Before he even had time to reach out his hand, she had slipped between the open lotus flowers, feet, thighs, stomach, and then chest, instantly drowned in the mire, until even her thickly adorned thin lips disappeared, still wearing that smile, and afterward, all that remained on the surface of the swamp was a faint ripple of water.

  Yūko told the story, which, incidentally, Kōji had already heard from time to time, of how much fun Ippei had been in his twenties; how he had been the personification of youth itself. That was evident in the long, enraptured commentary “The Vilification of Youth” that appeared in his biography of Li He, and at the time he wrote it, Ippei undoubtedly looked upon his own adolescence in the same light as the celestial man in that brilliant poem of the same name:

  Astride a glittering saddle of gold,

  Atop a splendid, stout dapple-gray horse,

  Dressed in fine scented silk clothes,

  With a beautiful maiden in his arms,

  He discards the bejeweled cup,

  And the lowly people looking on exclaim,

  “He must be a celestial man!”

  The respect in which Kōji differed from Ippei could be simply expressed in the verse: “He went through life without so much as reading a word.”

  There was no reason why Yūko should have recited this poem while sitting on the bench drenched in the summer sun. She had previously lent the book to Kōji, and she had in particular drawn his attention to this piece, which he read in the austere surroundings of his lodgings; he realized that the disagreeable line quoted by Ippei during their first conversation in the bar that night was the closing verse of the poem. The young Ippei had certainly not wanted for anything. But now everything he possessed had begun to emit the stench of decay. There was no reason to believe that Yūko had not detected this foul odor, but likely as not she had come to love its fragrance. Ever since Ippei had convinced himself that only good fortune was destined to come his way, the manner in which he lived his dreadfully affected and artificial lifestyle had become markedly conspicuous.

  Ah! It was an unbearable topic of conversation for Kōji! What could he do to shut her up? He suddenly stood up, swung his arms around as if he was doing gymnastic exercises (the wrench, which had already cooled, repeatedly knocked against his chest), and then walked around and sat down on the back-to-back bench. This nonchalant reaction to what Yūko saw as a stolid conversation cut her deeply.

  There was a moment of hot silence around the bench. The chirring of a cicada sounded from the hairy trunk of a hemp palm. Kōji felt the tip of one of the parasol’s spokes stick slightly in his hair, but he left it as it was. A little while later, Yūko stepped in front of him, and stared down at him, still holding the parasol. Her face appeared slightly pale due to the shadow it cast.

  “Why are you angry? What do you want me to do? You’re so self-centered, what right have you got—”

  “What right? Don’t talk nonsense. Why don’t you sit down?”

  “I don’t want to. It’s so hot here.”

  The protest sounded extremely childlike.

  “Well, if that’s the case, please move out of the way. I’m trying to look at the view.”

  “I’m going home.”

  Yūko, however, did not go home. Feeling hurt by the certain knowledge this young nobody had of the hollow home to which she ought to return, Yūko, far from following her intentions, sat down beside Kōji on the scorching bench.

  “Can’t you leave that subject alone?”

  “I have, haven’t I?”

  “It’s annoying when you talk about him all the time.”

  “It’s an uncomfortable topic of conversation for me, too, you know. It’s not just you.”

  “You mean you talk about him involuntarily?”

  “It’s my song. Is it forbidden to hum a tune? It’s my song I tell you.”

  “And you expect me to join in the chorus? You must be joking. It’s a timid, cowardly song with only a bone-like shell of self-respect remaining.”

  Kōji’s boorish choice of words was unsubstantiated by the facts. It was unclear when he had begun to use such uncouth language and at what point Yūko had chosen to overlook it. And there was no doubt that she welcomed those too-familiar youthful words as if she were being pleasantly stung with a light and pliant whip. In any case, Kōji was caught in a dilemma between the choice of language—which was constrained by an excess of familiarity—and excessive behavior, which was compelled by his emotions. While he was looking closely at Yūko’s hot cheeks, there appeared to be between them, as always, a distance similar to that between the skin of a patient and her doctor.

  It was a meaningless squabble that went round and round in circles. Yet, because it was an honest anger, their heartbeats quickened. And then the anger quietly lost direction and gave way to a sense of common purpose…Kōji later wondered why, despite this confrontation, the quiet serenity of the surrounding scenery had remained etched in his memory.

  The grassy south-facing slope commanded a view of the immediate locality—the three sides of the town in the valley, surrounded by hills that were covered with rows of houses, and on the summit of the hills stood sparse clumps of trees reaching up and almost touching the sky.

  Closely built houses—some old, some modern—basked in the westerly summer sun and produced an unattractive, stark stereoscopic effect. The yellowish buildings of a junior high school soared precipitously in the east, while to the west could be seen an automobile firm, above which an ad balloon—displaying the names of new models of cars—hung in the sky like a sagging stomach. It was quiet, without a single solitary human form; a weary scene engulfed in the vast summer light. There were graves, too. Close to the summit, a narrow cemetery containing no more than a dozen or so tombstones, closed in on the house rooftops from above, looking like a group of cornered, naked refugees about to face the firing squad—backs against the cliff wall, standing on tiptoe, trembling with fear, huddled together in a state of paralysis, unable to help themselves.

  * * *

  —

  Then came the evening meal, where they hardly said a word to each other. And afterward, Kōji’s sudden victory and Yūko’s submission. From that evening until nightfall, everything seemed to slide down like the flow of a dirty waterfall. After dinner they had gone to a small basement drinking house. Yūko suddenly began to speak her mind, to which Kōji added strong rebuttals, and for the first time they quarreled to their hearts’ content, stinging each other to the quick. Kōji accused Yūko of being spineless.

  “You’re just a weak-willed coward. You’re afraid of facing up to reality. Of course, you want to know the truth, but you refuse to look at it with your own two eyes.”

  “That’s a lie. It’s just that the truth, when I do eventually face up to it, is bound to be wors
e than it is on paper. I would rather see Ippei lose his presence of mind. Seeing his impassive face, well, it would simply be the end.”

  “Well, if it’s the end it’s the end, isn’t it?”

  “What would a child like you know about it?”

  Kōji became confused, losing track of where he was trying to lead Yūko. Was it not possible that in his passion he was trying to transform her into the woman Ippei desired her to be?

  Even assuming it was so, he hated the monstrously grotesque reality of Yūko’s obstinate refusal to change. And if it were something he could break down, even if the result meant the success of Ippei’s stratagem, he would have to accept it.

  “If that’s the case, do you hate my husband? Or is it that you really hate me?” said Yūko, at length, her tone challenging.

  “Maybe both of you. But maybe I hate the boss the most.”

  “You’re a strange one, aren’t you? Here I am, a lady of means and with a lover to boot, receiving a monthly allowance from my husband. Why can’t I stay as I am? Even if I carry on like this, you won’t suffer at all, will you?”

  “It’s because you tell lies. That’s why we can’t go on like this. I can’t allow such lies, even if they are nothing to do with me.”

  And in this way Kōji finally showed his bright, youthful colors. Twenty-one-year-old Kōji—wearing a red military uniform and blowing his trumpet. He was able to behold his own portrait without being the least bit ashamed. Being in a position to openly scrape off the dark, worldly confusion of others was a privilege of youth, and after all, who could stand in his way?