After the Banquet (3 page)

“Just think—a former cabinet minister wearing a shirt like that! Has he no one to look after him, I wonder?” The thought bothered Kazu, and she unobtrusively glanced at the necks of the other guests. The collars that mercilessly pinched the dried-up skins of these elegant old gentlemen all shone a gleaming white.

Noguchi was the only one who did not talk about the past. He had also served as ambassador to various small countries before returning to the Foreign Ministry, but the gaudy life of the diplomatic set lay outside his present interests. His refusal to discuss the past seemed a sign that he alone was still alive.

Ambassador Tamaki began again, this time with the story of a bygone dinner party, a dazzling reception at a palace, where the royalty and nobility of all Europe had gathered under the brilliant chandeliers. The decorations and jewels of all Europe were on display, and the cheeks of the old gentlewomen, wrinkled and spotted like faded white roses, paled in the reflections of the innumerable precious stones.

Next followed stories of opera singers of former days. One ambassador proclaimed the supremacy of Galli-Curci’s Mad Scene in
Lucia
, another insisted that Galli-Curci had by that time already passed her peak, and declared that Dal Monte’s Lucia, which he had heard, was far superior.

Noguchi, who had scarcely uttered a word, finally spoke. “Why don’t we drop all this talk about the old days? We’re still young, after all.”

Noguchi spoke with a smile, but the surging strength in his tone made the others fall silent.

Kazu was captivated by this one remark. It is the function of the hostess in such a case to relieve the silence by making some foolish observation or other, but Noguchi’s comment hit the mark so precisely, and expressed so perfectly what she herself would have liked to say, that she forgot her duties. She thought, “This gentleman can say beautifully things which are really difficult to say.”

Noguchi’s comment was all that was necessary for the sparkle to fade instantly from the party; nothing was left now but the black, wet ashes smoldering after water has been dashed on a fire. One old gentleman coughed. His painful gasping after the coughing trailed across the silence of the others. For a moment, as was plain from their faces, everyone thought of the future, of death.

Just then the garden was swept by a wave of bright moonlight. Kazu called the guests’ attention to the late moonrise. The liquor had already taken considerable effect, and the old gentlemen, unafraid of the night chill, proposed that the party take a turn around the garden in order to inspect its charms not visible by day. Kazu ordered the maids to fetch paper lanterns. The old man who had been coughing, reluctant to be left behind, bundled himself in a muffler and followed the others out.

The visitors’ pavilion had slender pillars, and the railing of the porch projecting into the garden had the delicate construction found in old temples. The moon just emerging over the roof to the east framed the building in heavy shadows, and the maids held up paper lanterns to illuminate the steps going down into the garden.

All went well as long as the party remained on the lawn, but when Tamaki proposed that they walk along the path on the other side of the pond, Kazu regretted having called the guests’ attention to the November moon. The five men standing on the lawn looked terribly frail and uncertain.

“It’s dangerous. Do watch your step, please,” she urged. But the more Kazu cautioned them, the more stubbornly the old men, who disliked being treated as such, insisted on following the path under the trees. The moonlight seemed lovelier than ever through the branches overhead, and anyone who had come as far as the pond with its reflections of the moon could not have resisted the temptation to go round to the other side.

The maids, instinctively aware of Kazu’s wishes, bustled about, shining their lanterns on dangerous rocks, stumps, and slippery patches of moss, and carefully pointing them out to the guests. “How chilly the evenings have become!” Kazu remarked, holding her sleeves to her breast. “And today it was so warm.” Noguchi was walking beside her, and she could see the puffs of his breath, white under his mustache in the moonlight. He did not choose to follow up her observations.

Kazu, walking at the head of the party in order to lead the way, inadvertently went too fast for those behind, and the lanterns accompanying them bobbed frantically under the trees. The lanterns and the moon reflected charmingly in the pond. The sight affected Kazu more than it did the old gentlemen, and it filled her with a childish excitement. She called in a loud voice across the pond, “It’s lovely! Look at the pond, look!”

A smile flickered over Noguchi’s lips. “What an incredibly loud voice! You sound like a girl!”

The accident occurred after they had safely completed their turn of the garden and returned to the visitors’ pavilion. Kazu had seen to it that a gas stove was burning cheerfully in the dining room, and the old gentlemen, chilled by the night air, gathered around the fire, relaxing in whatever posture they chose. Fruit was served, followed by Japanese cakes and powdered tea. Tamaki had fallen silent, depriving the conversation of much of its liveliness. It was time to be preparing to leave, and Tamaki went to the toilet. When the others were at last ready to get up, they noticed that Tamaki had not yet returned. They decided to wait a while longer. The silence in the room became oppressive. The four old men acted as if their only subject of conversation was one which nobody wished to touch.

The talk turned to a discussion of the health of each. One complained of asthma, another of stomach trouble, the third of low blood pressure. Noguchi, a grave expression on his face, made no attempt to join in the conversation. “I’ll go have a look,” he said quietly, rising. Kazu, apparently emboldened by his words to get up and investigate, showed him the way, walking quickly down the smoothly polished corridor. Ambassador Tamaki had collapsed in the lavatory.

Never before in her career as proprietress of the Setsugoan had Kazu been faced with such a situation. She shrieked for help. The maids flocked to her, and she ordered them to summon all the male employees. By this time the other members of the Kagen Club were clustered in the corridor.

Kazu could hear quite close-by Noguchi’s calm voice talking to the others. “It’s probably a stroke. I hate to bother the restaurant, but I think it best we not move him too much. We’ll ask a doctor to come here. Leave everything to me. You all have families. I’m the only one with nothing to tie me down.”

It was strange that amidst all this excitement Noguchi’s words—“I’m the only one with nothing to tie me down”—should have lingered so vividly in Kazu’s mind. Yes, those definitely had been Noguchi’s words, and their meaning, like the vibrations of a silver wire, sent a glow of light into Kazu’s heart.

Kazu threw herself with utter sincerity into ministering to the stricken man, but all she could clearly remember in her agitation was Noguchi’s remark. Not long afterward Mrs. Tamaki rushed in. Kazu felt deeply responsible before her, but even as she was weeping and apologizing for her negligence—and there was absolutely no pretense in this display of her feelings—Noguchi’s words continued to echo vividly in her brain.

Noguchi, beside her, reassured Kazu. “You’re taking your responsibilities too seriously. This was Tamaki’s first time as a guest here, and you knew nothing about the state of his health. And, after all, it was Tamaki himself who proposed that we go out in the cold for a stroll round the garden.”

The stricken man continued to emit loud snores.

Mrs. Tamaki, an attractive middle-aged woman who looked much younger than her years, was stylishly dressed and seemed unruffled in the face of her husband’s serious condition. She frowned slightly whenever she caught the sound of samisens from the main banqueting hall, where a party was still in progress. Mrs. Tamaki was exceedingly self-possessed, and when the doctor advised that her husband be left at the Setsugoan for at least a full day, she rejected the suggestion firmly, giving excellent reasons. “It has always been a motto of my husband never to cause others any trouble. If I allow the Setsugoan to be inconvenienced any further, I dread to think how upset my husband will be once he’s recovered. After all, this restaurant has many guests, and it isn’t as if my husband were a customer of long standing. I can’t permit the proprietress to be bothered any further. My husband must be taken to a hospital as soon as possible.”

Mrs. Tamaki enumerated the same arguments again and again in her elegant diction, thanking Kazu repeatedly as she did so. Kazu opposed Mrs. Tamaki’s decision. “You needn’t stand on ceremony,” she insisted. “Please leave your husband here until the doctor says it’s all right for him to be moved, no matter how long it takes.” This touching scene of old-fashioned courtesy, enacted beside the pillow of the snoring patient, was accompanied by interminable expressions of mutual deference. Mrs. Tamaki never for a moment lost her composure, nor did Kazu for her part flag in her undiluted, overpowering solicitude. The heavy-set doctor in the end was utterly exhausted.

The patient had been carried into a little-used detached building. The room was fairly large, but what with the sick man, Noguchi, Mrs, Tamaki, the doctor, the nurse, and Kazu, it presented quite a congested sight. Noguchi, signaling Kazu with his eyes, left the room, and she followed him out into the corridor. Noguchi strode quickly along the corridor ahead of her, walking with such assurance that Kazu, watching him from behind, felt as if this were Noguchi’s house and she herself merely a casual visitor.

Noguchi walked straight ahead, quite at random. He crossed over a passageway arched like a humped bridge, continued down the next corridor, then turned to the left. They emerged on an inner garden filled with white chrysanthemums. No flowers grew in the front garden, but the small back garden had flowers all year round.

The two small connecting rooms facing the garden were Kazu’s private apartment. The rooms were dark now. A small, unpretentious garden was what Kazu wanted for herself when she was away from her work. The plants and flowers were not laid out in any stiff, orderly pattern, nor were there the usual garden stones and stone basins disposed in the prescribed manner. Kazu wanted a garden like the kind one sees before a bungalow at a summer resort, rows of shells marking the beds of sunplants. The white chrysanthemums had been allowed to grow in disorder, some tall, some short and sparse. At the beginning of autumn the garden had been a tangle of cosmos.

Kazu deliberately refrained from inviting Noguchi into her rooms. Reluctant to display any special friendliness, she did not even inform him that this was where she lived. She offered Noguchi a veranda chair left by the glass doors overlooking the garden.

Noguchi spoke as soon as he was seated. “You’re stubborn too. It stops being kindness when you’re so insistent.”

“But if a guest—even a new one—falls ill while he’s here, I can’t neglect him.”

“Yes, that’s what you’d like us to believe. But you’re not a child any more. You surely realize that Mrs. Tamaki’s reluctance is not mere politeness. You know why she acts that way, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.” Kazu smiled, the wrinkles gathering a little around her eyes.

“If you understand, it proves you’re just as stubborn as she is.”

Kazu did not answer.

“Mrs. Tamaki is the kind of woman who takes time to make up her face properly even when she hears that her husband’s been stricken.”

“It’s only natural. She’s the wife of an ambassador.”

“That doesn’t necessarily follow.” Noguchi broke off the conversation and fell silent. Kazu found the silence extremely agreeable.

Faint sounds of music and voices reached them from the distant main banqueting hall. Kazu felt released at last from her embarrassment and worry over the incident. Noguchi also leaned back in his chair comfortably. He took out a cigarette. Kazu got up to light it.

“Much obliged,” Noguchi said. His tone was unemotional, but Kazu was aware of a ring that stemmed from something other than the usual relations between guest and hostess.

Kazu was constitutionally unable to keep from blurting out her happiness as soon as she felt it. “All of a sudden I feel so strangely light-hearted. I’m ashamed when I think of poor Mr. Tamaki. I wonder if the saké is beginning to take effect.”

“I suppose so,” Noguchi answered indifferently. “I was thinking just now about the vanity of women. I can speak frankly, I hope, to you—Mrs. Tamaki is anxious that her husband die, not in a restaurant, but in a proper hospital bed, even if it means speeding up the end. As for myself, I’d really be sorry to lose an old friend. My own feeling is that I’d like to ask you to let him stay here until he’s out of danger . . . But just because I’m his friend I can’t fly in the face of his wife’s vanity and force my friendship on her.”

“That shows you haven’t any real feelings for him.” Kazu felt she could say anything to Noguchi. “If it was up to me, I’d do as my feelings dictated, no matter what other people might think. That’s the way I’ve always been. Yes, I’ve always had my way when my feelings were involved.”

“I suppose you’ve let your feelings guide you tonight too.” Noguchi’s tone was fairly serious. Kazu was in ecstasy at the thought that Noguchi might be jealous of her relations with Tamaki, but she was too honest to keep from adding immediately the quite unnecessary explanation: “Oh, no. I was surprised and I felt responsible, but there’s no reason why I should have any special feelings for Mr. Tamaki.”

“Then you’re simply being obstinate. In that case, Tamaki should be removed as soon as possible.” Noguchi, rising from his chair, spoke so coldly and decisively that he left her no ground to stand on. Her illusion was shattered. Kazu’s answer, direct and untinged by any emotion, was a fine example of her strong temper.