After the Banquet by After the Banquet (Vintage 2001)

Author:After the Banquet (Vintage, 2001)
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 1999-03-10T16:00:00+00:00

Kazu stayed until dusk, by turns climbing down from the platform to dance and climbing back to sing. Several women from the Folk Song Association went up on the platform with her and taught her one of the local ballads.

At dusk the lanterns strung on branches all over the park were lit simultaneously. Kazu, entreated to sing a third Sado Okesa, again climbed the platform alone. The blackness of the surrounding mountains seemed to close in on them, now that the lanterns were lit. When Kazu had finished the song applause echoed from the hillside, a rare occurrence at such a festival. Yamazaki excitedly climbed up to the platform. “You’re a great success,” he said into Kazu’s ear. “The housewives of the Folk Song Association are saying that they won’t let you leave tonight. You’ve conquered Santama at last.”

“Do you think so?” Kazu asked, her eyes going out to the distant mountainside as she wiped the perspiration with a handkerchief.

“You must be tired.”

“No, I don’t feel too bad.”

While Kazu had been singing this time, something on a mountainside across the valley had caught her attention. It was a point of fire, now visible, now vanishing, on the black surface of the mountain which seemed to close in with the coming of night. Too feeble to be called a flame, it looked more like sparks thrown up now and then by a fire. Kazu could not remember having seen by day any houses in the fold in the mountains where the flame now rose, illuminated the area, then died out again. She looked carefully and noticed a trail of smoke extending diagonally upward to the ridge.

“What is that fire?” Kazu asked the young drummer. He had peeled off his shirt and was busy wiping the sweat.

“That fire?” he asked, turning to another young man. “What do you think it is?”

“That’s the chimney of the municipal crematorium.” The insolent looking, long-faced boy answered carelessly. Kazu remembered with feelings of sweetness Noguchi and the Noguchi family grave.

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