“Say, I just can’t understand the way you behave. Why do you spend your time tormenting Yūko and me with that simpering grin? I’ve been wondering but… You hate me, don’t you? Well? Isn’t that right? Why not come out with it and say it like a man? When things are going conveniently for you, you make out that’s exactly how you intended it, but when things are not going too well, you blame it on your illness and then just deliberately leave things vague and unresolved. Isn’t that true? Hey!”
Kōji prodded Ippei lightly on the shoulder as he walked beside him. Reeling, Ippei eventually steadied himself by leaning on his walking stick; he shook his head slightly and uncertainly, and that stubborn smile spread across his face.
Just talking rapidly this way lifted Kōji’s mood, in addition to which, strangely, he even felt a sort of rough friendship toward his helpless companion.
“You say it’s not true?” he said, continuing. “Good heavens! You understand everything I say, don’t you? What a despicable guy you are. I’ve never met anyone as loathsome as you.”
Ippei shook his head helplessly once again. His rough friendship rejected, Kōji felt deflated. Moreover, he felt that when it came down to it, what he really wanted to say was exceedingly simple and didn’t require a great many words. Everything there was to say had been said without saying a thing, and once it was put into words, it all fell apart so easily. And yet, he dared to continue his rant. Kōji reckoned this would be his only chance to talk to this ash-like man, as one human being to another.
“The truth is, you resent me. You’re angry with me, aren’t you? You don’t even want to look me in the face, and each time you do, all you think is that you can never forgive me. But, when Yūko invited me here, I wanted to see your face. Even though I was afraid of what I might find, for some reason I wanted to see it. I hoped that if I lived my life side by side with you, then I might be able to become a decent person. Do you understand? It’s like making a child regret breaking a toy by forcing him to live with it. You can’t just buy him a new one. So long as I’m with you, I had the feeling I could mend my broken life. Do you see what I’m saying?”
Still maintaining his smile, Ippei moved his eyes restlessly, as if from the fear of being suddenly confronted by something that was difficult to understand.
This man’s soul is beginning to struggle behind a wall that has no exit, thought Kōji. Although he is not cognizant of the goings-on in the world, he can hear sounds outside—he can hear the knock at his door.
Now, Ippei didn’t complain he was tired. If anything, he gave the impression he was trying to get away from Kōji—animatedly thrusting his walking stick and left leg forward and forcing his unwilling right leg to follow as he continued doggedly in his characteristic mechanical gait—striking out along the wide, dusty road that ran past the post office toward the village shrine. On the other side of a small arched stone bridge, surrounded by gigantic camphor trees and ancient cedars, the main building of the shrine stood quietly at the top of just six stone steps. The precincts of the shrine were extremely small, and the calm of the place was disturbed by the noise of mining, coming from a neighboring quarry over to the left. The area produced high-quality pyroxene andesite, which K Stone Merchants dug out and shipped mainly to Chiba Prefecture. Even during the heat of the summer, the noise from the compressor sounded continually, causing a delicate vibration in the air—like the wingbeat of an insect. Having finally walked this far without a break, Ippei sat down on the low stone handrail of the arched bridge, close by the shrine. Shielded by the deep shadows from the trees, from where both the shrine precincts and the quarry could be seen, Ippei liked to watch the stone tumble down as it was hewn from the rock face.
“It’s hot,” said Ippei.
“Yes, it is,” agreed Kōji, applying his handkerchief—which was already dirty from wiping away his own perspiration—to the beads of sweat forming on Ippei’s brow. Compared with the words that Kōji had earnestly spoken up to now, only these words had about them a human quality. Ippei reduced his intercourse with the human world down to this one point, and rejecting everything else, it appeared as if he was trying to control those around him from this narrow perspective.
“I bet you like to dress up like this for the girls in Ginza, don’t you?” continued Kōji, venomously. “I bet they laugh their socks off when they see those baggy khaki trousers, and those slip-ons, not to mention that uncouth open-collared shirt and that straw hat. And the way you sometimes slobber. Who on earth are you trying to impress in this fancy-dress costume? If you asked Yūko, she’d say you wear this getup because you like it, but what hasn’t changed is your resolutely bad fashion sense. You’re playing out the crime. You’ve assumed the shape of it. And I know you’ve done that to make a point to Yūko and me. I’m going to peel off the layers of your disguise. It’s certainly not my fault you are the way you are. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“Wa… nt?” said Ippei, dubiously, still smiling.
But Kōji was no longer prepared to listen.
“That’s right. You do this of your own free will. I’ve gradually come to realize it. You intimidate us using false pretenses; then you try to convince us that those false pretenses are indispensable. You’re making a real good job of it. Without you, Yūko and I wouldn’t have come together. And yet, so long as you are here, Yūko and I can never be together. This strange relationship has come about because of your machinations. We can’t even kiss each other without thinking of that incident; memories of the crime taint its taste and turn it to ash. You’re conducting yourself just beautifully. You are waiting to see everyone prostrate themselves before you. It’s what you’ve wanted all along. Well, isn’t it?”
Kōji realized that Ippei wasn’t listening to a thing he said and instead was bent over the stone handrail, staring fixedly at a long-horned beetle that had stopped there for a moment, and because he was motionless—hesitating as if he was about to place his straw hat over it, and the long-horned beetle, too, was stock-still on the surface of the cool stone in the shade of the trees—Ippei looked as though he were waiting for the assistance of some outside force to suddenly shorten the fixed distance between himself and the beetle.
Kōji seized him by the scruff of the neck and gave him a yank. Ippei lost his balance. With his backside barely remaining on the stone handrail, his withered arms and legs seemed to float in the air, and with his head inclined, he watched Kōji’s face intently.
“Hey, pay attention to what I’m saying. Don’t look so serious. Try smiling the way you always do.”
Kōji lightly brushed his left index finger against Ippei’s lower lip. Ippei’s mouth immediately slackened, and as if mirroring Kōji’s own laughing mouth, it took on the shape of his customary smile.
“All right. Now listen to me carefully,” continued Kōji, moving his hand away. “You are content with things the way they are. You even think that it would be your salvation if everyone followed your example and did as you do. You, at any rate, are alive. However crippled you may be, you’re alive, and that’s something. You’re taking a splendid vacation that has turned up at the end of the things you used to do: the flamboyant life you led when you were young; the artistic literary works you wrote, pouring scorn on others; and your uncontrollable preoccupation with the opposite sex. It’s just one long vacation. You’re forever making a show of that empty, splendid vacation, and now you are able to show off openly all of those thoughts you have harbored for so long. I don’t care much for people… Ah… ah. And then you slobber. You just grunt in response to the notions that people hold dear and turn them into something meaningless. Will?… Ah… ah… You turned the desolation of your soul into your prerogative, and you order others to respect that right. Eh? Yes, everyone makes choices and continues to behave as they wish. So, what’s so bad about me? What is it you hate about me? Come on, out with it! Say it! Say it, won’t you! Was it wrong of me to pick up that wrench from the hospital garden? You put it there, having discovered that was where Yūko and I were to secretly meet, didn’t you? Well? Admit it! Tell me what it is I have done wrong!”