The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima Page B
Authors: Yukio Mishima
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Year’s Day, when she observed tradition by serving the special New Year’s breakfast on lacquered trays and drinking toasts with spiced sake.
Ryuji hadn’t slept at all. He washed his face with “young water,” the first water drawn in the year, and went into the dining room. It was a strange feeling, as though he were still in Europe, at the Japanese Consulate in some northern seaport. In the past, he and the other officers of the Rakuyo had been invited to New Year’s breakfast at consulates abroad: the sake dipper and the wooden cups stacked on a stand inlaid with gold, and the lacquered boxes filled with traditional side dishes, were always arrayed on a table in a bright Western dining room just as they were here.
Noboru came down wearing a new necktie, and New Year’s congratulations were exchanged. In previous years Noboru had always drunk the first toast, but when the time came and he reached for the uppermost and smallest of the three cups, Fusako stopped him with a reproving look.
Pretending to be embarrassed, he simpered:
“It seems pretty silly for Mr. Tsukazaki to drink out of the smallest.” But his eyes never left the cup. It seemed to wither in the grasp of the huge, calloused hand that carried it to the sailor’s lips. Buried under the thick fingers of a hand accustomed to grappling rope, the vermilion plum-branch cup looked horribly vulgar.
When he had finished the toast, Ryuji began an account of a hurricane in the Caribbean before Noboru even had a chance to coax him:
“When the pitching gets really bad you can hardly cook your rice. But you manage somehow and then eat it plain, just squeezed into little balls. Of course, the bowls won’t stay put on a table, so you push the desks in the lounge up against the wall and sit on the floor and try to gulp it down.
“But this hurricane in the Caribbean was really something. The Rakuyo was built overseas more than twenty years ago and she starts leaking when you hit rough weather. Well, this time the water came pouring in around the rivet holes in the hull. And at a time like that there’s no difference between officers and deck-hands, everybody works together like drowning rats, bailing and throwing mats down and pouring cement as fast as you can get it mixed. And even if you get slammed against a wall or hurled into the dark when the power shorts out, you haven’t got time to be scared.
“I’ll tell you one thing, though: no matter how long you’ve been on a ship, you never get used to storms. I mean you’re sure every time you run into one that your number is up. Anyway, the day before this last hurricane the sunset looked too much like a big fire and the red in the sky was kind of murky and the water was quiet as a lake. I had sort of a feeling then that something was coming—”
“Stop it, please stop!” Fusako screamed, clapping her hands over her ears. “Please don’t talk about things like that any more.”
His mother’s histrionics annoyed Noboru: why did she have to cover her ears and protest about an adventure story which obviously was being told for his benefit! Or had it been intended for her in the first place?
The thought made him uncomfortable. Ryuji had told the same sort of sea story before, but this time his delivery seemed different. The tone of his voice reminded Noboru of a peddler selling sundry wares while he handled them with dirty hands. Unsling a pack from your back and spread it open on the ground for all to see: one hurricane Caribbean-style—scenery along the banks of the Panama Canal—a carnival smeared in red dust from the Brazilian countryside—a tropical rainstorm flooding a village in the twinkling of an eye—bright parrots hollering beneath a dark sky. . . . No doubt about it: Ryuji did have a pack of wares.
CHAPTER THREE
O N the fifth of January the Rakuyo sailed and Ryuji was not aboard. He stayed on as a guest in the Kuroda house.
Rex opened on the sixth. Relieved and in high
Ryuji hadn’t slept at all. He washed his face with “young water,” the first water drawn in the year, and went into the dining room. It was a strange feeling, as though he were still in Europe, at the Japanese Consulate in some northern seaport. In the past, he and the other officers of the Rakuyo had been invited to New Year’s breakfast at consulates abroad: the sake dipper and the wooden cups stacked on a stand inlaid with gold, and the lacquered boxes filled with traditional side dishes, were always arrayed on a table in a bright Western dining room just as they were here.
Noboru came down wearing a new necktie, and New Year’s congratulations were exchanged. In previous years Noboru had always drunk the first toast, but when the time came and he reached for the uppermost and smallest of the three cups, Fusako stopped him with a reproving look.
Pretending to be embarrassed, he simpered:
“It seems pretty silly for Mr. Tsukazaki to drink out of the smallest.” But his eyes never left the cup. It seemed to wither in the grasp of the huge, calloused hand that carried it to the sailor’s lips. Buried under the thick fingers of a hand accustomed to grappling rope, the vermilion plum-branch cup looked horribly vulgar.
When he had finished the toast, Ryuji began an account of a hurricane in the Caribbean before Noboru even had a chance to coax him:
“When the pitching gets really bad you can hardly cook your rice. But you manage somehow and then eat it plain, just squeezed into little balls. Of course, the bowls won’t stay put on a table, so you push the desks in the lounge up against the wall and sit on the floor and try to gulp it down.
“But this hurricane in the Caribbean was really something. The Rakuyo was built overseas more than twenty years ago and she starts leaking when you hit rough weather. Well, this time the water came pouring in around the rivet holes in the hull. And at a time like that there’s no difference between officers and deck-hands, everybody works together like drowning rats, bailing and throwing mats down and pouring cement as fast as you can get it mixed. And even if you get slammed against a wall or hurled into the dark when the power shorts out, you haven’t got time to be scared.
“I’ll tell you one thing, though: no matter how long you’ve been on a ship, you never get used to storms. I mean you’re sure every time you run into one that your number is up. Anyway, the day before this last hurricane the sunset looked too much like a big fire and the red in the sky was kind of murky and the water was quiet as a lake. I had sort of a feeling then that something was coming—”
“Stop it, please stop!” Fusako screamed, clapping her hands over her ears. “Please don’t talk about things like that any more.”
His mother’s histrionics annoyed Noboru: why did she have to cover her ears and protest about an adventure story which obviously was being told for his benefit! Or had it been intended for her in the first place?
The thought made him uncomfortable. Ryuji had told the same sort of sea story before, but this time his delivery seemed different. The tone of his voice reminded Noboru of a peddler selling sundry wares while he handled them with dirty hands. Unsling a pack from your back and spread it open on the ground for all to see: one hurricane Caribbean-style—scenery along the banks of the Panama Canal—a carnival smeared in red dust from the Brazilian countryside—a tropical rainstorm flooding a village in the twinkling of an eye—bright parrots hollering beneath a dark sky. . . . No doubt about it: Ryuji did have a pack of wares.
CHAPTER THREE
O N the fifth of January the Rakuyo sailed and Ryuji was not aboard. He stayed on as a guest in the Kuroda house.
Rex opened on the sixth. Relieved and in high
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