Confessions of a Mask (26 page)

At this sight, above all at the sight of the peony tattooed on his hard chest, I was beset by sexual desire. My fervent gaze was fixed upon that rough and savage, but incomparably beautiful, body. Its owner was laughing there under the sun. When he threw back his head I could see his thick, muscular neck. A strange shudder ran through my innermost heart. I could no longer take my eyes off him.

I had forgotten Sonoko's existence. I was thinking of but one thing: Of his going out onto the streets of high summer just as he was, half-naked, and getting into a fight with a rival gang. Of a sharp dagger cutting through that belly-band, piercing that torso. Of that soiled belly-band beautifully dyed with blood. Of his gory corpse being put on an improvised stretcher, made of a window shutter, and brought back here. . . .

"There's just five minutes left." Sonoko's high, sad voice reached my ears. I turned to her wonderingly.

At this instant something inside of me was torn in two with brutal force. It was as though a thunderbolt had fallen and cleaved asunder a living tree. I heard the structure, which I had been building piece by piece with all my might up to now, collapse miserably to the ground. I felt as though I had witnessed the instant in which my existence had been turned into some sort of fearful non-being. I closed my eyes and after an instant regained a hold on my icy-cold sense of duty.

"Only five minutes? It was wrong to bring you to such a place. Are you angry? A person like you oughtn't see the vulgarity of such low people. I've heard that this dance hall doesn't have the knack of buying off these gangs of hoodlums and that they've started forcing their way in to dance free no matter how much they're refused."

But I was the only one who had been looking at them. Sonoko had not noticed them. She had been trained not to see things that should not be seen. She had simply kept her eyes fixed absent-mindedly on the sweaty row of backs that stood watching the dancing. But even so, it seemed that the atmosphere of the place had worked some sort of chemical change in Sonoko's heart as well, without her being aware of it. Presently something like a token of a smile appeared on her bashful lips, as though she were enjoying in advance what she was about to say:

"It's a funny thing to ask, but you already have, haven't you? Of course you've already done that, haven't you?"

I was completely exhausted. And yet some hair trigger was still set in my mind, making me give a plausible answer quicker than thought.

"Umm . . . I already have, I'm sorry to say."

"When?"

"Last spring."

"With whom?"

I was amazed at the mixture of naiveté and sophistication in her question. She was incapable of imagining me in connection with a girl whose name she would not know.

"I can't tell you her name."

"Come, who was she?"

"Please don't ask me."

Perhaps because she heard the too-naked tone of entreaty behind my words, she instantly fell silent, as though frightened. I was making every possible effort to keep her from noticing how the blood was draining from my face. The moment for parting stood waiting eagerly. A vulgar blues was being kneaded into time.

We were caught up motionless within the sound of the sentimental voice issuing from the loud-speaker.

Sonoko and I looked at our wrist watches almost at the same instant. . . .

It was time. As I got up, I stole one more glance toward those chairs in the sun. The group had apparently gone to dance, and the chairs stood empty in the blazing sunshine. Some sort of beverage had been spilled on the table top and was throwing back glittering, threatening reflections.