The House of the Sleeping Beauties

5

The new year came, the wild sea was of dead winter. On land there was little wind.

"It was good of you to come on such a cold night." At the house of the sleeping beauties, the woman opened the door.

"That's why I've come…" said Old Eguchi. "To die on a night like this, with a young girl's skin to warm him, that would be paradise for an old man."

"You say such unpleasant things."

"An old man lives next door to death."

A stove was burning in the usual upstairs room. And as usual the tea was good.

"I feel a draft."

"Oh!" She looked around. "There shouldn't be any."

"Do you have a ghost with us?"

She started and looked at him. Her face was white.

"Give me another cup. A full one. Don't cool it. Let me have it off the fire."

She did as ordered. "Have you heard something?" she asked in a cold voice.

"Maybe."

"Oh! You heard and still you've come?" Sensing that Eguchi had heard, she had evidently decided not to hide the secret. But her expression was forbidding. "I shouldn't, I know, after having brought you all this distance… But may I ask you to leave?"

"I came with my eyes open."

She laughed. One could hear something diabolical in the laugh.

"It was bound to happen. Winter is a dangerous time for old men. Maybe you should close down in winter."

She did not answer.

"I don't know what sort of old men come here, but another dies and then another, you'll be in trouble."

"Tell it to the man who owns the place. What have I done wrong?" Her face was ashen.

"Oh, but you did do something wrong. It was still dark, and they took the body to an inn. O imagine you helped."

She clutched at her knees. "It was for his sake. For his good name."

"Good name? The dead have good names? But you're right. It's stupid, but I imagine things do have to be patched over. More for the sake of the family. Does the owner of this place have the inn too?"

The woman did not answer.

"I doubt if the newspapers would have had much to say, even if he did die beside a naked girl. If I'd been that old man, I think I'd have been happier left as I was."

"There would have been investigations, and the room itself is a little strange, you know, and the other gentlemen who are good enough to come here might have had questions asked. And then there are the girls."

"I imagine the girl would sleep on without knowing the old man had died. He might toss about a little, but I doubt if that would be enough to wake her up."

But if we had left him here, then we'd have had to carry the girl out and hide her. And even then they'd have known that a woman had been with him.

"You'd take her away?"

"And that would be to clear a crime."

"I suppose not."

"So she didn't even know he was dead." How long after the old man died had the girl, put to sleep, lain warming the corpse? She had not know when the body was carried away.

"My blood pressure is good and my heart is strong and you have nothing to worry about. But if it should happen to me, I must ask you not to carry me away. Leave me here beside her."

"Quite out of the question." said the woman hastily. "I must ask you to leave if you insist upon saying such things."

"I'm joking." He could not think that sudden death might be near.

The newspaper notice of the funeral had but mentioned 'sudden death'. The details had been whispered to Eguchi at the funeral by old Kiga. The cause of death had been heart failure.

"it wasn't the sort of inn for a company director to be found in… " said Kiga "… and there was another he often stayed at. And so people said that old Fukura must have died a happy death. Not of course that they know what really happened."

"Oh!"

"A kind of euthanasia, you might say. But not the real thing. More painful. We were very close, and I guessed immediately, and went to investigate. But I haven't told anyone. Not even the family knows. Do those notices in the newspapers amuse you."

There was two notices side by side, the first over the names of his wife and son, the other over that of his company.

"Fukura was like this, you know." Kiga's gesture indicated a thick neck, a thick chest, and especially a large paunch. "You'd better be careful yourself."

"You needn't worry about me."

"And they carried that huge body away in the night."

Who had carried him away? Someone in an automobile, no doubt. The picture was not a pleasant one.

"They seem to have gotten away with it." Whispered old Kiga at the funeral. "But with this sort of thing going on, I doubt if that house will last long."

"Probably not."

Tonight, sensing that Eguchi knew of old Fukura's death, the woman of the house made no attempt to hide the secret. But she was being careful.

"And the girl really knew nothing about it?" Eguchi was unnecessarily persistent.

"There would be no way for her to know. But he seems to have been in pain. There was a scratch from her neck over her breasts. She of course did not know what had happened. 'What a nasty old man', she said when she woke up the next morning."

"A nasty old man. Even in his last struggles."

"It was nothing you could call a wound, really. Just a welt with blood oozing out in places."

She now seemed prepared to tell him everything. He no longer wanted to hear. The victim was but an old man who had been meant to drop dead somewhere some day. Perhaps it had been a happy death. Eguchi's imagination played with the picture of that huge body being carried to the hot spring inn.

"The death of an old man is an ugly thing. I suppose you might think of it as rebirth in heaven… but I'm sure he went the other way."

She didn't comment.

"Do I know the girl who was with him?"

"That I cannot tell you."

"I see."

"She will be on holiday till the welt goes away."

"Another cup of tea, please. I'm thirsty."

"Certainly. I'll change the leaves."

"You managed to keep it quiet. But don't you suppose you'll be closing down before long?"

"Do you think so?" Her manner was calm. She didn't not look up from the tea. "The ghost should be coming out one of these nights."

"I'd like to have a good talk with it."

"And what about?"

"About sad old man."

"I was joking."

He took a sip of tea.

"Yes of course. You were joking. But I have a ghost here inside me. You have one too." He pointed at the woman with his right hand. "How did you know he was dead?"

"I heard a strange groaning and came upstairs. His breathing and his pulse had stopped."

"And the girl didn't know." he said again.

"We arrange things so nothing as minor as that will wake her."

"As minor as that? And she didn't know when you carried the body out?"

"No."

"So the girl is the awful one."

"Awful? What is awful about her? Stop this talk and go on into the other room. Have any of the other girls seemed awful?"

"Maybe youth us awful for an old man."

"And what does that mean?" Smiling faintly, she got up, went to the cedar door, opened it a crack, and looked in. "Fast asleep. Here. Here." She took the key from her obi. "I meant to tell you. There are two of them."

"Two?" Eguchi was startled. Perhaps the girls knew if the death of old Fukura.

"You may go in whenever you're ready." The woman left.

The curiosity and the shyness of his first visit had left him. Yet he pulled back as he opened the door.

Was this also an apprentice? But she seemed wild and rough, quite unlike the 'small girl' of the other night. The wildness made him almost forget about the death of Fukura. It was the girl who had been put to sleep nearer the door. Perhaps because she was not used to such devises for the aged as electric blankets, or perhaps because her warmth kept the winter cold at a distance, she had pushed the bedding down to the pit of her stomach. She seemed to be lying with her legs spread wide. She lay face up, her arms flung out. The nipples were large and dark, and had a purplish cast. It was not a beautiful color in the light from the crimson velvet curtains. Nor could the skin of the neck and breasts have been called beautiful. Still it had a dark glow. There seemed to be a faint odor at the armpits.

"Life itself." muttered Eguchi. A girl like this breathed life into a sixty seven years old man. Eguchi had doubts as to whether the girl was Japanese. She could not yet be twenty, for the nipples were flat despite the width of the breasts. The body was firm.

He took her hand. The fingers and the nails were long. She would be tall, in the modern fashion. What sort of voice would she have, what would be her way of speaking? There where numbers of women on radio and television whose voices he liked. He would close his eyes and listen to them. He wanted to hear this girl's voice. There was of course no way of really talking to a girl who was asleep. How could he made her speak? A voice was different when it came from a sleeping person. Most women have several voices, but this girl would probably have only one. Even from the sleeping form he could see that she was untutored and without affectation.

He sat toying with the long fingernails. Were fingernails so hard? Were these healthy young fingernails? The color of blood was vivid beneath them. He noticed for the first time that she had on a golden necklace thin as a thread. He wanted to smile. Although she had pushed the bedding down below her breasts on so cold a night, there seemed to be a touch of perspiration at her forehead. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped it away. The scent was strong on the handkerchief. He also wiped her armpits. Since he would not be able to take the handkerchief home, he wadded it and threw it into a corner of the room.

"She has on lipstick." It was most natural that she should, but with this girl the lipstick too made him want to smile. He gazed at it for a time. "Has she had an operation for a harelip?"

He retrieved his handkerchief and wiped at her lipstick. There was no trace of surgery. The center of the upper lip was raised, to cut a clean pointed line. It was strangely appealing.

He remembered a kiss from more than forty years before. With his hands very lightly on the shoulders of the girl before him, he had brought his lips to her. She shook her head left and right.

"No, no. I don't."

"You have."

"No, no. I don't."

Eguchi wiped his lips, and showed her the handkerchief stained with pink.

"But you have. Look at this."

The girl took the handkerchief and stared at it, and then stuffed it into her handbag.

"I don't.' she said, hanging her head silently, choked with tears.

They had not met again. And what might she have done with the handkerchief? But more than the handkerchief, what of the girl herself? Was she still living, now more than forty years later?

How many years had he forgotten her, until she was brought back by the peaked upper lip of the girl who had been put to sleep? There was lipstick on the handkerchief, and the girl's had been wiped away. And would she think, if he left it by her pillow, that he had stolen a kiss? The guests here were of course free to kiss. Kissing was not among the forbidden acts. A man could kiss, however senile he was. The sleeping lips might be cold and wet. Do not the dead lips of a woman one has loved give the greater thrill of emotion? The urge was not strong with Eguchi, as he thought of the bleak senility of the old men who frequented the house.

Yet the unusual shape of these lips did arouse him. So there are such lips, he thought, lightly touching the center of the upper lip with his little finger. It was dry. And the skin seemed thick. The girl began licking her lip, and did not stop until it was well moistened. He took his finger away.

"Does she kiss even when she's asleep?"

He stopped, however, at briefly stroking the hair at her ear. It was coarse and stiff. He got up and undressed.

"You'll catch a cold. I don't care how healthy you are." He put her arms under the bedding and covered her breasts, He lay down beside her. She turned over. Then, with a groan, she thrust her arms abruptly out. The old man was pushed cleanly away. He laughed on and on. A most valiant sort of apprentice, he said to himself.

Because she had been put into a sleep from which she would not awaken, and because her body was probably numbed, he could do as he wished. But the vigour to take such a girl by force was no longer in Eguchi… or he had forgotten it. He approached her with a soft passion, a gentle affirmation, a feeling of nearness to woman. The adventure, the fight that set one to breathing harder, had gone.

"I'm old." he muttered, thinking such thoughts even while smiling at his rejection by the sleeping girl.

He was not really qualified to come to this house as the other old men came. But it was probably the girl with the darkly glowing skin who made him feel more keenly than usual that he too had left before him not a great deal of life as a man.

It seemed to him that to force himself upon the girl would be the tonic to bring stirrings of youth. He was growing a little tired of the 'house of the sleeping beauties'. And even as he wearied of it the number of his visits increased. He felt a sudden urging of the blood: he wanted to use force on her, break the rule of the house, destroy the ugly nostrum, and so take his leave. But force would not be necessary. There would be no resistance from the body of the girl put to sleep. He could probably even strangle her with no difficulty. The impulse let him, and an emptiness, dark in its depths, spread over him. The high waves were near and seemed a great distance away, partly because here on the land there was no wind. He saw the dark floor of the night if the dark sea. Raising himself on an elbow, he brought his face to the girl's. She was breathing heavily. He decided not to kiss her, and fell back again.

He lay as she had thrust him away, his chest exposed. He went to the other girl, She had been facing away, but she rolled over toward him. There was a gentle voluptuousness in this greeting, even as she lay asleep. One hand fell at the old man's hip.

"A good combination." Toying with the girl's fingers, he closed his eyes. The small boned fingers were supple, so supple that it seemed they would bend indefinitely without breaking. He wanted to take them in his mouth. Her breasts were small but round and high. They fitted into the palm of his hand. The roundness at her hips was similar. Woman is infinite, thought the older man, with a touch of sadness. He opened his eyes. She had a long neck. It too was slender and graceful. But the slenderness was different from that of old Japan. There was a double line at the closed eyelids, so shallow that with the eyes open it might become but a single line. Or it might be at times single and then double. Or perhaps a single line at one eye and a double at the other. Because of the light from the velvet curtains he could not be sure of the color of her skin. But it seemed tan at the face, white at the neck, somewhat tan again at the shoulders, and so white at the breasts that it might have been bleached.

He could see that the darkly glowing girl was tall. This one did not seem to be much shorter. He stretched out a leg, His toes first came against the thick skinned sole of the dark girl's foot. It was oily. He drew his foot away hastily, but the withdrawal became an invitation. The thought flashed through his mind that old Fukura's partner when he had his last seizure had been this dark skinned girl. Hence tonight there were two girls.

But that could not be the case. The girl who had been with Fukura was in vacation until the welt over her neck and breast went away. Had the woman of the house not just this moment told him so? He again put his foot against the thick skinned sole of the girl's foot, and explored the dark flesh upwards.

A spasm came over to him, as of to say: 'initiate me into the spell of life'. The girl had pushed off the quilt, or rather the electric blanket beneath it. One foot lay flung outside the quilt. Thinking he would like to roll her out into the midwinter cold, he gazed at her breasts and abdomen. He put his head to a breast and listened to her heart. He had expected it to be strong, but it was engagingly subdued. But was it not a little uneven?

"You'll catch cold." He covered her, and turned off her side of the blanket. The spell that was a woman's life, he thought, was not so great a thing. Suppose he were to throttle her. It would be easy. It would be no trouble at all even for an old man. He took his handkerchief and wiped the cheek that had been against her breast. The girl's oily smell seemed to come from it. The sound of the girl's heart stayed on, deep in his ear. He put a hand to his own heart. Perhaps because it was his own, it seemed the stronger than the two.

He turned to the gentler girl, his back toward the dark one. The well shaped nose seemed the more courtly and elegant to his farsighted old eyes. He could not resist putting his hand under the long, slender neck and pulling her toward him. As her head moved softly toward him there came with it a sweet scent.

It mixed with the wild, sharp scent of the dark girl behind him. He brought the fair girl against him. Her breathing was short and rapid. But he need not fear that she would awaken. He lay still for a time.

"Shall I ask her to forgive me? As the last woman in my life?"

The girl behind him seemed to seek arouse him. He put out his hand and felt. The flesh there was as at her breasts.

"Be quiet. Listen to the winter waves and be quit." He sought to calm himself.

"These girls have been put to sleep; They might as well be paralyzed. They have been given some poison or some strong drug." And why? "Why if not money?" Yet he found himself hesitating. Every woman was different from every other. He knew that. And yet was the one before him so very different that he was ready to inflict upon her a wound that would not heal, a sorrow to last through her life? The sixty seven year old heal, a sorrow to last through her life? The sixty seven year old Eguchi could, if he wished, think that all women's bodies were alike. And in this girl there was neither affirmation nor denial, there was no response whatsoever. All that distinguished her from a corpse was that she breathed and had warm blood. Indeed tomorrow morning when the living girl awoke, would she be much different from an open eyed corpse? There was now in the girl no love or shame or fear. When she awoke there could remain bitterness and regret. He would not know who had taken her. She could but infer that was an old man. She would probably not tell the woman of the house. She would conceal to the end the fact that the rule of this house of old men had been broken, and so no one would know but herself. Her soft skin clung to Eguchi. The dark girl, perhaps after all chilly now that her side of the blanket had been turned off, pressed against Eguchi with her naked back. One of her feet was between the feet of the fair skinned girl. Eguchi felt his strength leave him… and again he wanted to laugh. He reached for the sleeping medicine. He was sandwiched tightly between them and could move only with difficulty. His hand on the fair girl's forehead, he looked at the usual tablets.

"Shall I go without them tonight?" he muttered.

It was clearly a strong drug. He would drop effortlessly into sleep. For the first time it occurred to him to wonder whether all the old men who came to the house obediently took the medicine. But was it not compounding the ugliness of old age if, regretting the hours lost in sleep, they refrained from taking it? He thought that he himself had not yet entered into that companionship of ugliness. Once again he drank down the medicine. He had once said, he remembered, that he wanted the drug the girl had taken. The woman had answered that it was dangerous for old men. He had not insisted.

Did 'dangerous' suggest dying in one's sleep? Eguchi was but an old man of ordinary circumstances. Being human, he fell from time to time into a lonely emptiness, a cold despondency. Would this not be a most desirable place to die? To arouse curiosity, to invite the disdain of the world… would these not be to cap his life with proper death? All of this acquaintances would be surprised. He could not calculate the injury he would do to his family. But to die in his sleep between, for instance, the two young girls tonight… might that not be the ultimate wish of a man in his last years? No, it was not so. Like old Fukura, he would be told that he had committed suicide from an overdose of sleeping medicine. Since there would be no suicide note, it would be said that he had been despondent about the prospects ahead. He could see the faint smile of the woman of the house.

"Foolish ideas. As if I wanted to bring bad luck."

He laughed, but it was not a bright laugh. The drug was taking effect.

"Al right." he murmured. "I'll get her up and make her give me what they had."

But it was not likely that she would agree. And Eguchi was not eager to get up, and did not really want the other drug. He lay face up and put his arms around the two girls, around a soft, docile, fragrant neck, and a hard, oily neck. Something flowed up inside him. He looked at the crimson curtains to the left and the right.

"Ah."

"Ah!" It was the dark girl who seemed to answer. She put an arm on his chest. Was she in pain? He took away his arm and turned his back to her. With the free arm he embraced the hollow at the hips of the fair girl. He closed his eyes.

"The last woman in my life? Why must I think so? Even for a minute." And who had been the first woman in his life?

His was less sleepy than dazed.

The thought flashed across his mind. The first woman in his life had been his mother. "Of course. Could it be anyone except Mother?" came the unexpected affirmation. "But can I say that Mother was my woman?"

Now at sixty seven, as he lay between two naked girls, a new truth came from inside him. Was it a blasphemy, was it yearning? He opened his eyes and blinked, as if to drive away a nightmare. But the drug was working. He ha a dull headache. Drowsily, he pursued the image of his mother. And then he sighed, and took two breasts, one of each of the girls, in the palms of his hands. A smooth one and an oily one. He closed his eyes.

Eguchi's mother had died one winter night when he was seventeen. Eguchi and his father held her hands. She had long suffered from tuberculosis and her arms were skin and bones, but her grip was so strong that Eguchi's fingers ached. The coldness of her hand sank all the way to his shoulder. The nurse who had been massaging her feet left quietly. She had probably gone to call the doctor.

"Yoshio. Yoshio." His mother called out in little gasps. Eguchi understood, and stroked her tormented bosom. As he did so she vomited a large quantity of blood. It came bubbling from her nose. She stopped breathing. The gauze and the towels at her pillow were not enough to wipe up the blood.

"Wipe it with your sleeve, Yoshio." said the father. "Nurse, nurse! Bring a basin and water, Yes, and a new pillow and a nightgown and sheets."

It was natural that when old Eguchi thought of his mother as the first woman in his life, he thought of her death.

"Ah!" The curtains that walled the secret room seemed the color of blood. He closed his eyes tight, but the red would not disappear. He was half asleep from the drug. The fresh young breasts of the two girls were in the palms of his two hands. His conscience and his reason were numbed, and there seemed to be tears at the corners of his eyes.

Why, in a place like this, had he thought of his mother as the first woman in his life? But the thought of his mother as his first woman did not bring up thoughts of later women. Actually his first woman had been his wife. Very well. But old wife, having sent three daughter out in marriage, would be sleeping alone this cold winter night. Or would she still be awake? She would not hear the sound of waves, but the cold of the night would be harsher than here. He asked himself what they were, the two breasts in his hands. They would still be coursing with warm blood when he himself was dead. And what did that fact mean? He put a certain sluggish strength into his hands. There was no response, for the breasts too were deep in sleep. When, in her last hour, he had stroked his mother's bosom, he had of course felt her withered breasts. They had not been like breasts. He did not remember them now. What he remembered was groping for them and going to sleep, one day when he was still an infant.

Old Eguchi was finally being pulled to sleep. He brought his hands from the girl's breasts into a more comfortable position. He turned toward the dark girl, because hers was the strong scent. Her rough breath hit his face. Her mouth was slightly open.

"A crooked tooth. A pretty one." He took it between his fingers. She had large teeth, but this one was small. Had her breath not been coming at him, Eguchi might have kissed the tooth. The strong scent interfered with his sleep, and he turned away. Even then her breath hit the nape of his nape of his neck. She was not snoring, but she seemed to put her voice into her breathing. He hunched his shoulders and brought his cheek to the forehead of the fair girl. She was perhaps frowning, but also seemed that she was smiling. The oily skin of the dark girl was unpleasant behind him. It was cold and slippery. He fell asleep.

It may have been because he had difficulty sleeping between the two girls that Eguchi had a succession of nightmares. There was no thread running through them, but they were disturbingly erotic. In the last of them he came home from his honeymoon to find flowers like red dahlias blooming and waving in such profusion that they almost buried the house. Wondering whether it was the right house, he hesitated to go inside.

"Welcome home. Why are you standing there?" It was his dead mother who greeted them. "Is your wife afraid of us?"

"But the flowers, Mother?"

"Yes." said the mother calmly. "Come on in."

"I thought we had come to the wrong house. I could hardly have made a mistake. But what flowers."

Ceremonial food had been laid out for them. After she had exchanged greetings with his bride, Eguchi's mother went into the kitchen to warm the soup. He smelled sea bream. He went out to look at the flowers. His bride went with him.

"Aren't they beautiful?" she said.

"Yes." Not wishing to frighten her, he did not add that they had not been there before.

He gazed at a particularly large one among them. A red drop oozed from one of the petals.

Old Eguchi awoke with a groan. He shook his head, but he was still in a daze. He was facing the dark girl. Her body was cold. He started up. She was nothing breathing. He felt her breasts. There was no pulse. He leaped up. He staggered and fell. Trembling violently, he went into the next room. The call button was in the alcove. He heard footsteps below.

"Did I strangled her in my sleep?" He went, almost crawled, back to the other room and looked at the girl.

"Is something wrong?" the woman of the house came in.

"She's dead." his teeth were chattering.

The woman rubbed her eyes and looked calmly down at the girl. "Dead? There is no reason that she should be."

"She's dead. She's nothing breathing and there's no pulse."

Her expression changing, the woman knelt beside the dark girl.

"Dead, isn't she?"

The woman rolled back the bedding and inspected the girl.

"Did you do anything to her?"

"Not a thing."

"She's not dead." said the woman with forced coolness. "You needn't worry."

"She's dead. Call a doctor."

The woman did not answer.

"What did you give to her? maybe she was allergic."

"Don't be alarmed. We won't cause you any trouble. We won't tell your name."

"She's dead."

"I think not."

"What time is it?"

"After four."

She staggered as she lifted the dark, naked body.

"Let me help you."

"Don't bother. There's a man downstairs."

"She's heavy."

"Please. You needn't bother. Go back to sleep, There is the other girl."

There was another girl… no remark had ever struck him more sharply. There was of course the fair skinned girl still asleep in the next room.

"Do you expect me to sleep after this?" His voice was angry, but there was also fear in it. "I'm going home."

"Please don't. It wouldn't do to be noticed at this hour."

"I can't possibly go back to sleep."

"I'll bring you more medicine."

He heard her dragging the dark girl downstairs. Standing in his night kimono, he for the first time felt the cold press upon him. The woman came back with two white tablets.

"Here you are. Sleep late tomorrow."

"Oh!" He opened the door to the next room. The covers ere as they had been, thrown back in confusion, and the naked form of the fair girl in shining beauty.

He gazed at her.

He heard an automobile pulling away, probably with the dark girl's body. Was she being taken to the dubious inn to which old Fukura had been taken?