On other occasions he would have Yūko bring him copies of his own literary works. Stefan George’s collection of translated poems was tastefully bound in marbled German paper, while his critical biography of Li He was covered in an opaque yellow with a marbled ink drawing of a small bird on the inside cover. Sitting in front of his desk, he would fan himself with his left hand while repeatedly turning the pages with his lame right. Sometimes his fingers would get caught and the pages wouldn’t turn over properly. Ippei, however, was undeterred.
Kōji had quietly watched Ippei from the side window of the greenhouse on the other side of the small garden. What a strangely detestable endeavor it was! If it was true that Ippei’s spirit had not been laid to waste, then his inner spirit ought to have been in complete accord with his external literary works. Undoubtedly, George and Li He still lived on within Ippei’s inner self. In spite of this, however, his view was obstructed by an invisible and impregnable wall, and he could neither read nor comprehend his own writings. Kōji knew how he felt. While in prison he had experienced the same longing for the outside world—his frequent calls having fallen on deaf ears. He felt that he understood Ippei better now than at any time before.
He wondered what had become of Ippei’s spirit. At first it had probably been surprised at its own inability to understand anything or express itself in words, and then, having eventually grown tired of exhibiting such surprise, had transformed itself into another intelligent self that could do nothing other than watch intently from the sidelines. His hands and feet were bound and his intellect gagged; his literary works were adrift, even now glittering in the distance, moving beyond his reach and summons in the current of some dark and obscure river. In a sense, it was as if the connection between spirit and action had been severed and the one jewel that had been both the source of his self-confidence and the measure of his public respect had split and become two complementary jewels, which had then been placed on opposite banks of that large dark river. And while the jewel on the far bank, namely his literary works, was to the public at large the real treasure, to Ippei, it was nothing more than a pile of rubble. Conversely, while in the eyes of the general public the jewel on the near bank, namely his spirit, had already turned to rubble, it was to Ippei alone the only genuine jewel in his crown.
Furthermore, Ippei—that is, Ippei as he was before the incident—had never attempted to conceal the cultivated man’s cold contempt for the generality of intellectual activities (including in relation to his own literary works). In fact, wasn’t it his own psychological ruin that Ippei longed to achieve through Kōji, rather than the bringing about of some sense of mental cohesion? And that, too, was an artificial, affected, and delicately engineered ruin. Little wonder then that Ippei’s interminably meek smile provided a fresh source of astonishment for Kōji. The chief priest of Taisenji temple maintained that this was the manifestation of Ippei’s spiritual enlightenment. Yūko, on the other hand, preferred to remain silent on the matter.
Oftentimes, the doctor asked Yūko, “Does your husband sometimes become really irritated? Does he ever give you a difficult time, or annoy you with his own selfishness?”
The doctor had always greeted Yūko’s negative replies with a genuine look of suspicion. Those kinds of patients were extremely few and far between. Ippei had become quiet and tolerant, he accepted reality as it was, and he answered everything with the same warm, helpless smile.
Occasionally Kōji would feel unsettled by his smile—constantly and openly conveying as it did Ippei’s sudden loss of hope. Ippei, who in the past had stood head and shoulders above Kōji in terms of his fun-loving ability, now appeared to have outstripped Kōji once more by his uncanny ability to accept his abandonment with such fortitude.
And what of Yūko?
Yūko once asked Kōji to bring some talcum powder to the bathroom. She had opened the badly creaking glass door of the dimly lit bathroom a fraction and called Kōji in from where he was in the sitting room. “Kōji! Kōji! I’ve run out of talcum powder—there’s a new can on the top shelf of the closet. Be a darling and bring it in, would you?”
Possibly owing to the tastes of the house’s former owner, the family bathroom was unusually spacious. The bathing area alone was some eight tatami mats in size, and added to this was a three-mat changing room.
Kōji had been reluctant to open the glass door, but Yūko had spoken from inside. “It’s all right—you can come in. I don’t mind.”
As Kōji suspected, Yūko, having bathed, had already changed into a neatly fitting large-patterned cotton yukata, held at the waist by a dark green Hakata-style sash. The upswept hairs on the nape of her neck were moist from the bath steam, and in the dusky light, beads of perspiration glistened alluringly on the surface of her rich skin like evening dew. Kōji recalled the sound of the driving, sultry rain as it pelted the roofs of the greenhouses in the early evening. He saw something strange at Yūko’s feet as she sat there. In the gloomy light, the emaciated body of a naked man lay corpse-like on its side, with closed eyes facing toward the ceiling and its lower half covered in white powder.
Kōji handed the new can of talcum powder to Yūko, and just as he started to leave, she called him back. “Oh! You are having a bath, aren’t you? It’s a waste of fuel not to use the water. Come on, the water’s lovely and warm.”
Kōji hovered in the open doorway.
“Come on in and close the door quickly; he’ll catch his death in this draft. Relax—get undressed and get in.”
A heap of powder that had already been sprinkled from the new container decorated the palm of Yūko’s hand as she spoke. In the dull light it emitted a somber whiteness, like a poisonous drug. Kōji quickly undressed in a corner of the changing room. The door to the bathroom had been left ajar, probably in order to draw in the warmth produced by the steam, and so he left it open. While he bathed, his attention was drawn in the direction of the changing room. He felt the need for strangely oppressive, solitary, silent bathing, more so even than when he was in prison. There are certainly a great many bizarre rituals in the human world (all of which have been born of necessity)! Yūko sprinkled the remainder of the white powder all over Ippei’s bathed and naked outstretched body, painstakingly and affectionately massaging it in.
From time to time, her white fingers became visible here and there amid the dark billowing steam; vying with one another at sharp, almost reproachful angles, then continuing their movement in a more languid, hesitant manner.
Kōji, who had been watching all this from diagonally across the bathtub, suddenly felt a pang of excitement. He had imagined that his body was being caressed all over by those fingers. In reality, however, the flesh that Yūko’s fingers massaged was enveloped in a frigidly indifferent and peacefully warm veil of death. There was no doubt about that. Even from this oblique angle, Kōji was certain of it. Having diligently washed in between Ippei’s toes, Yūko next sprinkled on the white powder and enthusiastically rubbed it in. Now and again her beautiful profile revealed itself clearly through the steam. Her face was aglow, showing a kind of relaxed, self-indulgent pleasure, notwithstanding her fervor, and it appeared that Yūko’s mind had found spiritual repose in this simple chore that produced both subservience and a sense of superiority. Kōji felt as though he was watching the sleeping form of her unchaste soul. He closed his eyes tightly in the bathtub.
Whether or not she had noticed Kōji’s behavior, for the first time Yūko began talking to him in a cheerful, matter-of-fact tone. “I forgot to ask, but you sent your notice of withdrawal to the university, didn’t you?”