Masks (11 page)

The plum blossoms in the Kinomiya Shrine precincts were only half open. Inlaid with a thin scattering of white blossoms, india ink branches over a small stream were as if painted by a Chinese master, and Mieko, standing beneath them, seemed to blend perfectly into the setting. The white of the blossoms was touched with cream, like the hue of her skin, or of a Nō mask.

“It’s very Japanese,” said Mikamé, “yet there’s something of China in this scenery, too. Think of paintings of plum blossoms with cranes and hermit sages. That sort of thing.” Seeking to get as far as possible from Mieko, he led Yasuko by the hand across stepping-stones in the stream.

Yasuko was wearing a mohair coat of pale lavender, the dimple in her round cheek flitting in and out as always. The sky was lightly overcast. For Atami it was rather chilly.

Yasuko and Mieko expressed a desire to call on a
woman poet of Mieko’s acquaintance who lived nearby. On the way down from the shrine toward the waterfront, Mikamé dropped them off on a narrow street and returned alone to the inn.

They had lodgings at a sunny Japanese-style inn facing south on the mountain slope toward Uomisaki. A number of individual cottages were built overlooking the water, the spaces among them filled with lawn and pine trees. Mikamé was shown to his usual rooms, and after settling on the inner one with dressing room attached for his companions, and the tearoom to the rear for his own sleeping quarters, he went to take his bath. Viewed from the bathroom window, overlapping rooftops on a steep and narrow alleyway formed a succession of triangles tumbling down to where the sea (this, too, a triangle, standing on its head) lay softly blue and sparkling.

He finished his bath and waited, but still they did not come. He was fretting and growing impatient, though certain they would appear at any moment, when shortly before five the telephone rang. He answered and heard Yasuko’s voice.

“She’s invited us to stay for dinner.”

“Now wait a minute. I drove you all the way down here today. You can’t make me have dinner by myself; it’s not fair. Tell Mieko I protest.”

“I know. She and I have both been trying to get this woman to understand. All right then, I’ll tell her what you said. I’ll say you’re angry—”

“Angry? No, don’t say that.”

“It’s all right.” She lowered her voice. “This woman has to have it pounded into her. She’s retired and lonely, so she simply won’t let us go….”

Her remarks were quite innocent, but Mikamé’s ears tingled with as much pleasure as if she were telling him secrets.

Around six o’clock they were back, and by the time they had bathed and rested and sat down to eat at last, the hour was rather late.

Unaware that Mieko liked to drink, Mikamé confined himself to a perfunctory glass of beer. Mieko still wore her formal kimono from earlier in the day, removing only the jacket that went with it. Yasuko, clad in a soft padded kimono with a belt at the waist, the black-edged collar drawn snugly against the nape of her neck, had a fresh and boyish charm that Mikamé found irresistible.

“Is it true that Yasuko has renounced marriage?” he began jokingly.

“Certainly not,” said Mieko. “She’s been through so much unhappiness already that I would be delighted if she could find a good husband.”

“Ah, but with the two of you so close, it seems as if a man might only be in the way.”

Yasuko said nothing but smiled ambiguously.

“As long as she kept on working for the magazine, you would be happy then?”

“I could hardly be that selfish, could I? More important to me than the magazine is the work she’s doing on spirit possession. I hope very much to see her bring it to a conclusion.”

“Yes. Yes, that’s got to be done, I agree,” Mikamé said emphatically, and then moved swiftly to the point. “What do you say, Mrs. Toganō—would you let me marry Yasuko? I wouldn’t restrict her freedom in any way. I would want her to keep on just as she is now, not only with the work on spirit possession but also with the editing of the magazine. You see, I lead a funny sort of life, with my time split up between my medical practice and my puttering in folklore, so I really wouldn’t fit into an ordinary marriage. That’s partly why I’m still a bachelor now. But with Yasuko—
forgive me if this sounds rude—I think I could have the sort of marriage that would suit me. We know each other so well that I decided it would be more natural to speak to you myself, and not have someone else do the talking for me…but of course, if Yasuko dislikes me, then that settles it….”

“Dislikes you! Of course she doesn’t,” Mieko said sincerely. “But the fact that she is a widow hardly makes her a proper match for a man like you.”

“No, no. That’s totally beside the point.”

Yasuko poured beer into Mikamé’s empty glass with an air of such detachment that she scarcely seemed to be listening to this discussion of herself. Uncertain whether her composure signaled silent consent or determined opposition, Mikamé felt his face flush suddenly from the beer.

“I have no objection,” said Mieko in her serene and gracious way. “If, as you say, you’d allow her to keep on with the research project and with her work for the magazine, of course, I’d be grateful. But Yasuko will have her own ideas on all this. Whether she has any interest in marrying again, I really don’t know. So please, go ahead and talk over the rest of the matter with her. As long as it’s clear to you that I’m not opposed to the idea, I’ll have no more to say.”

“Thank you. For tonight, I’m happy just to know your opinion isn’t negative,” said Mikamé, filling her glass with beer. “Then I do have your permission to spend time alone with Yasuko now and then?”

“Dear me!” Mieko looked at Yasuko, raising the back of one hand to her mouth, and tittered quietly. “Yasuko, Dr. Mikamé insists on speaking to me about his proposal to you. How embarrassing—as if I were the one he had chosen for his bride! You speak up and say something.”

“But I can’t possibly tell him yes or no when I’ve only heard about it this moment.” Yasuko stretched out her arms, fingers clasped, turning pink palms toward Mikamé while she glanced nervously at Mieko. The exchange of silent words between the two women was discernible even to Mikamé.

“Those two definitely have some sort of unspoken agreement between them, that much I’m sure of, but as to whether Yasuko has any intention of marrying me or not, I’m totally in the dark.”

Listening to Mikamé’s account, Ibuki had felt a maddening itch creep like vermin over his skin. He spoke up intently now. “Yasuko’s not going to get married again. You and she wouldn’t make a bad couple, but I just don’t think she’s got marriage in mind. You must have seen it for yourself at Atami—she and Mieko are so intimate that I’m sure nothing in this world could pry them apart. On the surface Mieko may have sounded agreeable, but if you ask me, she has no intention of handing Yasuko over to you or anybody.”

“I know.” Mikamé took Ibuki’s words at face value, nodding. Such credulity struck Ibuki as naïve, but the thought that Yasuko might be put within Mikamé’s reach by that very naïveté filled him with nervous fear, like one whose foothold in sand was slipping gradually from beneath him.

After dark, when Mikamé finally left, Ibuki rode with him as far as Shinjuku. He explained to Sadako that he wanted to stop by his favorite bookstore to see if certain volumes he had ordered were in, but he already knew they were not; his real purpose in going was to telephone the Toganō house and have a conversation he did not want his wife to overhear.

Yasuko’s young breath sounded softly in the receiver, and then he heard her innocent voice. Bluntly, not waiting for her to finish, he said, “So you went to Atami! I heard it from Mikamé.” He made his voice accusatory and demanding, but she answered with apparent unconcern.

“Yes, he invited Mother and me. Really, I did mean to go to Ito, but as it turned out, I just couldn’t.”

“Four days I waited. For nothing.”

“Did you see Mikamé there?”

“No, when I got home today, he was waiting to see me—all excited about having proposed to you.”

“Yes, he did. He brought it up in front of Mother and me.” She sounded not in the least abashed. It was Ibuki who fell silent, at a loss for words. The unnatural suppression of his emotion, like an overflow of water choked by a narrow bottleneck, made him suddenly reckless.

“I want to see you tonight. May I come over now?”

“Now?”

“Yes. It’s only eight o’clock. If you’ll meet me somewhere, so much the better.”

“I can’t go out now,” she said firmly, and was silent for a moment. “Very well. Please come to the house. I’ll be expecting you.”

“I’ll be there, but I don’t want her around tonight. I want to be alone with you.”

“All right,” she said simply.

Following along the wall by the gate, she told him, he would find a small entrance just around the corner. She would unlock it. He was to come there after nine o’clock. Inside was a room that had been Akio’s study, where no one ever went. It was, she explained, the room where she used to work in private on Akio’s treatise on spirit possession.

Mieko had seated Harumé on the tatami in front of the vanity stand after giving her a bath and shampoo, and was now combing out her sleek raven hair. The task was not easy, for Harumé’s hair, which had never had a permanent wave, was thick and heavy enough when wet to break the teeth of a comb. The pallor of her skin, normally dull and lifeless, glowed faintly from her bath, and there was a moist seductiveness in the too-vivid blackness of her brows and lashes. Finishing the combing, Mieko laid her hands on Harumé’s shoulders and turned her gently to one side. Then she seated herself knee to knee in front of her daughter and gazed closely at the face flushed a delicate pink.

In Harumé’s features, never taxed with the strain of intellectual labor, there lingered still the pliant softness of a baby’s skin. Apart from a certain air of unease, the look of one who dwelt in perpetual mental twilight, her face bore no flaws to mask with cosmetics.

“Harumé,” said Mieko gently, “hold still now.”

Taking the other’s round, small chin in one hand, she tilted the face up a fraction of an inch. Then, with the glossy tip of a tube of lipstick from the vanity drawer, she painted the slack lips a rich red. The bright color, generously applied, gave Harumé’s features a bold animation, as if flooding them with light.

“There,” said Mieko with satisfaction. She pressed a fine tissue to Harumé’s lips, then picked up a small mirror and held it up to her. The face reflected in the mirror seemed slightly smaller and more somberly hued than the real one.

Harumé, who had submitted docilely to all of Mieko’s ministrations until that moment, all at once swept to her feet. The suddenness of her action sent the towel over her shoulders fluttering to the floor. Her dressing gown, thin cotton lined with lavender silk crepe, was untidily open at the neck, exposing the curve of her breasts.

Mieko stood up too, as if pulled irresistibly by Harumé. As she adjusted the front of the gown over Harumé’s moist white skin, she laid an arm across her shoulders and smoothed the stray wisps of hair over her ear, whispering closely, filling the other’s body with her own warm breath, “Harumé, you won’t be alone tonight. I’ll be with you. You must carry out my plan for me—I’m relying on you. And you will, won’t you?”

Harumé shook her head slowly, seemingly annoyed by the tickling in her ear, and then became quiet, eyes staring, her face solemn. Mieko took one last appraising look and scattered drops of eau de cologne on Harumé’s hair and shoulders.

Footsteps in the hallway crept softly toward them. Mieko, somehow knowing it would be Yasuko, took Harumé by the hand and led her quietly toward the door. The footsteps stopped outside the doorway, and it was indeed Yasuko’s voice that called softly, “Mother.”

“Is it time?”

“Yes. Go ahead.”

Yasuko, concealed in shadow, slid the door partway open but made no move to enter, and Mieko, not wondering at this, took Harumé by the shoulder and pushed her gently out into the hall.

On seeing Yasuko’s white arm drop lightly across Harumé’s shoulders, Mieko slid the door shut and, with one hand covering her eyes, fled back into her bedchamber. She dropped to her knees on the bedclothes, face tightly pressed against the pillow, and from her lips came anguished moans like prayers or lamentations.

After a time she slowly raised her head, got up, and crossed over away from the hallway, past the latticed doors beside the alcove, to the west side of the room. Lifting the bolt on the window shutter, she opened it a
crack. In the garden the late moon sent dark pine shadows across the frozen ground. Beyond, in the window of the outbuilding that had served as Akio’s study, a lamp faintly glowed pink, while from the rooftop chimney, clouds of white smoke rose dimly in the light of the moon.

Unmindful of the cold creeping into her body, Mieko stood with a sleeve pressed to her mouth, gazing long toward the outbuilding as if to discover what was happening now beneath that roof. Her expression was calm and unflickering as always, but beneath the chill weight of her sagging breasts her heart raced in a mad elvish dance, while from hips to thighs a powerful tension enveloped her, anchoring her to the floor.

On sliding the door closed, she drew a long breath and relaxed, as if relieved of a great burden; then, seating herself once again on the bed, she drew from under the pillow an old envelope wrapped in pale blue silk and opened it, after gazing for a moment at the writing on the front. Inside was a rather bulky letter written in fountain pen on thin sheets of writing paper. The handwriting, bold and cursive, was that of a man.

Tomorrow at last I leave mainland Japan.

Tonight the moon is exceptionally bright, and the deck is light. The two poems you wrote when I went to Sapporo—was it the summer before last?—come back to me now:

The Tsuruga Straits at night, in their depths the moon;

Are you engulfed, I wonder, in sorrow green as the sea?

Grass for your pillow, on a far journey you leave;

Despairing, I awake before dawn from my dream.

At the time I belittled them, calling them outdated lyricism of the New Poetry school, but tonight I walked the deck reciting them aloud. I saw your face again as you
stood quietly among the people from
Clear Stream
who saw me off at the station, and my heart stirred. I truly have only gratitude for you. You forgave all my selfishness and capriciousness.

Only now does it occur to me that scarcely ever did I make you happy; it seems all I did was abuse you. And always, with a mother’s generosity, you forgave me. Perhaps your very leniency brought out the tyrant in me. Knowing full well you were not in a position to declare our love openly, yet provoked by the underhandedness of it all, I deliberately acted in front of you as if I were in love with someone younger, like S. It even gave me a sadistic pleasure, of which I was quite aware, to imagine how much I had hurt you. Surely you knew that it was only your refusal to leave your husband that made me so unkind—and still, with never a word of protest, as gracious as a goddess, you forgave me everything. Your forgiveness, together with your appearance of submissiveness to your husband, made it all the harder for me to guess your innermost feelings. That it was your despair, the rage which you had every right to feel toward T. that first brought us together, I cannot deny, but I should like to think that the love which later grew between us had nothing to do with your feelings of resentment or revenge.

To satisfy myself that it was so, I begged you to show your passion, to confess all to T. and come running to me with the two children. But you stubbornly refused. You said that you lacked the courage to take action in real life, and therein, you said, lay the explanation for your literary gifts as well as for the darkness of your fate as a woman (that was after you had conceived Harumé and Akio, when you first told me that I was their father).

To put it another way—you contain a curious ambiguity that enables you to get along without distinguishing between the truth and falseness of your actions in the real world. Because of that trait you seemed at once incomprehensible and unclean to me (I admit to the unreasonable
fastidiousness of the Japanese male, to whom the blood of menstruation is of all blood the dirtiest). Even so, I was profoundly drawn by the intense emotion engendered in your mysterious body and soul.

To have fathered two children—the boy, especially—with you fills me at this moment, as I leave Japan for the war, with a great and living joy far outweighing the unpleasantness of any veil of lies. That Akio will grow up a Toganō means nothing to me. The guilt I suffered so long for having conspired in woman’s wrongdoing seems now as ephemeral as a chip of ice in the sun. What are patriarchal notions of blood and family to a man who has given his child you for a mother? I see clearly now that T., who insulted you and made you despair, was the unlucky one. However long he may continue after this to live with you, I know you will never forgive him.

You appear infinitely generous, but you are a woman of infinite passion, in hate as well as love. Therefore, I have at times feared you and even tried to get away from you. I made love to S. in desperate hopes of leaving you, but that attempt served only to prove that you held me captive and I could never escape. I think you suffered a great deal because of her, but please believe that now, as I leave this country, it is you whose image is fixed indelibly in my heart. Since I am a noncombatant, I am sure I will be back safely, but it will give me courage to think that when I return, you will be waiting for me.

I am not in the least sorry to have loved you. Though our love may be illicit—though I am certainly defrauding your husband—I want to tell you once again that I feel no lingering sense of guilt, no ugly scar on my heart; and that I sense heaven’s blessing in this tangible fruition of our love.

For Akio, and for Harumé, who will grow up separately, may your love be constant shelter and nourishment. Please don’t worry about me.