The road running along the burned-out buildings of Dogen Hill had already been cleared, and climbing the slope presented no difficulty. Here and there he could see where people had begun to live in their simple air-raid trenches which they had covered with half-burned lumber and pieces of zinc sheeting. It was close to dinner time, and smoke from the cooking fires was rising. Someone was replenishing a pot with water spouting from an exposed conduit. The sky was filled with the beautiful glow of evening.
From the top of the slope to the upper boulevard, the entire area of Minami Daira-dai had once been a part of the hundred-and-ten-acre Matsugae property. The former estate had recently been divided into small lots, but now it had again been transformed into a vast, unbroken ruin, reacquiring under the spacious evening sky the grand scale of bygone days.
The single remaining building belonged to a detachment of military police, and soldiers with arm bands were constantly going in and out. Honda vaguely remembered that the edifice had once stood next to the Matsugae estate. And sure enough, the next moment he recognized the stone pillars of the Matsugae gate beyond.
From it, the remaining acre appeared extremely small, for the property had been divided among many tenant houses. The pond and the artificial hill in the garden appeared as poor miniature replicas of the once magnificent lake and the maple-covered mountain of the old estate. There was no stone wall in the back, and as the wooden fence had burned down, the expanse of devastated neighboring lots lay in view all the way to Minami Daira-dai. He realized that the plot had been reclaimed by filling in the former extensive pond.
An island had once occupied the center of the lake, while a waterfall poured into it from the maple-covered mountain. Honda had once crossed over to it by boat with Kiyoaki and from there had recognized the figure of Satoko clad in a light-blue kimono. Kiyoaki had been in the flower of his youth, and Honda too had still been young, much more so indeed than he remembered. There something had commenced and something had ended. But no traces remained.
The Matsugae estate had been restored by the ruthless, impartially destructive bombing. The contours of the land had changed, but across the desolate expanse Honda could still single out the location of the pond, the shrine, the main house, the Western-style wing, and the driveway in front of the porch. The outlines of the Matsugae house that he had frequented were clearly etched in his memory.
But under the billowing evening clouds the innumerable shriveled zinc fragments, broken slates, shredded trees, melted glass, burned clapboard, or the exposed chimneys of fireplaces standing lonely like skeletons, doors squashed into lozenge shapes—all were dyed a deep, rusty red. Collapsed and prostrate on the ground, their wild shapes that defied norms seemed like strange nettles sprouting from the land. The eeriness was further heightened by the evening sun which added to everything a distinctive shadow.
The sky was the vermilion of silk kimono lining with tufts of cloud scattered about. The color had penetrated to their very core, and their raveled edges radiated like golden threads. He had never seen such a sinister sky.
Suddenly he discerned in the vast ruin the figure of a woman sitting on a garden stone which had survived. The back of her somewhat shiny trousers made from lavender silk kimono material was transformed to lie-de-vin by the evening sun. Her black gleaming hair done in a Western style was wet, and her huddled figure appeared tormented. She seemed to be crying, but her shoulders were not shaken by sobs; she seemed to be suffering too, but her back gave no indication of anguish. She sat hunched up as though petrified. Her motionlessness lasted too long for someone merely lost in thought. Honda judged from the luster of her hair that she was probably middle-aged, perhaps the owner of one of the houses that had stood there, or possibly a relative.
He realized he should have to offer assistance if she had been overcome by some indisposition. As he drew closer, he saw a black handbag and cane which she had placed beside the stone on which she was sitting.
Honda put his hand on her shoulder and shook it discreetly. He half feared that if he used any strength the form would collapse into ashes.
The woman looked obliquely up at him. The face frightened Honda. From the gap that showed at the unnatural hairline he realized that the black hair was a wig. The harsh vermilion of her lipstick stood out against the powder which had been thickly applied to cover the wrinkles and the hollows of her eyes; it was drawn on in the old-fashioned court style, a peaked upper lip and a tiny lower one. He recognized the face of Tadeshina beneath this indescribably aged mask.
“You’re Mrs. Tadeshina, aren’t you?” said Honda without thinking.
“Who could you be?” said Tadeshina. “A moment, please,” she added, hurriedly taking her glasses from her breast. He could see the Tadeshina of former days in her sly attempt to gain time by opening the sides and putting them over her ears. Under the pretext that she needed her glasses to see, she hurriedly tried to place him.
But the ruse was not successful. Even with the glasses, the old woman saw only a stranger standing before her. For the first time uneasiness and an old aristocratic prejudice—a mild chilliness she had learned to simulate so skillfully over the years—appeared on her face. This time she spoke with stiff formality.
“You must excuse me. I have quite lost my memory of late. I really have no idea . . .”
“I’m Honda. Thirty years ago I was a classmate of Kiyoaki Matsugae’s at the Peers School, and I used to come to the house all the time.”
“Oh, Mr. Honda! How good it is to see you! I don’t know how to apologize . . . I’m sorry not to have recognized you. Yes, Mr. Honda, indeed. You look just as you did in your younger days. Oh, what a . . .”
Tadeshina hurriedly put a sleeve to her eyes. Her tears in former days had always been suspicious, but now the makeup under her eyes immediately soaked them up like a whitewashed wall in the rain, and a generous supply overflowed almost mechanically from her bleary eyes. Such tears, as abundant as an overturned tub of water, totally unrelated to either joy or sorrow, were much more believable than those of thirty years ago.
Nevertheless, her senility was preposterous. On her skin, hidden under the thick white powder, Honda could see the moss of decrepitude that covered her entire body, and yet he sensed her extraordinary mind still working diligently like a watch ticking away in the pocket of a dead man.
“It’s good you’re looking so well. How old are you now?” asked Honda.
“I’m ninety-four this year. I’m a little hard of hearing, but other than that I have my health and no ailments; my legs are strong, and I manage to get around alone with a cane. My nephew’s family are looking after me, and they don’t like to let me go out alone. But I don’t really care when or where I die, so I like to get out as much as possible while I still can. I’m not at all afraid of the air raids. If I’m hit by a bomb or incinerated I’ll die without any pain and without causing anybody any trouble. You may not believe it, but I feel envious of the bodies lying by the roadside these days. When I heard that the Shibuya area had been burned in the bombardment the other day, I simply had to see the site of the Matsugae estate. I slipped out of my nephew’s house. What would the Marquis and the Marchioness say if they were alive to see this state of affairs! They were fortunate enough to die before experiencing any of this misery.”
“Fortunately my house hasn’t been burned yet, but I feel the same way about my mother. I’m glad she died while Japan was still winning.”
“Oh dear! Your mother’s gone too . . . I am terribly sorry to hear that, I had no idea . . .”
Tadeshina had not forgotten the emotionless, gracious civilities of her former days.
“What’s become of the Ayakuras?”
After putting the question, Honda immediately regretted it. As he had expected, the old woman hesitated noticeably. However, whenever she showed any visible sign of emotion, it was usually lacking in sincerity and simply for exhibition.
“Yes, after Miss Satoko entered the orders, I
left the Ayakura family, and since then I’ve only attended Lord Ayakura’s funeral. The Viscountess, I believe, is still alive, but after his lordship passed away she sold the house in Tokyo and went to relatives in Shishigatani in Kyoto. Her daughter . . .”
Honda felt a quivering in his heart and asked involuntarily: “Do you ever see Miss Satoko?”
“Yes, I’ve seen her three times in all after the funeral. She’s always so kind to me when I visit her. She even invites me to spend the night at the temple. So sweet and gracious . . .”
Tadeshina took off her clouded glasses, quickly removed a coarse tissue from her sleeve and held it over her eyes for some time. When she took it away there was a dark ring where the powder had come off.
“Miss Satoko’s well then?” said Honda again.
“She is, indeed. And—how shall I say?—she’s more beautiful, more pure than ever, and her beauty becomes more serene as she grows older. Please visit her some time, Mr. Honda. Do, she’ll be so pleased to see you.”
Honda abruptly recalled that midnight drive from Kamakura to Tokyo alone with Satoko.
She was another man’s woman, but she had been almost oppressively feminine then.
She had already had a foreboding of things to come ultimately and had expressed her readiness in preparing for them. Honda recalled, as vividly as though it had happened yesterday, that thrilling moment just before dawn when her profile had been framed by the car window with the foliage in the background flying past.
When he came back to reality, Tadeshina’s face had lost its pretense of deference and she was scrutinizing him. Wrinkles like the lines in tie-dyed silk surrounded her bowshaped lips, but now at either side her mouth was slightly pulled up in the semblance of a smile. Suddenly, in the two eyes—old wells in patches of snow—the pupils moved horizontally with a suggestion of the old coquetry.
“You were in love with her, weren’t you? I knew it.”
Honda flinched, more at the vestiges of Tadeshina’s coquetry than from displeasure at such a conjecture after so many years. To change the subject, he turned his thoughts to the gifts he had received from his client. It occurred to him that he might share a portion with her: a couple of eggs and a little chicken.
Tadeshina expressed her guileless joy and appreciation just as he had expected she would.
“Oh, my, eggs! How unusual to see eggs these days! I feel as if I haven’t seen one for years! Heavens, eggs!”
The meandering, complex thanks that followed made Honda realize that the old woman must be given scarcely any decent food. He was further surprised when she again took out the egg that she had put away in her shopping bag. Holding it up against the fading twilight sky, she said:
“Rather than taking this home—you must excuse my poor manners—I would rather just eat it here . . .”
As the old woman spoke, she looked regretfully at the egg against the darkening sky. It smoldered in her trembling old fingers as the fading light touched its delicate, cold shell.
For some time Tadeshina caressed the egg in her hand. The noise in the area had abated, and only the faint sound of her dry skin rubbing against it was audible.
Honda ignored her search for a sharp corner against which to crack the shell. He was reluctant to help her in an action which was somehow objectionable. Tadeshina broke the egg unexpectedly skillfully on the edge of the stone on which she was sitting. Carefully bringing it to her mouth in order to lose none of its content, she gradually lifted her face and poured it between her gleaming dentures gaping at the evening sky. The lustrous roundness of the yolk passing her lips was fleetingly visible, and her throat emitted an extremely healthy swallowing sound.
“My, this is the first nourishing food I’ve had in a long, long time. I feel revived. I feel as though the beauty of my youth has come back. You might not believe it, Mr. Honda, but I was a famous beauty in my day.”
Her tone had suddenly become frank.
There is a time of day immediately before dusk when the outline of every object becomes sharply delineated. It was just that moment. The lacerated edges of wooden beams in the wreckage, the freshness of the rents in the shredded trees, and the curled zinc sheets with their puddles of rain water—everything appeared almost unpleasantly vivid. In the extreme west only a horizontal line of scarlet was to be seen in the sky between two or three towering black burnedout buildings. Flecks of scarlet were also visible through the windows of the ruined structures. It was as if someone had turned on a red light in a deserted and uninhabited house.
“How can I thank you? You have always been such a tenderhearted man, and you are still so kind. I have nothing to give you, but at least . . .”
Like a blind woman, Tadeshina hunted through her bag. Before Honda could stop her, she had taken out a volume bound in the Japanese style and thrust it into his hand.
“At least I want to give you this book. I have always treasured it and carried it with me. It is an efficacious sutra given me by a priest to ward off harm and illness. I am so happy to have run into you and to have been able to talk about bygone times. You’ll probably be going out on air-raid days, and there are bad fevers about. But if you carry this sutra with you, you are sure to avoid any disaster. I should like you to keep it as a token of my appreciation.”
Honda held the book up reverently to show his thanks and looked at the title on the cover. It was barely legible in the evening light.
Mahamayurividyarajni, “Sutra of the Great Golden Peacock Wisdom King.”
22
EVER SINCE THAT DAY, Honda could scarcely contain his desire to see Satoko, but he knew that the urge came in part from Tadeshina’s remark that she was still beautiful. He was deathly afraid of seeing a “ruin of beauty” like the ruins of the city.
But the war situation was deteriorating daily, and it was difficult to obtain train tickets unless one had connections in the Army, and a pleasure trip was out of the question.
As the days passed, Honda opened the Peacock King Sutra that Tadeshina had given him. He had never had the opportunity of reading any Esoteric Buddhist sutras before.
The opening passages gave explanations and rules for use in small, almost illegible print.
To begin with, the Peacock Wisdom King occupied the sixth position from the southern end of the Susiddhi Court in the Womb Mandala. As he is attributed the power of begetting all Buddhas, he is also called the “Peacock King, Begetter of All Buddhas.”
When he consulted the Buddhist documents he had so far collected, Honda found that the deity had clearly originated in Hindu shakti worship. Since shakti rites were directed toward Kali, wife of Shiva, or toward Durga, the statue of the bloodthirsty goddess he had seen at the Kalighat in Calcutta was indeed the archetype of the Peacock Wisdom King.
When he discovered this, the sutra that had come into his possession by accident suddenly became of interest to him. Along with the use of dharani
∗ and mantra in Esoteric Buddhist rites, the old deities of Hinduism had invaded the world of Buddhism by resorting to all sorts of transformations.
Originally the Sutra of the Peacock Wisdom King was believed to have been an incantation spoken by the Buddha, and it was supposed to ward off snakes or cure poisoning from their bites.
According to the Peacock Sutra:
When one Kissho, who had not been long ordained, was preparing kindling for the monks’ bath, a black snake came out from under a strange tree and bit his right toe. He fainted and fell to the ground, his eyes turned up, and he foamed at the mouth. Ananda went to where the Buddha was and said: “How can he be cured?” Where-upon the Buddha answered, saying: “If you hold the Sutra of the Incantation of the Great Tathagata Peacock Wisdom King, clasp the monk Kissho in your arms, and make the proper hand signs as you chant the mantra, the poison will be harmless. Neither sword nor cane will be able to inflict injury. It will fend off all calamities.”
Not only snake poison, but all fevers, all wounds, all pain and suffering were
reputed abolished by this sutra. Simply chanting it was sufficient, and the mere thought of the Peacock Wisdom King did away with all fear, enemies, and calamities. Therefore, during the Heian period, only the Elder of the Toji and the Abbot of the Ninna Temple in the Imperial line were permitted to perform the Esoteric Buddhist rites of this sutra. During such ceremonies, fervent prayers were offered against all possible situations, from natural calamities to pestilence and childbirth.
The Peacock Wisdom King in the illustration was a gorgeous and sumptuous figure as though the personification of the peacock itself, so different from the bloody image of Kali, his prototype, with her protruding tongue and her necklace of severed heads.
His magic formula was said to imitate the cry of the peacock—ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-ka—and the mantra, ma yu kitsu ra tei sha ka, meant “Peacock fulfillment.” Even the special hand gesture, which was called the “sign of the Buddha Begetter, the Peacock Wisdom King,” and which was made by joining the two hands back to back, the two thumbs and the two little fingers pressed together, was both a description and imitation of the peacock’s majesty. The gesture represented the shape of the peacock, the little fingers being the tail and the thumbs the head, and the rest of the fingers the feathers. The way the middle six fingers moved as the incantation was chanted depicted a peacock dancing.
A blue Indian sky trailed behind the Wisdom King on his golden peacock mount. A tropical sky with its impressive clouds, its afternoon ennui, and its evening breezes, all necessary for spinning a gorgeous and colorful illusion.
The golden peacock was seen from the front, standing firmly on its two legs. It had opened its wings and was carrying the Wisdom King on its back, guarding him by spreading its magnificent fan tail which stood in place of a halo. The king was sitting in the lotus position on a white lotus flower placed on the back of the peacock. Of the king’s four arms, the first on the right held an open lotus; the second, the peach-shaped fruit of karma; the first hand on the left was held over the heart, its upturned palm supporting the fruit of good fortune; and the second, a peacock tail of thirty-five feathers.