Kōji had no idea how Matsukichi judged situations or how he made his decisions. Be that as it may, it was certain that his thoughts were seeking to escape from a kind of bewilderment in deciding to act the way he did. Ordinarily, he probably wouldn’t have hesitated in fighting the other two men and choosing to take Kimi forcibly. And yet, in the moment, rather than trusting in his carnal desires (and, after this experience, he would be unlikely to doubt those desires again), he had put his faith in a single concept, that is to say, the ukulele. He snatched the instrument roughly from Kimi’s grasp, and since Kōji had in fact been protecting Kimi’s person, the ukulele was, if anything, easily taken. For some reason, in that instant, Kōji stole a glance at Kiyoshi. This serious young man’s face was faintly immersed in a lyrical veil of unease, and with his mouth slightly agape, he looked as though he was bound to the depths of a world he found difficult to shut out—a world of flowers and aircraft tails glinting in the morning sun, a world filled with tragically heroic death. And yet, the lively scene that was in full play before him didn’t call for honor on his part at all.
Kimi stood up and seized violent hold of Matsukichi’s arms. The ukulele pitched and sailed dangerously into the air above their heads. In the end, Matsukichi couldn’t resist Kimi’s efforts, and instead he had tossed the ukulele to Kiyoshi. As if waking from a dream, Kiyoshi’s naked body moved nimbly. He took the ukulele in one hand and began to run. Kiyoshi’s actions were completely natural; he found himself in a situation where his role had suddenly become necessary.
Letting out an unhappy shriek, this time Kimi gave chase after Kiyoshi. But Kiyoshi threw the ukulele back to Matsukichi, who was now free of her. Laughing so loudly that his voice echoed through the forest, Matsukichi tore away in the direction of the beach by the inlet, throwing the ukulele once again to Kiyoshi’s waiting hands. Then, while Kiyoshi and Kimi fought for possession of the instrument, he swiftly untied the mooring rope, splashed across the water, kicking up spray as he went, and leapt into the boat. As Kiyoshi plunged into the shallows, holding the ukulele above the water, Matsukichi tossed Kimi and Kōji’s clothes onto the beach; then he reached out and pulled Kiyoshi into the boat.
Kimi cursed loudly from the shore. But she appeared to have abandoned any thoughts of swimming after them. The sculling boat, carrying Kiyoshi, Matsukichi, and the ukulele, receded in a moment across the bay, leaving Matsukichi’s laughter trailing behind across the water. Before long, as the boat reached the middle of the bay—Matsukichi having handed the oars to Kiyoshi—the discordant sound of Matsukichi’s strumming reached the ears of Kōji and Kimi, left behind on the shore at Urayasu.
There followed a predictable sequence of events. Kimi returned to the vicinity of the bonfire in the forest and told Kōji that the reason she hadn’t swum after the boat earlier was because she wanted to be alone with him. She said she knew full well that Kōji was in love with Yūko, but that just for this one night she was prepared to make a sacrifice and act as a stand-in.
Kōji hardly talked about how he felt. Kimi’s doleful words appeared absurd to him—like a set firework that hadn’t gone off properly. At length, he said he would prefer it if she didn’t talk anymore.
The roar of the ocean waves; the dying flames of the bonfire; the beam of light from the lighthouse lancing like lightning through the gaps in the trees; a new moon climbing into the sky; countless stars… Surrounded by all of this, Kōji was able to put Yūko from his mind and enjoy not having to think of her at all.
He fancied he hadn’t experienced the various contrivances of nature befriending him like this since his youth, but appreciating it now, it was like some elaborate chicanery: the artifice of a new moon, the pounding waves, and the low, melancholy buzz of mosquitoes around Kimi’s hair.
When he buried his face in her magnificent bosom, and felt her flesh—like taut sheepskin—on the tip of his tongue, he unwittingly compared his rapture with that gem of perfect flesh that had been honed by the young inmates day in, day out, in the prison. In contrast to that, this was nothing but a poor imitation. And people call this very thing nature.
Kimi’s body was briny like a salted fish.
After they finished, she gazed deeply into Kōji’s eyes as if trying to figure out how much he had enjoyed it; this was one of the things he wanted to tell her to stop doing.
Even so, Kōji’s needs were sated. It had been a long time since he had experienced his sexual desires receding and leaving behind the flesh, as the waves turn and recede, leaving behind a wet beach.
Trying hard not to let his eyes reveal his gratitude, he held Kimi fixedly in his gaze, before planting a light kiss the way a man does after sleeping with his lover. For the first time, he thought, I’m all body; just a physical presence—like a dog. He felt as though, for a short while at least, he had escaped from his preordained destiny.
With their clothes tied up above their heads, Kōji and Kimi jumped into the sea below the lighthouse, and swam across the bay at its narrowest point. The tide was coming in and so there was no danger of being swept out to sea.
They reached the other side swimming between the oil-smelling boats, dressed quickly, and, barefooted, went their separate ways home.
Several days later, when he came down into the village, Kōji soon heard rumors about the young men. Apparently Kiyoshi was inseparable from Kimi’s ukulele, carrying it around wherever he went. Kiyoshi’s good fortune had become the object of envy of the young men in the village. And yet, no matter how much he was pressed, Kiyoshi just smiled, without revealing anything at all.
That night, Matsukichi asked Kōji to step outside the bar at the Storm Petrel as he had a confidential matter to discuss. He claimed that the night after they had been to Urayasu, he and Kimi met secretly and, finally, she gave herself to him. There had been a secret pact between Kiyoshi and Matsukichi. Kiyoshi cared only about his reputation. Matsukichi, on the other hand, was more realistic.
In exchange for keeping the ukulele, Kiyoshi had promised Matsukichi that he wouldn’t lay a hand on Kimi. When Matsukichi confided this secret pact to Kimi, she suddenly began to laugh and then surprisingly easily, not to say cheerfully, agreed to his proposal. Matsukichi thought this proof enough that Kimi had been in love with him right from the start. He repeatedly impressed upon Kōji the need to keep this grave secret. If anything, Kōji was surprised that Matsukichi hadn’t the slightest inkling of his own relationship with Kimi.
Kōji remembered his geta and Kimi’s sandals that they had left in the forest in Urayasu that night. They had been kicked off carelessly—surely no one would mistake them for footwear discarded at the scene of a suicide. He hoped they would be taken by the incoming tide and carried out to sea as the tide ebbed, and how, if they weren’t, then they would probably rot, half-immersed in water like a scrapped vessel. In the course of time, they would be eaten into completely and transformed into a dwelling place for an infestation of sea lice. They would cease to be geta and sandals. Having once belonged to man, they would instead melt into the great multitude of unearthly, formless material phenomena that exist on earth.
Chapter 5
Yūko seldom read the newspapers. It was as if she made a point of not doing so. Ippei was unable to read, and yet every morning he would sit for an hour or more holding the newspaper wide-open while moving his head lightly up and down.