Inter Ice Age 4

by Kono Abe

  Hurriedly I awakened Tanomogi. At first he was doubtful, only half believing, but soon he too was convinced.

  “Certainly it’s consistent with the theory. Political forecasting and private, individual destiny would seem correlative in every sense. Anyway let’s assume that this is the case.”

  “Who would be good as a model?”

  “Let’s ask.”

  But the machine evidently had no intention of going so far as to indicate a model. Apparently anyone would do.

  “It appears we’re going to have to do the looking ourselves.”

  “To start from the first prediction, the man in question must not be conscious that he is being looked for.”

  “Fascinating.”

  “Yes, I’m impatient to get started.”

  I was buoyant. Indeed, I had not realized how much more interesting it would be to deal with a living human being than to forecast numbers and graphs. I suppose it was quite natural at the time that we did not give a fig for the one whom we should ultimately choose and place under observation.

  I napped about five hours on the sofa.

  A little before twelve, I put in a call to Tomoyasu and asked for permission to proceed with the machine’s suggestion.

  The answer came at three.

  “Success! The final decision will have to wait until the next committee meeting, but this time even the Bureau head is most receptive to the plan . . . thanks to you.”

  Since we were confident in the machine and since there was something convincing about it, we had not been especially worried that the idea would not be acceptable, but even so, when I heard Tomoyasu’s relaxed voice, I was relieved.

  7

  We left at four in search or our man-well, of course, we had not decided on a man from the outset. Twice we had dropped a sheet of paper on one side of which we had written man, and on the other, woman; and as man had come up twice, we had decided on a male.

  “There’re an awful lot of men, you know. Which one shall we take?”

  “It’s like being a wolf in a flock of sheep.”

  “There’re too many to choose from. It should have been a woman.”

  “Oh, come on. A woman’ll be in the picture soon enough.”

  We walked around at first in a lighthearted frame of mind. We took the subway and then the elevated as far as Shinjuku. But gradually we began to tire.

  “It’s no use. We’ve got to set up some standard for our choice.”

  ‘‘But what? Somebody who looks as if he’d live to a ripe old age?”

  “Maybe someone who looks a little unpredictable.”

  “That means someone of rather ordinary appearance.”

  But there were too many just such people. It would be purely hit or miss. At length around seven, exhausted from walking, we entered a small cafe and installed ourselves in a window corner facing the street. Thus it was that we happened on our man.

  He was seated at the next table, motionless, in front of a dish of ice cream, his eyes fixed on some spot beyond the door, on which was written the name of the place in gold letters. The ice cream had melted and filled the dish almost to overflowing. He had not wanted it, I suppose, but had ordered it and then just let it melt.

  When I looked around, Tanomogi had also fixed his attention on the man. I did not know how long it had taken for the ice cream to soften, but as far as we were concerned now, it was a most disturbing spectacle. A man of ordinary appearance, but one who looked as though he had a story of some kind. This might be too willful an interpretation, but his minimally distinguishing features themselves seemed to us ideal qualifications for our purposes.

  Tanomogi jabbed my arm and winked. I nodded in agreement. The waiter came for our order. Tanomogi asked for a fruit juice, but when I decided on coffee he changed his order to that. Until the coffee came, we sat in silence. We were tired; it was not the fatigue but rather the weight of the decision we were now going to have to make that imposed silence upon us. In any case it did not matter who our man was, as long as he was an ordinary person, yet one with distinctive characteristics. But we couldn’t say anything if we didn’t actually test to see whether or not he was a distinctive person. We were tired of walking. We could go on forever with our overscrupulous vacillating. If one of us had suggested him, we had come to the point where the other would have at once agreed to choose this man with the melted ice cream for our experimental guinea pig.

  Despite the heat, he wore a slightly frayed but well-fitting flannel jacket; he held himself straight and remained motionless. Thus his movements, when from time to time he would change the position of his legs, were all the more conspicuous. But he kept worrying, in an irritating way, an unlit cigarette in his two hands that he had placed upon the table.

  Suddenly, rambunctious music began to play. An eighteen-or nineteen-year-old girl, wearing red sandals and a black skirt that came to her knees, had placed a ten-yen coin into the jukebox behind our seat. Startled, the man looked over his shoulder, and for the first time we were able to see his features clearly. A rather strained, nervous face with sunken eyes was stuck on above a black bow tie as if it were held in place with screws. I supposed him already in his fifties, yet there was a curiously young look about him, perhaps because he dyed his hair.

  The music seemed to me exceedingly vulgar. But it was apparently not in the least annoying to Tanomogi, who, on the contrary, began to tap his fingers to the beat. Taking a sip of his coffee as if relieved, he suddenly shifted in his seat and spoke to me.

  “Sir. The more I see of that man, the more I think he’s the one. Let's take him.”

  I simply inclined my head to one side. I didn’t really want to be difficult. Abruptly I was overcome with an unbearably disagreeable sensation. As long as predicting a person’s future was confined to thinking about it, it seemed a wonderful venture, but when I had before my eyes the being who was perhaps to be the actual material for my experiment, I was quite uncertain whether, in fact, it was all that meaningful. Last night I had been exhausted. Had I perhaps misread what the machine had said? Had I arbitrarily translated not the words of the machine at all, but my own dead-end feeling-a feeling stemming from the frustration I experienced at the committee’s refusal to accept any subject for forecasting?

  “What did you say? You can’t back down at this point.” Tanomogi gave a start, and then his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “The machine’s given the order, hasn’t it? And you’ve gone to the trouble of getting Tomoyasu’s O.K.”

  “But we still have only informal consent to go ahead. What will the committee say? I wonder.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” he said, pursing his lips. “In any case, the Bureau head is amenable. There should be no problem.”

  “Can we be sure? 'Who knows, maybe he’ll simply go off his rocker by the next meeting. No matter how much we insist our project has no connection with politics, they’ll never spend money on something useless. Whether or not we can get the budget, you know, depends on whether or not the project gets through the committee. It’s not a simple question of like or dislike.”

  “But actually, the machine told us to do this.”

  “We were half asleep. Maybe we read it wrong.”

  “I don’t think we did,” said Tanomogi, knocking over the water glass in his seriousness. He took out a handkerchief and sponged the knees of his trousers. “Sorry. But I believe the machine. All of us, including the committee, have been under the influence of Moscow II. We’ve tried to set up a forecasting program based solely on social data. But if we work from such objective materials only, the maximum prediction value may ultimately be Communism, just as the machine said. In other words, if we use the forecaster and just concentrate on its practical use, that’s the only way it can turn out. In this sense, the judgment of the machine that Communism is the maximum prediction value is very interesting. But for man, the most important thing is man himself rather than society. As far as he is concerned, if society isn’t goo
d it’s intolerable, no matter how rational the organization may be.”

  “Well then?”

  “I mean, the idea of a machine predicting the private future of a given individual I consider really quite plausible. If we carry it off, we might be surprised by a completely different conclusion from that of Moscow II.”

  “The machine didn’t really say that.”

  “Of course not! Even I don’t especially believe it. I’m just saying that if I say I do, I imagine I’ll be able to swing the committee over. And then there should be a number of immediate and concrete advantages. That is, if the experiment is successful and the machine grasps the formula for predicting a man’s future. For example, what if we could hand down a perfect judgment by predicting both the future and the past of a criminal? We could nip evil in the bud. We could be marriage counsellors, make decisions about employment, diagnoses of illnesses, and treat various other problems that relate to life; if necessary we could predict the time of death.”

  “What would be the use of that?”

  “I should imagine insurance companies would be delighted.” Tanomogi laughed as if in triumph and then said bitingly: “If we follow this kind of thinking, the machine has infinite possibilities, doesn’t it? Anyway I think it’s a very promising plan.”

  “Perhaps you’re right. I myself don’t really doubt the machine’s judgment.”

  “Then why did you say we might have misread?”

  “I was just saying that. You know. . .. Despite what you say, I wonder how you’d feel being the guinea pig yourself.”

  “I couldn’t be. I know all about the machine; I wouldn’t fit the conditions.”

  “Suppose you didn’t know. I’m speaking hypothetically now.”

  “In that case, I don’t think it’d make any difference. It’d be all right with me.”

  “Really, would it?”

  “Of course, it would. Sir, you’re under too much of a nervous strain.”

  Indeed. Perhaps I was. I alone was excluded from the machine. How could I let the machine exclude me and permit myself to be outdone by Tanomogi?

  8

  About twenty minutes after we had finished drinking our coffee, the man at length arose from his seat. Evidently the person he had been waiting for had not come after all. We left the cafe a few steps behind him. The town was gradually settling into darkness. A restless, mincing crowd, diligently accumulating particles of artificial light, formed a wall, apparently striving to slow the approaching night.

  The man unconcernedly left the cafe and walked with a regular step straight down the alley in the direction of the main street. A steady walking gait. On either side of the roadway, by the tiny sake bars clustered close together, epicene characters, neither men nor women, dressed from head to foot in a curious drag, called invitingly to customers in hoarse voices at every second or third shop. The man’s businesslike step was all the more impressive in that his bearing was ill suited to such a place.

  On arriving at the main street, he suddenly turned completely around and looked behind him. I stopped in confusion; Tanomogi prodded my arm and whispered: “Don’t stop. It makes us too obvious.”

  The voices of girls inviting us into the bars followed us. We had to walk directly toward the man, who stood looking in our direction. But he paid no attention, apparently sunk in his own thoughts. Glancing at his watch, he set off in the direction from which he had just come. The voices, assuming he was returning, called out to him. I felt my cheeks stiffen like boards.

  He again went back to the cafe and looked in. The one he had been waiting for had obviously still not come. Again he went directly down the alley out to the main street. This time there were fewer voices. After I passed by, someone spat. They obviously realized I was shadowing. It is evident to any-

  one, I imagine, that shadowing a person is questionable business.

  “Is the fellow supposed to find himself finally led into some cage . . . without his even realizing it himself?”

  “But we’re all locked in cages.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, aren’t we?”

  The man at once began walking down the main street in a southerly direction. There was a construction site surrounded by a board fence. Suddenly the street darkened. After about two blocks he crossed the road and then doubled back again on his tracks, passing by the entrance to the alleyway he had just left and turning right on a street brilliant with serried arches of lights. At the end of it stood a series of cinemas. When he had gone that far, he again completely changed direction, once more retracing his steps.

  “Say there. It looks as if he doesn’t know exactly where he’s going.”

  “He’s annoyed because the one he was expecting didn’t come.”

  “But isn’t he walking awfully purposefully for that? I wonder what he does for a living.”

  “Mm.” Indeed, I had just been thinking the same thing. He was used to being seen by people. Perhaps he had been working in one place over a number of years, some profession where he had to mind how he looked to other people, where there was constant emphasis on appearance. “I wonder what. Are we qualified for what we’re doing?”

  “Qualified?”

  I turned around, thinking Tanomogi had laughed, but he had not, apparently.

  “Yes. Qualified. Even a doctor isn’t allowed to experiment on humans indiscriminately. If we’re not careful, you know, our plan amounts to vivisection.”

  “Oh, you’re exaggerating, sir. If we just keep the business secret it’ll be all right. We don’t intend to hurt anyone.”

  “Well . . . if I were put in that man’s place, I think I would be pretty angry.”

  Tanomogi lapsed into silence. But he didn’t seem all that disturbed. He had been working with me for five years and could read me like a book. I would never give up this pursuit. Whatever, I did not intend to offer excuses for it. If the machine ordered murder, I would doubtless commit murder, however reluctantly. The ordinary middle-aged man walking now before us, who had something just a little mysterious about him, would be stripped clean of his skin, his past and future laid bare. When I thought about it, I experienced a pain as if my own skin were being peeled off. But turning my back on the prediction machine was at juncture much, much more frightening.

  9

  For one whole night we were taken up with the man. He went endlessly back and forth in a narrowly defined area, quite as if he were walking the corridors of an office building, carrying papers. During that time he once telephoned someplace and twice stopped at a pinball parlor, spending the first time fifteen minutes and the second twenty; otherwise, he simply walked at random without stopping anywhere. It was a woman, we supposed, who had broken her promise to meet him. When one got to his age-and I myself was getting there -one gave up expecting things to occur by chance. Nothing was surprising any more. There was no need for an outlet for futile impulses like aimlessly roaming the streets. Only a woman could break up the equation someplace. His was a comical, commonplace, animal-like confusion.

  We had guessed right. It wasn’t so surprising. About eleven o’clock he made a short telephone call at a public phone located at the counter-front of a store. (Undaunted, Tanomogi observed the number and jotted it down in his notebook.)

  Then he took a streetcar and got off at the fifth stop. His destination was a small apartment building behind a commercial street; to get to it he went up an alley for about half a block.

  At the gate to the apartment the man stood for some time, looking right and left, pausing to see if all was well. In the meantime, we purchased cigarettes at the shop on the comer. (Thanks to him I had already been obliged to buy over ten packs.) Presently he went in, and Tanomogi at once set off after him. If all went well and he got as far as the room, he would check the name on the door. But if by chance he were challenged by the janitor, we had planned for him to grease the man’s palm and get the necessary information. As for me, I was watching the whole ap
artment house from a corner of the gate. On the lower floor, there were three rooms; in all the curtains were drawn and the lights were on. On the second floor, there were four rooms including the space above the entrance. In every other one the lights were extinguished.

  After a little while, in the furthermost window a light went on for an instant, and the enlarged shadow of a person swayed in it. Suddenly it was dark again. Tanomogi, in stocking feet, came rushing out, clutching his shoes in his arms.

  “I saw it! The name card on the door. It actually is a woman’s name. Kondo Chikako. ‘Chikako’ is written in cursive,” he gasped as he slipped on his shoes, cowering in the shadow of the gate. “It was exciting. Really . . . doing something like that. First time I ever have.”

  “Just a second, didn’t the lights go on?”

  “Yes. And I heard the thump of something falling.”

  “In that furthermost room, wasn’t it?”

  “Did you notice it?”

  “Very curious. The flash of light and then dark like that.”

  “Hey. A hot date, I bet.”

  “So much the better. I hope he didn’t notice we were shadowing him.”

  “Of course he didn’t. If he had, he would have tried to give us the slip before coming here, wouldn’t he?”

  For some reason I had begun to feel uncomfortable. Our prime purpose, of course, was to get the name and address of the man, but we couldn’t stand vigil forever; perhaps he intended to spend the evening. Neither one of us had slept much since the night before. As we also hadn’t yet decided to use the fellow as a guinea pig, we could just as easily consider him an adjunct and use the woman-a by-product, as it were -as our main subject, depending on how things worked out. Tanomogi also was agreeable to giving up at this point.

  “But as you said, sir, a girl’s quite definitely involved, isn’t she?”

  “Anyway . . . man . . . girl ... the number’s the same.”