Runaway Horses Read online

  The spectators applauded. Young Iinuma had eliminated one of the opposition. Now as he faced another man from the red team, first squatting down, then swiftly drawing his stave from his hip, his virile grace persuaded one that he was already master of his new antagonist. Even to Honda, as little as he knew of kendo, young Iinuma’s perfect form was evident. However violent the action, he maintained his poise throughout, his flawless bearing at each moment fixed in space like a classic pattern cut from blue cloth. He always kept his balance, unhindered by the clinging heaviness of the air. Though for others the atmosphere might be hot, sticky mud, for young Iinuma it seemed a light, congenial element.

  He took a step forward out of the area shaded by the canopy, and his black cuirass shone with the luster of the clear sky above.

  His opponent retreated a step. The blue of his kendo tunic and hakama was faded and uneven from many washings, especially where the cords that secured his cuirass had rubbed against his back to form a worn x-shaped pattern. A bright red pennant was attached here.

  As young Iinuma advanced one step farther, Honda, whose eye was becoming accustomed to the action, recognized the ominous tension the set of his gauntlets conveyed. The forearm visible between the flaring cuffs of the gauntlets and the sleeves of his tunic showed a thickness unexpected in so young a man, the tendons straining beneath the light skin of the inner arms. The white leather of the gauntlet palms shaded into a bluish tint from their cloth backs, color as lyrical as the dawn sky.

  The tips of the two staves moved cautiously together, like the noses of two wary dogs confronting each other.

  “Ee-yaah!” his opponent shouted furiously.

  “Ah-ree-yah, ah-ree-yah, ah-ree-yaah!” young Iinuma shouted back at him, his voice sonorous.

  He swung his stave to the right to block the other’s thrust at his waist, and there was a crack like a bursting firecracker. Then they closed with each other, grappling face to face until their sword arms locked together. The referee separated them.

  At the official’s signal to resume combat, young Iinuma, without pausing for breath, moved upon his opponent like a blue whirlwind, delivering a combination attack aimed at the head. Each blow struck with force and precision, each more intense. So overwhelming was their combined effect that the other boy, after parrying to right and to left to ward off the first and second blows, seemed to take of his own volition the third, which crashed down directly upon his mask. Both referees flung up their small triangular white pennants at the same moment.

  The young athlete had thus eliminated his second opponent, and this time there were shouts of appreciation as well as applause from the spectators.

  “The tactic of pressing with vigor and driving him back for the kill, you see,” the kendo instructor next to Honda observed in an affected tone. “Red there was watching the tip of white’s stave. No better way to lose. It just doesn’t do to eye the other man’s stave. You do it, and you get flurried.”

  Though he knew almost nothing of kendo, Honda grasped that there was something like a coiled spring within this young boy that gave off a dark blue glow. The vigor of his spirit manifested itself without a trace of disorder, and, whatever the resistance, created a vacuum within his opponent’s resolve, if but for an instant. And the usual result was that, just as air is drawn into a vacuum, so this weak spot of his opponent drew Iinuma’s stave. Thrust with perfect form, that stave, Honda thought, would no doubt pierce the guard of any opponent as easily as one enters through an unlocked door.

  The third red opponent confronted young Iinuma, advancing with a weaving motion, as though reluctant. The edge of his towel, held in place across his forehead by his mask, was sloppily arranged. Instead of forming a white line straight across his brow, one of its edges dipped down, almost touching his right eye. He hunched his back slightly, like some sort of strange, erratic bird.

  This, however, was a man to be reckoned with. Every dip and rise of his stave told something of a tough and shrewd competitor. Like a bird who snatches up the bait and then quickly darts to safety, this opponent would take distant aim for the forearm, strike home in most cases, and then withdraw swiftly to give a shout of victory. And to defend himself, he would not scruple to use any tactic at all, no matter how graceless.

  Matched with such an opponent, young Iinuma’s very grace, like that of a swan gliding confidently across the water, seemed vulnerable. This time his beauty and skill appeared likely to be his downfall.

  His opponent disrupted the rhythm of movement and striking by constantly slipping away. He meant to infect him with his own awkwardness, his own unruliness.

  Honda had forgotten the heat. He had even forgotten the cigarettes he liked so well. He realized that he had stopped discarding butts into the ashtray in front of him. Just as he put out his hand to smooth the badly wrinkled tablecloth, the priest beside him uttered a cry of alarm.

  Looking up, Honda saw that both referees were waving crossed pennants.

  “That was lucky,” said the priest. “He was almost struck on the gauntlet.”

  Young Iinuma was trying to decide how to pursue an opponent who kept at such a distance. If Iinuma took a step forward, the other retreated. His opponent’s defense was formidable. He protected himself artfully, as clinging as seaweed.

  Then, when Iinuma suddenly attacked with a fierce cry, he countered his thrust derisively, and the two of them came together. Their two staves pointed almost straight upward, shaking slightly, like the masts of two boats side by side, and their cuirasses glistened like wet hulls. Antagonists though they were, their staves were now locked together as though united in reverence to a sky that offered no hope. The hard breathing, the sweat, the straining muscles, the force of their contention compressed into burning frustration . . . Such were the elements that went into their immobile symmetry.

  Just as the referee was about to call out to put an end to this, young Iinuma, using the strength his opponent was mustering against him, suddenly broke free in a swift backward leap accompanied by the slapping sound of his stave landing a clean blow. He had struck the other’s chest as he came away.

  Both referees raised their white pennants, and the spectators applauded enthusiastically.

  Honda finally lit a cigarette. It glowed feebly, its fire almost imperceptible within the pool of sunlight creeping over the table, and soon he lost interest in it.

  Drops of young Iinuma’s sweat sprinkled the dust at his feet like a libation of blood. When the boy arose from his squatting position, there was supple vigor in the way his pale Achilles’ tendons stretched beneath the dusty hems of his blue hakama.

  5

  ISAO IINUMA, kendoist of the third rank, scored five victories in succession, bringing the first round to an end. When the fifth and final round of the match was completed, the officials declared the white team the winner. Furthermore, the silver cup for outstanding individual achievement was to go to Iinuma. As he advanced to receive his award, the sweat of combat wiped away but his cheeks still flushed, he showed the cool modesty suited to a victor. Honda could not recall ever having encountered so manly a young man.

  He wanted to talk with the boy and to inquire about his father, but the priests were eager to escort him to the lunch being served in an adjacent building. During the meal the chief priest turned to Honda.

  “Would Your Honor care to go up the mountain?” he asked.

  Honda hesitated for a moment as he gazed out at the courtyard which lay at the mercy of the blazing sun.

  “Of course ordinary visitors are not permitted to go all the way,” the priest added. “Beyond a certain point the mountain is normally restricted to those who have been devoted to our shrine for many years. To enter there is truly a solemn experience. Gentlemen who have worshipped at the peak say that it gave them a sudden feeling of awesome mystery, as stunning as if they had been struck by lightning.”

  Honda looked once more at the summer sunlight shining on the foliage of the courtyard. Could my
stery indeed be so bright? His imagination was stirred and he felt himself tempted.

  Honda was only willing to sanction a mystery that could flourish in the clear light of day. Thus, if there could be mystery shot through with brightness, he would gladly accept it. A miraculous phenomenon with no link to reality had only a shadowy, dubious existence. But any mystery that could maintain itself beneath the pitiless glare of the sun was a mystery fit to occupy a place beside clearly acknowledged principles. Honda was willing to make room for it in his world.

  After a short rest following lunch, one of the younger priests led Honda along the path taken by pilgrims, and after a five- or six-minute walk up a gentle slope covered with lush greenery, they arrived at Sai Shrine, the subordinate shrine within the Omiwa precincts. Its formal title was the Sai Shrine of Omiwa Aramitama. Here pilgrims customarily underwent the rite of purification before proceeding farther up the mountain.

  A grove of cedars encircled the unpretentious shrine, whose roof was thatched with cypress bark. So tranquil was its atmosphere that Honda felt that the harsh god whom it honored must have grown serene. Behind the shrine some red pines rose high above the roof, evoking for Honda the long, agile legs of an ancient warrior.

  After Honda’s purification, the young priest relinquished him to the care of another guide, a man of about forty wearing rubber-soled climbing shoes. His manner was extremely deferential. Just as they were to begin the formal climb of the sacred mountain, Honda noticed his first wild lily of the day.

  “There’s a lily they’ll be picking for tomorrow’s Saigusa Festival, I imagine.”

  “Indeed, sir, they will. But they’ll never find three thousand on this mountain, so they’ve already gathered lilies from all the related shrines around here and put them in water in the sanctuary. The young men who fought in the match today will be pulling a cartload of lilies to Nara tomorrow as a sacred offering.” And then, cautioning Honda that yesterday’s rain had made the clay underfoot treacherous, the guide turned abruptly and started up the mountain path.

  Almost a hundred valleys radiated from the forbidden area of Mount Miwa, including Omiya Valley, which opened out behind the main shrine to the west. After they had climbed a short distance, Honda could see the forbidden zone itself beyond a fence to his right. The trunks of the red pines growing there, in the grip of a tangle of vegetation, glowed like agate beneath the afternoon sun.

  Within this area the trees, the ferns, the bamboo thickets, even the sunlight that spilled over everything seemed, to Honda at least, to create an air of purity and solemnity. The fresh color of the soil at the roots of a cedar, where the guide told him a boar had been digging, made him think of the stories from the old chronicles about the odd forms that the boar could assume.

  Still, as he made his way up the sacred mountain, he had no strong feeling that it was either itself divine or the abode of divine beings. A little disconcerted by the swiftness of his middle-aged guide, Honda was hard-pressed to keep up. He felt grateful that the trees along the stream they were following warded off the afternoon sunlight, which was now even hotter.

  Though sheltered by the trees, the path was becoming more and more difficult. There were many sakaki on the mountainside. Even the young trees had far broader leaves than the sakaki Honda had seen elsewhere, and in the midst of their dark green they showed a wealth of white blossoms. The current of the stream grew more rapid as they climbed until they at last reached Sanko Falls. The view of the falls, however, was half hidden by a shelter at the foot for those who came to undergo the water purification. Honda had heard how dark the woods were at this spot, but since sunlight was glinting all around, the impression was of being in a basketwork cage of light.

  From here, the path led directly to the peak, and this was by far the hardest part of the climb. Wherever the path gave out, the two of them had to make use of jutting rocks and pine roots to scale the sections of bare cliff that blocked their way. And whenever Honda allowed himself to hope that a relatively easy portion would last for a time, yet another rock wall loomed up ahead in the brilliant glare of the afternoon sun. Honda was soaked with sweat and panting for breath. It was the intoxicating force of such harsh mortification, he supposed, that prepared a man for the mystery that he was approaching. That indeed was a divine law.

  Honda looked down on a silent valley with red pines and black pines over ten feet in diameter. He saw withered pines choked with ivy and twisted vegetation, all their needles the color of dull brick, and a lone cedar halfway up a cliff, around whose trunk some pilgrim, sensing the tree’s divinity, had wound a length of sacred rope. Offerings were placed before it, and a growth of lichen had turned one side of its trunk a greenish bronze. The closer they drew to the peak of the sacred mountain, the more every shrub and tree seemed to have its own divinity, as if it had naturally become a god.

  When, for example, the wind caught the tips of some tall oaks and scattered their blossoms in a cloud of pale yellow floating down through the lonely mountain forest, Honda felt that the scene was charged with divinity, like a sudden charge of electricity.

  “Just a little more effort, sir,” said the guide, his voice unaffected by the strenuous climb. “There’s the top ahead. You can see the Iwakura and Konomiya Shrine.”

  The Iwakura—the seat of the gods—had suddenly appeared at the end of the steep slope in front of them. Its circumference marked by sacred rope, it was a huge, irregular rock formation, now sharp-pointed, now jagged and blunted, like a great ship whose back had been broken. Since ancient times this mass of rock had defied comprehension, had never submitted to the general order, its bulk an awesome image of pure chaos.

  Rock had fused to rock to form the mass that now lay broken and shattered. Below it more rock stretched out in a broad, flat surface slanting downward. Rather than a tranquil seat of the gods, the whole impression was that of the aftermath of battle or of something incredibly terrible. But then, perhaps any place visited by the gods would undergo a similar transformation.

  The sun beat pitilessly down upon the moss that crept over the rock surface like an infection. But, as one might expect at this height, a refreshing breeze stirred the forest.

  Konomiya Shrine, at the very top of the Iwakura, was 1,534 feet above sea level. The simplicity of this little shrine alleviated the wild, awesome mood of the Iwakura itself. The small cross-beams that formed a sharply acute angle over the peaked roof stood out from the green pines around it like a headband gallantly knotted across a warrior’s forehead.

  After Honda had paid his reverence, he wiped away his sweat, and, begging the guide’s indulgence, lit a forbidden cigarette and drew hungrily upon it. Many years had gone by since he had last put his legs to such a test. Now that he had come through the ordeal, he took satisfaction from it and found himself very much at peace. In the midst of divinity of this sort, a divinity filled with brightness and the sound of pine needles rustling in the breeze, he felt as if he might be willing to believe in anything.

  All at once Honda was reminded of another time, probably by the terrain and the altitude. He remembered climbing the mountains behind Chung-nan Villa at Kamakura on a summer day nineteen years before. They had come upon a distant view of the Great Buddha of Kamakura through the trees, and he and Kiyoaki had exchanged amused glances at the expense of the two Siamese princes, who had knelt in reverence at the first sight of the Buddha. Honda would never again feel inclined to mock such a display.

  In the intervals between gusts of wind through the pines, the silence could come stealing back. His ear caught the buzz of a passing horsefly. The cedars pointed upward like so many spears thrust at the brilliant sky. The clouds were moving. The cherry trees were in full leaf, a study in light and shadow beneath the sun’s rays. Honda was happy without knowing why. And this happiness had a trace of indefinable sadness, a light, poignant sting. It must have been the first time in years that he had felt this way.

  The descent was not as easy as he had expect
ed. He tried to use the tree roots to keep his footing, but the red clay around them was even slipperier. When they finally reached the tree-lined path that circled Sanko Falls, Honda found his shirt wringing wet once more.

  “Would Your Honor care to make use of the water purification? It’s very refreshing.”

  “But it wouldn’t be right to bathe for that purpose, would it?”

  “On the contrary, sir. When the falling water strikes a man, it clears his head. That’s what makes it a religious exercise, so you needn’t worry.”

  When they entered the shelter at the base of the falls, Honda noticed two or three kendo uniforms hanging from nails. Someone had preceded them.

  “The students who were in the match today, sir. They’ll be making the offering of the lilies, and they must have been told to come here to purify themselves.”

  Honda stripped to his undershorts and went through the door that faced the falls.

  Sacred rope stretched across the falls high up at its crest, where a lush growth of vegetation shone in the afternoon sun. Up there were brightness and color, the green of trees and shrubbery ruffled by the wind, the white Shinto pendants dancing along the length of the rope, but as Honda looked downward, the scene before him was enveloped in the dark shadow cast by the rock walls to either side. A small shrine to the stalwart God of Fire occupied a grotto beside the falls, and ferns, spear flowers, and sakaki trees, all of them wet with spray, grew in the half-light at its foot. The gloom was relieved only by the slender white ribbon of falling water. Its sound echoed from the encircling rock walls with a full-throated roar.

  Three young men in undershorts were standing side by side beneath the falls, water spilling in all directions over their heads and shoulders. Honda could hear the water beating on their resilient young flesh. Through the swirling spray he saw the reddened flesh of their gleaming wet shoulders.

  When one of the young men noticed Honda, he nudged his companions, and they stepped back, bowing politely as they yielded the falls to him. It was then that he recognized young Iinuma among them.