“That’s all very fine and clear, but something has to be done about Satoko’s baby as quickly as possible. And if it’s done anywhere near Tokyo and the newspapers somehow find out, then you’ll have a fine mess. Don’t you have anything practical to suggest?”
“Osaka would be the place,” replied the Marquis, after a moment’s thought. “Dr. Mori would do it for us in the strictest secrecy. And I’ll make it worth his while. But Satoko will have to have some plausible reason for going to Osaka.”
“The Ayakuras have all sorts of relatives down there. So wouldn’t it be a perfect chance to send Satoko down to visit them and tell them in person about her engagement?”
“But if she has to visit a number of relatives and they notice her condition . . . that wouldn’t do at all. But wait. I have it. How about having her go to Gesshu Temple in Nara to pay her final respects to the Abbess before her marriage? Wouldn’t that be best? It’s a temple that’s always been closely associated with the Imperial Family, and so it would only be proper to show the Abbess this honor. All things considered, it would be perfectly natural. The Abbess has been fond of her ever since she was a little girl. So first she goes to Osaka to receive the attentions of Dr. Mori. Then she rests for a day or two, then she goes to Nara. That would be best. And her mother should go with her, I suppose. . . .”
“Not just her mother. That wouldn’t do,” said the old lady sternly. “Count Ayakura’s wife can’t be expected to have our interests at heart. Someone from here has to go along with them and look after the girl both before and after Dr. Mori’s treatment. And it has to be a woman. So . . . ,” she pondered and then turned to Kiyoaki’s mother: “Tsujiko, you go.”
“Very well.”
“And you’ve got to keep your eyes open all the time. You don’t have to go to Nara with her. But once you’ve seen that the crucial thing is done, come back to Tokyo as quick as you can to give us a full report.”
“I understand.”
“Mother’s right,” said the Marquis. “Do just as she says. I’ll talk to the Count and we’ll decide what day she’s to leave. Everything will have to be done so that no one gets the least hint of what’s going on.”
Kiyoaki felt that he had become part of the background and that his life and love for Satoko were being treated as things already terminated. Before his very eyes, his father and mother and grandmother seemed to be carefully planning the funeral, quite unconcerned that the corpse could hear every word. Even before his funeral, something seemed already to have been buried. And so on the one hand he was like an attenuated corpse and, on the other, a severely scolded child who had no one to turn to.
Everything was thus proceeding smoothly to an altogether satisfactory conclusion, although the person most intimately concerned had no role in it and the wishes of the Ayakuras themselves were being ignored. Even his grandmother, who just a moment before had been speaking so daringly, now seemed to be basking in the pleasures of coping with a family crisis. Her character was essentially different from his, with its delicacy, and while she was endowed with the intelligence to perceive the savage nobility that lay at the root of his dishonorable behavior, once family honor was at stake, this same intelligence enabled her to put aside her admiration and adroitly conceal any such noble manifestations. This faculty, one might well suppose, she owed not to the summer sun that beat down on Kagoshima Bay but to the tutoring of her husband, Kiyoaki’s grandfather.
The Marquis looked directly at Kiyoaki for the first time since he had aimed his billiard cue at him.
“From now on, you are confined to this house, and you are to fulfill your duties as a student. All your energy is to go into studying for the examinations. Do you quite understand? I shall say nothing further about this matter. This is the turning point: either you will become a man or you will not. As for Satoko, I need hardly say that you are not to see her again.”
“In the old days, they called it house arrest, you know,” said his grandmother. “If you get tired of studying sometimes, come over and see Granny.”
And then it dawned on Kiyoaki that his father could never disown him now—he was much too afraid of what the world would say.
40
COUNT AYAKURA WAS a hopeless coward in the face of such things as injury, sickness, and death. There was quite a disturbance on the morning that Tadeshina did not get up. The suicide note left on her pillow was brought to the Countess at once, and when she in turn handed it over to her husband, he opened it at fingertips’ length, as if it were germ-ridden. It turned out to be nothing more than a simple farewell note apologizing for the many defects that had marred her service to the Count and Countess, and to Satoko, and thanking them for their never-failing benevolence, the sort of note that could fall into any hands at all and still not excite suspicion.
The Countess sent for the doctor at once. The Count, of course, did not go to see for himself, but was content to receive a full report from his wife afterwards.
“She took more than a hundred and twenty sleeping pills. She hasn’t recovered consciousness yet, but the doctor told me what she’d done. My goodness, she was flailing her arms and legs and her body was convulsed like a bow—what a commotion! No one knew where the old woman could find such strength. But then, all of us held her down together and there was the injection and then the doctor pumped out her stomach—that was frightful and I tried not to look. And the doctor finally assured me that she was going to live. How wonderful to have such expertise! Before we said anything at all, he sniffed her breath and said: ‘Ah, a smell of garlic. It must be Calmotin tablets.’ He knew right away.”
“Did he say how long it would take her to recover?”
“Yes, he was kind enough to tell me that she would have to rest for at least ten days.”
“Be sure that nothing of this becomes known outside the house. You’ll have to warn the women to keep their mouths shut and we’ll have to speak to the doctor too. How is Satoko taking this?”
“She’s shut herself in her room. She won’t even go and see Tadeshina. In her present condition I think it might not be good for her to visit Tadeshina right now. And then, she hasn’t said a word to her since Tadeshina raised that matter with us, so she probably feels disinclined to rush in to see her. The best thing would be to leave Satoko alone.”
Five days before, Tadeshina, at her wit’s end, had broken the news of Satoko’s pregnancy to the Count and Countess, but instead of flying into a rage and subjecting her to the expected torrent of rebukes, the Count had in fact reacted so listlessly that she had been driven in desperation to write the letter to Marquis Matsugae and then to take an overdose of sleeping pills.
Satoko had persisted in rejecting Tadeshina’s advice. Although the danger was growing more acute with each day that passed, she not only ordered Tadeshina to say nothing to anyone, but she gave no slightest indication that she herself was ever going to come to a decision. And so, unable to bear this any longer, Tadeshina had betrayed her mistress by telling her secret to her mother and father. But the Count and Countess—perhaps because the news was such a stunning blow—had shown no more perturbation than if the news had been of a cat running off with one of the chickens in the backyard.
The day after she told him, and the day after that too, Tadeshina happened to cross paths with the Count, but he gave no sign of being concerned about the problem. He was, in fact, profoundly shaken. But since the problem was at once too vast to deal with on his own and too embarrassing to discuss with others, he made every effort to put it out of his mind.
He and his wife had agreed to say nothing to Satoko until they were ready to take some kind of action. Satoko, however, whose perceptions were now at their keenest, subjected Tadeshina to a cross-examination and so found out what had happened. And with that, she shut herself in her room and would have no more to do with her, and an uncanny silence fell over the house. Tadeshina stopped receiving any communications from the outside world, telling the servants to say th
at she was sick.
The Count avoided the problem even with his wife. He was fully aware of the fearful nature of the circumstances and of the necessity for immediate action, but he continued to procrastinate nonetheless. This did not mean that he believed in miracles either.
Count Ayakura’s paralysis did have a sort of refinement. Although one could hardly deny that his chronic indecisiveness involved a certain skepticism about the value of any decision at all, he was by no means a skeptic in the ordinary sense of the word. Even though he was plunged in meditation from morning to night, he was loath to direct his immense emotional reserves toward a single conclusion. Meditation had a great deal in common with kemari, the traditional sport of the Ayakuras. No matter how high one kicked the ball, it would obviously come down to earth again at once. Even if his illustrious ancestor Namba Munetate could excite cries of admiration when he picked up the white deerskin ball by its thongs of purple leather and kicked it to such incredible heights that it topped the ninety-foot roof of the imperial residence itself, it must inevitably fall back again into the garden.
Since all the solutions left something to be desired in terms of good taste, it was better to wait for someone else to make the unpleasant decision. Someone else’s foot would have to stretch out to intercept the falling ball. Even if one kicked the ball oneself, it was quite possible that it might be seized by some unexpected whim of its own as it reached the high point of its arc, and come sailing down in a new and unpredictable trajectory.
The specter of ruin never rose before the Count. If it was not a grave crisis to have the fiancée of an imperial prince, whose engagement had been sanctioned by the Emperor himself, carrying another man’s offspring in her womb, then the world would never know a grave crisis. Still, the descending ball would not inevitably be his to kick; surely someone else’s turn to cope with it would come. The Count was never one to be long vexed by worries, and as an inevitable consequence, his worries always ended up by vexing others.
And then it happened that on the day after the tumult of Tadeshina’s attempt on her life, the telephone call came from Marquis Matsugae.
∗
That the Marquis should have known what had happened despite all efforts to hush it up was simply incredible to the Count. He would not have been surprised to learn that there was an informer in his household. But since his prime suspect, Tadeshina herself, had been unconscious throughout the previous day, all his most likely speculations were left with the ground cut out from under them.
Having heard from his wife that Tadeshina was recovering at a good rate, that she could talk and that her appetite had even returned, the Count therefore summoned up his extreme reserves of courage and decided to visit the sickroom all by himself.
“You needn’t come with me. I’ll go and see her on my own. Perhaps the woman will be more inclined to tell the truth that way,” he told his wife.
“But the room is in a terrible state, and if you visit her without warning, she’ll be upset. I’ll go and tell her first, and help her to get herself ready.”
“As you wish.”
The Count had to endure a two-hour wait. When the patient heard the news from the Countess, she immediately began to apply her makeup.
She had been granted the exceptional privilege of a room in the main house, but it was no more than four and a half mats large, and never caught the sun. When her bedding was laid out, it occupied almost the whole floor. The Count had never been in there before.
Finally, a servant came to escort him to the room. A chair for him had been placed on the tatami floor and Tadeshina’s bedding had been put away. Dressed in a sleeved coverlet and with her elbows supported on a pile of pillows on her lap, Tadeshina bowed in reverence as the master entered. As she did so, her forehead seemed to press down on the pillows in front of her, but he noticed that, perfect as her bow was, she overcame her weakness sufficiently to preserve a slight gap between her forehead and the pillows. She was concerned about her makeup, that smooth expanse of thick, congealed white that extended right up to her scrupulously groomed hairline.
“Well, you’ve had quite an ordeal,” the Count began, after sitting down. “But you pulled through, and that’s the main thing. You shouldn’t worry us so.”
Although he found nothing awkward in looking down at her from his position in the chair, he felt that for some reason neither his voice nor his meaning was reaching her.
“How unworthy I am to receive Your Excellency’s visit! I am altogether in a state of dread. Never can I express adequately the deep shame that I feel . . .”
Her head still bowed, she seemed to be dabbing her eyes with the tissue paper she had pulled from her sleeve, but he realized that in so doing she was again being careful to preserve her makeup.
“According to the doctor, ten days rest and you’ll be your old self again. So just relax and take a good long rest.”
“Oh thank you so much, Your Excellency. I am covered with shame, having failed so miserably in trying to die.”
As the Count looked down at the old woman cowering in her russet chrysanthemum-patterned bedjacket, he sensed the offensive aura that surrounds someone who has gone down the road of death only to turn back. He smelled the breath of defilement that clung to everything in the small room, even to its cabinet and drawers, and he grew more and more uneasy. The very care and skill that had gone into the application of the liquid white makeup on the nape of her neck, still visible as she bowed her head, and that had arranged her coiffure so that not a single hair straggled out of place, only served to intensify his indefinable sense of fear.
“Actually,” he said, putting the question as casually as he could, “I was rather taken aback to receive a telephone call from Marquis Matsugae today. He already knew what had happened. And so I thought I might ask you if you did not have some explanation for it.”
But there are questions that answer themselves as soon as they are formulated. The words had hardly passed his lips before the answer came to him with startling suddenness, just as she raised her head.
The old court-style makeup covering her face was thicker than ever. She had painted her lips a bright red that covered even their innermost edge. Not content merely to subdue her wrinkles with makeup, she had applied layer upon layer of white to create a smooth surface which did not, however, blend into her skin, roughened by her recent ordeal. The effect was as if the makeup were clinging to her skin as though the pores had sprouted a white mold. The Count furtively looked away before he started to speak again.
“You wrote to the Marquis beforehand, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Your Excellency,” she answered, her head still raised, her voice quite steady. “I really intended to die, and so I wrote to him begging him to do what was necessary after I was gone.”
“You told him everything in that letter?”
“No, sir.”
“There are things you left out?”
“Yes, Your Excellency, there are many things I left out,” she replied, now cheerful.
41
ALTHOUGH THE COUNT HAD no very clear-cut idea of anything he might wish to keep from Marquis Matsugae, he had only to hear Tadeshina mention her omissions to feel suddenly uneasy.
“And the things you left out—what were they?”
“What does the master mean? I answered Your Excellency as I did, simply because you were pleased to ask me if I had told the Marquis everything in the letter. There must be something on the master’s mind to make him ask such a question.”
“This is no time to talk in riddles. I’ve come here alone like this because I thought we could talk freely without regard for others. So it would be as well if you said clearly what you meant.”
“There are many, many things I did not discuss in that letter. Among them is the matter that the master was pleased to confide to me some eight years ago at Kitazaki’s. I intended to die with that sealed in my heart.”
“Kitazaki’s?”
The C
ount shuddered as he heard that name, which rang like doom in his ears. He now understood what Tadeshina had been hinting at, and as he did so his anxiety deepened. He felt driven to tear away any vestige of doubt.
“What did I say at Kitazaki’s?”
“It was an evening during the rainy season. The master can hardly have forgotten. Miss Satoko, though she was slowly growing up to be a young lady, was still only thirteen. Marquis Matsugae came here that day to pay one of his rare visits. And when he was leaving, the master’s mood seemed to be not what it should be. And so he went to Kitazaki’s house for a little recreation. And that night he was pleased to tell me something.”
The Count was fully aware of the drift of Tadeshina’s remarks. She intended to forge a weapon from his words that night and to make her own dereliction entirely his responsibility. He suddenly doubted that she had ever really intended to kill herself.
Her eyes now regarded him from the heavily powdered face above the pile of pillows like two loopholes cut into the white walls of a fortress. The darkness behind that wall was teeming with things from the past and out of it could come flying an arrow, aimed at him as he stood exposed in the bright light outside.
“Why do you bring that up now? It was something I said as a joke.”
“Was it really?”
Suddenly those loophole eyes seemed to narrow still further. He had the feeling that darkness itself in all its intensity was pointed at him. Then she went on, her voice heavy, “But still . . . that night, at Kitazaki’s house. . . .”
Kitazaki, Kitazaki—that name, bound up with memories the Count had been trying to ignore, came to the lips of this sly old woman again and again. Though eight years had passed since he last set foot there, every detail of the house now sprang vividly to mind once again. The inn stood at the foot of a slope, and although it had no gate nor entranceway to speak of, it was surrounded by quite a large garden with a wooden fence. The gloomy, damp front hall, a spot favored by slugs and snails, had been preempted by four or five pairs of black boots. Even their blotched, yellowish brown leather linings, greasy and moldy with sweat, now flashed before his eyes, as did the broad-striped name-tabs that hung out of them. That night the sound of rude and boisterous singing had greeted him at the front door. The Russo-Japanese War was at its height, and the quartering of soldiers was a respectable and sure source of income. It had given the inn a reputable appearance along with the smell of a stable. As he was led to a room at the rear, he walked along the corridor as if passing through a quarantine ward, fearful even that his sleeve might brush against a pillar along the way. He had a profound aversion to human sweat and all that related to it.