Forbidden Colors

by Yukio Mishima

“There’s something I find strange. Yuchan’s wardrobe has been steadily growing.”

  “Oh, that,” Mrs. Kaburagi answered. “That’s nothing. I had them made for him. If you like, I’ll bring the tailors over. I’m working, and I like to do things like that for someone I like.”

  “Really, you’re working?” The widow Minami’s eyes rounded. It was unthinkable that this woman, the soul of extravagance, should actually be working.

  Mrs. Kaburagi informed her straightforwardly: “After I got to Kyoto, I became a broker of imported automobiles. Recently I struck out for myself as an independent broker.”

  This was her only true statement. Lately, she was showing great skill in a commercial arrangement under which she bought cars at 1,300,000 yen and sold them at 1,500,000 yen.

  Yasuko was concerned about the baby and left her seat. Yuichi’s mother, who until this time had been putting up a brave front for her daughter-in-law’s benefit, broke down. She could not determine whether this woman before her was friend or foe. Regardless, she felt compelled to say: “I don’t know what to do. I’m more concerned about Yasuko than about myself—”

  Mrs. Kaburagi launched forth coldly and bluntly: “I came here today determined about one thing. It seemed to me better to have you and Yasuko know the truth than to be menaced by that letter. Yuichi and I are going on a trip for two or three days. There is nothing serious between me and Yuichi, so Yasuko doesn’t have a thing to worry about.”

  Mrs. Minami dropped her head at the explicitness of this audacious distinction. At any rate, Mrs. Kaburagi’s dignity was hard to impugn. The widow abandoned her motherly prerogatives. The intuition by which she divined in Mrs. Kaburagi more motherliness than in herself was a correct one. She did not realize that her comment was ridiculous: “Please take good care of Yuichi.”

  Yasuko bent over the sleeping Keiko. In the past several days her peace had been shattered, but like a mother who in an earthquake instinctively protects her child’s body with her own, she had constantly schemed how to prevent the catastrophe from affecting her child. Yasuko had lost her bearings. She was like a lone island buffeted by rough seas, no longer fit for human habitation.

  She was being propelled toward something enormous, more complicated than disgrace; she felt almost no humiliation. The pain that almost took her breath away had come well after the incident of the letter, when the equilibrium she had attained by determining not to believe the contents of the letter was destroyed. While she was listening to Mrs. Kaburagi’s frank testimony, a transformation in her innermost feelings indubitably came about. Of that transformation, she herself was not yet aware.

  Yasuko heard the voices of her mother-in-law and their guest as they came down the stairs. Thinking that Mrs. Kaburagi was leaving, Yasuko got up to say good-bye. But she wasn’t leaving. Yasuko heard her mother-in-law’s voice and had a glimpse of Mrs. Kaburagi’s back through the blind as she was conducted into Yuichi’s study. She walks around my house as if it were her own, thought Yasuko.

  Mrs. Minami soon came out of Yuichi’s study, alone. She sat down at Yasuko’s side. Her face was not pale; on the contrary, excitement had brought a flush to her cheeks.

  After a time the mother-in-law said: “What moved her to come here and tell us a thing like that? She didn’t do it for the fun of it, that’s certain.”

  “She must like Yuichi a great deal.”

  ‘To say the least!”

  Now in the old lady’s heart, apart from her sympathy for her daughter-in-law, a kind of relief and pride was being born. If it came to the stage of deciding whether she should believe the letter or Mrs. Kaburagi’s story, she would unhesitatingly choose the latter. That her beautiful son should be sought after by the opposite sex was in her moral outlook a virtue. In short, it made her happy.

  Yasuko realized that she and her kind mother-in-law lived in different worlds. She had to take care of herself; there was no other way. From her experience, however, she knew already that, other than letting matters take their course, she had no way of rescuing herself from pain. Placed in such a pitiful position, she crouched unmoving, fixed, like a helpless little animal.

  “Well, that’s the end,” said the old lady in despair.

  “It’s not really the end, Mother,” said Yasuko. Her words were stem, but her mother-in-law understood them as being meant to give her courage.

  In tears, she thanked her with whatever phrases she could utter: “I’m such a lucky person to have a daughter-in-law like you. Thank you—thank you, Yasuko ..

  When Mrs. Kaburagi was at last alone with Yuichi in his study, she breathed the air of the room deeply through her nostrils, like one entering a forest. This air seemed to her more delicious and refreshing than the air of any forest.

  “This is a nice study.”

  “It was my father’s. When I am in the house I can only breathe easy when I’m here.”

  “I too.”

  Yuichi understood why her echoing phrase came so naturally. She had barged into somebody else’s house like a strong wind; thrown propriety, honor, sympathy, and modesty in all directions; indulged herself to her heart’s content in cruelty to herself and others; and fervently, for Yuichi’s sake, dared superhuman feats. And now she took a breath.

  The window was open. On the table was an old-fashioned desk lamp, some ink bottles, a heap of dictionaries, and a Munich beer stein decorated with summer flowers. Across the near foreground, so like a copper plate etching, the scene of the fierce, late summer street unfurled itself, somehow imparting a desolate feeling by the raw wood of the many buildings raised on the ashes of the fires. The capital streetcars descended the hill on the trolley street. After a passing cloud slipped away, the rails in both directions, the foundation stones of the burnt ruins still not rebuilt, and the shards of glass in rubbish piles shone out with a terrific glare.

  “All is well. Your mother, and Yasuko, too, aren’t going to that restaurant again just to check up on you.”

  “All is well, I agree,” said the youth, convinced. “There won’t be a second letter, I suppose. Mama doesn’t have the courage to go there a second time, and Yasuko, even though she has the courage, would never do so.”

  “You’re tired. I think you should take a little vacation somewhere. Without consulting you, I announced to your mother that you and I are going on a two- or three-day trip together.”

  Yuichi turned to her as if shocked.

  “Let’s go tonight,” she urged. “I can get railroad tickets through a friend. I’ll call you later. We can meet at the station. I’d like to stop off at Shima on the way back to Kyoto. We’ll take a room in the hotel.” She studied Yuichi’s expression carefully: “Don’t worry. I know too much to cause you any trouble. Nothing will happen between us, so relax.”

  Mrs. Kaburagi again had gauged Yuichi’s inclinations; Yuichi agreed to go. In fact, he had wanted for two or three days to extricate himself from this stifling situation. No companion could be as gentle—and as safe—as Mrs. Kaburagi.

  The youth’s eyes displayed his appreciation, and Mrs. Kaburagi, who feared as much, hurriedly waved her hand: “It isn’t like you to be grateful to me for a small thing like that. All right? During the trip, if you think of me as anything else but air, I shall be very upset.”

  Mrs. Kaburagi departed. Yuichi’s mother saw her to the door and afterward followed Yuichi back to his study. While she had been with Yasuko, her eyes had been opened to her role.

  The old lady closed the door dramatically behind her: “Are you going on a trip with that married woman?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t. It will be pretty hard on Yasuko.”

  “If so, why doesn’t she come and stop me herself?”

  “You’re a child. If you then simply faced Yasuko and told her outright you’re going on a trip, you’d cut the ground from under her feet.”

  “I’d like to get away from Tokyo for a little bit.”

  “If so, go with Yasu
ko.”

  “If I went with Yasuko I would get no rest.”

  The woman’s voice rose in her excitement: “Think of your child a little, too, please!”

  Yuichi dropped his eyes and said nothing. In the end his mother spoke: “Think of me a little too.”

  This egoism reminded Yuichi of his mother’s complete lack of gentleness during the episode of the letter.

  The dutiful son was silent for a time; then he said: “Anyway, I’m going. I’ve caused that person enough trouble, what with their weird business of the letter. Don’t you think it would be mean not to accept her invitation?” “You’re talking like a kept lover.”

  “Right. As she says, I’m her kept lover.”

  Yuichi pronounced his words triumphantly to his mother, now more distantly removed from him than he could measure.

  Chapter 30 HEROIC PASSION

  MRS. KABURAGI and Yuichi departed that evening on the eleven o’clock night train. By this time the heat had abated.

  Setting out on a journey engenders a strange emotion. One is seized by the feeling that he is free not only from the land that he has just left behind him, but also from the time that he is vacating.

  Yuichi had had no regrets. Strange to say, it was because he loved Yasuko. As he saw things from the position of his twisted love, his going away on this journey under the many compulsions that forced him to do so was a parting gift to Yasuko. At this time his keen sensitivities had no fear even of hypocrisy. He thought of the words of the pronouncement he had made to his mother: “At any rate, I love Yasuko. Can’t that be taken as evidence that I like women?” With those words in mind, he seemed to have sufficient reason to believe that it was Yasuko and not himself whom he had put Mrs. Kaburagi to the trouble of rescuing.

  Mrs. Kaburagi did not understand these new workings of Yuichi’s heart. He was only very beautiful, overflowing with youth and charm; furthermore, he could never love a woman. She—and no one else—had saved him.

  Tokyo Station receded in the distance. Mrs. Kaburagi emitted a low sigh. If she exhibited even the slightest sign of love, Yuichi’s long-awaited rest would certainly be lost. As the train lurched along, their bare arms touched once in a while, but when that happened it was she who quietly withdrew her arm. If Yuichi became aware of her love through even the faintest quiver on her part, he would end up being bored, she feared.

  “How is Mr. Kaburagi doing? His letters seem fine.” “He’s living off his wife. I guess one would have to say that’s what he’s always done.”

  “Is he still that way?”

  “Nowadays, since I have found out all about him, he’s much more relaxed. When we walk in town and he teases me by saying, ‘Isn't that kid pretty?’ it’s sure to be a boy.” Yuichi said nothing, and after a time Mrs. Kaburagi asked: “Don’t you like me to say things like that?”

  “No,” said the youth, without looking at her. “I don’t like to hear subjects like that coming from your mouth.” The sensitive woman saw through the childish fancies this self-centered youth was hiding from the world. It was an extremely important discovery. It meant that Yuichi was still searching for some kind of illusion about her. I must act more as if I don’t know. I must never appear to be anything but harmless as a lover, she decided, with some satisfaction.

  The exhausted pair slept after a time. In the morning, at Kameyama, they changed to the Toba Line. From Toba they took the Shim a Line, and over an hour later arrived at the last stop, Kashikojima, an island connected with the mainland by a single short bridge. The air was remarkably clear. The two travelers stepped down into an unfamiliar station and sniffed the sea breeze coming across the numerous isles of Ago Bay.

  When they got to the hotel on the top of the hill on Kashikojima, Mrs. Kaburagi asked for only one room. Not that she anticipated anything at all. Mrs. Kaburagi did not know what to make of this difficult love of hers. If one could call it love, it was a love incognita. In no play, in no novel, had its like been drawn. Everything had to be worked out by her, tested by her. If she could sleep one night in the same room with a man she loved so much, not looking forward to anything happening, when day dawned, thanks to this arduous ordeal, a still soft, feverish love would be given form and be forged into steel, she thought. On being shown into the room and seeing the two beds side by side, Yuichi was taken aback, but then soon was embarrassed that he had doubted her.

  The day was fine, refreshing, not too warm. Guests who came to the hotel during the week usually stayed over. After lunch they went to the beach on Shima Peninsula, near Goza Point. They got there in the big motor launch that went from the back of the hotel along the inlet from Ago Bay.

  Mrs. Kaburagi and Yuichi wore light shirts over their bathing suits. The tranquillity of nature was all about. The surrounding seascape was not so much that of island upon island floating on the water, but of numerous islands crowded together. The shoreline was jagged in the extreme, and the water seemed to be stealing far in upon the land, eating away at it. Thus the singular calm of the view was like that of the very center of a flood above which only the broad hills majestically stood forth. To the east, to the west, as far as the eye could see, all the way to the unexpected mountain passes, the coruscating sea extended.

  Since during the morning a number of guests had had their swim and returned, there were only five people in the boat with Yuichi and Mrs. Kaburagi when it went out in the afternoon. Three were a young couple and their child. The other two were a middle-aged American couple. The boat threaded among the pearl rafts that floated everywhere on the calm surface of the deep-cut bay. The rafts were used to hold the baskets which, immersed deep in the sea, held the pearl-bearing oysters. Since it was already late summer, the women pearl divers were nowhere to be seen.

  They had folding chairs placed on the deck in the boat’s stem and sat down. Yuichi was struck with admiration at his first view of Mrs. Kaburagi’s bare body. Her flesh combined elegance with ripeness. All was sheathed in fine curves; the beauty of her legs was that of a woman who had sat on chairs since childhood. Particularly beautiful was the line from her shoulder to her forearm. As if she meant to reflect the sun’s rays, Mrs. Kaburagi did nothing to protect her slightly tanned skin, which showed not the least sign of aging.

  The roundness from her shoulder to her wrist—in the shifting shadow of her hair flying in the sea breeze—was like the bare arms of noble ladies of ancient Rome revealed by their gowns. Having been set free of the fixed idea that one must desire this body, from the sense of duty that one must entrap oneself in it, Yuichi understood its beauty well. Mrs. Kaburagi had taken off her shirt, and her white bathing suit concealed only her trunk. She watched the islands shining in the sun—so numerous they gave one no time to respond. The islands flowed up to her, then receded. Yuichi imagined the multitudes of pearls beginning to ripen in the baskets suspended into the deep sea from the countless pearl rafts under this late summer sun. .

  The inlet of Ago Bay branched off into many other inlets, and from one of these the boat emerged and slipped along the surface of the sea, seemingly closed in as before by land. In the green of the surrounding islands, one could see the roofs of the houses of the pearl-industry workers. They combined to form the walls of a labyrinth.

  “There's Hamayu!” shouted one of the guests. .

  On one island, clumps of white flowers were visible here and there. Mrs. Kaburagi looked across the shoulder of the youth at the fabled flowers of Hamayu, now past their prime.

  Until now she had not loved nature. Only body heat, pulse, flesh and blood, and the smell of human beings had charmed her. But the panorama before her eyes now captured her fierce heart. Why? Because nature seemed to reject her advances.

  After they had returned from their swim before supper, the two went to the hotel bar for cocktails. Yuichi ordered a martini. The countess told the bartender to mix and shake absinthe, French vermouth, and Italian vermouth and provide her with a Duchess cocktail.

  The two were
surprised at the uncanny colors burning everywhere in inlet after inlet in the evening glow. Their drinks glowed orange and light brown, shot through with these rays, then turned crimson.

  Although the windows were open everywhere, there was not a sigh of wind. It was the famous evening calm of the Ise-Shima coast. The burning atmosphere, suspended like heavy wool fabric, did not disturb the healthy repose of the youth, exhilarated in mind and body. The joy in his body after the swim and bath, the consciousness of renewal, the beautiful woman beside him knowing everything and forgiving everything, just the right degree of inebriation: these divine favors were flawless; they made it easy for the one beside him to feel unlucky.

  All in all, this man must have had something of an experience, Mrs. Kaburagi could not help thinking, as she gazed at the youth’s now serene eyes, storing up not one atom of ugliness that might have existed in his memory. This man continually lives in this moment, in this spot, with his innocence intact.

  Mrs. Kaburagi now understood well the grace that constantly and happily surrounded Yuichi. The way he was snared by grace was like the way a man is snared in a trap. You have to be cheerful, she thought. If not it would be as before, nothing more than repetitions of unhappy encounters heavy as stone.

  In this trip to Tokyo and the succeeding excursion to Shima, her firm self-sacrifice was valiant. It was not simply restraint. It was not self-control. It was living in the consciousness in which Yuichi lived, believing only in the world that Yuichi beheld, guarding against allowing her own wishes to twist anything in the slightest. Thus a long hard apprenticeship was necessary before she could impart about the same meaning to the vilification of hope and to the vilification of hopelessness.

  Nevertheless, these two people who had not seen each other for a long time had a thousand and one things to talk about. She told a story about the recent Gion Festival; Yuichi told the story of Shunsuke’s uneasy trip in Kawada’s yacht.

  “Does Mr. Hinoki know about this recent letter?”