by Kōbō Abe
I obliged by walking hunched over and breathing with exaggerated difficulty. In the parking lot, a line of cars had begun to form.
“Hey, this jeep is huge,” exclaimed the insect dealer.
“It’s 2600 cc; the torque is terrific.”
But he apparently felt no temptation to drive. He went around to the passenger’s side, pushed the seat forward, and heaved the contents of the suitcase on the floor in the back. “I’ll throw in the plastic containers for nothing.”
He didn’t even ask how my knee was. All right, the hell with him. I’d had enough. The knee was good enough to drive with now. It was his loss. I’d given him his chance, but I couldn’t look out for him forever. If it came to that, I could drive off the shills single-handed. To prepare for such an eventuality, I had set up a number of traps behind staircases and at junctures in the tunnels. They were of all kinds: spring-powered mechanical ones, electronic ones, and devices using chemical sprays. I was confident they would stop any unwanted intruders.
“Take care of yourself, all right?” he said. “When the bomb falls in Lebanon or wherever, I’ll drop by your shelter.”
“It’s not a shelter; it’s a ship.” I turned the key and started the engine, taking a deep breath to relax. “A shelter is only temporary, but on a ship, life goes on. It’s a place to live, day after day.”
“But when you put into port, everyone goes ashore, right? A ship is like any other vehicle—a means of going from point A to point B.”
“There are people who live entirely on the water.”
“So who wants to live like a goddamn turtle? I couldn’t stand being stuck in some hole in the ground nose to nose with you every day.”
“It’s hardly a hole in the ground,” I protested. “It’s a disused underground quarry—a small mountain of rock has been dug out of it. If you felt like it, you could easily go three or four days without seeing any signs of me, never mind my nose.”
The insect dealer spat out his cigarette, which had broken in two from the moisture of his saliva. “A small mountain, eh? Sounds pretty impressive. How many people do you figure it can hold?”
“You could visit every underground station and shopping center across Japan and not find anything to compare with it. The entire population of a small town would fit in comfortably.”
“How is it administered? Is there any residents’ organization? Are you in charge of promotion?”
“As of now, I’m the sole resident.”
“That couldn’t be. There must be other people with tickets, anyway, even if they’re not living there yet.”
“Nobody but you—not counting the shills.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“Then don’t.”
I stepped on the clutch and put the engine in gear. A faint spasm, weaker than pain, ran through my knee.
“Wait—it’s not that easy to believe. Why should you be the only one there?” His fingers tightened their grip on the hood. The tables had turned. I disengaged the gears and gave an exaggerated sigh.
“The former owners want to forget all about it. Four different enterprises got together, swarmed over the mountain, and dug it all out. Then there was a series of cave-ins, and in the end—just eight years ago—they relinquished their mining rights. The tunnel entrances are all sealed, and housing developers are selling off plots of residential land on the surface. I’m certain nobody wants to be reminded of what’s belowground.”
“Even if operations have been shut down, the place must still be registered in somebody’s name.”
“Officially, it doesn’t even exist. I checked it out at the city hall. There’s no street number, no address of any kind.”
“But it is Japanese territory, isn’t it?”
In place of an answer, I put my foot back on the clutch.
“Sorry.” He stuck his big head in the window and grabbed my arm, which was holding the wheel. “Wait, let me do the driving,” he said, adding sheepishly, “I suppose you knew all along I’d wind up coming in the end.”
“Then you admit the disaster is at hand?”
“Sure. The world is lousy with disasters, everybody knows that. But this is really amazing. I can’t get over it. You’re like—what should I say?—an emperor, or a dictator, or something.”
“Yes, of a ghost country. But I don’t like dictators.”
He swung into the driver’s seat, shaking his top-heavy head. “Funniest darned feeling. I am grateful for one thing, though. When I was a kid at school, no one ever picked me for anything. I guess I do owe this to the eupcaccia, when you think about it.”
5
TRAVELS WHILE SQUATTING
ON THE TOILET
His experience as a truckdriver had apparently stood him in good stead; soon after we left the parking lot, he was handling the jeep with assurance. It was rush hour, and near the expressway entrance ramp we got caught in a traffic jam. As long as we stayed moving, wind entering through the numerous crevices in the canvas top kept the interior of the jeep tolerably cool, but as we crawled though the rain it became unbearably steamy. Not only was there no air-conditioning, but the ventilation was poor, and we alternated between mopping our perspiration and clearing fog off the windows.
“Is there gas in the tank?”
“Yes. That gauge is off.”
“If they took the same route as us, we’ll never make it in time, anyway; what say we stop somewhere for a plate of curried rice?”
“It hasn’t even been half an hour,” I protested. “Besides, I know a shortcut that’s made for a jeep. It’s too soon to call it quits.”
“Aye, aye, sir. It’s too soon to give up.” Either he was trying too hard to fake it, or else a genuine show of submission came off clumsily from lack of experience. In any case, something in his voice did not ring true. “Then how about if I go out afterwards and pick up something for dinner?” he said. “There must be a grocery store in the neighborhood.”
“I’ve got all kinds of provisions laid in. It’s an oceangoing cruise vessel, you’ve got to realize.”
“Right. And I suppose you’re a hearty eater. All right, I’ll wait. Just in case we get there first,” he went on, “have you got some sort of plan? Those two are stubborn. Besides, they’ve got a key.”
“I’ll bolt the door from the inside. Steel door, steel bolt.”
“They might decide to lay siege.”
“I said I was well stocked up, didn’t I? If they want a war of endurance they’ll get one. I can outlast anyone.”
The insect dealer chuckled, apparently satisfied; his voice and eyes alike conveyed genuine mirth. I did not join in. What if the shill—the man—thought of using the girl as bait? Would I be able to stay inside even then? The bolt might be steel, but not my heart.
“And what if they get there first? Then what?” asked the insect dealer.
“Then we’re in trouble.”
“When he talks he sprays saliva, did you notice? I’ve heard people with overactive salivary glands tend to have a violent streak.”
At the tollbooth, they were apparently limiting highway access; we progressed barely three or four car lengths at a time, in spurts. The underside of my chin felt prickly. My skin was so moist with sweat that it seemed in danger of peeling off. Put a penguin in hot water and they say it goes bananas.
“You suppose they went by car too?” I asked.
“Probably, but what make? That I can’t tell you.”
Knowing wouldn’t have done much good, for the windshield wipers were having little effect. All I could make out was the hazy outline of the car ahead. I wanted to take off my shirt and wring it out.
“Oh, for a breeze,” I sighed.
“Why the jeep?” he asked. “Do you get around much?”
“Did once. I used to be a photographer’s assistant.”
“Used to be?”
“Yup. Sometimes I think I’ll take a shot of something, and I get my camera all set up, and then bef
ore I know it I lose interest in the whole idea. I guess I’m just lazy.”
“So am I. The human being is basically a very lazy animal, you know. That’s how we evolved from monkeys: by using our brains to get out of doing things… . But photography’s a good line of work, it seems to me.”
“Not as good as it seems. Besides, I was only an assistant.”
“Still, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. You wouldn’t have to worry if a policeman stopped you on the street and started asking questions.”
We passed the tollbooth. Suddenly the scenery took on a transparent clarity. Traffic still wasn’t moving much, but since we were on an elevation, at least there was a breeze. I thought with renewed gratitude of my life in the quarry, where the air was naturally cool and there was no need to worry about asthma or allergies, as with artificial air-cooling systems. I couldn’t wait to get back to my ship.
Just to set the record straight, I’m not a stay-at-home by nature. As a matter of fact, I’m very fond of travel—but not in a jeep: I roam all over Japan while squatting on the toilet. The eupcaccia dines as he evacuates, the insect dealer does a little light reading or looking around, I travel.
My favorites are the color aerial photographs from the National Land Board: detailed photographs taken with a special Swiss camera, each one ten inches square. Depending on the area covered, they range in scale from 8000:1 to 15,000:1. Yet each has unbelievable resolving power, so great that with a magnifying glass you can make out not only individual houses but cars and people as well. Fields are distinguishable from rice paddies. You can even tell more or less how the streets are paved.
It’s still more interesting when you look at such photos through a special device called a stereoscope. Since aerial photographs are taken at fixed intervals—one every ten seconds from a survey plane—approximately three-fourths of the geographical features in successive photographs are redundant. By aligning two photographs in sequence, therefore, and taking advantage of the resulting parallax, you can make the scene stand out in three dimensions.
The stereoscope consists of a rectangular metal plate fitted with two adjacent convex lenses, and a hollow for the nose like that on a fancy-dress mask; it has a six-inch support at either end. First you locate the same point on both photographs, then you arrange them side by side so that the two points are directly across from each other. The photos should be slightly closer together than the width of the lenses. The important thing is to maintain a fixed bearing. Then place the stereoscope directly over the photos and peer through the lenses from a slight distance. Concentrate your gaze in the center, ignoring the periphery. There is no correction for visual problems, so if you’re shortsighted, keep your glasses on. Continue to focus intently, making fine adjustments in the distance between the photos as needed, and at some point you will hit on just the right arrangement: then magically the low-elevation places will drop away, and the high-elevation ones come thrusting up at you. It goes beyond perspective; you would swear you were looking not at a photograph but at an exact replica of the scene. The impression of depth is in fact intensified so that in an urban area, the high-rise buildings and TV towers seem to jump up and threaten to stab you; in a mountainous area it’s the crags and treetops on the peaks. In the beginning, I would always find myself ducking or closing my eyes.
It gets to be an obsession. An addiction. I spend about five hours a day roaming around the photo maps, stopping every half hour to cool my eyes with a damp towel and apply one or two kinds of eyedrops. Since the only thing that keeps me home is a desire to spare my knees, it is ideal for me to move about freely this way, using my eyeballs as wheels. Traveling with three-dimensional maps is like learning to walk on air.
You can cross the ocean in a flash, if you’ve a mind to, island-hopping till you reach the mainland, then perhaps going on to still other islands beyond. I prefer not to get greedy, but to stick patiently to one area, looking at everything until I have familiarized myself with it completely: old mazelike neighborhoods in hilly areas without a single straight road or right-angled intersection; hopeless tangles of winding streets through which not even the local shopkeepers can direct you. The reason residents themselves cannot draw an accurate map is that they see their surroundings from eye level only. I, however, am privileged to have the entire scene spread out before me at once. If there is a branch road that joins the main road ahead, I can divide myself in two and enjoy both at the same time. If I come to a dead end—say, a road blocked off by a cliff wall—I need only pull away from the stereoscope and view the photo as a flat surface again. With no fear of what others may think, I can walk anywhere I want and peer freely into any building. As long as you plan out an escape route beforehand, even fairly bold actions are safe, like cutting across lawns or marching straight through rooms.
And so I explore it all: sluices running the length of a stone staircase; a two-story building whose upper story is a lighter color, obviously a recent addition; a garden with pond, surrounded by tiled rooftops; a cottage buried in a thicket; a house with a vast flat roof, no garden; a farmhouse, under its eaves a glimpse of the hood of a fire engine, converted from a small pickup truck; a Shinto shrine with twenty-four storage drums lined up in the back; the storehouse of an agricultural cooperative, with a hole in the roof; a lumber mill jutting out into the river; a lone dwelling buried deep in the mountains, where it seems no sunlight could possibly penetrate at any hour of the day.
And connecting them all, roads that are not roads. Information accumulating in direct proportion to the passing of time. When I grow tired, it is pleasant to sit on a bench in the park overlooking the harbor, and drink in great drafts of sunshine. Strolling along a riverbank, taking in the view, is also enjoyable. Wheat fields are deep, lush, and even in hue; fields of vegetables, rough-looking and rather mottled. Along the river, it’s even possible to distinguish pampas grass from hogweed (disgusting name). I also enjoy flying over mountain paths hidden beneath rows of flowering cherries, finding my way by trial and error. I can lurk in a clump of tall grass and see how it feels to be a peeping Tom, or make believe I’m a detective on a stakeout. If anyone gives me a funny look, I can simply leap over to the radio relay station atop a distant mountain.
It has long been a source of dissatisfaction to me that the real world doesn’t operate the same way. Come to think of it, the world of my aerial relief photographs bears a great similarity to eupcaccia droppings.
“Are you sure this clutch doesn’t need tuning?” said the insect dealer. “There’s not enough give.”
“That makes it safer shifting gears on uphill curves,” I said.
“Damn, I hate getting stuck behind a truck in the rain. The spray hits you straight on.”
We turned off the interchange at the prefectural border and entered the oceanside bypass. Partly because there were no more houses along the way, the wind blew more fiercely, and the rain snapped with a thousand fingers against flapping sails. We had to yell to hear each other, so we said very little.
After a while we came to a long, straight descent, not far from our destination. The line of hills between us and the sea dropped away, and far ahead we saw water. The foam on the boiling waves looked like dirty soap bubbles. A green sign announced: EXIT FOR KABUTO, 1 MILE.
“Take the next exit.”
“How do you read that place name?” he asked. It was written in an unusual combination of Chinese characters.
“Ka-bu-to, like the helmet worn with an old suit of armor.
Peach-colored (ham-colored?) rifts appeared in the scudding clouds, and the night scene took on the brightness of late afternoon. A bolt of lightning flashed horizontally across the sky. We pulled up at the service area past the tollbooth and unzipped the windows. Then, raising my shirt to my chin to let in the air, I mopped up my perspiration. Suddenly my eyes took in a familiar sight: fukujin-zuke, the red condiment served with curried rice. The picture on the restaurant billboard made me realize I was starving.
> “Riding in a jeep gives you an appetite, doesn’t it?” The insect dealer seemed to share my reflexes. “That place over there looks empty.”
“Forget it. There isn’t time.” It wouldn’t do to betray weakness. A ship’s captain has to maintain the proper dignity. Rather than announce myself to him as captain, I resolved to carry on resolutely until he addressed me as “Captain” of his own accord.
“We don’t have to go inside and sit down—let’s just get a takeout dinner. We can eat in the car on the way. How about some charcoal-grilled eels and a couple of cans of coffee?”
“If you intend to eat and drive at the same time, it had better be kamaboko*,” I said firmly, determined to let him know who was in charge.
* Boiled fish paste
“Okay, kamaboko it is.” He ran off through the rain. Having expected more of an argument, I felt somewhat deflated.
Soon he came dashing back, a handkerchief over his head, his face all smiles. Between the thumb and middle finger of his left hand he was carrying something on skewers, and with his little finger he gripped a paper bag. In his right hand he held two paper cups.
“Jumbo franks and coffee. Also, I got four packages of kamaboko, five to a package. We can have them now in the car, or save them for later over a beer.”
“Jumbo what?”
“Frankfurters. They’re loaded with mustard, so be sure you don’t get any on your pants. With that color, it could be embarrassing.”