Forbidden Colors

by Yukio Mishima

  It was the last flourish of Europe before world panic. It was the time when an aristocratic lady and a Negro, an ambassador and a villain, a king and an actor in American action films slept together. Kawada recalled the boy sailors of Marseilles and their shiny, white, prominent chests, like waterfowl. Then he thought of the beautiful boy he had picked up in a cafe on the Via Veneto in Rome, and of the Arab boy in Algiers—Alfredo Jemir Musa Zarzal.

  And Yuichi surpassed all these! Once Kawada found time to meet Yuichi. “Do you want to see a movie?” he said.

  “No, I don’t want to see a movie,” Yuichi said.

  They passed a billiard parlor, and Yuichi, who didn’t play much, suddenly went in, for no good reason. Kawada didn’t play. For all of three hours, Yuichi idled around the pool table while the busy captain of industry sat in a chair under a faded pink curtain waiting disgustedly for the one he loved to end his fit of bad temper. The blue veins in Kawada’s head pounded; his cheeks quivered; his heart shouted out loud: “Here he keeps me waiting in a poolroom in a chair with the straw coming out of it!

  I, who am never kept waiting by anybody I I who don’t mind keeping callers waiting for a week!”

  The wrecks of this world are of various kinds. A bystander might have looked at the destruction Kawada predicted for himself as a quite luxurious one, after all. It alone, however, was to Kawada at this moment the most frightening destruction possible, and with good reason he concentrated on avoiding it.

  Kawada was fifty years old, and the good fortune he hoped for was to look with contempt at life. This was at first glance a very cheap good fortune, one that society’s men of fifty come to entirely unconsciously. The resistance to life of the homosexual who refuses to be subordinate in his work, however, audaciously floods the world with this sensitivity wherever there is space, awaiting the chance to permeate the world of men’s work. He knew that Wilde’s famous pronouncement was nothing more than sour grapes: “I have put all my genius into my life; I have put only my talent into my works.”

  Wilde was forced to say that, of course. The homosexual of promise, whoever he is, is one who recognizes that certain manliness within himself, and love it, and holds fast to it, and the masculine virtue that Kawada recognized in himself was his ever-ready nineteenth-century predilection for diligence. A strange trap for one to be in! As in that long-ago warlike time, loving a woman was an effeminate act; to Kawada any emotion that ran counter to his own masculine virtue seemed effeminate. To samurai and homosexual the ugliest vice is femininity. Even though their reasons for it differ, the samurai and the homosexual do not see manliness as instinctive but rather as something gained only from moral effort. The ruin Kawada feared was moral ruin. The reason that he was an adherent of the Conservative party lay in its policy of protecting the things that should have been his enemies: the established order and the family system based on heterosexual love.

  Yuichi’s shadow flickered over every part of his social life. Like a man who makes the mistake of looking at the sun and wherever he looks thereafter sees an afterimage of the sun, Kawada saw Yuichi’s image in the sound of the door of the president’s office where Yuichi had no right to be, in the sound of the phone, even in the profiles of young people in the street outside the car window. That afterimage was no more than a ghost. Since the idea that he should part with Yuichi first entered his mind, that empty wraith had gradually become monstrous.

  In truth Kawada had half-confused the emptiness of his fatalism with the emptiness of his heart. In the decision to part company, he showed he preferred the alternative of quickly and cruelly killing his passion to living with the fear that he would someday find the passion withered inside him. Thus, at parties with nobles and famous geisha, the pressure of the rule of the majority that young Yuichi too had felt, crushed the haughty heart of Kawada, which should have been abundantly equipped to resist it. His many uninhibited dirty stories had been the toast of the banquet hall, but now this not necessarily time-honored art filled Kawada with self-repugnance. Of late his taciturnity froze the very heart of the company’s social director. Even though it seemed that under the circumstances parties would go much better if the president did not appear, Kawada’s sense of duty always urged his presence.

  This was the state of Kawada’s mind. One night when, after a long absence, Yuichi suddenly appeared at Kawada’s home and Kawada happened to be there, the delight of the unexpected meeting upset his resolve to call it quits. His eyes could not get enough of looking at Yuichi’s face. Even though mad imaginativeness usually left his eyes clear, now the same thing made him drunk. Strangely beautiful youth! Kawada was drunk with the mystery before him. With Yuichi, it seemed, this evening’s visit was purely a whim, but even so, there was no one like him at underestimating his own miraculous powers.

  The night was still young, and so Kawada went out for a drink with the youth. They went to a not-too-noisy high-class bar—under these circumstances, of course, not an “in” one—a bar where there were women.

  It happened that four or five of Kawada’s close friends were there drinking. There were the president of a well-known drug company and some of his directors. This man, Matsumura by name, winked slightly, and, with a smile, waved to them.

  Matsumura, second of his family to become president of the firm, was not much over thirty. He was a notorious dandy, self-important, and he was one of the fellowship. He paraded his vices, proud of them. Matsumura’s pet notion was to convert all the people under his control to his heresy, or if he couldn’t do that, to win their approval. Matsumura’s diligent and industrious old secretary was a loyal man who strove to believe that nothing was as refined as homosexual love. He berated himself that he was so plebeian as not to possess so refined a nature.

  It was Kawada who was placed in an ironic position. When he, so circumspect in these matters, appeared with this beautiful youth, his friend and his colleagues stared at them openly over their drinks. '

  After a time, when Kawada went to the men’s room, Matsumura nonchalantly left his place and sat down in Kawada’s chair. Before the waitress at Yuichi’s side, he pretended to be talking about business and said magnanimously: “Oh, Mr. Minami, there’s something I want very badly to talk with you about. Can you have dinner with me tomorrow night?”

  Just that much was said, with eyes never wavering from Yuichi’s face; each word, every syllable, was pronounced with deliberation, like placing a stone in the game of Go. Yuichi said “Yes,” before he realized it.

  “Will you come? Good. I’ll meet you tomorrow evening at five o’clock in the bar of the Imperial Hotel.” Above the din, the feat was completed in a stroke, with all the naturalness in the world. When Kawada returned to his seat, Matsumura was already back at his own table, chatting away.

  Kawada’s acute sense of smell, however, quickly picked up a lingering odor like that of a cigarette that had been stamped cut. It was quite painful for him to act as if he hadn’t noticed it; if the pain continued long he would be in a bad temper indeed. He feared that he would create suspicion in Yuichi and then, finding it all too much to bear, would have to confess the reasons for his moodiness. So he suggested they leave, and, after an amiable farewell to Matsumura, they went out, much earlier than expected. Kawada stepped to the car and told the driver to wait there while they walked to another bar.

  Then Yuichi told him what had happened. The youth walked along the rutted pavement, and, hands in the pockets of his gray flannel trousers and head down, said, as if it mattered little: “A while ago Mr. Matsumura asked me to meet him at the Imperial Hotel bar tomorrow; he wants to have dinner with me. I couldn’t say anything but yes. What a pain!” He clucked his tongue. “I wanted to tell you right away, but it was hard to do so in that bar.”

  Kawada’s joy on hearing this was unbounded. This haughty man of affairs, given to modest joys, said “Thank you,” with heartfelt appreciation. “I’m afraid I made a real problem out of wondering just how long after Matsumura a
sked you, you would tell me about it. And since you couldn’t talk about it in the bar, I’d say you got it out in the shortest time,” he said. It was a compliment heavy with logic, a sincere confession.

  At the next bar, Kawada and Yuichi laid their plan for the following day, for all the world as if they were making a business deal. Matsumura and Yuichi had no business connections whatever. Matsumura, moreover, had desired Yuichi before this. The implications of the invitation were obvious.

  “Now we’re accomplices,” Kawada said to himself, with joy he could hardly contain. “Yuichi and I are accomplices! How closely our hearts will beat together!”

  Kawada’s tone was matter-of-fact, no different from that he used when in the president’s office. He was careful when the waitress was near and instructed Yuichi as follows: “Now we know how you feel. You don’t want to go to the trouble of calling Matsumura to call things off. Here’s what let’s do.” (Kawada always said “Do this,” in the corporation; he was not a man ever to say “Let’s do.”)

  “Matsumura is master of his domain, so its no good to treat him unceremoniously. Granted, circumstances were what they were and you gave your consent. Why don’t you go to the place agreed on? Accept his invitation to dinner. Afterward, say, That was a fine meal; now I’d like to buy you a drink.’ Matsumura will come along without a care in the world.

  “Then let’s work it out so I happen to be at the same bar you go to. I’ll be waiting beginning at seven o’clock. Now what bar is good? Matsumura will be on his guard for places I go to, and won’t come, so it will not seem right for me suddenly to appear accidentally at a bar I’ve never been to. It must all be carried out very naturally. Oh, yes. There’s the bar Je Vaime, where I’ve gone with you four or five times, in this neighborhood. That’s fine.

  If Matsumura balks, lie to him—tell him something such as it’s a bar I never go to. How’s that? That looks like a great plan that has us protected on three sides.”

  Yuichi said: “Let’s do it.” Kawada realized he would have to arrange to cancel his business engagements for the next evening the first thing in the morning. The two did no more drinking for the time being. Their pleasure that night was boundless. Kawada wondered how he had ever thought even for a moment of breaking off with this young man.

  The next day at five, Matsumura was at the bar in the grill of the Imperial Hotel, waiting for Yuichi. His heart was filled with all manner of sensual anticipation, glutted with conceit and confidence. Matsumura, though a company head, dreamed of nothing more than being an interloper, and slightly shook the glass of cognac he was warming in both hands.

  Five minutes after the appointed time, he tasted keenly the pleasure of being kept waiting. The guests at the bar were almost all foreigners. They talked endlessly in English that sounded like a dog barking deep in its throat. When it occurred to Matsumura after another five minutes that Yuichi might not appear, he tried to feel in the next five minutes what he had felt five minutes before, but the next five minutes were already altered.

  This five-minute period was a time for vigilance. Yuichi had indeed come and was in the doorway. He was hesitating, it seemed, about whether to come in. The feeling that he was there filled the place. When that five minutes was past, the feeling evaporated, and a new feeling, that he was not there, replaced it. At about five fifteen, determined once more that he must try to wait, Matsumura’s heart repeatedly prompted him to change his mood. When twenty minutes had gone by, however, even these measures no longer helped.

  He was battered by uneasiness and disappointment, busily trying to reconstruct at least the intolerable feeling of anticipation that caused his present anguish. Ill wait a minute more, Matsumura thought. His hopes were hitched to the circuit of the second hand as it approached and went past the sixty mark. Thus Matsumura, in a way unusual to him, waited and wasted forty-five minutes.

  About an hour after Matsumura resignedly left the place, Kawada interrupted his work early and headed for the Je Yaime. There Kawada tasted, though at slower pace, the same agony of waiting that Matsumura had undergone. The punishment of his long wait, however, was many times that of Matsumura; the cruelty of it was beyond comparison with what Matsumura had suffered. Kawada waited in the Je Yaime until it closed. His pain, aggravated by his imagination, expanded and deepened with each moment. He refused to resign himself to it; his pain could do no more than mount.

  In the first hour the breadth of Kawada’s dreams was beyond limit. They’re taking a long time over the meal. He was probably asked to some Japanese-style restaurant somewhere, Kawada thought. Perhaps it was a restaurant attended by geisha. This idea seemed plausible, for a man like Matsumura would be punctilious about having geisha present.

  A little more time went by. His heart, laboring to minimize his fears that it was becoming far too late, suddenly exploded into a series of new doubts: Yuichi was lying, wasn’t he? No, that can’t be. His youth couldn’t stand up against Matsumura’s cunning. He’s naive! He’s innocent. He loves me; there’s no doubt about it. It’s only that he couldn’t get Matsumura to come here by his own power. Or perhaps Matsumura saw through my plans and, of course, wouldn’t fall for the trick. Yuichi and Matsumura must be at another bar now. Yuichi must be waiting for the chance to slip over where I am. I must be patient a little while longer. Thinking thus, Kawada was assailed by regret.

  Oh, my, just out of damned vanity, I’ve gone and made Yuichi fall into Matsumura’s clutches. Why didn’t I just have him turn down the invitation? If Yuichi didn’t like phoning and calling it off, I could have called Matsumura and done it myself, whether it was proper or not.

  Suddenly a wild fancy ripped at him: Right now, in a bed somewhere, Matsumura is hugging Yuichi, for all I know!

  The logic of each surmise gradually broke down into fragments. The logic that held Yuichi pure of heart and the logic that revealed him as impossibly low contradicted each other painfully. Kawada sought relief from the phone at the counter. He phoned Matsumura. Though it was after eleven, Matsumura wasn’t home yet. He did what was forbidden and called Yuichi’s home, but he wasn’t there. He asked the number of Yuichi’s mother’s hospital and, throwing common sense and tact to the winds, implored the hospital operator to check the hospital room. Yuichi was not there either.

  Kawada was beside himself. After he got home he couldn’t sleep. At two o’clock in the morning, he called Yuichi’s home again. Yuichi had not yet returned.

  Kawada could not sleep at all. The next morning was a clear, refreshing, early fall day, and at nine he phoned Yuichi once more. And now Yuichi answered. Kawada had few hard words to, say to the youth when he came to the phone, but he asked him to come to his office at ten-thirty. This was the first time Kawada had asked Yuichi to the company. On his way to work in the car, Kawada’s heart mulled over the very masculine decision he had arrived at during the night: “Once you decide a thing, never deviate from it. Whatever it is, hold to your decision!”

  Kawada entered his office at ten. His secretary greeted him. He called the director who had attended last night’s banquet in Kawada’s stead, but the man had not yet arrived. Instead, another director dropped in to pass the time of day.

  Yaichiro Kawada closed his eyes in vexation. Although he had slept not one wink, he had no headache. His racing mind was clear.

  The director leaned at the window and toyed with the tassel of the window shade. He said in his usual loud voice: “I’ve got a hangover; my head is splitting. Last night I was out with some fellow, and we drank until three o’clock this morning. At two o’clock we left Shimbashi and then woke up all the bars in Kagurazaka. Who do you think it was? It was Matsumura, of Matsumura Pharmaceuticals.” Listening, Kawada’s jaw dropped. “Your body just can’t take running around with fellows as young as that,” the director went on.

  Concealing his interest, Kawada asked: “Who was Matsumura running around with?”

  “Matsumura was alone. I’m an old friend of his father. He goes out
with me as if he were dragging his old man around. Yesterday I deliberately got home early, thinking I’d take a quick bath, when he called and asked me out.”

  Kawada was ready to let out a bleat of joy, but a stubborn second thought held him back. This lucky intelligence did not make up for last evening’s torture. Also, Matsumura could have asked this trusted director to make a false report that Yuichi was not along. One could not say that was not the case. “When once you decide a thing, never deviate from it.”

  The director then brought up various topics connected with their work. Kawada gave astute answers that surprised himself. The secretary came in and announced a caller. “It’s a relative of mine, a student,” said Kawada; “he’s looking for a job, but his grades are pretty bad.” He frowned. The director decided to leave, and then Yuichi came in. '

  In the fresh light of the early autumn morning, youth alone shone from the young face. Without a single cloud, without a hint of shadow, that face ever reborn from morning to morning clutched at the heart of Kawada. This youth’s face belied his exertions of the night before, as well as his betfayal, and showed no hint that it might have made another person suffer. It knew no recompense; even if it had participated in a killing the night before, surely it would not have changed. He wore a blue blazer, from which the creases in his gray flannel trousers fell straight as an arrow. He approached Kawada with perfect composure.

  Kawada himself opened the argument, with a clumsiness of which even he was aware: “What happened last night?” The beautiful youth showed his manly white teeth and smiled. He sat down in the chair indicated to him and said: “That business of Matsumura’s was a pain in the neck, so I didn’t go to meet him. So I didn’t have to meet you either, I figured.”

  Kawada was accustomed to explanations like this, full of contradictions.

  “Why didn’t you have to come to meet me?”