The Women (43 page)
“
My God, Miriam, what are you thinking?” he shouted, and he was so agitated she could see the flecks of spittle leaping from his lips. “Get dressed. They’ll be at the station any minute now, don’t you realize that? I give you one task only—to dress yourself so you don’t look like a, a”—he couldn’t seem to find the properly insulting term and ran on ahead of himself—“and what do you do? Are you intentionally trying to ruin this for me? Is that it?”
My God, Miriam, what are you thinking?” he shouted, and he was so agitated she could see the flecks of spittle leaping from his lips. “Get dressed. They’ll be at the station any minute now, don’t you realize that? I give you one task only—to dress yourself so you don’t look like a, a”—he couldn’t seem to find the properly insulting term and ran on ahead of himself—“and what do you do? Are you intentionally trying to ruin this for me? Is that it?”
She tried to ignore him, slipping into the seat at her vanity to see to her hair, which she’d pulled back with a comb so as to mimic the pictures of the geisha in Frank’s woodblock prints, and her eyes, which she’d extended vertically with two triangular slashes of kohl, but she felt herself hardening. “Look like a
what,
Frank?”
what,
Frank?”
“I haven’t time for this, Miriam,” he warned, and as if he couldn’t help himself, he went to the chair in the corner and moved it three inches closer to the writing table. “Just get yourself dressed. Now!”
She was watching him in the mirror, his erratic movements, the twitching of his limbs and the pent-up tarantella of his feet on the carpet, trying to sympathize—the Japanese were coming for an extended stay and he would have to be on his mark the entire time if he hoped to nail down the biggest commission of his life, she understood that and she wanted to give him all the love and support she could—but she didn’t like his tone. Not one bit. “Ah
am
dressed, Frahhnk,” she said, protracting each syllable in her best high-Memphis drawl.
am
dressed, Frahhnk,” she said, protracting each syllable in her best high-Memphis drawl.
He whirled round on her suddenly and took the room in three strides, dipping low so that his face loomed beside hers in the mirror. She was sure he was about to make some sort of nasty comment, his lips curling, eyes gone cold as day-old coffee, when there was a sudden crash from the other room, a muted curse and the clatter of running feet. Frank flinched, threw an angry look over his shoulder, and then came back to her, his hands sinking into her shoulders like the claws of a bird. “Don’t you start,” he hissed, his face right there, his breath hot in her ear. “You dress yourself and be there to greet them at the door—the door, do you hear me?—when I get back from the station. And for God’s sake, maintain yourself.”
Icily, with as much command as she could summon, she reached up to remove his hands, then twisted round and rose to face him. “I thought I would go along with the Oriental theme, this robe, my Buddha pin—I’m trying to please you, Frank, that’s all. You should see that.” A tearful note crept into her voice and she couldn’t help it. “There’s really no call for cruelty.”
“You’re ridiculous!” he shouted. “Look at yourself. A wrapper, for God’s sake? And that preposterous makeup? You’re like a parody—No, I mean what I say. Are you trying to insult these people?”
She observed, as quietly and steadily as she could, that
he
was in Oriental costume—the absurd linen trousers that billowed out from his thighs and clung tight to his ankles like something out of an illustration for
The Arabian Nights
, the wooden clogs, the cutaway tunic that fell to his knees and a risible hat that looked like a cross between a cardinal’s biretta and a Russian
ushanka
—and so why shouldn’t she follow suit?
he
was in Oriental costume—the absurd linen trousers that billowed out from his thighs and clung tight to his ankles like something out of an illustration for
The Arabian Nights
, the wooden clogs, the cutaway tunic that fell to his knees and a risible hat that looked like a cross between a cardinal’s biretta and a Russian
ushanka
—and so why shouldn’t she follow suit?
“What I wear is none of your business.”
“I could say the same.”
And now a voice was calling from the other room, some fresh crisis erupting: “Mr. Wright, Mr. Wright, could you come here a moment, please?”
“Listen,” he said, “Miriam, I beg of you—you’re the most charming woman in the world, the most brilliant, and I just need for you to dress as you normally would, as if we were going out to the theater or to dine on Michigan Avenue. Not Tokyo. Not Yokohama Bay. But here, in the United States.”
She was uncertain of herself now—perhaps the silk wrapper was too informal, perhaps he was right, and she supposed the eye shadow
was
a bit garish—but she couldn’t help contradicting him nonetheless. “I’ll dress any way I please,” she said.
was
a bit garish—but she couldn’t help contradicting him nonetheless. “I’ll dress any way I please,” she said.
“Mr. Wright! Mr. Wright!”
“Yes, I’m coming,” he shouted over one shoulder before turning back to her. “What I want, Miriam—what I require, what I need more than anything—is an adornment.” He paused, glaring at her, trying to stare her down, intimidate her, and the insolence of him, the lordliness, was infuriating—as if he could preach to her, as if she would listen to one word. “An adornment, Miriam, not an anchor.”
Still, when the carriage, followed by the automobile, came up the drive and into the courtyard half an hour later, she was there at the door, in her choker and beads and a gray peau de soie dress cut at mid-calf beneath her midnight-blue cape and a matinee hat that presented her perfect face as if it had been framed. And when she saw Hayashi-San in his Western suit, spats, mustache and slicked-back hair, she bowed as deeply as the hat would allow her and whispered
“Komban wa”
in the most delicate voice she could muster, just as Frank had taught her.
“Komban wa”
in the most delicate voice she could muster, just as Frank had taught her.
Dinner that night was nothing less than an ordeal, akin, she supposed, to what the flagellants must have experienced when they paraded themselves through the streets of Rome, blood drying in streaks, ritual humiliation, that sort of thing. At least for her, at any rate. For his part, Frank was having the time of his life, his voice rising and falling with the inevitability of waves beating at the shore as he regaled the assembled company with his views on the Japanese character, the parlous state of contemporary architecture, the use of natural materials, the samisen as opposed to the banjo and just about anything else that came into his head, along with a barrage of jokes, stories, snippets of song and limericks so hoary they would have fallen dead in the last century. The food was uniformly awful. The cook had attempted a Japanese theme, presenting the usual pork and gravy, fried fish and boiled cabbage with an accompaniment of little bleached mounds of white rice so impossibly adhesive it was as if she’d melted down a pot of Wrigley’s chewing gum. And the chopsticks. Frank had had Billy Weston carve them from scraps of pine—as if Hayashi-San and the rest couldn’t imagine how to perforate a bit of meat with the tines of a fork— and the Japanese just stared at them as if they’d never seen such a thing before in their lives. But it was hilarious, wasn’t it?
Frank was at the head of the table, of course, and she was seated in her usual place, at his right, while Hayashi-San and his painted little wife sat across from her and Frank’s mother commanded the far end of the table, where Russell Williamson and Paul Mueller and his wife tried to find common ground with the two mute students Hayashi-San had brought along with him as his entourage. Hayashi-San’s consulting architect, a short slight man in his forties with an absolutely immobile face—Yoshitake-San—was on Miriam’s immediate right, and throughout the meal he would turn to her at intervals and present her with brief guttural comments out of his English primer.
“Good evening,” he said when first they’d sat down, and then he repeated the phrase several times in succession, and she, playing along, returned the greeting or observation or whatever it was, until, on the third or fourth repetition, it began to take on a new meaning altogether and it was all she could do to restrain herself when “Good night” would have been more appropriate. “The weather is pleasant, is it not?” he observed next. And then, after sitting silent through Frank’s dissertation on the quarrying of native stone in its naturally occurring sedimentary layers so as to deliver it intact to the landscape, he cleared his throat and asked her if he might light her fire. “I beg your pardon?” she said, and he produced a cigarette case, offered her a cigarette and lit it for her even as Frank flashed his disapproval. She smiled then and Yoshitake-San, lighting his own cigarette, smiled back.
It was during dessert—by her count the eighth course of the evening—that Frank began to shift his focus to Hayashi-San’s wife. He actually picked up his chair in the middle of the tea service and inserted it between Hayashi-San’s and the wife’s, and Miriam stiffened, she couldn’t help herself. Of course, she was thinking, why wouldn’t he fawn all over her like the beast he was—she was young, wasn’t she? And pretty? Even if she was an Oriental. Oh, she was a little porcelain doll, the wife, wrapped in her black silk gown with the pale chrysanthemums climbing gracefully up the hem and across her abdomen and the swell of her pointed little Japanese breasts as if she were one of Frank’s prints sprung to life, and when he spoke to her she batted her exaggerated lashes and smiled out of a mouth of uneven oversized teeth.
120
For the most part, she stared down at her lap, except when Frank was probing her with facetious queries about her kimono or her impressions of America, but at one point she turned to him and asked a question of her own, as if this were all part of the performance expected of her. “I wish to ask you, Wrieto-San”—and here she gave Miriam a look—“and Mrs. Wrieto-San, what is this word ‘goddamn’?”
120
For the most part, she stared down at her lap, except when Frank was probing her with facetious queries about her kimono or her impressions of America, but at one point she turned to him and asked a question of her own, as if this were all part of the performance expected of her. “I wish to ask you, Wrieto-San”—and here she gave Miriam a look—“and Mrs. Wrieto-San, what is this word ‘goddamn’?”
Frank laughed. And Miriam, despite herself—she detested it when he paid attention to another woman, any woman, as if he were dismissing her publicly, shaming her,
shunning
her, but the sound of that casual appellation, Mrs. Wrieto-San, was music to her ears—found that she was smiling as well. How adorable, she was thinking. How childlike. How pitiful.
shunning
her, but the sound of that casual appellation, Mrs. Wrieto-San, was music to her ears—found that she was smiling as well. How adorable, she was thinking. How childlike. How pitiful.
“ ‘Goddamn’?” Frank repeated, levity lifting his voice, and everyone at the table was watching the wife now—Takako-San—and everyone was smiling in anticipation of the sequel. “Why do you ask? Have you heard this expression often since you’ve arrived in our country?”
A little pout, a widening of the eyes, and she was very young, Miriam saw, in her teens or early twenties, young and full of grace. And coquetry. But didn’t they teach that in Japan? Wasn’t that what women existed for over there?
121
“Oh, yes, Wrieto-San,” the wife said in a diminished little puff of a voice, “every day. All the time. Here tonight. You have said it yourself.”
121
“Oh, yes, Wrieto-San,” the wife said in a diminished little puff of a voice, “every day. All the time. Here tonight. You have said it yourself.”
And Frank, grinning, flirting—infuriatingly, as if she didn’t exist, as if she weren’t sitting across the table from him with the smile drying on her lips—gave a broad wink for the benefit of the table and for Hayashi-San in particular, no sense in ruffling
his
feathers, and replied that “goddamn” was a polite adverb meaning “very.” “As in, oh, I don’t know—Paul, help me out here—” But before Paul could answer, he went on, “—it’s a goddamn fine evening. Or this is goddamn fresh butter. After a meal you might thank your host for a goddamn good dinner.”
his
feathers, and replied that “goddamn” was a polite adverb meaning “very.” “As in, oh, I don’t know—Paul, help me out here—” But before Paul could answer, he went on, “—it’s a goddamn fine evening. Or this is goddamn fresh butter. After a meal you might thank your host for a goddamn good dinner.”
Takako-San shifted prettily in her chair, made her eyes big and looked round the table as if she were sitting in the catbird seat—
and she was, she was
—and chirped, “Then I thank you, Wrieto-San—and Mrs. Wrieto-San—for a goddamn good dinner.”
and she was, she was
—and chirped, “Then I thank you, Wrieto-San—and Mrs. Wrieto-San—for a goddamn good dinner.”
Of course everyone laughed—it was a pretty performance—and Frank and Hayashi-San petted her as if she were a dog or monkey granted the power of speech, but Miriam, though she was grinning, felt a stab of hate run through her. Hate that carried over into the living room, where they sat before the fire and Frank paraded out his treasures—the prints in particular—to get Hayashi-San’s studied opinion of them, and then there was the inevitable tour of the house that went on till it was past midnight and Hayashi-San, for all his rigid propriety, began to yawn.
“Well,” Frank sighed, taking the cue at long last though she’d been signaling him with furious eyes for an hour and more, “you must be all tired out, rail travel can be so enervating, I know—but perhaps we’ll take it up again in the morning. Perhaps you’d like to see something of the house from the grounds. Or from horseback. If you like we can saddle up the horses—or take the motorcar. But please, let me show you to your rooms . . .”
There were the elaborate good nights, the ritual bowing, Hayashi-San’s eyes all but melting into his head with exhaustion, the two students as silent and impassive as the carven statue of the Amida Buddha in the loggia and the little wife grinning her toothy farewells till finally they were alone in the bedroom and Miriam shut the door behind them and stalked to the closet. Frank had begun to whistle. He stood before the mirror, working loose the knot of his tie, a look of satisfaction on his face, and it was that look that set her off as much as anything. He was so pleased with himself, wasn’t he? Frank Lloyd Wright, the great man, beguiler of foreigners, seducer of women, god of his own universe. The light at the bedside cast a soft glow. Shadows climbed the walls. She was one tick from combustion.
“That went well enough, don’t you think?” he said, shrugging out of the tunic with the trailing tails and open flapping arms that was like something you’d see on a Barnum & Bailey clown, and who was he to talk of parody? She snapped her neck round to glare at him, at his bare shoulders and the back of his inflated head. Did he actually expect her to reminisce over the evening? Over her own public humiliation? Was he that insensible?
“Hayashi-San, I mean,” he went on, addressing the wall before him as he balanced first on one foot and then the other to remove his trousers. “He was reserved, of course, but that’s the nature of the Japanese, their natural dignity, but I could see that he was visibly impressed with Taliesin and the beautiful things we’ve collected here . . . Yoshitake-San too, though it’s Hayashi who makes the decisions, you can see that in an instant. No, I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t come to a mutual agreement within the next few days. A ten percent commission, of course, and I’ll want travel and accommodation in the old Imperial, for the two of us and three assistants at least. And I’ll want a car and driver too, so that we can explore the countryside on our own, and the shops, of course . . .”
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