wondered what it was about him that interested Eiko. Was he just another man in her life? Weren't all men really the same to her after an affair? It was not simply things like foreign-looking eyes, ability to play a saxophone, sharp clothes, or the image of a man in the ring. Actually to her all men were just trophies for her bedroom. Even though they were not all the same, it was the same thing that she wanted from each. They could not have given her more than just the fact of their manhood.
Three years before all this, Eiko had been in love. She arranged to meet the man at a hot springs hotel in Yugawara. There she would surrender herself to him. Each left home secretly. Eiko was to arrive at the hotel first. She had not been waiting very long when there was a phone call for her from a nearby hospital. The man had been killed in a collision at a railway crossing. Before he died, he had given Eiko's name and the hotel where she was. The sight of the car, smashed and flattened, made her obsessed with the destruction of other men she loved after that.
Long before, when she was still a little girl, Eiko had grown precociously fond of two of her cousins. They were both killed in the war. After the additional loss of the man she was to have met at Yugawara, she turned into a girl determined to take from men and give nothing in return.
Her first victim was the brother of a friend. He was newly married and Eiko felt a pang of jealousy about his romantic affection for his wife. Soon he became fascinated, forgot his young bride, and ran madly after Eiko. By the time his poor wife heard of the affair, Eiko had already finished with the man.
Her experiences with men changed her into a woman who had to sleep with any man she was attracted to. But sometimes she asked herself what it was she really wanted from life. She would sob to herself in the anguish of what she thought was love, but as soon as the tension was relieved, she realized that she was not in love at all and became sickened by the man's desire for her. She regretted she was no longer the unsophisticated girl she had been before the fatal car accident. She felt as if her former self had died with the man she had loved.
The city creates unusual happenings, such as chance meetings of men and women. Eiko and Tatsuya had met like this. But that time it was Tatsuya who had made the first move. She treasured that fact. During the two months they had known each other, she had not once made the first move. Although she did not realize it herself, perhaps she was beginning to expect something significant from their chance meeting.
Her attitude to life did not allow her to give, and yet she knew that even if she took everything that Tatsuya had to offer, she could never regain her lost innocence. If she got angry or impatient with Tatsuya that third night, it was not because of him; the anger and impatience were directed against herself.
When a week later she saw Tatsuya at the night club, she had been with the cousin of a friend. The chance meeting had given her the opportunity to analyze her feelings for Tatsuya objectively.
Tatsuya had felt insulted rather than jealous. It was the same feeling he had had once before when he had an affair with a cheap striptease dancer. Her lover, boss of the quarter, told him to break it off. Tatsuya had quickly bowed out strategically before it came to blows.
About a week after he had seen Eiko at the night club, Eda came up to him in the gym.
"How's Eiko?" he asked, posing indifferently.
"So so. I see quite a bit of her these days," replied Tatsuya.
"Wasn't she dancing with you at the Caspian Club the other night? I should have come over and joined you."
Tatsuya had not been to the Caspian for a long time. He was angry at Eda's remarks but did not show it.
That evening Tatsuya went to a night club as usual with some of his friends. During the course of the evening the hostess who had been sitting at their table suddenly left them and went across to another table. Nishimura, who had been interested in the girl, was a little annoyed at her disappearance. Tatsuya turned around to see what was happening at the other table. One of the three men at the table was amusing the girls with jokes and gestures. He looked vaguely familiar to Tatsuya. It was the man who had been with Eiko at the other night club. And it might have been the same man that Eda had seen her with at the Caspian two days before. Tatsuya casually asked one of the hostesses who he was.
"He's the leader of the Five Roses combo. I think he plays the trumpet. His band is doing very well at the Caspian."
When the man got up and moved onto the dance floor, Tatsuya grabbed a partner and followed. He danced the girl close to the man in order to step on his foot, but another couple got in the way and instead the man trod on Tatsuya's foot. The man merely cast a glance at Tatsuya and moved away. Tatsuya was furious. Perhaps the man thought it was not necessary to apologize because he was tall and thick-set, while Tatsuya appeared to be rather skinny in his fashionably tight suit.
Tatsuya was about to say something but returned to his table. He asked the women around him to check whether there were local gangsters in the hall, and then knowing he was safe, he had a hurried conference with his friends. Tamiya, the smallest of them, went over to the man and loudly asked him to come outside. Tatsuya pulled off Nishimura's belt and bound it around his hand to protect his fingers. Tamiya walked up to the top of the stairs ahead of the man.
He stopped and turned to him, saying, "Well, do you want to hear what it's all about?"
"Yeah, let's have it!"
"Better ask the guy behind you, eh!"
As he looked around he met Tatsuya's smashing blow to his mouth. The trumpet player fell down to the landing.
Tatsuya gripped him by the scruff of his neck and said, "You know why I hit you, don't you?"
"For stepping on your foot, I suppose," he muttered, licking the blood oozing out from his upper lip.
"Don't play dumb! You know what it's all about!"
Tatsuya hit him again on the jaw, forcing the man's teeth to cut into his own already bleeding lower lip.
"From tomorrow you quit your trumpet and shake the maracas—and out of tempo at that."
Tatsuya felt as excited as a child watching a western film. He could not have been more satisfied with himself.
When he told the story to Eiko afterwards, she laughed and clapped her hands in delight. This pleased Tatsuya and he too laughed.
"I do believe you're jealous, Tatsuya!" she said and laughed again as if she had made a discovery.
"Was I jealous?" he wondered. "Anyway," he mused, "I'm glad I knocked the fellow down. It made me feel good and Eiko, she's laughing too. It couldn't be better."
When he had knocked the man down, Tatsuya did not know exactly what had been going on in his mind. But he was satisfied that he had done the right thing without hesitation. What was important was that he had done what he wanted, in the way he wanted. Why he had done so was not the question. He was only interested whether he had succeeded or not. He never looked back on his actual conduct. Whether he was satisfied or not, that was all. Afterward, there was no chance to feel guilty for what he did, however violent. Others would criticize him for his actual deeds, but he would judge himself only on his impulses.
Tatsuya was not lecherous. His main interest was in doing the taking. That was where he got his satisfaction. When a bar girl or cabaret hostess said she loved him, he would turn away and not be led on. If he found himself being seduced by a girl instead of doing the seducing, he would start making fun of
