The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima (7 page)

Another of Mishima's early memories was of a picture book: “I had several picture books about that time, but my fancy was captured, completely and exclusively, only by this one—and only by one riveting picture in it.” This was an illustration which he
gazed on for hours and which he felt he ought not to adore. “The picture showed a knight mounted on a white horse, holding a sword aloft . . . There was a beautiful coat of arms on the silver armor the knight was wearing. The knight's beautiful face peeped through the visor, and he brandished his drawn sword awesomely in the blue sky, confronting either Death or, at the very least, some hurtling object full of evil power. I believed he would be killed the next instant.” The thought of the imminent death of the beautiful knight captivated the child. Great was his disillusionment when the nursemaid told him the knight was a woman—Joan of Arc. “I felt as though I had been knocked flat. The person I had thought was a
he
was a
she
. If this beautiful knight was a woman and not a man, what was there left?” He had to be a man or his death could not be moving; he quoted Oscar Wilde to make his point:

Fair is the knight who lieth slain
Amid the rush and reed . . .

Mishima was fascinated by death. “Yet another memory: it is the odor of sweat, an odor that drove me onward, awakened my longings, overpowered me . . . It was the troops passing our gate as they returned from drill . . . The soldiers' odor of sweat—that odor like a sea breeze, like the air, burned to gold, above the seashore—struck my nostrils and intoxicated me.” He was not at an age when the odor of sweat had a sexual quality. “But it did gradually and tenaciously arouse within me a sensuous craving for such things as the destiny of soldiers, the tragic nature of their calling . . . the ways they would die . . .” Mishima attached great importance to his odd images that stood before him from the beginning “in truly masterful completeness.” There was not a single thing lacking. “In later years I sought in them for the wellsprings of my own feelings and action.”

The beauty of the violent or excruciatingly painful death of a handsome youth was to be a theme of many of his novels, from
Chūsei
(“The Middle Ages,” 1946) to
Spring Snow
(1969). Mishima thought the more violent, the more agonizing a death, the more beautiful it was; he made a cult of a Christian martyr, St. Sebastian,
and he invested the ancient samurai rite of disembowelment, hara-kiri, with supreme beauty. A plain youth, Isao, the protagonist of
Runaway Horses
(1969), qualified as a hero by committing hara-kiri.

As a child, Mishima felt the desire to play-act. The period of childhood was for him “a stage on which time and space become entangled . . . I could not believe that the world was any more complicated than a structure of building blocks, nor that the so-called ‘social community,' which I must presently enter, could be more dazzling than the world of fairy tales . . . Thus, without my being aware of it, one of the determinants of my life had come into operation. And because of my struggles against it, from the beginning my every fantasy was tinged with despair.” He had a fantasy of Night in which he saw “a shining city floating upon the darkness that surrounded me . . . I could plainly see a mystic brand that had been impressed upon the faces of the people in that city . . . If I could but touch their faces, I might discover the color of the pigments with which the city of night had painted them.” Then a female magician, whom Mishima had seen on the stage, appeared before his eyes: “Presently Night raised a curtain directly before my eyes, revealing the stage on which Shōkyokusai Tenkatsu performed her magic feats.” He was fascinated by this woman who “lounged indolently about the stage, her opulent body veiled in garments like those of the Great Harlot of the Apocalypse.”

The little boy decided to dress up as Tenkatsu. “From among my mother's kimonos I dragged out the most gorgeous one, the one with the strongest colors. For a sash I chose an obi on which scarlet roses were painted in oil, and wrapped it round and round my waist . . . I stuck a hand mirror in my sash and powdered my face lightly.” Thus attired, the child rushed into his grandmother's sickroom; she was receiving a visitor, and his mother was also there. Running about the room, he shouted at the top of his voice: “I'm Tenkatsu.” “My frenzy,” Mishima said, “was focused upon the consciousness that, through my impersonation, Tenkatsu was being revealed to many eyes. In short, I could see nothing but myself.” For a moment the child's eyes met those of his mother; she had lowered her head and was pale. Tears blurred the little boy's eyes. “Was the moment teaching me how grotesque my isolation would
appear to the eyes of love, and at the same time was I learning, conversely, my own incapacity for accepting love?” Mishima's passion for dressing up continued until he was about nine. Once, with his younger brother and sister as accomplices (Chiyuki, the younger brother, was born in 1930), he dressed up as Cleopatra; he had seen the Queen of Egypt on the stage, making her entry into Rome, “her half-naked, amber-colored body coming into view from beneath a Persian rug.”

Mishima learned to read when he was five. He read every fairy story he could lay his hands on, but he “never liked the princesses.” He was fond only of the princes. “I was all the fonder of princes murdered or princes fated for death. I was completely in love with any youth who was killed.” He read works by Japanese authors such as Mimei Ogawa, and also the tales of Hans Christian Andersen. “Only his ‘Rose-Elf' threw deep shadows over my heart, only that beautiful youth who, while kissing the rose given him as a token by his sweetheart, was stabbed to death and decapitated by a villain with a big knife . . . My heart's leaning was for Death and Night and Blood.” He was also fascinated by a Hungarian fairy tale in which a prince, clad in tights and a rose-colored tunic, was torn to pieces by a dragon, miraculously revived, “caught by a great spider and, after his body had been shot full of poison, eaten ravenously”; the prince was once more brought back from the dead, only to be “flung bodily into a pit completely lined with there is no saying how many great knives.” Mishima also imagined himself dying in battle—here were shades of the fantasy which led him to his own death—or being murdered. “And yet I had an abnormally strong fear of death . . . One day I would bully a maid to tears, and the next morning I would see her serving breakfast with a cheerfully smiling face . . . Then I would read all manner of evil meanings into her smiles . . . I was sure she was plotting to poison me out of revenge. Waves of fear billowed up in my breast. I was positive the poison had been put in my bowl of broth.”

All his life, Mishima was worried about being poisoned. A friend who was with him in Bangkok in 1967 told me that he was forever on the lookout for danger. “He would never eat anything more than an omelette in the local restaurants. No Thai food. And he brushed his teeth with soda water in the hotel. Vigorously.”
His grandmother, who put him on a strict diet after his illness, may have created his phobia about poisoning: “Of fish, I was allowed only such white-flesh kinds as halibut, turbot, or red snapper; of potatoes, only those mashed and strained through a colander; of sweets, all bean-jams were forbidden and there were only light biscuits, wafers, and other such dry confections; and of fruit, only apples cut in thin slices, or small portions of mandarin oranges.” His mother, Shizué, has described Natsuko's strict rules:

“When he was about five or six, I was allowed to take him out of doors, but only if there was no wind. This was a concession won by my husband, who had great arguments with her about the matter on a number of occasions.

“Mother arranged for a group of three girls to come to the house to play with Kimitaké. They were ushered into her room and were allowed to play only such games as
mamagoto
(house), origami (folding paper), and
tsumiki
(blocks).

“I almost gave up everything in the end and would read to him and draw pictures. That is how he became interested in drawing . . . and he started to write, too, at the age of five, much to our surprise.”

Mishima says in
Confessions of a Mask
that “the slightest noise affected my grandmother's neuralgia—the violent opening or closing of a door, a toy bugle, wrestling, or any conspicuous sound or vibration whatever—and our playing had to be quieter than is usual even among girls.” No wonder the boy took refuge in his fairy tales and preferred to be by himself reading a book or playing with his building blocks or “indulging in my willful fancies or drawing pictures.” Shizué thought him a little odd: “We brought him a small record player and he put on the same tune over and over again for two hours.” But Kimitaké may just have been unmusical. Certainly Natsuko must have been out on the day the child received the record player; she would never have tolerated the noise. Kimitaké had learned by this time to obey her in every detail. A photograph taken in the summer of 1930, when he was five, shows the boy standing with a small cart while Natsuko looms above him, her hand on his shoulder. The grandmother has a somber expression, no doubt her illness was severe; she has a strong jaw and powerful eyes—it is a frightening face. But little Kimitaké stands there grinning,
his eyes sparkling, seemingly at ease with her. His sister and brother were not given over to his grandmother's care and were reared with the freedom befitting children. “And yet I did not greatly envy them their liberty and rowdiness.”

In the early spring of 1931, when the boy was six and was about to start school, he went on a visit to his cousins' house. They were two little girls and Natsuko allowed him to play freely with them. “I had many times more freedom at the house of Sugiko [his cousin] than at my own. As the imaginary enemies who must want to steal me away—my parents, in short—were not present, my grandmother had no qualms about giving me more liberty.” It was a difficult experience. “Like an invalid taking his first steps during convalescence, I had a feeling of stiffness as though I were acting under the compulsion of some imaginary obligation. I missed my bed of idleness. And in this house it was tacitly required that I act like a boy. The reluctant masquerade had begun.” Kimitaké proposed that he and his cousins play war, and the trio ran about the garden shouting, “Bang bang,” until he escaped into the house and collapsed on the floor. “I was enraptured with the vision of my own form lying there, twisted and fallen. There was an unspeakable delight in having been shot and being on the point of death. It seemed to me that since it was I, even if actually struck by a bullet, there would surely be no pain.”

Mishima's comment on this scene is a reflection on his entire life, and on his death. “What people regarded as a pose on my part was actually an expression of my need to assert my own true nature and . . . it was precisely what people regarded as my true self which was a masquerade. It was this unwilling masquerade that made me say: ‘Let's play war.' ”

4

School and Adolescence

The 1930's was a decade of violence in public affairs in Japan, but the Hiraokas were little affected by the events of these years.
Mishima's father continued in his ministry post and received a promotion; and the boy knew little of the upheavals which took place in Tokyo. One morning in 1936, when he was on his way to school, he heard bugles in the far distance—the start of the Ni Ni Roku Incident, the greatest of the numerous coups that shook Japan in the 1930's. The boy remembered that there was snow on the ground—it was in February; and later in life Mishima associated snowy streets with revolution. The Hiraokas, however, were secure in their upper-middle-class existence; life went on as before.

Mishima began school in April 1931, when he entered the GakushÅ«in, the Peers School. He was still under the control of his grandmother; Natsuko showed no inclination to surrender him to his mother. According to Shizué: “After Kimitaké had entered elementary school, I was allowed to take him there myself every day. I was so happy to be with him, picking up acorns in the park and singing songs with him in the park at Yotsuya.” She bought him ice cream, to which he was partial; and she induced him to go to the dentist, by offering him ice cream before each visit. Natsuko set the daily program of her grandson; when he came back from school with his mother he had to have his
osanji
(three o'clock tea) with Natsuko, and he must then do his homework by her bedside. She was particular about being given priority over his mother. “If he called out to me ‘Okāsama' [Mother] before speaking to her first, addressing her as ‘Obasama' [Grandmother], she would be most unpleasant. At other times she would criticize both of us if he showed an inclination to do something with me.”

The Gakushūin, a school for the children of the rich and the aristocracy—it was also attended by members of the Imperial family—had a liberal tradition. There was swimming at the beach in the summer, a luxury by the austere standards of prewar schools. But Natsuko would not allow the boy to go on these excursions; he expressed his disappointment in a composition he wrote in 1932:

ENOSHIMA EXCURSION

I did not go on the school outing.
When I woke up that day I thought: “Now everyone must be at Shinjuku Station, on the train.”
I easily think of things like that.
I went to my grandmother and my mother. I wanted so much to go. Just at that moment they would all have arrived at Enoshima.
I wanted to go so much because I had never been there.
I was thinking of it from morning until evening.
When I went to bed I had a dream.
I
did
go to Enoshima with everyone else, and I played there very happily. But I could not walk at all. There were rocks.
Then I woke up.

According to his mother, his first school excursion was to Kashima Shrine. “He was so happy that time. He sent a card to Mother, but he rarely sent cards to me.” All his life Mishima was to take delight in going to places that he had never visited before; he loved to go to newly opened restaurants, to climb to the top of new skyscrapers in Tokyo—if possible, before anyone else he knew. His childlike enthusiasm, suppressed when he was a child, burst out in later years. When teased about this, he would become angry. “Oh, don't say that!” he would say and turn away.