After a few moments of indecision, she gave orders that the priest's presence in her garden should be ignored. Her attendants bowed and withdrew.
Now for the first time the lady fell prey to uneasiness. In her lifetime she had seen many people who had abandoned the world, but never before had she laid eyes on someone who had abandoned the future world. The sight was ominous and inex-pressibly fearful. All the pleasure that her imagination had conjured up from the idea of the priest's love disappeared in a flash.
Much as he might have surrendered the future world on her 79
behalf, that world, she now realized, would never pass into her own hands.
The Great Imperial Concubine looked down at her elegant clothes and at her beautiful hands, and then she looked across the garden at the uncomely features of the old priest and at his shabby robes. There was a horrible fascination in the fact that a connection should exist between them.
How different it all was from the splendid vision! The Great Priest seemed now like a person who had hobbled out of Hell itself. Nothing remained of that man of virtuous presence who had trailed the brightness of the Pure Land behind him. The brilliance which had resided within him and which had called to mind the glory of the Pure Land had vanished utterly. Though this was certainly the man who had stood by the Shiga Lake, it was at the same time a totally different person.
Like most people of the Court, the Great Imperial Concubine tended to be on her guard against her own emotions, especially when she was confronted with something that could be expected to affect her deeply. Now on seeing this evidence of the Great Priest's love, she felt disheartened at the thought that the consummate passion of which she had dreamt during all these years should assume so colourless a form.
When the priest had finally limped into the Capital leaning on his stick, he had almost forgotten his exhaustion. Secretly he made his way into the grounds of the Great Imperial Concubine's residence at Ky&goku and looked across the garden.
Behind those blinds, he thought, was sitting none other than the lady whom he loved.
Now that his adoration had assumed an immaculate form, the future world once again began to exert its charm on the Great Priest. Never before had he envisaged the Pure Land in so immaculate, so poignant, an aspect. His yearning for it became almost sensual. Nothing remained for him but the formality of meeting the Great Concubine, of declaring his love, and of thus ridding himself once and for all of the impure thoughts that tied him to this world and that still prevented him from attaining the Pure Land. That was all that remained to be done.
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It was painful for him to stand there supporting his old body on his stick. The bright rays of the May sun poured through the leaves and beat down on his shaven head. Time after time he felt himself losing consciousness and without his stick he would certainly have collapsed. If only the lady would realize the situation and invite him into her presence, so that the formality might be done with! The Great Priest waited. He waited and supported his ever-growing weariness on his stick. At length the sun was covered with the evening clouds. Dusk gathered. Yet still no word came from the Great Imperial Concubine.
She, of course, had no way of knowing that the priest was looking through her, beyond her, into the Pure Land. Time after time she glanced out through the blinds. He was standing there immobile. The evening light thrust its way into the garden. Still he continued standing there.
The Great Imperial Concubine became frightened. She felt that what she saw in the garden was an incarnation of that
'deep-rooted delusion' of which she had read in the Sutras. She was overcome by the fear of tumbling into Hell. Now that she had led astray a priest of such high virtue, it was not the Pure Land to which she could look forward, but Hell itself, whose terrors she and those about her knew in such detail. The supreme love of which she had dreamt had already been shattered. To be loved as she was - that in itself represented damnation. Whereas the Great Priest looked beyond her into the Pure Land, she now looked beyond the priest into the horrid realms of Hell.
Yet this haughty noblewoman of Kyogoku was too proud to succumb to her fears without a fight, and she now summoned forth all the resources of her inbred ruthlessness. The Great Priest, she told herself, was bound to collapse sooner or later.
She looked through the blind, thinking that by now he must be lying on the ground. To her annoyance, the silent figure stood there motionless.
Night fell and in the moonlight the figure of the priest looked like a pile of chalk-white bones.
The lady could not sleep for fear. She no longer looked through the blind and she turned her back to the garden. Yet all 81
the time she seemed to feel the piercing gaze of the Great Priest on her back. •
This, she knew, was no commonplace love. From fear of being loved, from fear of falling into Hell, the Great Imperial Concubine prayed more earnestly than ever for the Pure Land. It was for her own private Pure Land that she prayed
- a Pure Land which she tried to preserve invulnerable within her heart. This was a different Pure Land from the priest's and it had no connection with his love. She felt sure that if she were ever to mention it to him it would instantly disinte-grate.
The priest's love, she told herself, had nothing to do with her.
It was a one-sided affair, in which her own feelings had no part, and there was no reason why it should disqualify her from being received into her Pure Land. Even if the Great Priest Were to collapse and die, she would remain unscathed. Yet, as the night advanced and the air became colder, this confidence began to desert her.
The priest remained standing in the garden. When the moon was hidden by the clouds, he looked like a strange, gnarled old tree.
That form out there has nothing to do with me, thought the lady, almost beside herself with anguish, and the words seemed to boom within her heart. Why in Heaven's name should this have happened?
At that moment, strangely, the Great Imperial Concubine completely forgot about her own beauty. Or perhaps it would be more correct to say that she had made herself forget it.
Finally, faint traces of white began to break through the dark sky and the priest's figure emerged in the dawn twilight. He was still standing. The Great Imperial Concubine had been defeated. She summoned a maid and told her to invite the priest to come in from the garden and to kneel outside her blind.
The Great Priest was at the very boundary of oblivion when the flesh is on the verge of crumbling away. He no longer knew whether it was for the Great Imperial Concubine that he was waiting or for the future world. Though he saw the figure of the maid approaching from the residence into the dusky 82
garden, it did not occur to him that what he had been waiting for was finally at hand.
The maid delivered her mistress's message. When she had finished, the priest uttered a dreadful, almost inhuman cry. The maid tried to lead him by the hand, but he pulled away and walked by himself towards the house with fantastically swift, firm steps.
It was dark on the other side of the blind and from outside it was impossible to see the lady's form. The priest knelt down and, covering his face with his hands, he wept. For a long time he stayed there without a word and his body shook con-vulsively.
Then in the dawn darkness a white hand gently emerged from behind the lowered blind. The priest of the Shiga Temple took it in his own hands and pressed it to his forehead and cheek.
The Great Imperial Concubine of Kyogoku felt a strange cold hand touching her hand. At the same time she Was aware of a warm moisture. Her hand was being bedewed by someone else's tears. Yet when the pallid shafts of morning light began to reach her through the blind, the lady's fervent faith imbued her with a wonderful inspiration: she became convinced that the unknown hand which touched hers belonged to none other than the Buddha.
Then the great vision sprang up anew in the lady's heart: the emerald earth of the Pure Land, the millions of seven-jewelled towers, the angels playing music
, the golden ponds strewn with silver sand, the resplendent lotus, and the sweet voices of the Kalavinkas - all this was born afresh. If this was the Pure Land that she was to inherit - and so she now believed - why should she not accept the Great Priest's love?
She waited for the man with the hands of Buddha to ask her to raise the blind that separated her from him. Presently he would ask her; and then she would remove the barrier and her incomparably beautiful body would appear before him as it had on that day by the edge of the lake at Shiga; and she would invite him to come in.
The Great Imperial Concubine waited.
But the priest of Shiga Temple did not utter a word. He asked 83
her for nothing. After a while his old hands relaxed their grip and the lady's snow-white hand was left alone in the dawn light.
The priest departed. The heart of the Great Imperial Concubine turned cold.
A few days later a rumour reached the Court that the Great Priest's spirit had achieved its final liberation in his cell at Shiga.
At this news the lady of Kyogoku set to copying the Sutras in roll after roll of beautiful writing.
Translated by Ivan Morris
The Seven Bridges
At half past eleven on the night of the September full moon, as soon as the party at which they had been entertaining broke up, Koyumi and Kanako returned to the Laurel House and at once slipped into cotton kimonos. They would really have preferred to bathe before setting out again, but they had no time tonight.
Koyumi was forty-two, a plump little figure, barely five feet tall, wrapped in a white kimono patterned with black leaves.
Kanako, the other geisha, though only twenty-two and quite a good dancer, had no patron and seemed fated never to be assigned a decent part in the annual spring and autumn geisha dances. Her crepe kimono was dyed dark-blue whirls on white.
Kanako spoke. 'I wonder what design Masako's kimono will be tonight?'
'Clover, you can be sure. She's desperate to have a baby.'
'Has she gone that far, then?'
That's the trouble - she hasn't,' Koyumi answered. 'She's still a long way from success. What a Virgin Mary that'd make her - getting a baby from a man simply from having a crush on him!' - There is a common superstition among the geishas that a woman who wears a summer kimono with a clover pattern or a winter kimono with a landscape design will soon become pregnant.
When at last they were ready to leave, Koyumi felt the sudden pangs of hunger. It happened every time she set out on the evening's round of parties, but she felt as if hunger were always an unexpected catastrophe striking without warning from the blue. She was never bothered by hunger while appearing before customers, no matter how boring the party 85
might be, but, before and after she performed, the hunger which she had quite forgotten would assail her like a sudden fit.
Koyumi could never prepare for this eventuality by eating appropriately at a suitable time. Sometimes, for example, when she went in the evening to the hairdresser, she would see the other geishas of the neighbourhood ordering a meal and eating it with relish as they waited their turn. But the sight produced no impression on Koyumi. She didn't even think that the risotto, or whatever the dish was, might taste good. And yet, an hour later, hunger pangs would suddenly strike, and the saliva would gush like a hot spring from the roots of her small, strong teeth.
Koyumi and Kanako paid a monthly bill to the Laurel House for publicity and for their meals. Koyumi's meal bill had always been exceptionally large. Not only was she a heavy eater, but she was finicky in her tastes. But, as a matter of fact, ever since she developed her eccentric habit of feeling hungry only before and after appearances, her food bill had gradually been decreasing, and it threatened now to drop below Kanako's.
Koyumi had no recollection of when this eccentric habit had originated, nor of when she first made it her practice to stop by the kitchen before the first party of the evening to demand, all but dancing with impatience, 'Haven't you a little something I can eat?' It was now her custom to take her dinner in the kitchen of the first house, and her supper in the kitchen of the last house of the evening. Her stomach had attuned itself to this routine, and her food bill at the Laurel House had accordingly dwindled.
The Ginza was already deserted as the two geisha started walking towards the Yonei House in Shimbashi. Kanako pointed up at the sky over a bank with metal blinds barring the windows. 'We're lucky it's clear, aren't we? You can really see the man in the moon tonight.'
Koyumi's thoughts were only for her stomach. Her first party tonight had been at Yonei's and her last at the Fuminoya.
She realized now that she should have eaten supper at the Fuminoya before starting out, but there had been no time. She had rushed right back to the Laurel House to change. She would 86
have to ask for supper at their destination, Vonei's, in the same kitchen where she had eaten dinner that evening. The thought weighed on her.
But Koyumi's anxiety was dispelled as soon as she stepped inside the kitchen door at Yonei's. Masako, the much-sheltered daughter of the owner, was standing by the entrance waiting for them. She wore the clover-patterned kimono which they had predicted. Seeing Koyumi, she tactfully called out, 'I didn't expect you so soon. We're in no hurry - come in and have a bit of supper before you go.'
The kitchen was littered with odds and ends from the evening's entertainments. Enormous stacks of plates and bowls glared in the unshaded electric lights. Masako stood with one hand braced against the frame of the door, her body blocking the light and her face dark in the shadows. The light did not reach Koyumi's face, and she was glad that her momentary expression of relief when Masako called to her had passed unnoticed.
While Koyumi was eating supper, Masako led Kanako to her room. Of all the geisha who came to the Yonei House, Kanako was the one she got along with best. She and Masako were the same age, had gone to elementary school together, and were about equally good-looking. But, more important than any of these reasons, the fact was that she somehow liked Kanako.
Kanako was so demure she looked as if the least wind would blow her over, but she had accumulated all the experience she needed, and a carelessly uttered word from her sometimes did Masako a world of good. The high-spirited Masako, on the other hand, was timid and childish when it came to love.
Her childishness was a matter of common gossip, and her mother was so sure of the girl's innocence that she had not given it a second thought when Masako ordered a kimono with a clover design.
Masako was a student in the Arts Department at Waseda University. She had always been an admirer of R, the movie actor, but ever since he had visited Yonei's her passion for him had been mounting. Her room was now cluttered with pictures of him. She had ordered a white china vase enamelled with the 87
photograph of R and herself taken on the memorable occasion of his visit. It stood on her desk, filled with flowers.
Kanako said when she was seated, 'They announced the cast today.' She twisted her thin little mouth into a frown.
'Did they?' Masako, sorry for Kanako, pretended not to know.
'All I got was a bit part again. I'll never get anything better.
It's enough to discourage me for good. I feel like a girl in a musical who stays in the chorus year after year.'
'I'm sure you'll get a good part next year.'
Kanako shook her head. 'In the meantime I'm getting old.
Before you know it, I'll be like Koyumi.'
'Don't be silly. You've still got twenty years ahead of you.'
It would not have been proper in the course of this conversation for either girl to mention what she would be praying for tonight, but even without asking each already knew the other's prayers. Masako wanted an affair with R; Kanako a good patron; and they both knew that Koyumi' wanted money.
Their prayers, it was clear, would have quite different objects, all eminently reasonable. If the moon failed to grant these wishes, the moon and not they would be at fault. Their
hopes showed plainly and honestly on their faces, and theirs were such truly human desires that anyone seeing the three women walking in the moonlight would surely be convinced that the moon would have no choice but to recognize their sincerity and grant their wishes.
Masako spoke. 'We'll have one more coming along tonight.'
'Not really? Who?'
'A maid. Her name's Mina, and she came from the country a month ago. I told Mother I didn't want her coming with me, but Mother said she'd worry if she didn't send somebody along.'
Kanako asked, 'What's she like?'
'Just wait till you see her. She's what you'd call well-developed.'
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At that moment Mina opened the sliding doors behind them and, still standing, poked in her head.
'I thought I told you that when you open sliding doors you're supposed to kneel down first and then open them.' Masako's tone was haughty.
'Yes, miss.' Mina's coarse, heavy voice seemed to reflect nothing of Masako's feelings. Kanako had to restrain a laugh at Mina's appearance. She wore a one-piece dress made up of strange bits and patches of kimono material. Her hair was set in a rumpled permanent wave, and her extraordinarily brawny arms showing through her sleeves rivalled her face in duskiness.
Her heavy features were crushed under the swollen mass of her cheeks, and her eyes were like slits. No matter which way she chose to shut her mouth, one or another of her irregular teeth protruded. It was difficult to uncover any expression in that face.
'Quite a bodyguard!' Kanako murmured into Masako's ear. Masako forced a severe expression to her face. 'You're sure you understand? I've told you already, but I'll tell you once more. From the minute we set foot out of this house you're not to open your mouth, no matter what happens, until we've crossed all seven bridges. Even one word and you won't get whatever you're praying for. And if anybody you know talks to you, you're out of luck, but I don't suppose there's much danger of that in your case. One more thing. You're not allowed to go back over the same road twice. Anyway, Koyumi will be leading. All you have to do is follow.'
Death in Midsummer and Other Stories Page 9