After the Banquet by Yukio Mishima Page B

two kinds of reactions within her. The first was wounded pride to think that, after all the years she had run a restaurant by her unaided efforts, she should be criticized for not making sure that the doors were locked, of all things! The second was a fear that Noguchi had coldly seen through the strange emotional excitement she had been experiencing since the night before. But the next moment Kazu decided that the blame for her irritation lay with the telephone. Even at times when Noguchi was pleasant enough if you met him face-to-face, he would adopt a deliberately impersonal tone on the telephone.
    “It’s wrong when a married couple can only talk on the telephone,” she thought. “Still, this kind of life was my idea in the first place.”
    Kazu listened distractedly to Noguchi’s admonitions, not intending to let them bother her. She examined her fingernails. There were, as always, clearly defined white crescents at the roots of her healthy nails, but she noticed today the cloudy, horizontal streaks on the nails of her middle and ring fingers. “That’s a sign I’ll have lots of kimonos,” she told herself.
    Kazu all at once felt the meaninglessness of the large collection of kimonos she had already accumulated, a desolation as if her flesh were suddenly melting away.
    The receiver still pressed to her ear, Kazu let her gaze wander. Morning sunlight streamed into the other rooms, and she could see the maids conscientiously dusting. The ridges of the new tatami were glossily defined in the early sunshine. At that moment a duster flickered over the openwork carving of the transom . . . The sunlight accentuated the smooth, persistent movements of the young maids, their backs stooping and rising in the rooms and corridors.
    “Are you listening to me?” Noguchi demanded, his voice rather sharp.
    “Yes.”
    “Something’s come up here too. I’ve just had word that two important guests are coming tonight. You’ll have to receive them.”
    “Will they be coming here?”
    “No, to the house. I want you to order a dinner, return home, and receive them.”
    “But . . .” Kazu enumerated the important customers who had reservations for the Setsugoan that evening, and started to explain why she couldn’t possibly leave the restaurant.
    “I think it’s a good idea for you to return when I tell you to.”
    “Who are these important guests?”
    “I can’t tell you on the phone.”
    Kazu was exasperated by such secrecy. “Can’t you? You can’t tell your wife the names of your guests? Very well, if that’s the way you feel.”
    Noguchi answered in a voice of unbearable frigidity, “You understand me? You’re to have dinner ready and return home by five o’clock. I won’t take no for an answer.” With these words he hung up.
    Kazu was so annoyed that she remained for a while sulking in her room, but eventually it occurred to her that this was the first time Noguchi had broken their agreement under which she returned home only for the weekends. The guests must certainly be very important.
    Kazu reached out her hand and opened the window a couple of inches. This was the same window which the police the previous night had searched for fingerprints. Somebody—the thief or a policeman?—had trampled the small yellow chrysanthemums under the window. Some of the flowers were imbedded in the soft earth like inlaid work, quite unblemished, their shapes as clearly defined as those in a heraldic design. Here and there the yellow of a petal had straightened itself and risen from the ground.
    An irresistible drowsiness came over Kazu, and she lay down on the tatami under the window. She turned her eyes clouded with anger and sleeplessness toward the bit of sky visible through the barely opened window. The morning sky radiated a distant and serene light. The cloudiness in Kazu’s eyes traced ripples across the sky. She thought, “I don’t need one more kimono. What I want now is something very different.”