Forbidden Colors

by Yukio Mishima

  Yuichi laughed uproariously on hearing this. Kyoko saw in his laughing mouth the white teeth of a carnivorous beast. Formerly Yuichi had mystified her more; he had seemed more docile, yet lacking in conviction. Now, as he had come striding directly out of the maple shade and into the sunlight, with his hair glistening, and as he had stopped after about twenty paces and looked this way, he had seemed like a lone young lion seething with fresh energy, his eyes gleaming with youthful mistrust.

  His beautiful eyes looked at Kyoko directly; they did not waver. Their gaze was incomparably gentle, and at the same time they rudely, tersely, told of his desire.

  In the short time I haven’t seen him he’s come a long way, Kyoko thought. It must be the tutelage of Mrs. Kaburagi. But now that things have gone sour between him and Mrs. Kaburagi, and he’s stopped working as her husband’s private secretary while she’s gone off to Kyoto, I am going to reap the harvest of it all.

  They couldn’t hear the horns of the cars beyond the moat across the stone wall. All they could hear was the sound of tennis balls and rackets repeatedly striking each other. There were only happy voices and shouts and quick laughter with labored breath. These evaporated into the air and struck the ear only infrequently—languid, opaque sounds, seemingly covered with dust.

  “Do you have anything to do today, Yuchan?”

  “No, I’m free all day.”

  “Was there anything? With me that is?”

  “Not really. I just wanted to see you.”

  “Aren’t you sweet.”

  The two conferred and came up with the quite predictable plan of going to a movie, then to dinner, then dancing. Before that they would take a little walk, even though it was the long way round, leaving the Imperial Palace at the Hirakawa gate. The path went by the side of the Equestrian Club under the old second circle and crossed a bridge behind the stables. Then it ascended to the third circle where the library was, and arrived at the Hirakawa gate.

  When they started walking and were struck by the gentle wind, Kyoko felt a certain feverishness in her cheeks. She worried for a moment that she was becoming ill. Really, though, it was the spring.

  The beautiful profile of the youth walking beside her filled Kyoko with pride. His arm every once in a while brushed lightly against hers. The fact that her escort was beautiful was to her the most direct and objective authentication of the fact that together they made a beautiful couple. The reason Kyoko liked Yuichi was that he gave her an overwhelming sense of safety and security in her own beauty. With every step she took, a line of salmon pink could be glimpsed within the unbuttoned freedom of her elegant, blue, princess-style coat, like a bright vein of cinnabar.

  Between the offices of the Equestrian Club and the stables, the broad plaza had dried out. In one place dust danced faintly; then it died away as the breeze dropped. The two started to cross toward this visionary whirlwind, when they were met by the noise of a procession carrying flags diagonally across the plaza. It was a procession made up entirely of old people from the country. It was a group of gold-star relatives of men who had died in World War II, invited to a visit at the Imperial Palace.

  It was a slow-moving procession. Many of its members wore getas and honest old-fashioned clothes, with old soft felt hats on their heads. Bent old women, their necks thrust forward, seemed as if they would lose the bath towels each wore rolled into a ball protruding from an otherwise bare bosom. Even though it was spring, from the collars of some, edges of raw cotton padding stuck out; the glow of that countrified silkiness outlined the wrinkles in their sunburned necks. All one could hear was the sound of tired getas and zori grinding against the earth and of false teeth clacking with each stride. With all their fatigue and their pious joy the pilgrims were scarcely able to speak a word.

  Kyoko and Yuichi had much trouble passing them. Everyone in the procession of old people looked toward the two of them. Even people who were looking down sensed that something was up and raised their eyes to look at the couple, with a gaze that did not waver.

  It was a look without the slightest shade of criticism, and at the same time, of supreme openness. This multitude of eyes like black stones stared cunningly and fixedly out of the wrinkles, and the gummy secretions, and the tears, and the white cataracts, and die dirty veins. Yuichi involuntarily hastened his pace, but Kyoko was unperturbed. She simply and accurately read the truth. Surely it was her beauty alone that struck them.

  The procession of pilgrims passed, slowly undulating in the direction of the Imperial Household Agency.

  They went along the side of the stables and entered a dark, shaded path. They locked arms. Before their eyes there was a slight rise, with an earthen bridge built in conformity with the uphill slope. Ramparts surrounded the hill area. Near the summit there was a single cherry tree in the very center of a group of pines.

  A one-horse carriage reserved for court use came down the hill and scuttled past the two pedestrians. The horse’s mane fluttered in the wind; the sixteen-petaled gold chrysanthemum passed resplendently before their eyes. The two climbed the hill. From the plateau of the old third circle they could look for the first time at the panorama of the city on the other side of the stone wall.

  With what freshness did the whole city come together to strike the eye! The slippery comings and goings of the shining autos—what animated life they bore! The businesslike afternoon prosperity of Nishikicho across the moat! The revolutions of the countless anemometers on the meteorological station! With what loving exertion they lent their ears to the many winds passing through the sky, offering them such charms! How indefatigably they spun about!

  The two went out through the Hirakawa gate. They had not walked enough yet; so they strolled along the edge of the moat for a time. As they did so, there in the very middle of this aimless afternoon walk, in the very middle of the auto horns and the earth-shaking rumble of trucks, Kyoko came to savor something close to a real sense of what life is.

  In the Yuichi of that day there was certainly that “real sense,” strange though the phrase is. It was almost as if he were convinced that he was impersonating the man he most wished to be. This consciousness of beauty, this endowment with substance, as it were, was to Kyoko particularly essential. Until now this beautiful youth > had seemed to comprise only bits and pieces of sexuality. His sharp brows, his deep set eyes, the marvelous ridge of his nose, his artless lips, had always brought Kyoko joy, but after the simple enumeration of these parts, there had been the feeling that the most important thing was missing.

  “You certainly don’t look like a married man!” Kyoko opened her innocently incredulous eyes as she burst out with this.

  “Yes, somehow I feel like a bachelor.” They looked at each other and laughed at this rejoinder.

  Kyoko never touched upon the subject of Mrs. Kaburagi, and Yuichi too made it a point never to broach the subject of Namiki, who had gone to Yokohama with them. This courtesy helped them to get on well together, and the reflection in Kyoko’s mind that he had been jilted by Mrs. Kaburagi just as she had been thrown over by Namiki served only to make her feel closer to the youth.

  At the risk of being prolix, however, it must be said that Kyoko no longer loved Yuichi in the slightest. There was in this meeting with him only an undiscriminating joy, a delight. She drifted. Her truly light heart drifted like a plant seed carried by the wind, tufted with white thistledown. A seducer doesn’t always go after a woman he loves. A woman like this, weighed down by nothing spiritual, standing on tiptoe within herself, as much a dreamer as she was a realist, was the ripest bait for the seducer.

  On this point Mrs. Kaburagi and Kyoko were diametric opposites. Kyoko had the ability to ignore any kind of irrationality, to close her eyes to any kind of absurdity, while never forgetting her conviction that the party in question was in love with her. Observing how gentle was Yuichi’s attitude toward her, and how he never flirted with another woman-^-in fact she was the only one he seemed never to tire of looking at—Kyok
o’s reaction was very much what one would expect. She was happy.

  They had dinner at the M-Club near Sukiyabashi.

  This club, which had been raided by the police recently because of big-time gambling, was the gathering place for broken-down expatriate Americans and Jews. Through World War II, the occupation, and the Korean War, this group, accustomed to scalping for profit, hid under their brand-new suits (along with sundry tattoos of roses and anchors and nude women and hearts and black panthers and capital letters on both arms and chest) the mysterious smells of the countless ports of the various countries of Asia. Somewhere deep in their—at first glance—gentle blue eyes, the memory of opium transactions gleamed, and the lingering view of some harbor somewhere, filled with myriad shouts and a profusion of masts—Pusan, Mokpo, Dairen, Tientsin, Tsingtao, Shanghai, Keelung, Amoy, Hong Kong, Macao, Hanoi, Haiphong, Manila, Singapore.

  Even after they had returned to their home country, the entry “Far East hand” remained, a single, mysterious, dark line in black ink in their personal histories. For the rest of their lives they could not escape the tiny, ugly aura of glory that hovers over men who have thrust their hands into exotic soil in search of gold dust.

  The decor of this night club was entirely Chinese; Kyoko regretted that she had not come in her Chinese dress. Of Japanese guests there were only a few Shimbashi geisha who had been brought here by foreigners. The rest were all Westerners. On Kyoko’s and Yuichi’s table a three-inch candle burned in a frosted-glass cylinder on which a little green dragon had been painted. In the pandemonium around it, the flame burned with an uncanny quietness.

  The two ate, drank, and danced. They were after all young enough. Drunk with the feeling of closeness engendered by this youthfulness, Kyoko forgot her husband.

  Even if she didn’t have this special provocation, it would have been no problem for her to forget him. When she decided to close her eyes and forget him, she could do it even though he was there in front of her.

  For Yuichi, however, this was the first time that he had ever joyfully played the part of one in love. This was the first time he had ever seen himself press against a woman in such masculine fashion. Usually such behavior brought about an adverse reaction in Kyoko and cooled her ardor, but this time she happened to think that he was faithfully responding to her own mood of exhilaration. When I stop liking a man, he always gets excited about me, she thought to herself, without the slightest rancor.

  The blood-red sloe gin fizz she had imbibed imparted a drunken glide to Kyoko’s dancing. She leaned against Yuichi, her body lighter than a feather, feeling as if her feet barely touched the floor as she danced. The basement dance floor was surrounded by tables on three sides. Facing it in the darkness was an orchestra stand with a scarlet drapery hung behind it. The musicians played “Slow Poke,” which was very popular. They played “Blue Tango” and “Taboo.” Yuichi, who had taken third prize in that contest some time ago, danced well; his breast pressed steadfastly against Kyoko’s small, soft, padded bosom. As for Kyoko, she looked across Yuichi’s shoulder at the darkened faces of the people at the tables and at the sprinkling of heads of golden hair brightened at the edges by dim halos. At tables here and there she saw the wavering little dragons, green, yellow, red, blue, on the frosted-glass candle shades.

  “You had a big dragon on your Chinese dress that time, didn’t you?” Yuichi said.

  It was a coincidence that could have been born only from emotions so close that they were almost identical. Kyoko was seized with the desire to keep this tiny secret to herself, so she did not confess that she, too, had been thinking about the dragon, and answered: “Yes, it was in a pattern of white satin; you remember it well. Do you remember how we danced five dances in a row?”

  “M-m-m, I was fascinated by your face with its little smile. After that, when I saw women smile and compared theirs with yours, they never satisfied me.”

  This flattery touched Kyoko deeply. She remembered how as a child she had been continually and severely criticized by her outspoken cousin for showing her gums when she smiled. After that, she spent ten years in practice before a mirror, and .learned never to let her gums show. Now Kyoko showed extraordinary confidence in the light, wavy motion of her smile.

  A woman who is complimented feels, spiritually, something familiar to prostitutes. Yuichi fell in with the easygoing behavior of the foreigners and took the opportunity to allow his smiling lips to brush against Kyoko’s lips.

  Kyoko, though a giddy creature, was not a wanton. The dance, the wine, and the influence of this expatriate-style club were not equal to the task of making her romantic. She became only a trifle too tender, and a little too tearfully sympathetic.

  In the bottom of her heart she believed that the plight of all men in the world was an unfortunate one. It was a religious prejudice with her. The only thing she had managed to see in Yuichi was his common everyday youthfulness. But since what we call beauty is basically so far removed from originality, surely there was nothing original to be found in this beautiful youth! Trembling in sympathy, Kyoko felt like shedding conventional tears at the loneliness of men, at the animal hungers and thirsts of men, at all the shackles of desire that make man seem so tragic.

  This overwhelming emotion subsided, however, when they got back to their seats. They said little. Seeming to be searching for something to say, perhaps for an excuse to touch Kyoko’s hand, Yuichi took notice of her unusual wrist watch and asked if he might look at it. The tiny dial was difficult to read in the gloom even if one looked very closely. Kyoko took it off and handed it to him. Yuichi then told her stories about various Swiss watch companies, with a knowledge whose extent surprised her.

  “What time is it now?” she asked.

  Yuichi looked at the two watches and said: “Ten minutes to ten; yours says a quarter to ten,” and handed her watch back. They would have to wait more than two hours for the floor show.

  “Let’s go somewhere else, shall we?”

  “Let’s,” she said, looking at her watch again. Her husband was playing mah-jongg and wouldn’t be back before midnight. It would be all right if she returned about then.

  Kyoko stood up. As she did so, a slight wavering showed her intoxication. Yuichi noticed it and took her arm. Kyoko felt as if she were walking on deep sand.

  In the car Kyoko felt quite foolishly generous and brought her lips very close to Yuichi’s. In response, his lips displayed a joyous, brutal power. The light of the tall neon signs coming through the window onto her face cradled in his arms flowed into the corners of her eyes. There was in all the rapidity of that flow a current that did not move. The youth realized that it was tears. She realized it, too, at about the same time, when she felt the cold flow on her temple. Yuichi touched it with his lips and with his lips drank a woman’s tears.

  Kyoko’s teeth shone dimly white in the unlighted interior of the car; she called Yuichi’s name over and over in an almost inaudible voice. Then she closed her eyes. Her faintly moving lips burned in anticipation of being held again suddenly by that brutal power; then the anticipation became reality. The second kiss, however, had in it the ease of something long settled. It was not exactly what Kyoko had anticipated; it gave her time to act as if she had regained her composure. The woman sat up and gently detached herself from Yuichi’s arms.

  Kyoko sat on the edge of the seat and, throwing back her head, looked in the mirror she held aloft in one hand. Her eyes were slightly red and wet, her hair somewhat mussed.

  While she put her face in order she said: “If we keep this up, I don’t know what’s going to happen. That’s enough of that.”

  She stole a look at the stiff nape of the neck turned toward her by the middle-aged driver. Her conventionally virtuous heart saw in the back of that ancient blue suit the symbol of all society turning its back.

  At the night club in Tsukiji, owned by a foreigner, Kyoko repeated, in words that were becoming habitual: “I have to go soon.” This club was, in contr
ast to the last Chinese-style place, entirely of modern American construction. Kyoko kept suggesting they go, and kept on drinking.

  She went on thinking about one thing after another. As she thought about each, she forgot what she was thinking about. As she grew gay and danced, she felt as if she had roller skates attached to the soles of her shoes. There in Yuichi’s arms, it hurt her to breathe. The quickened pulse of her intoxication communicated itself to Yuichi.

  She looked at the American couples and soldiers as they danced. Then she suddenly pulled her head back and looked hard at Yuichi. She insistently asked him whether she was drunk. She was very much relieved when he told her she was not. If she was sober, she could still walk home to Akasaka, she thought.

  They went back to their seats. She felt quite composed. Then she was struck by vague doubts. She looked with dissatisfaction at Yuichi, who had not embraced her so tightly as she had wished. As she looked at him a dark joy burst its bonds inside her and came welling up.

  This heart of hers, still certain that she was not in love with this beautiful youth, was fully aware. However, she realized that she had never felt this same deep sense of surrender with any other man. The compelling beat of the bass drum in the Western music drove her into a state of rapture.

  This feeling of receptiveness—that one must call almost a natural impulse—brought her heart close to a kind of universality. That feeling, like evening coming over the moor, with long shadows thrust out by thick undergrowth, hill and valley bathed each in its own shadows—that feeling of wishing to be wrapped in ecstasy and twilight— transfigured Kyoko. She thought she saw this young, manly head, moving against a pale backlighting, merging with a shadow spread out like a pool above her. Her inner feelings overflowed outward; inwardness impinged upon things outside. Beset by the height of drunkenness, she shivered.

  She believed, however, that she would sleep this evening in the bosom of her husband.