Free Hotel Iris by Yōko Ogawa Page A

as a moment to eat lunch. The carpets in the rooms were full of sand, and Mother did nothing but scream at me the whole time we were vacuuming. Then the new guests started arriving before we had finished the cleaning. There were lots of calls—the clinic, a landscaper, the travel agency, the dance teacher—and guests canceling, making reservations, bothering me for directions. … And on top of everything else, the toilets on the third floor were clogged, and a sickening stench spread through the whole hotel. I called the plumber immediately, but he took forever to arrive. By now I was surrounded by guests shouting complaints at me—the vile smell, the sweltering heat, someone had cut their foot on the rocks. Everything seemed to be my fault.
    The problem turned out to be a pair of panties that were stuck in the pipes in Room 301—the room of the couple who had been late to breakfast that morning. They were horrible, indecent panties, exactly the sort that woman wouldwear, and they emerged as a filthy lump from deep in the pipes.
    Now it was getting late. The translator would have left the island and would be on the excursion boat, dressed as always in a starched white shirt, a tie, and the painfully hot suit. I stared at the clock as I apologized to the guests, and thought only of him.
    The maid did not seem to be coming. I thought I heard something at the kitchen door, but when I looked out it was only a stray cat.
    “I’m starved,” Mother said. “I can’t do another thing. Go make us lunch.” I went back to the kitchen and heated up some canned curry. Guests continued to arrive, so I ate standing in the kitchen door. By the time I got back to the lobby, Mother’s curry was cold.
    It was nearly 1:30, but there was still no sign of the maid. She seemed determined to punish me. Even if I ran out the door right now, I would still be late. But here I was, eating curry. It was too awful. I forced down the last, cold bite.
    “The tablecloths are dirty,” Mother said, still on edge despite her lunch. “Go wash them now or they won’t be dry tomorrow morning.” She slammed the door and went up to check whether things had improved on the third floor.
    So I washed the tablecloths. I bleached out the butter and jam and orange juice stains and starched them, and then hung them out to dry in the narrow, mosquito-infested strip of dirt in back of the hotel. Four cloths on the top pole, three on the bottom, perfectly aligned, with the edges foldedback exactly seven inches and secured with two clothespins. It had to be exactly seven inches, not six or eight, and exactly two clothespins, never three or one. Those were Mother’s orders.
    I’m not sure why I was so timid with Mother, why I didn’t just throw the tablecloths on the ground and run off to meet the translator. The thought of not seeing him was as unbearable as the thought that Mother would find out. I felt as though I couldn’t breathe, as though the air around me was getting thinner by the moment. If only the housekeeper would come, then everything would be all right.
    The sight of the clock became unbearable. The hands moved relentlessly, past two o’clock, then three, and my hatred for the maid grew with every turn. I imagined the translator, standing before the accordion player under the merciless sun in the plaza. The coins in the accordion case sparkled, but the tourists never stopped to listen to the boy’s sad melody. Only the translator seemed to hear, to give himself over to its melancholy.
    He would glance at his watch from time to time. Then he would look down the shore road, blinking in the sunlight, expecting me to come running up to him at any moment. The road was crowded with people, but the one person he wished for did not appear. His eyes moved back and forth from his watch to the flower clock, as if to be absolutely certain of the time.
    His mind would run through all sorts of possibilities. Perhaps he had the wrong date. Perhaps I had