by Kōbō Abe
I took a bite—and wondered how I had endured the hunger for so long.
“What’s your name again?” I asked.
“Son of a gun. I guess we never did introduce ourselves. Komono here. Manta Komono. Sorry, I’m all out of name-cards.”
“Unusual name.”
“It comes from a word for a kind of reed, the kind used to make mats. My ancestors were probably roadside beggars who sat on reed mats all day. What’s your name?”
“Never mind.”
He tossed the empty frankfurter stick out the window, licked the mustard and ketchup off his fingers, and put the jeep back in gear. “Got something to hide?”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just that for the last few years, about the only time I’ve used my name is when I renewed my driver’s license.”
“That’s a good one. But we’re going to be buddies now; I’ve got to call you something.”
Now that he brought it to my attention, I realized it was true: unconsciously I had been avoiding having people call me by my name. There were times when the sound of my name called out unexpectedly had gone through me like an electric shock. Even when I was an assistant in the photography studio, it hadn’t been long before everybody was calling me Mole. That was so vastly preferable to Pig that I would deliberately introduce myself to people that way. And now I’d become a mole in reality.
“… Actually, if I’ve got to call you something, it might as well be ‘Captain.’ ”
His laughter was like the sound of paper being crumpled deep in my ears. I felt the sharp whiff of loneliness. A chance stranger had just volunteered to call me Captain. Perhaps this was all for the best. Brothers end up mutual strangers, they say, and even in marriage, the more distant the relationship the better. As a principle for choosing my crew, the system of random selection fell right in line with the laws of heredity.
“That shortcut you were talking about … you mean crossing the river and then going over the mountain?”
“How did you know? You shouldn’t be able to figure that much out from a map like that.”
“A deliveryman develops a sixth sense.” He wiped the top of his head with the handkerchief, then blew his nose into it. “Look at those diesel exhaust fumes. That’s what I hate most about expressways. Somebody really ought to get figures on the incidence of lung cancer among truckdrivers.”
Seen from Kabuto City across the river, Mount Boar was a steep cliff with vertical pleats, somewhat like the kabuto of a medieval samurai. In fact, people in the city have always called it Mount Kabuto, using the character for “helmet” to write the mountain’s name. On the other side, it’s known as Mount Boar. Neither name is on the maps, though; nowadays the area is known officially as Skylark Heights.
Heading north, we crossed Kabuto Bridge and came out on Mount Boar. Tangerine orchards stretched along the skirt of the mountain, to our left. At the first bus stop, we turned off the national highway, took a narrow road that cut through an orchard (it looks at first glance like a private road), and headed straight for the top. This was the shortcut. If you don’t know about it, you lose ten or fifteen minutes going out to the railway station and through the underpass, and then skirting back around the foot of the mountain. I’d been counting on this advantage when I’d assured the insect dealer that we could still beat our quarry to the ship.
The road quickly changed to a steep and winding dirt path. Roadside grasses were heavy with rainwater, and the going was slippery. He locked the hubs and went into four-wheel drive. The road finally leveled out near the summit. Here it was less a road than a clearing in a dense woods. The rain had completely stopped, and overhead, ragged clouds flew by like torn shreds of threadbare cloth. Their silhouettes were highlighted by the light of the early moon, or perhaps by lingering rays of the just-set sun.
“What’s that over there? Looks like some sort of monument.”
Now that he said so, it did in a way. On the left of the woods, the crouching black shadow of a rock suggested some structure of no practical use.
“An outcropping of the rock base,” I said. “Apparently a shaft into the original quarry. The land here belongs to whoever owns these orchards, and they must have left it as it was. Everywhere else the land was leveled off.”
“That wouldn’t be the gangway to your ship, would it?”
“You’re way off. You saw the map; it’s farther down the mountain, on the coastal side.”
“I thought it was strange. But the tunnels interconnect underground, don’t they?”
“I’ve done some exploring, but this is much farther than I’ve been able to go. As the crow flies, it must be a good three-quarters of a mile or more.”
At the end of the woods was a fence topped with barbed wire. Along the fence was a light steel-frame building that appeared to be some sort of communal facility (actually it was the office of the Broom Brigade, but at this hour no one would be in yet). In front of it, the barbed wire had been cut, and tire marks were visible on the ground. Then we entered an asphalt road, and the scenery underwent an abrupt change. This was Skylark Heights. The slope, curving gently down to the ocean, was covered with roofs of house after house, all shining in the pale coppery light that leaked from between the clouds until the scene seemed more suggestive of an armadillo than a wild boar.
“We’re almost there. Put it back into two-wheel drive and pick up a little speed.”
Until eight years before, Mount Boar had been densely wooded, in better keeping with its name. Quarry motors vied in emitting murderous screeches, while big dump trucks fought for space on the narrow roads, flinging gravel and spraying muddy water as they went. Indeed, there had been an atmosphere of sufficient danger to frighten children away without any need for “Keep Out” signs. Now there were orange-colored streetlights at regular intervals, curbs painted in yellow wavy lines, glass-walled telephone booths, quiet cherry-tree-lined streets used solely by local residents, and row upon row of houses, each with its own modest, fenced-in garden, each running its own air conditioner.
Suddenly the insect dealer broke into a nasal falsetto, singing a children’s tune: “ ‘The gold bug is a rich old bug—’ ” Equally suddenly he broke off into an embarrassed cough. “Sorry—I can’t help it. Before the eupcaccia, I used to sell stag beetles.”
“I heard about it from the shill. They have horns, don’t they?”
“Here’s my old pitch.” He held up his left index finger in the air, and said in a loud voice, full throttle: “Can you see it? Look, right there, the tiny insect on the end of my finger. Stag beetles bring luck, ladies and gentlemen, just as we Japanese have been singing for centuries in that old song. But did you know that ours is not the only country in the world to value the stag beetle so highly? The ancient Egyptians called it the scarab beetle, and worshipped it as a manifestation of the sun god. And as any encyclopedia will tell you, the famous French entomologist Doctor Fabre devoted his life to its study. Buy one today and let it bring you luck. The one I have here is especially rare. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the world’s smallest beetle, found only in tropical jungles. Can you make it out? It may be too small to see with the naked eye. They say the magnifying glass was invented just to aid in observing stag beetles. That led in turn to developments in astronomy, so you see you can hardly underestimate their importance.”
“Did they sell?”
“You bet they did—more than the eupcaccias, anyway.” The best customers are mothers with their children in tow. All the kids have to do is give me a sidelong glance, with just a hint of a smile, and the mothers are caught off balance. They always end up loosening their purse strings.”
“You have a smooth delivery.”
“That’s right, smooth as butter.” He stuck out his tongue, wiggled the tip, and said, “Well, that’s a mother for you, isn’t it.”
The downhill road ends by the city hall complex, with its covering of black glass and black imitation marble; from there a four-lane prefectural
road carries you due south to the harbor. The area went into a decline after stone hauling came to an end and the bypass opened up, but even so, we encountered a fair amount of traffic as we proceeded—mostly pickup trucks, two or three lined up at every red light. This harbor still has the largest freezing facilities of any fishing harbor in the prefecture.
“The race is as good as over. Whichever way you come, you end up here. I hope we get there before they do.”
“I don’t know. That wasn’t much of a shortcut. All we did was cross one little hill.”
I knew that without being told. Did he have to squash my last fragile hope? He was the one who made us lose time at the start.
“The national road swings way around, north of the tracks. If we left at the same time they did, we should have picked up a good fifteen minutes on them.”
“Aye, aye, Captain. Straight on to the sea it is.”
The sensation of being called Captain, now that I could finally taste it, brought nothing like the satisfaction I had so long anticipated. On the contrary, I rather felt he was laughing at me.
“See that row of orange streetlights up ahead? That’s the bypass. Take a left just before you reach there.”
6
THE DOOR OF THE
ABANDONED CAR
We crossed over a narrow stream, and the asphalt began to buckle and roll. We were on a dilapidated town road whose surface was rough with gravel. Soon the elevated bypass loomed overhead, supported by thick ferroconcrete piers. At first the town road runs parallel with the bypass, but at the second pier it pulls away, swinging around sharply until the two roads cross by the bay. The crescent of land this formed is private property owned by Inototsu, my biological father, who let slide his chance to sell it to the highway department.
The old fishermen’s inn was located on a rocky ledge directly under the present bypass. No trace of it survives, neither grounds nor building nor wharf. All that’s left to show for it is that steep crescent of land sandwiched between the bypass and the town road, hardly big enough for a doghouse. It’s of so little value that not even Inototsu pays it any attention, so I had no difficulty in appropriating it for my own use. At the center of the crescent is the entrance to the quarry—the place where I was taken in and chained twenty years ago, when I was accused of rape. The vein had been exhausted and abandoned even then. A number of artisans were using the site to make stone lanterns, as I recall; they used to sneak me tidbits from their lunches. Just what connection there was between the quarry and the grounds of the inn, I have never understood. Inototsu probably could tell me, but rather than face him, I prefer to remain in the dark.
The town road was made by open-cut excavation in that steep slope which falls away to the rocky shelf in the cove, like a hard-boiled egg sliced at an angle. From the highest point, the center of the curve, the drop is nearly twenty-five feet, and so rough and precipitous that descent is impossible without a rope.
“Hang a right in front of the first concrete pier,” I directed him.
“There’s no road.”
“You’re forgetting this is a jeep.”
Tall weeds covered what was once the entrance to the fishermen’s inn. To get back to the rocky promontory, you have to go under the bypass and skirt the beach.
“They’ll never figure this out,” said the insect dealer.
“Now pull over and cut the engine.” I took a flashlight from the toolbox behind my seat, and stepped outside.
“Your knee seems okay now, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, now that you mention it.”
I had too much on my mind to go on pretending otherwise. I crouched down, peered around, and pricked up my ears. If the shill and his companion had indeed read the map correctly and beaten us here, they would have had to abandon their car in this vicinity. There were no fresh tire tracks. The only sounds that I could make out were the vibrations from cars whizzing by overhead and the whistle of wind on the waves. I detected no whir of an engine trying to pull out of the sand, nor any foreign object interrupting the horizon’s faint glow. We were in time.
“Isn’t that a footprint over there?”
The insect dealer, Komono (it will take me a while to start calling him by his name), leaned out from the driver’s seat and pointed to a section of sand near the pier. I turned my flashlight on it. In a mound of sand between the pier and the ledge were two small indentations that did bear a certain resemblance to footprints. Absorbed in tracing the probable route of the other car, I had somehow overlooked them.
“Probably a dog.”
“Too distinct for that. Or are they?”
“Let’s get a move on.” Motioning to him to slide over, I climbed into the driver’s seat, put the gears in four-wheel drive, and started up in second, heading for the sands, gradually picking up speed as we circled around and went up from the beach onto the ledge.
“Easy! Don’t push your luck.” Clutching the dashboard, he put a cautionary hand on the steering wheel.
“Leggo—you’ll break a finger!” I yelled.
Flying to the right, careening to the left, we dashed furiously along. A shadow crossed the headlight beams. I slammed on the brakes and broke into a sweat as a stray dog, one hind leg missing from the knee down, slunk off deliberately into the grass with its head down. A white beard and a sagging back gave the animal a decrepit appearance, but he was a wily old rascal, boss of the seven or eight strays whose territory this was.
“So it was a dog’s footprints.” The insect dealer stiffened, and added grimly, “Bloodthirsty-looking creature.”
I turned off the engine. Low growls crawled over the ground, and a panting sound like the chafing of pieces of wood.
“Hear it?” I said.
“Are there more of them?”
“Seven or eight, as far as I can tell. The one you just saw is their leader.”
“Dogs seldom attack, I’ve heard,” he said hopefully. “They say if they’re not expressly trained to kill, they won’t.”
“These would. They don’t trust people.”
“They know you, though, don’t they, Captain?”
“Well, yes …”
This time I caught a touch of sycophancy in his use of the word. Still, it was better than being laughed at. I switched the ignition back on, drove straight under the bypass, and pulled up as close as I could to the cliff ahead. Insects attracted by the headlights crashed into the windshield.
A mountain of garbage and trash reached nearly halfway up the cliff: besides the usual assortment of kitchen refuse, there were nylon stockings wound around a bicycle seat; homemade pickles, complete with pickling crock; a fish head, its mouth the socket for a broken light bulb; an old refrigerator, now a dog coffin; an empty Coke bottle crowned with an old shoe that had melted into gum; and a TV tube stuffed with an insect’s nest that looked exactly like cotton candy.
“Great—a garbage dump. Just great.”
“Camouflage,” I explained. “I’ll bet you can’t tell where the entrance is.”
“I’ll bet I can. Inside the body of that old junk heap on top of the pile.”
His powers of observation were impressive. I had to admit that if you looked carefully you could see a rope hanging down inside the rusty, abandoned car. But I had hardly expected my camouflage to be seen through so quickly. Even inside the car, it would have taken someone of enormous experience and insight to find anything suspicious in the smell of fresh machine oil on the door handle and hinges.
“You have good instincts.”
“Not bad. How the heck did you collect all this junk?”
“Easy. I just posted a sign on the road overhead reading ‘Private Property, No Littering.’ ”
“Ingenious. But doesn’t it make a huge racket when you climb up to grab onto the rope?”
“It’s all fastened down.”
“Let’s go.” The insect dealer slapped his hands on his knees and bounded out of the jeep. He spread his legs apart, placed his
clasped hands behind his head, and began to do warming-up exercises, twisting right and left. He was more agile than I’d expected, and his oversize head was not terribly conspicuous. There probably were athletes of his build, I thought. “I’m ready for an adventure,” he said.
“Look in back under the canvas and you’ll find a box with rubber boots and cotton gloves inside.”
“I can see where you’d need the boots. Just the thought of worms and centipedes crawling in my socks gives me the creeps.”
As if they’d been waiting for him to go around in back of the jeep, several of the dogs began howling. They were apparently roving around in the shadows. Stray dogs are like volleyball players in the split-second timing with which they switch from defense to attack. Forcing open the canvas top with his whole body, the insect dealer dived inside.
“I told you once I don’t like barking dogs. And ones that bite are worse.”
“Don’t worry—they’re used to me.”
The flashlight beam served to increase the dogs’ frenzy: some jumped up and clawed the jeep, others started to dig in the ground for no reason, still others began to mate. After letting the insect dealer get a little scared, I decided to do my howling imitation. For some reason, that always dispirits them and leaves them docile. I leaned partway out the half-open window and let loose three long howls into the night sky. One dog nearby howled an accompaniment in a shrill, nasal voice, while another gave a plangent shriek. The insect dealer burst out laughing, his body rocking with mirth. I could certainly understand why he was laughing, and yet for someone who’d just been rescued, he seemed remarkably indiscreet.