Юкио Мисима - The Frolic of the Beasts

“Then morning came. The eastern skies brightened faintly. I remember thinking it would be an unearthly morning. I knew a gigantic round sun would climb into the sky. I wouldn’t be able to bear to look at such a sun. Such an unbridled, dazzling sun. But before it came fully up, the unburnt tail section of the plane began to reflect the radiant first light of morning. It was so awfully beautiful. Then, for the first time, we saw clearly the horror of the accident.”

“So, then what did you do?” asked Kimi.

“We started digging as quickly as we could. That was all,” answered Kiyoshi, falling silent. Then he abruptly changed the topic of conversation and said, “We keep a small flower garden. When I say ‘we,’ it was actually the guys from the repair platoon who made it, although I help tend it now and again. We call it the ‘Garden for the Attainment of Perfection.’ It comes from the proverb ‘Adversity is the best school.’ It has a small rose-trellised entrance and a summer house we made from targets for shooting practice. There’s even a red torii shrine gate on top of a miniature artificial hill, and goldfish swimming in a small pond, too. And scattered about in between are lots of flowers. There are carnations, and a cactus we planted recently was donated by the candy store at the PX. We also have some nasturtiums.”

“Are the flowers dedicated to those who died?” asked Kimi.

“Don’t be daft. Those flowers are there for the people who are still alive. But, tell me, if you’re from Hamamatsu, too, how is it we haven’t managed to bump into each other before now?”

“Because you haven’t been at the base in north Hamamatsu for very long, have you? Besides which, there’s no way you could find me in such a big town. Especially as I’m so good at hiding.”

“See? That’s how she is!” said Matsukichi, poking fun at Kimi as he slowly rowed the boat.

Kōji envied Kiyoshi his simple lyrical spirit. It was a warm, plump spirit, that was plain for all to see—just like a sweet bun in a shop’s glass display case. There had been a flower garden like the one Kiyoshi spoke of at the prison, too. While Kōji hadn’t helped with the garden that the other inmates tended with such care, he had loved it timidly, superstitiously, and keenly, and with a slight sense of loathing.

He, too, had heart-wrung memories of the vulgar saffron-colored nasturtiums. But unlike Kiyoshi, he would never relate such recollections to others.

And as for Matsukichi? He was like a dull-witted young animal.

Kōji suddenly blurted, “Kimi, before, you made a promise, right? That you’d have to leave some proof of your feelings on the ukulele.”

“When you say proof ?”

Kōji explained that she ought to carve With Love, Kimi on the body of the ukulele. Kimi hesitated a little but in the end agreed. Kōji borrowed Kiyoshi’s knife and inscribed the ukulele in small English lettering. White granules scattered as the lettering was scored into the glossy, dark brown surface of the sound board. Kimi said she felt as though a tattoo were being etched onto her own arm. Then she reached out and softly touched Kōji’s arm—tensed as it supported the ukulele firmly against the slight pitching of the boat, so as to avoid spoiling the lettering he was engraving.

The forest of Urayasu was located on the tip of the promontory, in an area within the breakwater on the end of which stood a lighthouse. The eastern fringe of the forest gave out onto a quiet inlet of the bay, while the western part of the forest spread immediately beyond the breakwater and connected with the rocky coast of the open sea. In the midst of the dense forest was a Shinto shrine, dedicated to the worship of an early Kamakura-period sacred mirror known as the Shōchiku Hijaku Kyō.

It was known among the many small inlets in the bay particularly for its tranquility and white, sandy beaches—and they went intent on enjoying an evening dip in the sea.

The water close to the shore was extremely shallow and the bottom of the boat dragged on the sand. Stretching the mooring rope as far as possible, they finally managed to tie it to a rotten tree on the bank.

The three men were amazed at how well prepared Kimi was. When without hesitation she stripped off her beachwear, she already had on a white swimsuit. With no other option, the men swam in their underpants.

A new moon appeared in the sky above the village. Kōji could see the dull lights of the Kusakado house in the hills to the north of the village. With an invigorating shudder, he felt the uneasy, quickening pace of his heartbeat as his inebriated body was suddenly immersed in the water, and he swam about in the middle of the narrow inlet.

“Hey, a shadow! Look at the shadow!” shouted Kimi, lifting her head from the surface of the water.

Her gleeful cry slapped the water’s surface and rebounded, drowning out the distant echo of breaking waves as they pounded the rocky shore. Looking down, they saw their own strangely distorted shadows on the white, cone-shaped seabed, lit up by the lighthouse twelve nautical miles away as it cast its beam across the darkness every two seconds.

Having enjoyed their swim sufficiently, they climbed onto the shore and entered the Urayasu forest. Even in the depths of the forest, the light from the lighthouse shone like a flash of lightning and transformed the unsettling darkness.

Although it was summer, the forest paths, ankle-deep in moist leaves, were barely evident. The striped mosquitoes were a real nuisance. The deeper they went into the forest, the more the boom of the offshore waves echoed terrifically around the tree trunks.

Naked, they walked in silence, swatting at the mosquitoes that swarmed all around them.

“Let’s light a fire here. It’ll keep the mosquitoes away, and we can dry ourselves off,” suggested Matsukichi. Kimi had only brought her ukulele, and so Kiyoshi went back to the boat to fetch matches. They made a small bonfire out of dead branches, and sitting around it, they all felt peaceful.

Kimi played her ukulele and sang softly, the fire reflected on the body of the instrument. Still wet, her bare shoulders took on a pale hue in the light of the lighthouse as it penetrated the lower branches of the trees. They neither laughed nor joked; instead, they were content in the feeling of superiority that came from indulging themselves in a special kind of pleasure, the likes of which they knew was alien to city dwellers.

They gazed in silence at the flickering flames of the small bonfire—the bottoms of their eyes stinging a little as the salt water dried.

“Give me the ukulele,” said Matsukichi suddenly, his voice deep and serious. Resolution, following lengthy indecision, was clearly evident in his tone.

Kimi held the ukulele in her arms and refused.

“I won’t.”

They fell silent again. But this time the silence no longer carried with it that sense of calm.

Before long, Matsukichi pressed the matter again, more persistently and maladroitly than before.

“Now look. As I see it, there’s three of us men here, okay? You have to give the ukulele to one of us, right? So I think you should give it to me.”

Matsukichi’s naked body was by far the most powerfully built of the three. He was broad-shouldered, and his chest muscles bulged like a bank of summer clouds. His voice, too, like his body, was imposing, though it carried with it a heavy, melancholy quality.

It seemed that Kimi sensed her answer at this moment would result in a definite consequence. Lifting her keen eyes, she stared at Matsukichi fixedly, and then, after they had glared at each other for a while, finally she said, “I won’t.”