At that moment Ying Chan, perhaps jealous that Keiko’s thigh had freedom of movement, raised her left arm high and grasped it as though to claim it as her own. She placed it firmly over her head as if she could do without breathing. The imposing white thigh completely covered her face.
Ying Chan’s whole side was exposed. To the left of her bare breast, an area her arm had previously concealed, three extremely small moles appeared distinctly, like the Pleiades in the dusky sky of her brown skin that resembled the dying evening glow.
Honda was shocked. It was as if his eyes had been pierced with arrows.
Just as he ducked his head and was about to leave the bookcase, he felt a light tap on his back. On withdrawing his head he discovered Rié standing there in her nightdress, her face frighteningly pale.
“What are you doing? I suspected as much.”
Honda felt no guilt as he turned his perspiring forehead to his wife. He had already seen the moles.
“Look. Look at the moles . . .”
“Are you telling me to peek?”
“Go ahead. It’s just as I thought.”
Caught between dignity and curiosity, Rié hesitated for some time. Ignoring her, Honda walked to the bay window and seated himself on the built-in bench. Rié put her eye to the peephole. Having been unable to see his own posture when he had done the same thing, Honda could not bear to witness the demeaning position of his wife. Nevertheless, they had come to the point of sharing the same deed.
He looked for the moon concealed by a cloud through the metal screen in the bay window. Behind the cloud, edged in light, the moon sent forth beams in all directions and cloud clusters trailed away in similar stateliness. The stars were few, and he saw only one shining brightly, scarcely touching the tops of the cypress trees.
When Rié had done peeping, she lit the lamp in the room. Her face was shining with joy.
She walked to the bench and sat down. Already she was cured.
“I’m stunned. . . . Did you know about that?” she said in a warm, low voice.
“No. I just found out.”
“But you said it was just as you thought.”
“That’s not what I meant, Rié. I was talking about the moles. Some time ago you raked through my study in Tokyo and read Matsugae’s diary, didn’t you?”
“I hunted through your study?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m asking if you read Matsugae’s diary.”
“I . . . I don’t remember. I’m not interested in other people’s diaries.”
When Honda asked her to bring him a cigar from the bedroom, she obediently followed his command. She even lighted it, shielding it with her hand from the wind that came through the window screen.
“The key to transmigration is in Matsugae’s diary. You saw them too, didn’t you? The three black moles on her left side? Those moles were originally on Matsugae.”
Rié, thinking of other things, was indifferent to what Honda was saying. She probably thought her husband was looking for excuses. Honda pressed her, wishing them to have the memory in common.
“Well, you did see them, didn’t you?”
“I can’t say. But the scene was horrible. You never know about people, do you!”
“That’s why I’m saying that Ying Chan is the reincarnation of Matsugae.”
Rié gazed at her husband with pity. It was only natural that a woman who believed herself cured should try in turn to act as such. This woman who had so savagely confirmed reality was now ready to infect her husband with the roughness that burned her skin like salt water. Rié was no longer the Rié of old. Although she had once desired to transform reality she had wisely learned to believe in it. She had learned that without changing herself, the world could be transformed through observation. She rather looked down on her husband’s world, without realizing that she had in fact become a co-conspirator by having been a voyeur too.
“What’s all this about reincarnation? How ridiculous! I didn’t read any diary. At any rate, I’ve finally calmed down. Your eyes must have been opened too, but I was suffering from something that didn’t exist at all. I was wrestling with an illusion. Now that I realize it, I suddenly feel tired. But everything turned out for the best. There’s nothing to worry about any more.”
The two were sitting at either end of the bench, an ashtray between them. Honda, concerned that Rié might be cold, closed the window; the smoke from his cigar slowly eddied up under the light. They were silent, but the silence was not the same as that which had occurred that morning.
Their hearts were bound together by the odiousness of what they had observed, and Honda felt momentarily how good it would have been if they could have been like so many other couples in the world, if they could flaunt their impeccable moral rectitude like immaculately white aprons across their chests, sit at table three times a day and proudly eat to their satisfaction, if they could assume the right to disdain other things in the world. But in reality they had merely been transformed into a couple of voyeurs.
Yet each of them had not seen the same thing. Where Honda had discovered reality, Rié had found out her illusions. The process whereby they had reached this common point was the same for both in that they had not yet recuperated from their fatigue and their work had been futile. What remained now was mutual consolation.
After a while Rié yawned so widely one could see to the back of her mouth.
“Don’t you think we should start thinking about adopting a child?” she said most appropriately, combing back her disheveled hair.
Death had flown from Honda’s heart the moment he had seen Keiko and Ying Chan together. Now there was reason to believe that he might be immortal. “No,” he said with determination, plucking a piece of tobacco from his lip, “it’s better to live by ourselves. I prefer not having any heir.”
Honda and Rié were no sooner awakened by a violent pounding on the door than they smelled the smoke.
“Fire! Fire!” a woman was shouting. When the couple, joining hands, ran out the door, the second-floor corridor was already filled with swirling smoke, and the person who had roused them was gone. Covering their mouths with their sleeves, the two ran coughing and choking down the stairs. The pool with its water flashed through Honda’s mind. They would be safe only if they could reach it without delay.
As they burst out onto the terrace and looked at the pool, they saw Keiko holding Ying Chan and crying to them from the far side. That the fire was already sweeping through the house was obvious, for though the lights had not been turned on, the reflections of the two women were nonetheless clearly visible on the surface of the water. Honda was amazed by the personal appearance of both Keiko and Ying Chan. Their hair was disheveled, but both were wearing the dressing gowns they had brought with them. Honda was clad only in his pajamas and Rié was wearing her night kimono.
“I woke up coughing because of the smoke. It must have come from Mr. Imanishi’s room,” said Keiko.
“Who knocked on our door?”
“I did. I knocked on Mr. Imanishi’s too, but he hasn’t come down. What shall we do?”
“Matsudo! Matsudo!” Honda shouted, and the chauffeur came running along the edge of the swimming pool.
“Mr. Imanishi and Mrs. Tsubakihara are in there. Can’t you go help them?”
They looked up and saw flames shooting out of the second-floor windows along with dense white smoke.
“That’s impossible, Mr. Honda,” the chauffeur said, carefully considering the situation. “It’s too late now. Why didn’t they get out?”
“They must have taken too many sleeping pills,” Keiko remarked. Ying Chan buried her face in Keiko’s breast and began to cry.
Apparently the roof had caved in, for flames shot high into a sky filled with flying sparks.
“What are we to do with the water?” said Honda helplessly, looking at the swimming pool that was so reddened with reflected flames and sparks that it would seem that in touching the water one’s hand would
be burned.
“Yes, I think it’s too late to put out the fire, but perhaps we should douse the valuable pieces in the living room. Shall I bring a bucket?” asked Matsudo without making a move.
Honda was already thinking of something else.
“How about the fire department? I wonder what time it is now.”
No one had a watch. They had all been left behind.
“It’s three minutes past four. The sun will be up soon,” said Matsudo.
“How provident of you to have thought to bring your watch,” Honda said sarcastically, regaining his assurance as he discovered he was capable of sarcasm even in such circumstances.
“It’s an old habit. I always sleep with my watch on,” placidly answered the properly dressed Matsudo.
Rié, dazed, had seated herself in a chair next to the folded beach umbrella.
Honda saw Ying Chan remove her face from Keiko’s breast, hastily fumble through the breast pocket of her dressing gown, and take out a photograph. The gloss of the picture was enhanced by the flames. Glancing distractedly at it, he saw that it was a completely nude Keiko leaning against a chair.
“I’m glad this was not burned,” said Ying Chan, smiling. As she looked up at Keiko, her white teeth gleamed in the light of the flames. His memory functioned amidst a welter of thoughts, and Honda recalled the scene just before Katsumi had broken into her bedroom. This was the same treasured picture that Ying Chan had been looking at then.
“Silly,” said Keiko, tenderly putting an arm round her shoulder. “What did you do with the ring?”
“The ring! Oh, I’ve left it in the room,” Honda heard her say distinctly. He was seized by a fear that the flaming silhouettes of his two friends might appear in the far windows of the second floor, screaming in terror. They were most certainly dying there. Probably they were already dead. This might well be why the fire gave the impression of quietness despite the grating and roaring.
The fire engine still had not come. Honda thought of the telephone in Keiko’s house which was being remodeled and sent Matsudo running over to call the Gotemba Fire Station at Nimaibashi.
The holocaust had enveloped the entire second story, and the first floor was filled with smoke. As the wind happened to be coming from the direction of Fuji to the northwest, smoke did not blow toward the pool, but the dawn chill crept up the spines of the onlookers.
The fire changed at every instant. Mingling with sounds like colossal footsteps amidst the flames came the intermittent noise of things bursting. With each sound Honda associated some burning object: now a book, now the desk. He visualized pages turning over, swelling like roses.
The volume of fire increased in proportion to the smoke. The heat could be felt even on this side of the swimming pool, and the rising hot air carried up cinders and sparks. During the short time before they turned to ash, the cinders were gold, reminding one of the flutter of golden wings of fledglings leaving their nest. It seemed as though things were departing. In one area of the sky radiant with soaring flames, the outlines of the cloud banks hidden in the dusky light of dawn were now defined.
A roaring, probably caused by falling beams on the second floor, rose from the house. Then a section of outer wall was rent by flames, and a window frame engulfed in fire fell into the pool. The subtle decorative flames imparted to the falling black object the momentary illusion of being a window of the Marble Temple in Siam. A sizzling pierced the air as the frame plunged into the water. They jumped back from the pool.
The house, gradually losing its outer walls, took on the appearance of a gigantic burning bird cage. Tatters of delicate flame fluttered from every chink and every crack. The house was breathing. It was as though the source of a deep and vigorous life breath existed within the flames. From time to time the shape of some familiar piece of furniture, some former lifelike shadow would appear in their midst, but it would collapse instantly covered in brilliance and turn into joyfully dancing flames. The upsurging fire would suddenly shoot out like a snake’s tongue only to disappear again into the smoke, while red faces of flame would suddenly appear from the dense black fumes. Everything happened with incredible rapidity, fire and fire joined hands, smoke wrapped about smoke, all attempting to reach a single summit. The upside-down burning house dropped mixtures of flame deep into the swimming pool, and the limpid dawn sky was visible through the tips of fingers of fire.
The wind changed direction and smoke blew toward the pool, sending the spectators further from the water. Although they could not detect it with certainty, and although no one mentioned it, they knew surely that the odor of burning human flesh was present in the smoke, and they covered their nostrils with both hands.
Rié suggested that it would be best to go to the arbor since dew was falling. The three women, turning their backs on the fire, started toward the arbor across the lawn just mowed the previous day. Honda remained alone.
He felt insistently that he had seen this somewhere before.
Flames reflecting in the water . . . burning corpses . . . Benares! How could he not have dreamed of recapturing the ultimate he had seen in that holy land?
The house had turned into kindling and life had become fire. All triviality had returned to ash and nothing but the most essential was important, and the hidden, gigantic face had turned up its head abruptly from the flame. Laughter, screams, sobs were all absorbed in the clamor of the flames, the crackling of wood, the distorted panes of glass, the creaking of the joints—sound itself was enveloped in an absolute quiet. Roasted tiles cracked and fell, one by one the fetters were released, and the house turned into a brilliant nakedness hitherto unknown. The light cream section of outer wall on the first floor which had not yet burned suddenly wrinkled and turned brown; and at the same time, the fire thrust violently through a light smudge of smoke. The smooth speed of transformation into flames and their shiftings in finding an escape were unimaginably exquisite.
Honda brushed sparks from his shoulders and sleeves. The surface of the swimming pool was covered with embers and ashes that swarmed like duckweed. But the brilliance of the fire penetrated everything, and the purification of the Mani Karnika ghat was reflected mirror-fashion in this small, limited area of water, in this sacred pool created for Ying Chan’s bathing. What was different here from the funeral pyres reflected in the Ganges? Here too were fire and wood, and the two human bodies, slow to burn, were doubtless writhing and threshing in the flames. They no longer felt pain; the flesh merely imitated and repeated the forms of suffering as it resisted destruction. Such were the two corpses. This was precisely the same as that clear fire in the evening dusk at the floating ghat. Everything was being rapidly reduced to constituent elements. Smoke rose high into the sky.
The only thing missing was the face of the sacred white cow that had turned and stared straight at Honda from the other side of the flames.
When the fire engine arrived, the fire had already died down. Nevertheless, the firemen conscientiously hosed the house. A rescue was attempted, but they found the two corpses completely incinerated. The police arrived and requested Honda to verify the scene of death. But as the staircase had collapsed, it was difficult to reach the upper floor, and Honda gave up. On being told of the habits of Imanishi and Mrs. Tsubakihara, the officer in charge commented that the cause of the fire had probably been their smoking in bed. If they had taken sleeping pills about three, then the time of the drug’s maximum effect would have coincided with the onset of the fire, doubtless starting from a lit cigarette dropped on the quilt. Honda did not accept the idea of suicide. When the officer spoke of “double suicide,” Keiko, listening at one side, broke into unrestrained laughter.
When things settled down a bit, Honda would have to present himself at the police station to make a deposition. He was sure to be busy today. He must send Matsudo out to purchase food for breakfast, but it would be some time yet before the stores opened.
As there was no other place to go, everyone gathered in the
arbor. In her faltering Japanese Ying Chan brought up the subject of a snake she had seen as she ran from the fire. It had appeared on the lawn and slithered away with unusual speed, the distant fire glinting on its oily brown scales. Listening to her, all of them, especially the women, felt even more the penetrating chill of the air.
Just then, Fuji the color of red tile at dawn, one sparkling brush mark of snow near its summit, appeared before them. Even under these circumstances Honda’s eyes shifted involuntarily from the red mountain to the morning sky immediately beside it. The habit was almost unconscious. He could clearly see the distinct form of a winter Fuji.
45
IN 1967, it happened that Honda was invited to a dinner party at the American Embassy in Tokyo. There he met the head of the American Cultural Center in Bangkok. His wife, somewhat over thirty, was Thai, and people said that she was a princess. Honda was sure that she was Ying Chan.
Ying Chan had gone home shortly after the fire at Gotemba in 1952 and Honda had had no news since then. Momentarily he believed that she had unexpectedly returned to Tokyo after fifteen years as the wife of an American. This was not impossible, and it would be quite typical of Ying Chan to pretend not to know him at all when she greeted him at their introduction.
He looked at her several times during dinner, but the woman obstinately spoke no Japanese. Her English was that of a native American. Deeply engrossed, Honda made completely irrelevant answers on several occasions to the woman seated next to him.
Following dinner, liqueurs were served in another room. Honda approached the lady who was wearing a rose-colored dress of Thai silk and for the first time had the opportunity of talking with her alone.
He inquired if she knew Ying Chan.
“I do, indeed! She was my twin sister. But she’s dead now,” she said brightly in English. Impulsively he asked how she had died, and when.
The lady said that after she returned from her studies in Japan, Ying Chan’s father discovered that she had benefited little from her stay, and he had tried to send her to the United States to study. But Ying Chan had not agreed and had chosen to live in her residence in Bangkok surrounded by flowers. She died suddenly in the spring at the age of twenty.