Smoke and odors filled the room. The middle-aged cameraman got up from the fire. His cheeks had lost their purplish color; the sake red had returned. The smoke had gotten to him, and one teardrop trickled down each of his cheeks as far as the edge of his lips, but his eyes sparkled with satisfaction because the fire was burning so well.
“Say, Mitsuko,” the cameraman said to J’s wife, “let’s build up the fire and use it to shoot the cut for the introduction to hell.”
“Fine, if we can put it together making a negative with only the fire in natural colors,” Mitsuko enthused. “Like in the Roger Vadim vampire movie, although of course that was blood.” She handed each of them a glass and asked if they wanted gin or whisky.
“I’ll think about the system; gin for me, please,” the cameraman said to J’s wife in a lowered voice. It was a voice that could have been meant for a lover.
The subject of their movie was The Inferno. When the young poet heard from J and Mitsuko that they were thinking of making a short film about hell, he’d had a sense of dislocation. The impression he’d received at Mitsuko’s wedding reception was anything but hellish. Mitsuko had seemed happy after the wedding. She’d garnered the flowers of this earthly paradise, the Jaguar and the Arriflex. The husband also seemed happy to have won such a happy wife. So he couldn’t understand why J and his wife would insist on hell. And they were all past the age for girlish tastes. The poet couldn’t help suspecting that, even when he’d finished writing the commentary to this film, he still wouldn’t understand why hell was necessary. Still, for an instant, when the cameraman turned off the light in the room to measure the effect the fire would have on his film, the poet was seized by the feeling that, in the small fire in the fireplace, he could hear the echoes of his own private hell.
J’s sister, the twenty-seven-year-old sculptor, crouched behind the circle of chairs where the others were sitting and started an old-fashioned phonograph. With the room illuminated only by the light from the fireplace, the spot where she was kneeling was like a dark valley. At last, Bach’s Partita in B-flat major began to sound through the room—tense, uncertain, but for all that, sweet. The sound was very low and delicate. The record was one of a set from Dinu Lipatti’s final concert. They would probably use it as the music for their Inferno film. At the recital where this recording was made, Lipatti’s health had been almost as bad as it could possibly be; it was his last performance. He had died two months later, while listening to Beethoven’s Concerto No. 4 in F-minor.
“The picture over the fireplace is a lot like the one Mitsuko showed to Keiko and me,” the young poet said. None of the other six was exactly concentrating on Lipatti, but of the entire group, the poet was the least sensitive to the music.
“It’s by the same painter. A Belgian.”
“So, I come walking in naked like this, with only my breasts hidden by something that looks like ribbons?” Keiko asked.
“That’s right. We have two Roman-style nude statues in the garden, and I want you to come walking in between them. Boy will be standing in the foreground, nude and facing the other way. We’re shooting in pan focus, so of course Boy has to do it right too.”
“My hair’s not that nice,” the eighteen-year-old jazz singer said frankly.
The painting was a reproduction of a work by the surrealist Delvaux, in which several elegant women with lovely pubic hair and an air of abstraction are walking through an eternally quiet landscape in the style of de Chirico. The other six could also plainly feel why the naked bodies of the women in the painting embarrassed Keiko. Their pubic hair was an incomparably beautiful chestnut brown, like a shade of bronze.
The seven, this time including J’s sister, had rediscovered the drunkenness they’d felt in the Jaguar. They could still feel the dusk-till-midnight car trip in their legs, from the hips on down, and the tiredness accelerated their intoxication. For the jazz singer, the warmth of the fireplace was an immediate excuse for getting undressed. The dark wine-colored satin dress was like a chicken that had died at her feet. Eventually she would strip off her underwear as well. If this eighteen-year-old had a single quality that made her human, it was her exhibitionism. Nobody took Keiko Sawa for a narcissist. To be perfectly truthful, her body was meager and immature. The young poet thought that she had probably become an exhibitionist because J once told her she looked better naked than with her clothes on. J had the power to influence her. It irritated her that everybody was silently staring at the picture above the fireplace. “If I have to, I’ll get a wig that looks like a mouse and tie it to my belly,” she said. But then she felt that the other six were paying even less attention to her than before, and she started drinking down the strong gin like water.
“Whereabouts does the sun come up this season, J?” the cameraman asked.
“That’s a good question.” J had no idea.
“It must come up over the ocean. So Keiko should some walking out between the statues and catch the sunlight from the front, on the left side of her body. She’ll throw a long shadow out behind her to the right. The sun will hit Boy’s head, shoulders, and side, so his profile will be terribly blackish. We’ll set up the camera one meter behind him.”
“That’s it,” the cameraman said to Mitsuko. “I’d like to do the shooting in the morning while the sun still feels like it’s lower than we are, so I want to be finished by six.”
“Keiko, don’t start laughing or anything. This is the crucial scene, so you have to keep a straight face, even if it feels itchy out there in your bare feet.”
The jazz singer didn’t try to answer. She bent down and took off her underwear. Then she grasped her glass of gin, lemon, and sugar with both hands, like a squirrel holding a walnut, and adjusted herself in the chair with her knees pulled up in front of her. Everybody was resigned to the fact that any attempt at serious conversation with her would now be a waste of time. Her seat was next to J’s, which was at the far right of the row of chairs. She and J, who were both too drunk and sleepy to give anything but vague answers, became isolated from the rest. While the other five went on talking about the film, with Mitsuko at the center of the group, Keiko Sawa’s naked body gradually wriggled itself to the right, toward J. Putting her thin, bare back and buttocks up as a barricade, she cut herself and J off from the circle of friends. Someone had probably arranged these two chairs to be a little separate from the other five. Everybody knew that J and the jazz singer would sit there.
“The scene where the naked girl comes out between the statues, is that supposed to be a landscape in hell?” the young poet asked Mitsuko. He had to prepare to write his commentary. “Or is it before the fall into hell?”
“It’s one of the shots in hell. Isn’t that obvious? There aren’t any other locations! Haven’t I already explained that again and again?”
“A naked girl strolling past a couple of statues with her beautiful pubic hair exposed to the sun—doesn’t feel very much like something out of hell to me.”
“You’re just frustrated.”
The young poet let out a sigh of reproach. It’s not going to help anything, he thought, consoling himself, no matter what I think about the mental hell of this rich couple or anything else.
The supply of wood in the fireplace had shrunk to almost nothing. The cameraman bent over, with his liquor glass still in his hand, and raked the fire with a poker, trying to get it burning again, but without much effect. The air in the room was warm enough, but they all had what might be called an atmospherical need for a fiercely blazing fire in the fireplace.
“Mitsuko, dear, isn’t there any more firewood?” the cameraman asked, turning up his big, round face. In the glow of the fireplace, it was an ugly color like red copper and engorged with blood from his awkward position.
“Of course there is. It should be stacked just outside the kitchen. Assuming it wasn’t stolen by those people from the village.”
“‘Stolen’ sounds like your paranoia talking again, Mitsuko,” the
young actor said. “When that art book of yours disappeared not so long ago you were absolutely convinced that I’d stolen it. It was your paranoia that made you say that, Mitsuko.”
“It is no such thing. Boy, even J knows that you’ve stolen things from our house and sold them. If we take you into our home it’s because we don’t care if you’re a kleptomaniac. If you didn’t steal from us what would you do for pocket money?”
The young actor was furious; his entire face turned purple, his eyes filled with tears, his lips quivered. But that was his best acting trick. It wasn’t enough to move the others this time.
“What! That’s really too much. Do you think you can say anything you want and it’s all right, Mitsuko?” the actor said in a tearful voice. Suddenly he stood up and went to the phonograph.
They had all noticed a long time ago that the Lipatti record was over, but they’d ignored it. They’d been listening to the meaningless, fidgety noise of the needle as if it were the wind. The actor put on another record without bothering to look at the jacket. It turned out to be Dixieland jazz.
“Come on and let’s dance, Mitsuko,” the young actor said miserably. That was the sort of young man he was—irresolute, with no grip on his emotions.
“No thanks, Boy,” Mitsuko said. She was in a bad mood. J’s sister, the sculptor, had had enough and stood up.
The young actor and the sculptor started dancing a Charleston. Almost instantly the actor’s face, which was too young for his twenty years, beamed with happiness. While they danced, the twenty-seven-year-old woman wiped the remaining traces of tears from his cheeks with her palm. The actor caught her arm, wrapped it around his neck, and pressed himself against her. Now they were dancing in a different style.
“Why don’t you stop dancing and bring in some firewood?” Mitsuko said.
“No thanks, Mitsuko darling,” the actor said spitefully, making the woman in his arms laugh.
“I’ll go and get it,” the young poet said. “Do I need a key to get out of the kitchen?”
“The key is in the lock, I think.”
Staggering drunkenly, the young poet passed J and the jazz singer, who were sitting shoulder to shoulder in deep silence, and circled around the dancing actor and woman. The fire in the fireplace cast unsteady shadows, upsetting his balance even more. He stumbled when he stepped on his own trembling shadow. When he reached the sofa that they’d turned toward the wall, he thought that somebody was sure to be having sex there, since that’s what always happened when he came to one of J’s parties. He pushed open the door in the seaward corner of the wall where they’d put the sofa and went out. Now he was in the entrance hall where they’d climbed up the ladder. The staircase to the second floor, the bathroom with toilet, and the door to the kitchen were all there. He pushed the switch beside the kitchen door and opened it.
The midnight summer air wrapped itself around him, its touch cold, rough, and yet somehow sweet. The door from the kitchen into the garden was open and swayed slightly in the breeze, but nothing about it made him suspicious. He drank some water that was dripping from the tap and, still barefoot, stepped out onto the lawn. The grass had grown, and it was hard to estimate the actual ground level. The young poet gave a cry of profound fear. Then he fell flat on his face. Possibly he had screamed at the memory of the steep slope that rose straight up from the sea. But he buried his face in the thick growth of the lawn, soaking himself from cheek to throat as though he were swimming in the dew-drenched grass. He laughed and thought, I’m really drunk, and just lay there for a few moments without moving. Then he slowly got to his knees, urinated, and went back to the main hall with an armload of firewood.
The young actor and the woman were embracing and kissing as they danced. Again the needle was stuck at the end of the record, but they didn’t seem to care. J and the naked girl were still in the same position, as far as the poet could see from behind. The cameraman and Mitsuko were sitting on their knees facing each other in front of the fire and studying the script. The young poet put the firewood down beside them. While the cameraman was building a new fire, he took a fresh glass of liquor from Mitsuko and settled himself in a chair.
“Haven’t you got a cut on your cheek? It’s stained with blood,” Mitsuko said when she came back to the chair beside him.
“I fell down. But I wonder how I got cut.”
“You poor thing! You don’t even remember?”
“The kitchen door was open to the outside.”
“That’s not possible,” Mitsuko said. She stretched out her neck, which seemed terribly long, and licked the blood from his cheek with her warm tongue. He smelled alcohol and felt disgust, as well as a sudden desire. It was this desire that made him look in J’s direction. He felt confused.
The jazz singer’s naked back was turned to the young poet. Her head and shoulders rested on J. Her right hand was under J’s buttocks and her left hand on his groin. The fingertips of her left hand were extended across J’s stiff penis, which made the front of his trousers bulge. J was half sleeping and half smiling. They were undoubtedly locked in the private chamber of a relationship only big enough for two. Suddenly the smell of the naked girl’s sex was obvious, even with the odor of the fresh firewood smoldering in the fireplace. Terribly upset, as though caught in a panic, the young poet prayed that J’s wife wouldn’t notice. He was angered by the obtuseness of the jazz singer. Naturally, he also detested J.
“Let’s spread out this wet wood around the fire so it can dry. Come on, give me a hand,” the cameraman said. Mitsuko and the young poet got down on their knees like cats and started to help.
At that moment, the naked girl and J stood up behind them with their arms still entwined and, without releasing each other, slowly crossed the room and went upstairs. The young poet was beginning to dread seeing the face of J’s wife. It wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. It was just that the young poet was the only one who couldn’t get used to it. But then, the cameraman hadn’t gotten completely used to it either. He suggested a new game.
“Mitsuko darling, shall we listen to that tape? If Keiko were here she’d get mad. Now’s the time, don’t you think?”
“Fine by me. But Keiko doesn’t mind if we use it for sound effects in the movie, you know,” Mitsuko answered with exaggerated composure. Drunkenness had made her eyes bloodshot and her cheeks puffy.
The cameraman handled the portable recorder and the tapes they’d brought in from the Jaguar. No matter where he was, his actions were always meant to show off his skills as an engineer. It was his way of confirming to himself that he actually was the desirable being he should have become. The caramel-colored tape turned quietly in the glow of the new fire. At first it didn’t produce any sound. The young actor and the woman were still in each other’s arms with their bellies pressed together, but they’d left off kissing and had cast down their eyes. Each of them was staring intently at the tape. As long as the tape was silent, the rough breathing of the sculptor was the only sound in the room. Her breath continued to boil up like foam. From the second floor they could hear the sound of something soft and heavy moving ever so slightly. Then the sound became vague.
Suddenly, a young girl was heard reading a translation of a poem by Baudelaire, “Invitation to a Journey.” The quality of the voice was somehow different, but they knew instantly that it was Keiko Sawa. It was closer to her speaking voice than her singing voice, but it was closer still to the voice of an eighteen-year-old girl babbling in excitement. It was a monotonous recitation, a meandering reading of the same one poem repeated as if it were a pronunciation exercise. The tape continued like that for ten minutes. On and on—the recitation was the same translation of the same poem. But then something hidden in the depths of the girl’s voice began to change. Was she drunk? The young poet was frankly suspicious, because the jazz singer was almost always drunk. Suddenly he realized that the woman reciting the poem was sexually aroused. There was something feverish in her voic
e, a dry, infantile quaver, something shrill and thin as it slowly, precariously gathered speed. Occasionally there were ill-timed, unbalanced interruptions. The girl did her best to hold out and continue her performance. She was fighting with an inner resistance, trying to maintain the equilibrium in her voice. She also seemed angry and defiant. For a moment, it was touching. Then the meaningless voice began to get lost in the recitation of the poem. It was the voice of a long-distance runner, singing as she ran. The singer began to gasp, and then she tried to hold out till the end. Ah, ah, the voice flowed out of the caramel-colored tape. Ah, ah. There, there is only order and beauty and luxury, peace and pleasure, and nothing else. Ah, ah, order and beauty and, luxury, peace and, ah, ah! Pleasure and nothing else, ah, ah! Nothing else, ah!
The sensation was like that of a weak tree standing against a flood, trembling, forced to bend as it sinks beneath the water. The voice was resisting in utter despair. Then, unexpectedly, the tree was swallowed up by the flow and was itself transformed into the moment of force of the floodwaters. Ah, ah!
The girl was broken; she cried out and suddenly began to sob. Ah, order and beauty and, ah! That was clearly her final, desperate struggle. The young poet’s eyes filled with tears. Then the voice rose explosively, with crude violence. Ah, ah, oh! J! Ah, J, J!
The young poet was stunned. He looked hard at Mitsuko. The tape made a rustling noise as it began to run loose around the reel. Mitsuko bent down and pressed the stop button. All sound was lost in a vague silence. The second floor was quiet too now. The twenty-year-old actor began to snicker.
“The supporting actor on that tape wasn’t J, it was me!” he said, his voice breaking with laughter.