While he appreciated the priest’s concern, this sort of excessive decorum about the heart and soul only served to arouse Kōji’s suspicions. The priest talked about the soul hesitantly, in a tone that almost suggested he was discussing Kōji’s crime. In that instant, Kōji fancied he saw through the priest’s clumsy way of interrogation. It was like an inexperienced fisherman trying to extract a lobster from inside a creel.
Had he been a little more experienced in his handling of such situations, the priest ought to have approached Kōji seemingly oblivious to the existence of the soul within and, before Kōji himself had realized what he was doing, skillfully and in no time at all plucked it out by the short hairs. And, if he had succeeded in this, then Kōji, whether willing or not, would no doubt have confided everything.
This bald-headed priest, with his shiny, ruddy complexion and clean-shaven round face… Discussing and asking questions about his soul in that halting manner only succeeded in causing Kōji to shrink back.
Why are you talking about my soul? Can’t you deceive a young guy like me more skillfully? Shouldn’t you be appealing to my manhood, rather than my soul?
Kōji remained silent, and so the priest spoke again. “Yūko-san… she is a fine woman—”
“Yes, she’s a fine woman, all right,” interrupted Kōji quickly. “I owe her a lot. But, sir, you must be the only person in the village who says nice things about her.”
“Well, that’s all right, isn’t it? I will vouch for her.”
“In that case, we’ll all go to heaven then?”
With this rejection, Kōji brought the conversation to an end, and the silence was filled with the drone of the honeybees. If anything, Kōji had been hoping for a strong rebuke from the priest, but that was probably asking for too much. While he had stepped up to the threshold of this young man’s soul, in the end the priest withdrew timidly. Kōji detected in this something akin to the restrained respect society showed toward an ex-convict.
This young man had acquired the privilege of misunderstanding people’s reserve. For him, adopting an ostentatious, gentle attitude appeared to be the real reserve, the only genuine modesty.
In that lightning-like instant, Kōji felt disappointed by the priest. He had failed to comprehend at all the hurricane-like speed with which Kōji had fallen into a state of despair.
So the priest stepped back from Kōji at that moment and pinned his hopes on the near future; someday this young man would open his heart and meekly seek the priest’s instructions. Then surely he would be able to attain the heights that no one else his age was capable of.
Although a harsh westerly sun shone down on the back garden, it disappeared behind the many clouds that scudded across the sky, repeatedly throwing the garden into shadow.
At that moment, Kōji noticed Ippei and Yūko coming slowly down the slope opposite the garden. It was evidently time for Ippei’s walk. Kōji was suddenly seized with the urge to hide from them. If he were to escape into the inner temple and hide in the shadow of one of the pillars draped with fraying gold-threaded banners or perhaps conceal himself in the shadow of the Buddhist image dais, which was enclosed by a railing with its inverted lotus-carved posts—and where it was dark even in the daytime—they would not pursue him that far. He would hide there forever. How nice that would be, he thought.
However, the couple stopped abruptly just at the point where they could look down on the priest’s living quarters. With no alternative, Kōji came down from the edge of the veranda and stood in the garden. But the couple hadn’t stopped because they had seen him; rather, they had bumped into the wife of the postmaster, who was just then on her way up to the Kusakado greenhouse. The postmaster’s wife was a licensed flower-arrangement teacher who taught the young ladies of the village, and as such, she was a special customer of the greenhouse, buying her flowers direct.
Yūko started back up the hill in order to show the postmaster’s wife some flowers. But then, noticing Kōji for the first time standing in the back garden of the temple, she called to him.
“Ah, that’s perfect. Kōji, would you mind accompanying Ippei on his walk today?”
Strangely, although three months had passed since Kōji had first come to these parts, this was the first opportunity he had had of spending any real time alone with Ippei. In fact, it occurred to him that this was the first time since the occasion when Ippei, on a mere whim, had invited Kōji—then still a student—to the bar for a drink.
Kōji couldn’t help subconsciously comparing Ippei, as he was in the bar that night, with the man who now walked beside him. While this invalid seemed to be the sort who would prefer going for a stroll after sundown, in fact he liked to go out with the westerly sun at its strongest, wearing a straw hat. Ippei was afraid of the vast darkness of the countryside at night.
The walk took an exceedingly long time, owing largely to the frequent, lengthy stops that Ippei made in order to rest.
They turned their backs on Yūko and the postmaster’s wife and began to descend the slope. Ippei was placed in Kōji’s care, and an incessant, mellow smile appeared on his face. Amid the dazzling glare of midday, Kōji found it impossible to imagine his sleepless nights. He wondered why, thanks to this invalid with the helpless smile, the nights weighed heavily on him. Why, when the days allowed him so much freedom, did the nights turn so against him? During the nights he couldn’t sleep, Kōji discovered his hearing was sensitive to even the slightest sound, and each time he heard Ippei’s faint snoring or an occasional sigh from Yūko—who also found it difficult to sleep—escape over the top of the sliding door, he felt as though his body was on fire. The twelve-mat room next to his was like one of the greenhouses in the dead of night. Beneath the light of the stars that shone down through the glass roof, the plants continued their subtle chemical action—with little or no movement they dropped leaves, lost petals, and released persistent smells, and some gradually decayed where they stood. The exaggerated rippling noise as Yūko tossed around in her hemp futon. The faint sighs like the flickering of fireflies. The billowing mosquito net… Finally, Yūko had once called Kōji’s name. He had thought his ears were deceiving him, but when he quietly called out Yūko’s name in reply, her voice came to him again, as if searching and hoping for the light of a distant village through the darkness. Just then, Ippei, who had been having a nightmare, cried out in his sleep like an animal and looked as though he would come to, only to settle down again…
They came down to the level ground. The surface of an unharvested paddy field and a cornfield stirred in the wind. As it swept across the green rice paddy, the pliant leaves revealed their white undersides, and each time a cloud passed over, the field appeared desolate. Then the sun would begin to shine again. A white line of parched road stood out in dazzling relief.
Kōji began to think that speaking slowly and clearly in order to make himself understood for Ippei’s benefit was pointless.
Rather than telling him what he thought, the effort required to make Ippei understand through this narrow interaction made a mess of his attempted communication.
There was so much Kōji wanted to say, so much he wanted Ippei to understand, and so much he himself wanted to know. He felt he ought to say candidly exactly what he thought and, suddenly, stepping over the line he had been hesitant to cross, he summoned the courage to speak to Ippei audaciously.