But what was it that Eiko had that attracted and fascinated him?
One day in early summer she came to see him at his home in Zushi; she was on her way home from nearby Hayama where she had been getting the family summer house ready for the warm weather.
Tatsuya took her out sailing, and by the time they got back it was already getting dark. Eiko decided to spend the night at Hayama rather than go all the way back to Tokyo.
Tatsuya suggested that they eat at his house. After dinner he asked her if she wanted to take a bath before he took her home. Tatsuya's room was in the garden, separated from the rest of the house. She decided to bathe and went off to the bathroom in the main building. When she returned, Tatsuya met her at the door.
"I think I'll take a bath myself. Can you wait a while? There's nobody waiting up for you at Hayama anyhow."
Tatsuya's room contained two sections and a spacious hall-like passage with gym mats on the floor and a punching bag hanging from the ceiling. Eiko went into the hall and took a jab at the bag. It hardly moved. She enjoyed looking at the training equipment and walking on the canvas mats.
After his bath, Tatsuya sluiced himself down with cold water. Suddenly he made up his mind for the first time how he felt toward Eiko.
He covered the upper part of his body with a towel and went in and stood beyond the shoji, the paper-covered lattice door that divided the hall from the other room.
"Eiko!" he called out from outside, and sensing her turn round towards him, he thrust his erection through the thin white paper.
There was a dry snap as the paper ripped. Eiko looked startled, then she flung the book she had been reading at the screen with all her might. The book hit its target and fell to the floor.
For a moment Tatsuya felt the thrill and excitement of the boxing ring. He had found a tough opponent and braced himself for the attack.
He slid the door aside and entered the room completely naked. Eiko, who was sitting on the floor leaning back on one hand, looked up at him. There was a slight smile on her lips and her eyes shone brightly. Her glance questioned and challenged his boldness.
Tatsuya was surprised by her look of excitement, but at the same time he found her eyes fascinatingly beautiful. He stepped forward.
"Show how you can punch the bag?" she said. "Hit it hard."
Without hesitating, he punched it as hard as he could. One, two, one, two. It seemed to crumple up under his blows.
He turned to face her, and she put her arms around him. In a moment he had lifted her up, pushed the curtains aside, carried her into the next room, and placed her on the bed. Eiko laughed. He had never told a girl that he loved her but now he told it to Eiko.
But she was too clever for him. Perhaps it was because he had never been so deeply stirred by a woman before, or because his pace was no match for her eagerness, even though it was he who had challenged first. Eiko seemed to be making him grasp for something out of reach. She twisted away from him before he finally got hold of her. He was caught in a web of her making, and in the end he felt as if it were he who had been seduced.
When Eiko opened her eyes, he felt a feeling of affection and a respect similar to what he felt toward a stronger opponent in the ring. He had been beaten but he felt the excitement that accompanied the desire for retaliation.
But can love born of revenge avoid turning into cruel sport? Why was it that he had not savored the happiness he felt when he had first picked Eiko up and held her in his arms?
Two days later when he was practising in the gym, Sahara came over to him and tapped him.
"Say, Eiko is outside," he whispered. "She says she's afraid to come in herself!"
"I can't leave now. Tell her to come in"
Sahara came back a moment later with Eiko. She was wearing a tight black skirt and a white duster-coat. Everyone looked at her as though she were a handsomely decked out prize-fighter. She walked over to the ring and waved at Tatsuya.
"I've come to tempt you," she said.
"What for?"
"As if you didn't know!" she replied.
When he had finished his training and was leaving the gym, Eda stopped him.
"I hope you're not hot for that one. It'll wreck your training—you'll never last more than three rounds."
Tatsuya and Eiko met for the next three days straight. The second day Tatsuya forgot that they were competing and took another drubbing. On the third night, however, he noticed some dark shadows under her eyes and reckoned he had gained a few points.
A week later he saw Eiko at a night club. She was with someone he did not know. When she saw Tatsuya, she smiled and nodded at him but went on whispering to the man she was with. Forgetting the girl with him, he flared up for a moment. He wondered if she greeted other men like that when she was with him. For the first time in his life he was jealous, although he did not recognize his feeling as such. He only knew that he was disgusted with her. He pretended to ignore the situation and moved away, knowing that to show his anger would give her a hold over him.
He wondered what it was about him that interested Eiko. Was he just another man in her life? Weren't all men really the same to her after an affair? It was not simply things like foreign-looking eyes, ability to play a saxophone, sharp clothes, or the image of a man in the ring. Actually to her all men were just trophies for her bedroom. Even though they were not all the same, it was the same thing that she wanted from each. They could not have given her more than just the fact of their manhood.
Three years before all this, Eiko had been in love. She arranged to meet the man at a hot springs hotel in Yugawara. There she would surrender herself to him. Each left home secretly. Eiko was to arrive at the hotel first. She had not been waiting very long when there was a phone call for her from a nearby hospital. The man had been killed in a collision at a railway crossing. Before he died, he had given Eiko's name and the hotel where she was. The sight of the car, smashed and flattened, made her obsessed with the destruction of other men she loved after that.
Long before, when she was still a little girl, Eiko had grown precociously fond of two of her cousins. They were both killed in the war. After the additional loss of the man she was to have met at Yugawara, she turned into a girl determined to take from men and give nothing in return.
Her first victim was the brother of a friend. He was newly married and Eiko felt a pang of jealousy about his romantic affection for his wife. Soon he became fascinated, forgot his young bride, and ran madly after Eiko. By the time his poor wife heard of the affair, Eiko had already finished with the man.
Her experiences with men changed her into a woman who had to sleep with any man she was attracted to. But sometimes she asked herself what it was she really wanted from life. She would sob to herself in the anguish of what she thought was love, but as soon as the tension was relieved, she realized that she was not in love at all and became sickened by the man's desire for her. She regretted she was no longer the unsophisticated girl she had been before the fatal car accident. She felt as if her former self had died with the man she had loved.
The city creates unusual happenings, such as chance meetings of men and women. Eiko and Tatsuya had met like this. But that time it was Tatsuya who had made the first move. She treasured that fact. During the two months they had known each other, she had not once made the first move. Although she did not realize it herself, perhaps she was beginning to expect something significant from their chance meeting.
Her attitude to life did not allow her to give, and yet she knew that even if she took everything that Tatsuya had to offer, she could never regain her lost innocence. If she got angry or impatient with Tatsuya that third night, it was not because of him; the anger and impatience were directed against herself.
When a week later she saw Tatsuya at the night club, she had been with the cousin of a friend. The chance meeting had given her the opportunity to analyze her feelings for Tatsuya objectively.
Tatsuya had felt insulted rather
than jealous. It was the same feeling he had had once before when he had an affair with a cheap striptease dancer. Her lover, boss of the quarter, told him to break it off. Tatsuya had quickly bowed out strategically before it came to blows.
About a week after he had seen Eiko at the night club, Eda came up to him in the gym.
"How's Eiko?" he asked, posing indifferently.
"So so. I see quite a bit of her these days," replied Tatsuya.
"Wasn't she dancing with you at the Caspian Club the other night? I should have come over and joined you."
Tatsuya had not been to the Caspian for a long time. He was angry at Eda's remarks but did not show it.
That evening Tatsuya went to a night club as usual with some of his friends. During the course of the evening the hostess who had been sitting at their table suddenly left them and went across to another table. Nishimura, who had been interested in the girl, was a little annoyed at her disappearance. Tatsuya turned around to see what was happening at the other table. One of the three men at the table was amusing the girls with jokes and gestures. He looked vaguely familiar to Tatsuya. It was the man who had been with Eiko at the other night club. And it might have been the same man that Eda had seen her with at the Caspian two days before. Tatsuya casually asked one of the hostesses who he was.
"He's the leader of the Five Roses combo. I think he plays the trumpet. His band is doing very well at the Caspian."
When the man got up and moved onto the dance floor, Tatsuya grabbed a partner and followed. He danced the girl close to the man in order to step on his foot, but another couple got in the way and instead the man trod on Tatsuya's foot. The man merely cast a glance at Tatsuya and moved away. Tatsuya was furious. Perhaps the man thought it was not necessary to apologize because he was tall and thick-set, while Tatsuya appeared to be rather skinny in his fashionably tight suit.
Tatsuya was about to say something but returned to his table. He asked the women around him to check whether there were local gangsters in the hall, and then knowing he was safe, he had a hurried conference with his friends. Tamiya, the smallest of them, went over to the man and loudly asked him to come outside. Tatsuya pulled off Nishimura's belt and bound it around his hand to protect his fingers. Tamiya walked up to the top of the stairs ahead of the man.
He stopped and turned to him, saying, "Well, do you want to hear what it's all about?"
"Yeah, let's have it!"
"Better ask the guy behind you, eh!"
As he looked around he met Tatsuya's smashing blow to his mouth. The trumpet player fell down to the landing.
Tatsuya gripped him by the scruff of his neck and said, "You know why I hit you, don't you?"
"For stepping on your foot, I suppose," he muttered, licking the blood oozing out from his upper lip.
"Don't play dumb! You know what it's all about!"
Tatsuya hit him again on the jaw, forcing the man's teeth to cut into his own already bleeding lower lip.
"From tomorrow you quit your trumpet and shake the maracas—and out of tempo at that."
Tatsuya felt as excited as a child watching a western film. He could not have been more satisfied with himself.
When he told the story to Eiko afterwards, she laughed and clapped her hands in delight. This pleased Tatsuya and he too laughed.
"I do believe you're jealous, Tatsuya!" she said and laughed again as if she had made a discovery.
"Was I jealous?" he wondered. "Anyway," he mused, "I'm glad I knocked the fellow down. It made me feel good and Eiko, she's laughing too. It couldn't be better."
When he had knocked the man down, Tatsuya did not know exactly what had been going on in his mind. But he was satisfied that he had done the right thing without hesitation. What was important was that he had done what he wanted, in the way he wanted. Why he had done so was not the question. He was only interested whether he had succeeded or not. He never looked back on his actual conduct. Whether he was satisfied or not, that was all. Afterward, there was no chance to feel guilty for what he did, however violent. Others would criticize him for his actual deeds, but he would judge himself only on his impulses.
Tatsuya was not lecherous. His main interest was in doing the taking. That was where he got his satisfaction. When a bar girl or cabaret hostess said she loved him, he would turn away and not be led on. If he found himself being seduced by a girl instead of doing the seducing, he would start making fun of her. He preferred having some resistance to overcome.
Eiko and Tatsuya spent the night in a small hotel in the suburbs. But as usual, it was only Eiko who found satisfaction.
Summer came, and Tatsuya and his brother Michihisa began repainting their sailboat. They did this every year. First they repaired the carved hull and filled in the cracks with putty and then sandpapered the surface smooth. They were like two women fussing over their faces. While they worked they reminisced about the previous summer and thought up things to do during the present one. They had found from experience that their boat was just as successful an aid to seduction as autos were for some of their friends.
"Girls who fall for a car are just not in the same class as those that fall for a yacht," Tatsuya said to one of these friends one day. "There's no need to wear anything out of sea. You can get to know each other pretty well without clothes on, and there are no cops out there!"
On the strength of this advice, the friend talked his father into buying a boat even though they did not have a seaside house.
Tatsuya and his brother renamed the boat each summer. They had an annual argument over what they should call it. The previous year it had been Popular, and the year before, Dandy. This year Tatsuya wanted to call it Climb On, but his brother flatly refused.
"What kind of name is that? This is a boat, not a girl."
Finally Michihisa, whose turn it was, decided to name it Bel Ami after a French writer's article.
"Bel Ami" sounds like 'blimey,' but if you insist, it's okay," Tatsuya said.
When Nishimura came back from the mountains, the members of their group met together at his seaside house in Hayama. It was the second week of the summer vacation. The two brothers used to avoid the crowded beaches and sail along to Nishimura's place near Isshiki Beach. The boat was usually moored there or at the harbor.
Now the area was populated by well-off young people whose families had summer houses. Most were soon looking for boy or girl friends to while away the time with.
Eiko appeared at her family's house in Hayama. She and Tatsuya met oftener than before at the yacht club or the hotel and sometimes went out sailing.
Meanwhile Tatsuya was also making new conquests: a shop-girl, a not-quite famous photographer's model, a second-rate actress who was dull but, Tatsuya said, very pretty.
He would tell Eiko about his new girls from time to time but was quite disappointed to get no reaction from her beyond a smile.
One afternoon in August he asked her out sailing just before the evening calm. He took food and drink so that they could eat at sea and return in the cool of the evening when the breeze freshened. The Bel Ami was still sailing towards Enoshima Island when other boats began to head for shore. Later, off Inamuragasaki, the wind died down, so Tatsuya lowered the sails and dropped anchor. With a rustle of wings a dragon-fly flitted over the dark glassy sea, and they could hear the faint klaxon of cars rushing on a distant highway. Eiko tuned on the portable radio, from which poured some suitably romantic music.
They watched the bright afterglow in the sky. If there had not been the faint lapping of the waves against the hull, the sea could have been a shiny floor for the two to dance on.
"Hey, they're giving us a good tune."
"Too bad we can't do anything about it!"
"Yeah, we'd need the deck of a cruiser at least."
The afterglow gradually disappeared, but the water continued to twinkle. Suddenly a fish jumped out of the water in front of them.
"What's that?"
"Just a fish."
"Are you sure?"
The moon was not up yet. Tatsuya took off his aloha shirt.
"I'm going in for a swim. I feel hot after drinking."
He dived over the stern and for a moment the smooth sea was disturbed by a series of large concentric rings. Eiko began to worry and stared anxiously at the water. But in a moment his head shot out of the water some distance away.
"Come on in. The water's warm."
"Wait a minute. I'm coming."
And she too plunged in. The boat pitched and tossed and the water slapped against the bow. When she surfaced, she could not see Tatsuya. She began to swim to where she thought Tatsuya had been, but all she could see was the dim outline of the boat.
"Tatsu!" she called, but there was no answer.
She felt scared and turned back, and suddenly there was Tatsuya beside her laughing.
"Here I am. Did you think I was lost?"
As she swam closer to him, something slimy touched her.
"Help! What's that?" She grabbed hold of him in terror.
"It's only a jellyfish," he said. "Look into the water. There are lots of them out here."
"I'm scared. Let's get back in the boat."
"Coward!"
"I'm . . ."
Suddenly Tatsuya took hold of her shoulder and drew her towards him, searching for her lips. They held each other tight and sank down several times, forgetting to tread water. Then they separated and floated on their backs, laughing happily.
They swam back to the boat and spent some time diving off the side and swimming right under the boat. Tatsuya caught glimpses of Eiko's pale limbs under the water, and beneath her glinted the jellyfish like colored parachutes. It all seemed to him unreal and indescribably beautiful.
Soon they scrambled back on board and lay down panting on the sails which covered the deck. Still breathing hard, their lips came together and they could taste the salt water that ran down their cheeks as they kissed over and over again. Automatically their hands went to each other's wet bathing suits, but their garments would not come off easily. Wild with impatience, they finally pulled them off, their lips still touching.
Season of Violence Page 3