Inhabitation Page 12

  “Even Nakazawa says that I look like a malnourished Grim Reaper.”

  “Your face is so lean . . .”

  “That’s because my heart is lean.”

  There was a knock at the door. Yōko hurriedly gathered up his clothing and, opening the door only slightly, handed the bundle to the laundry maid. Then she entered the bathroom and began filling the tub.

  “Ah, I forgot to hand you my underpants,” Tetsuyuki said to her as she came out of the bathroom. She thought for a moment, but answered that if she wrung them out thoroughly and hung them in front of the air conditioner, they would dry in no time.

  “Have a good soak in the hot water.” After pushing Tetsuyuki into the bathroom, Yōko again picked up the phone and dialed room service, ordering corn soup, minute steak, salad, and coffee.

  Warming himself leisurely by soaking in the bathtub as Yōko had told him to do, it suddenly occurred to Tetsuyuki to force her out of her indecision. “That way, I’ll either end up losing something that I’ll never again have in my lifetime, or I might gain something even more precious.” As he sat in the hot water, Kin immediately came to his mind, and he called out, “Kin-chan! I hear that ‘Since I could never succeed in any austerities, hell will surely be my final abode.’ I’d like to have the author of these words take a look at you, Kin-chan. I’d like him to see you surviving. I’d like to teach him that hell and paradise aren’t separate places. You and I . . . everyone—we all bear hell and paradise within ourselves, and we go through life treading a razor-thin line, easily making false steps one way or the other. If he could just watch you for one hour, that would be clear to him.”

  Then it occurred to him that it depended on how one looked at things; perhaps if Nakazawa were to look at Kin, he would only cling all the more devotedly to every word and phrase in Lamenting the Deviations. He was not sure why, but somehow Tetsuyuki sensed that he understood the human mind. And he had come to understand Yōko’s mind. With a bath towel around his waist he walked out of the bathroom, changed into a bathrobe, and confronted Yōko.

  “I’ve come to a decision. Today is the last day I’ll see you. I surrender. And since I’m the one who has surrendered, you won’t have to remain torn any longer. I’m not going to sulk and miss work any longer. I’m going back to work tomorrow. I can live well enough by myself, but what a woman is depends on what a man is. If the husband is wealthy, then the wife is wealthy. If he’s a robber, then she is too, whether she likes it or not. It’s really like setting stakes in gambling when a woman decides which man to marry, but she ought to have some criteria to see ahead. If you consider those criteria with a cool head and compare me with that other guy, the conclusion should be obvious. I’ll make this easy for you and throw in the towel.”

  Yōko was about to respond but then clammed up, her vacant stare remaining on Tetsuyuki’s shoulder.

  Room service brought the food Yōko had ordered, and at almost the same time, the dried and folded clothing was also delivered.

  “Leave half the coffee, okay? I want to drink some too,” Yōko mumbled to Tetsuyuki, who was devouring the meat and salad voraciously. After informing him that the pot contained two cups of coffee, Yōko bit her lower lip.

  “You have an eye for people, don’t you, Tetsuyuki? You once said of Akagi: ‘He looks serious and mature, but he’s really like a thieving dog.’”

  “I did. And I said things about others, too.”

  “I used to think it was a bad habit of yours to make such immediate, biting judgments about people, but you turned out to be right. And it wasn’t only Akagi; you guessed right all the faults I had never noticed in Akita, Mie, and Mitsuko, too.”

  “When my dad’s business failed and we were left penniless, those who had always called me ‘sonny’ were suddenly referring to me as ‘that idiot Iryō kid.’ While there were those kinds of turncoats, there were also some who treated us the same even after we ended up in poverty. People in each of these two types share indescribable facial features, and so when I meet people, the first thing I do is read their faces to determine whether they would turn on me if things went bad, or continue to associate with me regardless. Strangely enough, I turn out to be right. But it’s a pathetic ability to have,” Tetsuyuki explained after having wolfed down the heap of food and wiping his mouth. Yōko poured him a cup of coffee, then one for herself. After sipping leisurely, she stood up and opened the curtain. The rain had stopped. She looked at a section of the buildings along the street dyed by the faint residue of a sunset glow.

  “He’s still at work.” Tetsuyuki stood up and went to stand next to Yōko, who pointed to a street extending due west from Umeda. “You see that newspaper office on the corner by the traffic light? In the Ōkita Building, right next to it, on the third floor, the room closest to us . . . that’s his office.” No people could be seen, but the light was on in the room she mentioned. “I’ll call him now, so you can go meet him.”

  Tetsuyuki changed back into his clothing. “Let’s forget this idiotic nonsense.” The moment he looked at her facing away from him as he answered, he was overcome by an almost insane jealousy. Seen from behind, Yōko looked to him like an unbearably sad statue as she fixed her gaze on the lighted corner of the distant building.

  “If you say that he’s a fraud, then I’ll . . .”

  “I’m sure to say you shouldn’t marry him, that he’s showy but worthless. Even if he’s not, that’s what I’ll say. And if that’s what I say, then will you come back to me without any reservation? It’s up to you to discern what kind of person he is.”

  “I’m only twenty-one years old. I can’t make such a judgment . . .” Yōko was obstinate, and though Tetsuyuki firmly refused, she picked up the phone and dialed the man’s office. In a small voice she conveyed to the other party that she wished to meet Ishihama, and that she would be accompanied by another person. With that, she hung up and said: “He’s with a client right now, and it will be about another hour before their consultation ends. He’ll come to the tea lounge in this hotel at eight o’clock . . .” It was the first time Tetsuyuki had heard the man’s name from Yōko’s lips.

  “I’m going home. I’ve already decided that I’m throwing in the towel. Looking like Death warmed over, I don’t feel like setting myself against an architectural designer who has his own practice. This seems like some kind of attempt to set this Ishihama guy off to an advantage against me.”

  As he was about to go out, Yōko clutched at him from behind, sobbing and begging him not to leave. Tetsuyuki reluctantly closed the door and returned to the room, remonstrating with Yōko.

  “By now, you should already understand your own feelings, shouldn’t you? You’re ninety percent in favor of this Ishihama, and reserve ten percent for me. And that ten percent consists of a bit of a guilty conscience, along with some sympathy for me. Do you want to marry out of sympathy and spend the rest of your life feeling that you’ve made a rotten choice?”

  Yōko then buried her face in Tetsuyuki’s chest and wrapped her arms tightly around him, sobbing. “I love you.”

  “Enough! You love that other guy too. I don’t want to hear it anymore.” Even as he spoke, Tetsuyuki could feel that Yōko’s nipples pressed against him had become hard, and he pulled away. In that instant, an idea emerged in his mind, a crude whim that filled even himself with disgust. He told Yōko to get naked. She seemed unable to grasp immediately what he meant, but when he closed the curtains, quickly shed his own clothes, and advanced toward her, she shouted, “You fool!” Grabbing a pillow from the bed, she threw it at him, and then fell into his embrace.

  While Yōko was in his arms, Kin occupied a corner of his mind. As if nailed to his heart rather than to a pillar, the lizard goaded his lust into rougher action than ever before, overturning his resolution.

  Throw in the towel . . . You think I’ll throw in the towel? You think I’ll give up? I’ll have this woman I’ve just embraced sit down in front of that Ishihama guy. As poor as I am,
as much as I might look like a wretched stray dog, no one knows how I might be transformed a few years or a few decades from now. Not even I can predict that. Will hell . . . surely be my final abode? No doubt, there’s a half truth in that. But there’s a bigger truth in the other half that remains unknown. On the other side of the ravine, just a hairsbreadth from hell, everything is charged with bliss and limitless joy.

  In both body and mind, Tetsuyuki had turned into Kin. You think I’ll give in? I’ll show him that I can take Yōko back. The Kin inside Tetsuyuki was shedding forth dazzling light, enticing the emptiness he had felt toward an apex of joy that was hidden and awaiting.

  Tetsuyuki listened intently for Yōko’s breathing to subside. When it appeared to have eased off, she moved her lips toward him, then away again. “You fool!”

  “Are you really angry?”

  “Yes, I am really angry.”

  “I’m not going to give up on you. I’m going to have it out with that Ishihama.”

  Yōko smiled. It was a smile like a mother’s. Worried about the time, she tried to glance at the clock, but was held in his powerful lock. He was again about to transform into Kin.

  Ishihama, smartly dressed in a well-tailored, showy blue suit, stood up from his seat as soon as he saw them enter the tea lounge, bowing politely to Tetsuyuki, who was six years his junior. There was nothing diffident about his manners, but neither did he display any condescension toward the younger man. Following Yōko’s introduction, he produced a business card and, handing it to Tetsuyuki, said, “How do you do? I am Ishihama Tokurō.” His countenance, telling of a strong intellectuality, barely offset his dandyish attire—which in any other person might be taken as too calculated—from appearing as affectation, instead turning it into elaborate refinement. His tiepin bore a gem—definitely genuine—of the same hue as his suit, and together with the matching cuff links would have cost a few years’ worth of Tetsuyuki’s income.

  “If I wanted to have what you’re wearing, on my part-time income I’d have to live like a church mouse for five or six years to afford it.”

  Ishihama responded impassively to Tetsuyuki’s comment. “These things are tools of my trade. If I let my clients detect even a shred of vulgarity in me, they’ll soon imagine the same crudeness in my blueprints.”

  Tetsuyuki became aware of the extent to which Ishihama Tokurō was being considerate toward him. In a case like this, Ishihama was unaware of how offensive his insincere smile was, in spite of his seeming adeptness at care and consideration for others. Not looking at either man’s face, Yōko fixed her gaze on the orange juice before her.

  “I hear you’ll be going to America next year. When, exactly, will that be?”

  “I haven’t yet set an exact date, but I need to be there no later than the first part of February.”

  “And you want to take Yōko with you?”

  “I’d like to. But she hasn’t yet given me an answer.” Ishihama kept his eyes fixed on Tetsuyuki, not even so much as glancing at Yōko. Somewhere in the tone of his words “she hasn’t yet given me an answer,” Tetsuyuki sensed the betrayal of a slight chink in the careful armor of this man’s confidence, and determined to strip him naked.

  “When I heard about you from Yōko, I thought the odds were hopelessly stacked against me. An up-and-coming architectural designer with a brilliant future against a malnourished student who is hounded by his dead father’s debts and who works part-time as a bellboy at a hotel. When I look at myself in the mirror, I’m amazed at how bedraggled I look.”

  “Not at all. Your eyes have a very striking aspect about them.” The tone of Ishihama’s interjection definitely did not suggest an idle compliment. But what did he mean by “striking”? Eyes can be “striking” in various ways. But without giving it further thought, Tetsuyuki continued.

  “There’s no question which of us would be of more benefit to Yōko, and at one point I had given up. But just moments ago, I retracted that decision to give up.” After ascertaining that he possessed a degree of poise that surprised even himself, he went on. “For rather a long time now, Yōko and I have had a physical relationship. Even today, until just before meeting with you, we were in bed together naked in a sixth-floor room in this hotel, and even as she was in my arms I gloated to myself as I imagined you walking here triumphantly. If you’re the kind of man who doesn’t mind that and who will marry Yōko anyway and take her to America, then I’ll give her to you with a laugh. But I wouldn’t expect a man to be that big-hearted. Such a man would either be a fool or a coward, and though he’d have robbed me of Yōko, yet in the end I’d still be the winner. I’d never forget such a foolish, cowardly man, and he’d never forget my words. No matter how magnanimous he’d be right now—no matter how confident he might be that he’s won—the thought would never vanish from his mind that his wife had slept with some guy named Iryō. Mr. Ishihama, if, in spite of all that, you insist on taking Yōko with you to America, I’ll bow out of your lives right now, and never again show my face to Yōko. So, what do you say, Mr. Ishihama? Can your intellectuality trump my baseness? Wouldn’t you end up always tormenting Yōko about this?”

  Ishihama lit a cigarette, then for a long time fiddled with the matchbox on the table, setting it upright and laying it down as he was lost in thought. Yōko remained motionless, her gaze still on the orange juice.

  “Mr. Iryō, when I was twenty-two years old I would certainly not have been able to pull off a tactic like this or produce the kind of look in my eyes that I see in yours. I probably couldn’t do it even now.” With that, he glanced for the first time at Yōko. “But I still can’t very well apologize and surrender, because I haven’t yet heard Yōko’s reply.”

  “Then why don’t you ask her now?”

  Ishihama reproved Tetsuyuki’s follow-up attack with a smile. “Let us suppose that Yōko expresses a desire to marry me now. In that case, I might answer that I consider my proposal to have been broken, and then she would be the one to be pitied.”

  Tetsuyuki thought: At last I have stripped him of his expensive clothing and accessories, and he thought he’d win, and win big. Then he said: “But you’re in a hurry, aren’t you, Mr. Ishihama? Since you have to be in America early in February, you can’t afford to take your time.”

  A look of weariness appeared in Ishihama’s face. Sensing that a mere few minutes of exchange with him had rendered his rival exhausted, Tetsuyuki pressed Yōko. “Why don’t you just give an answer? Such wishy-washiness isn’t good in a woman.”

  At that, Ishihama turned to him with a look of unconcealed indignation. “If you please, that’s no way to talk. You sound just like a gangster pimp.”

  “Well, even if she’s a gangster pimp’s woman, I’m sure that as long as Yōko accepts, you’d be magnanimous enough to marry her and take her to America.”

  Yōko suddenly shook her head violently, and both men turned their gaze toward her almost simultaneously. Still staring at the orange juice, she said in a barely audible voice: “I . . . love Tetsuyuki after all.”

  Ishihama heaved a sigh that could be taken as expressing either disappointment or relief. “That’s regrettable. Well then, I’ll withdraw.” With that, he stood up. But Tetsuyuki was no longer looking at him; his eyes were intently fixed on Yōko’s profile as he tried to fathom what she was feeling. He was not at all certain he had won her back.

  “So, tell me, you with your uncanny powers of discerning people’s characters . . . Tell me how Mr. Ishihama appeared to you. That was my purpose in having you meet with him. Well, then? If I had married him, do you think I could have been happy?”

  “I can’t say. Maybe you could have. At least he’s not trashy. He’s intelligent, he’s clean, he has many qualities that ought to be attractive to young women, he’s not given to affectation, and he’s in good shape. But he’s weak against adversity. He tries to live and act too stylishly. Such guys can’t handle hardships. Their range of feelings is narrow. I can’t say how things will
turn out for him ten or twenty years from now, but life doesn’t always go smoothly.”

  “He told me that during hard times I’d be the one he’d depend on for emotional support.”

  “Having been put in a position where you had to say ‘I love Tetsuyuki after all’ made you hate me, didn’t it?”

  “I don’t hate you, but I’ve become afraid . . .”

  “In time, that will turn into hatred.” With that pronouncement, he left the tea lounge, but then realized he had left the box containing the chestnut weevil larvae on the table. When he returned, Yōko grabbed his arm as he went to pick it up, staring at him intently.

  “Do you have enough for train fare back?”

  “I have a commuter pass from Osaka to Suminodō, so it’s no problem.”

  “Do you have anything for breakfast tomorrow?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Pulling her wallet out of her purse, Yōko set several 1,000-yen bills on the box of larvae.

  “I’ll go back to work tomorrow, so I don’t need this much.”

  He put just one bill in his pocket, and when he tried to return the rest, she stuffed the bills into his pocket with her peculiar endearing smile. “Give it back when you’ve gained some weight.”

  As he left the lobby, he looked back to see Yōko still sitting in the tea lounge. She had removed her tiny earrings and was staring at them as they lay in the palm of her hand. It occurred to him that in time another Ishihama would probably appear before her, but he felt no sorrow at parting. A strange vitality that had grown out of the lingering aftertaste of the victorious battle caused him to push the heavy glass doors of the hotel open with energy.