Seven Japanese Tales Page 13
A month or two after the silk-tree and pomegranate blossoms had fallen, when the crape myrtle was beginning to bloom and the plantain ripening, I had become fairly skillful at massaging and often asked Mother to come out to the pavilion for a treatment.
“A few minutes then, if you like,” she would reply.
Naturally I took Sawako's place whenever she wasn't there, but even when she was with us I would brush her aside and say: “Let me try it — you watch!” Unable to forget the days when Mother had given her breasts to me, I now found my sole pleasure in massaging her. It was around then that Sawako, who had always worn her hair in Western style, began having it done up in a traditional high-piled Shimada, a coiffure that set off beautifully her ukiyoye-like face. She appeared to be getting ready for the Buddhist service that would be held on the first anniversary of my father's death, a time which was drawing near. Mother herself ordered new clothes for the occasion: among them, a formal robe of dark purple figured satin with a hollyhock pattern on the skirt, and a broad sash of thick-woven white silk dyed with a pattern of the seven autumn flowers.
The anniversary service was held at a temple at Hyakumamben, and we had dinner served in the reception hall of its private quarters. Both Mother and I noticed how cold and distant my relatives were. Some of them left as soon as they had burned incense, without stopping to join us at dinner. Ever since Father had married a former entertainer my relatives had held an oddly hostile and disdainful attitude toward our family. And now, to make matters worse, I was engaged to marry the gardener's daughter: it was only to be expected that they would talk. Still, I hadn't thought they would treat us quite so brusquely. Mother carried it off with her usual aplomb; but Sawako, who had gone to great trouble to dress appropriately for the occasion, seemed so dejected that I had to feel sorry for her.
“I'm beginning to wonder how our wedding will turn out,” I said to Mother. “Do you suppose those people will come?”
“Why should you worry? You're not getting married for their benefit — it's enough if you and I and Sawako are happy.” Mother seemed unconcerned, but before long I discovered that the hostility of our relatives was even more bitter than I had imagined.
Okane, who had come from Nagahama for the service, stayed with us a few days before going home. On the morning of the day she left, she suggested we go for another walk through the shrine forest.
“Okane, do you have something to tell me?” I asked.
“Yes, I do.”
“I think I know what it is. It's about my wedding, isn't it?”
“That's not the only thing.”
“Then what is it?”
“Well. . . but you mustn't get angry, Tadasu.”
“I won't. Go ahead and say it.”
“Anyway, you're sure to hear about it from somebody, so I guess it ought to come from me.” Then, little by little, she told me the following story.
Of course it was true that my relatives were opposed to my forthcoming marriage, but that wasn't the only reason why they disapproved of us. Mother and I were the objects of their criticism, more than the match with Kajikawa's daughter. To put it bluntly, they believed that we were committing incest. According to them, Okane said, Mother and I began carrying on that way while Father was still alive, and Father himself, once he knew he wouldn't recover, had tolerated it — even encouraged it. Some went so far as to ask whose baby had been smuggled out to Tamba, suggesting that Takeshi was my own child, not my father's.
I wondered how on earth these people, who had been avoiding us for years, could have heard anything that would make them spread such wild rumors. But Okane explained that everyone in our neighborhood had been gossiping this way about us for a long time. It seems they all knew that Mother and I spent many hours alone together in the Silk-Tree Pavilion, which is probably why the rumors began to circulate. My relatives thought that my dying father arranged for me to marry Sawako because only a girl with her disadvantages would accept such a match. Most scandalous of all, his reason for wanting me to keep up appearances by taking a wife was presumably to have me continue my immoral relationship with Mother. Kajikawa was well aware of these circumstances in giving his daughter, and Sawako was going to marry out of respect for her father's wishes — needless to say, they had their eyes on our property. And so my relatives were outraged first of all by my father's part in this, then by Mother's, by mine, by Kajikawa's, and by his daughter's, in that order.
“Tadasu, be careful!” Okane ended by warning me. “Everybody knows people will talk, but they can say terrible things!” And she gave me a strange look out of the corner of her eye.
“Let them say what they please,” I answered. “Nasty rumors like that will soon be forgotten.”
“Well, maybe they'll come to the wedding next month after all,” she said doubtfully as we parted.
I have no interest in going into detail about later events. But perhaps I should summarize the important ones.
Our wedding ceremony was held on an auspicious day in November of that year. To please Mother, I wore a crested black silk kimono of Father's instead of a morning coat. Hardly any of my relatives appeared for the wedding; even the ones on Mother's side stayed away. Those who came were chiefly persons related to the Kajikawa family. Dr. Kato and his wife were kind enough to act as go-between. The doctor had been taking lessons in the No drama for many years, and he was more than happy to oblige by chanting the usual lines from Takasago. But as I listened to his sonorous voice my thoughts were far away.
After our marriage, Sawako's attitude toward Mother and me showed no particular change. We spent a few days in Nara and Isé for our honeymoon, but I was always careful to take precautions against having a child — that was one thing I never neglected. On the surface, Mother appeared to get along with her newly wed son and daughter-in-law in perfect harmony. After Father's death, she had continued to sleep in the twelve-mat veranda room, and she stayed there even after Sawako came; Sawako and I slept in my little six-mat room. That was as it should be, we felt, since I was still going to school and was still a dependent. For the same reason, Mother was in charge of all the household accounts.
As for Mother's life in those days, anyone would have taken it to be enviably carefree and leisurely. She amused herself by practicing Konoé-style calligraphy, reading classical Japanese literature, playing the koto, or strolling in the garden; and whenever she felt tired, day or night, she would have one of us give her a massage. During the day she had her massages in the pavilion, but at night she always called Sawako to her bedroom. Occasionally the three of us would go out to the theater, or on an excursion; but Mother was inclined to be frugal and paid close attention to even trivial sums of money, warning us to do our best to avoid needless expense. She was especially strict with Sawako and caused her a good deal of worry over the food bills. Mother was looking fresher and more youthful than ever, and so plump that she was beginning to get a double chin. Indeed, she was almost too plump — as if now that Father was dead her worries were over.
Our life went on in that way while I finished two more years at the university. Then about eleven o'clock one night in late June, shortly after I had gone to bed, I found myself being shaken by Sawako and told to get up.
“It's your mother!” she exclaimed, hurrying me off toward the other bedroom. “Something dreadful has happened!”
“Mother!” I called. “What's wrong?” There was no reply. She was lying there face down, moaning weakly and clutching her pillow with both hands.
“I'll show you what did it!” Sawako said, picking up a round fan from the floor near the head of the bed to reveal a large crushed centipede. Sawako explained that Mother had wanted a massage, and she had been giving her one for almost an hour. Mother was lying on her back asleep, breathing evenly, as Sawako rubbed her legs all the way down to her ankles. Suddenly she gave a scream of pain, and her feet arched convulsively. When Sawako looked up in alarm she saw a centipede crawling across Mother's breast,
near the heart. Startled into action, she snatched up a nearby fan and brushed the insect away, luckily flicking it to the floor, where she covered it with the fan and then crushed it.
“If I'd only paid more attention. . .” Sawako said, looking deadly pale. “I was so busy massaging her. . .”
Dr. Kato came over immediately and took emergency measures, giving one injection after another; but Mother's suffering seemed to increase by the moment. All her symptoms — her color, breathing, pulse, and the rest — showed that her condition was more serious than we had thought. Dr. Kato stayed by her side, doing his best to save her; but around dawn she took a turn for the worse, and died soon afterward.
“It must have been shock,” Dr. Kato told us.
Sawako was weeping aloud. “I'm to blame, I'm to blame,” she kept repeating.
I have no intention of trying to describe the feelings of horror, grief, despair, dejection, which swept over me then; nor do I think it reflects credit on myself to be suspicious of anyone without a shred of evidence. Yet I cannot escape certain nagging doubts. . .
It was some forty years since my grandfather had built the house he called Heron's Nest, which was by then at its most beautiful, well seasoned, with the patina of age that suits a Japanese-style building of this kind. In Grandfather's day the wood must have been too new to have such character, and as it grows older it will doubtless lose its satiny luster. The one really old building at Heron's Nest was the teahouse that Grandfather had brought there; and during my childhood, as I have said, it was infested by centipedes. But after that centipedes began to be seen frequently both in the pavilion and in the main house. There was nothing strange about finding one of them in the veranda room, where Mother was sleeping. Probably she had often seen centipedes in her room before, and Sawako, who was always going in to massage her, must have had the same experience. And so I wonder if Mother's death was entirely accidental. Might not someone have had a scheme in mind for using a centipede, if one of them appeared? Perhaps it was only a rather nasty joke, with no thought that a mere insect bite could be fatal. But supposing that her weak heart had been taken into account, that the possibility had seemed attractive. . . Even if the scheme failed, no one could prove that the centipede had been deliberately caught and placed there.
Maybe the centipede did crawl onto her by accident. But Mother was a person who fell asleep very easily: whenever we massaged her she relaxed and dropped off into a sound sleep. She disliked a hard massage, preferring to have us stroke her so lightly and gently that her sleep was not disturbed. It would have been quite possible for someone to put a small object on her body without immediately awakening her. When I ran into her room, she was lying face-down writhing with pain; but Sawako said that earlier she had been lying on her back. I found it hard to believe that Sawako, who was massaging her legs, saw the centipede on Mother's breast the moment she looked up. Mother wasn't lying there naked; she was wearing her night kimono. It was odd that Sawako happened to see the insect — surely it would have been crawling under the kimono, out of sight. Perhaps she knew it was there.
I wish to emphasize that this is purely my own assumption, nothing more. But because this notion has become so firmly lodged in my mind, has haunted me for so long, I have at last tried to set it down in writing. After all, I intend to keep this record secret as long as I live.
Three more years have passed since then.
When I finished school two years ago, I was given a job as a clerk at the bank of which Father had been a director; and last spring, for reasons of my own, I divorced Sawako. A number of difficult conditions were proposed by her family, and in the end I had to agree to their terms. The whole complicated affair was so unpleasant that I have no desire to write about it. At the same time that I took steps to be divorced I sold Heron's Nest, so full of memories for me, both happy and sad, and built a small house for myself near the Honen Temple. I had Takeshi come to live with me, insisting on bringing him back from Seriu in spite of his own reluctance as well as that of his foster parents. And I asked Okane, who was quietly living out her days at Nagahama, to come and look after him, at least for a few years. Fortunately, she is still in good health, at sixty-four, and still able to take care of children. “If that's what you want, I'll help out with the little boy,” she said, and left her comfortable retirement to come and live with us. Takeshi is six. At first he refused to be won over by Okane and me, but now we have become very close. Next year he will begin going to school. What makes me happiest is that he looks exactly like Mother. Not only that, he seems to have inherited something of her calm, open, generous temperament. I have no wish to marry again: I simply want to go on living as long as possible with Takeshi, my one link with Mother. Because my real mother died when I was a child, and my father and stepmother when I was some years older, I want to live for Takeshi until he is grown. I want to spare him the loneliness I knew.
June 27, 1931 (the anniversary of Mother's death)
Otokuni Tadasu
The Tattooer
It was an age when men honored the noble virtue of frivolity, when life was not such a harsh struggle as it is today. It was a leisurely age, an age when professional wits could make an excellent livelihood by keeping rich or wellborn young gentlemen in a cloudless good humor and seeing to it that the laughter of Court ladies and geisha was never stilled. In the illustrated romantic novels of the day, in the Kabuki theater, where rough masculine heroes like Sadakuro and Jiraiya were transformed into women — everywhere beauty and strength were one. People did all they could to beautify themselves, some even having pigments injected into their precious skins. Gaudy patterns of line and color danced over men's bodies.
Visitors to the pleasure quarters of Edo preferred to hire palanquin bearers who were splendidly tattooed; courtesans of the Yoshiwara and the Tatsumi quarter fell in love with tattooed men. Among those so adorned were not only gamblers, firemen, and the like, but members of the merchant class and even samurai. Exhibitions were held from time to time; and the participants, stripped to show off their filigreed bodies, would pat themselves proudly, boast of their own novel designs, and criticize each other's merits.
There was an exceptionally skillful young tattooer named Seikichi. He was praised on all sides as a master the equal of Charibun or Yatsuhei, and the skins of dozens of men had been offered as the silk for his brush. Much of the work admired at the tattoo exhibitions was his. Others might be more noted for their shading, or their use of cinnabar, but Seikichi was famous for the unrivaled boldness and sensual charm of his art.
Seikichi had formerly earned his living as an ukiyoye painter of the school of Toyokuni and Kunisada, a background which, in spite of his decline to the status of a tattooer, was evident from his artistic conscience and sensitivity. No one whose skin or whose physique failed to interest him could buy his services. The clients he did accept had to leave the design and cost entirely to his discretion — and to endure for one or even two months the excruciating pain of his needles.
Deep in his heart the young tattooer concealed a secret pleasure, and a secret desire. His pleasure lay in the agony men felt as he drove his needles into them, torturing their swollen, blood-red flesh; and the louder they groaned, the keener was Seikichi's strange delight. Shading and vermilioning — these are said to be especially painful — were the techniques he most enjoyed.
When a man had been pricked five or six hundred times in the course of an average day's treatment and had then soaked himself in a hot bath to bring out the colors, he would collapse at Seikichi's feet half dead. But Seikichi would look down at him coolly. “I dare say that hurts,” he would remark with an air of satisfaction. Whenever a spineless man howled in torment or clenched his teeth and twisted his mouth as if he were dying, Seikichi told him: “Don't act like a child. Pull yourself together — you have hardly begun to feel my needles!” And he would go on tattooing, as unperturbed as ever, with an occasional sidelong glance at the man's tearful face.
For a long time Seikichi had cherished the desire to create a masterpiece on the skin of a beautiful woman. Such a woman had to meet various qualifications of character as well as appearance. A lovely face and a fine body were not enough to satisfy him. Though he inspected all the reigning beauties of the Edo gay quarters he found none who met his exacting demands. Several years had passed without success, and yet the face and figure of the perfect woman continued to obsess his thoughts. He refused to abandon hope.
One summer evening during the fourth year of his search Seikichi happened to be passing the Hirasei Restaurant in the Fukagawa district of Edo, not far from his own house, when he noticed a woman's bare milk-white foot peeping out beneath the curtains of a departing palanquin. To his sharp eye, a human foot was as expressive as a face. This one was sheer perfection. Exquisitely chiseled toes, nails like the iridescent shells along the shore at Enoshima, a pearl-like rounded heel, skin so lustrous that it seemed bathed in the limpid waters of a mountain spring — this, indeed, was a foot to be nourished by men's blood, a foot to trample on their bodies. Surely this was the foot of the unique woman who had so long eluded him. Eager to catch a glimpse of her face, Seikichi began to follow the palanquin. But after pursuing it down several lanes and alleys he lost sight of it altogether.
Seikichi's long-held desire turned into passionate love. One morning late the next spring he was standing on the bamboo-floored veranda of his home in Fukagawa, gazing at a pot of omoto lilies, when he heard someone at the garden gate. Around the corner of the inner fence appeared a young girl. She had come on an errand for a friend of his, a geisha of the nearby Tatsumi quarter.