The Ruined Map

by Kōbō Abe

  “Oh, yes. A ward councilman. But it’s a ward you don’t often hear about.”

  “It’s a newly formed one under joint management. But you won’t get anything by going there. We haven’t been sitting around with our arms folded.”

  That was a line I seemed to have heard before. Yes, it had come from the brother back in the parking lot. Suddenly I was overcome with an uncontrollable anger.

  “Look, come on now. While you’re at it why not have the courage to come clean?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I’m asking—you know that much.”

  I turned on the radio, catching out of the corner of my eye my companion’s expression, which was stiff, as if pasted on. Someone accompanied by a guitar was singing in a sweet, childlike voice:

  That’s all!

  That’s all!

  Just seeing you in my dreams,

  That’s all!

  Young Tashiro heaved his shoulders in a great sigh, wiping away the mist on the window with the flat of his hand. Actually, he wanted to say something. A wall of rainy sky loomed immediately beyond the tracks. The car seat was cramped, with no place really to stretch out in, no matter how one shifted around. The thumping of my companion’s heart seemed audible in my own body. Perversely, I waited in silence.

  “All right, I’ll tell you,” he said, stretching out an arm and shifting his seat. Looking into the distance, he continued: “So please turn off the radio.”

  “Yes, you had better tell me. I never do anything that might have an adverse effect on someone giving information to me. That’s my business.”

  Two trains passed each other going in opposite directions, and the car was whipped as if by a steel lash as they sped by. The radio emitted a startled shriek as I hastily turned it off, making me think involuntarily of a dentist’s drill. I had lost a molar about a month before. If I sucked hard, I could still taste blood.

  “Yes, I’ll tell you. Maybe I can’t claim to be entirely honest, but I didn’t intend to be uncooperative. I didn’t, really … because I was one of those who stood to lose by the section manager’s disappearance. It’s frightening when I think about it, like at night, alone. I get the shudders … vanishing like that into nothing. But it’s hard for me to speak up. I don’t like hurting others’ reputations with things like this.”

  “Complete secrecy is an obligation I have to observe in my work.”

  “Actually, he had a side to him people didn’t know. He had one slightly strange quirk. He was all wrapped up in pictures—photographs—of nudes.”

  “You mean he collected them?”

  “No, he takes them. He always seemed to be going to a studio. But I imagine I’m the only one who knows that. It so happens I introduced him to a friend who rents a darkroom.”

  “Did there seem to be some particular model?”

  “Well, I can’t go so far as to say a particular one.” At length his voice loosened up, and even his expression became relaxed and comfortable, like an old shoe. “Apparently there was one girl he liked a lot.”

  “Do you know her name or anything?”

  “I know where the studio is. And I’ve got the pictures too. Shall I show them to you next time? They’re amateurish, but the amateurishness itself gives them a lot of feeling, you know. If he had passed out such pictures to his customers, they’d have loved it.”

  “We might as well go on over to your place after this.”

  “I can’t. I used lunch as an excuse to get away and come over here. It’s really quite impossible—the section manager eloping with that girl. He wouldn’t ever do that. I really don’t think he liked people. When I was invited for a drink—once in a long while—it was impossible. It didn’t bother him at all not to say a word for ten or twenty minutes.”

  Suddenly someone was slapping at the window on my side with a wet sponge. I wiped the window with my hand and looked out. A young boy about ten, dressed in a skimpy uniform, with a large bald spot on the left side of his head, was looking sheepishly up at me as if he would burst out crying at any moment. I half lowered the window. “I’m sorry, mister,” he said in confusion, preparing to take to his heels and pointing under the car. “My ball fell in that hole.”

  “You’re a lot of trouble. Do I have to move the car?”

  “If you don’t mind me squeezing under, then you don’t have to.”

  “All right. Go on.”

  A fine, almost invisible drizzle was changing the russet surface of the ground into the color of crude oil. Certainly the elbows and knees of the boy would be soaked to the same hue. At length he came crawling out, holding the ball in one hand. “How many miles do you get to a gallon, mister?” “Sixty.” “Oh, yeah!” he muttered derisively, sliding down the slope on the opposite side of the tracks. I burst into laughter in spite of myself, drawing my young companion into my hilarity. Without knowing why, I was relieved. It might be well to spend more time with young Tashiro and get to be friends.

  While I was closing the window, I started the motor and turned on the heater. The cold two-cylinder engine set up a racket like a bad percussion instrument.

  “Say. Are you a drinker?”

  “Well, maybe I can take a couple of highballs …”

  “All right. Shall we plan on tomorrow night … with Mr. Nemuro’s nudes? Let’s get in touch by phone tomorrow about time and place.”

  THE CHIEF, sprawling flaccidly over his chair, his back to an enormous progress chart in which the investigators’ names formed a vertical column cut by horizontal lines for dates and days, gave one the feeling of a wrinkled balloon bulging with water. If it had not been for the movement of his fingers clasped on his stomach one could only suppose he was napping. A profusion of deep wrinkles were etched like embedded strings in the slackened flesh of his chin, and traces of pimples stood side by side like the warts on a prickly pear.

  Without stirring, the chief half opened a wary eye and gave a sarcastic chuckle. In a rasping voice, rather like a dog with a cold, he snapped: “You’ve gotten damn serious about this.”

  “Why shouldn’t I be serious?”

  “Well then. Do you have a little hope?”

  “I don’t, no.”

  “I thought so. It’s better not to get too deeply involved in this kind of case.”

  “She’s just letting her steam off.”

  “If that’s all it is, it doesn’t do us any good.”

  “Anyway, it’s only for this week. Putting out thirty thousand yen a week doesn’t last very long with the average family.”

  “But she’s a real beauty, apparently … that client of yours.”

  “Unfortunately the so-called brother’s always hanging around … a pretty ominous fellow.”

  “Oh yes, the brother. I wonder if some sort of word hasn’t come in from the data section we contacted a while back.”

  “I saw it. There was something fishy, so I had his record investigated.”

  “Well?”

  “I tentatively established that there is a brother with such a name. But no picture of him was attached to the papers, and I still can’t prove entirely that it’s not some double.”

  After I had blurted it out, I was sorry. But it was too late. The balloon at once leaned forward, his chair creaking, and with penetrating eyes he scanned my face in silence.

  “A double … hmm … If she’s having a double take the brother’s name, that’s really something. Does it mean that your client’s a slippery one too?”

  “Ah. It’s possible, I suppose, for a variety of reasons.”

  “Whatever made you suspect that?”

  “Rather than motives, it’s a weakness of motives … or a vagueness of them …”

  “The motives are obvious,” he interrupted suddenly in a sharp voice. “Doesn’t the disappearance of the client’s husband constitute a motive?”

  “Yes, indeed it does.”

  “Listen. I think you understand. In our work, you don’t invade th
e privacy of the client. You don’t stick your nose in business you can’t write in your report. If you can’t observe the rules you had better wash your hands right now … and change your profession to priest or extortioner.”

  I had come close to starting in on the business of the matchbox. The single piece of evidence I could verify with my eyes, touch with my hands. A single lens by which I could substantiate, bring to a point of focus, the numberless hypotheses. Among the infinite projections, which produced something resembling actuality, only those that were photographed on the matchbox were my unique, three-dimensional color picture. If only I could get just two or three words of testimony from her … if only I could … But what would be the use? I would mock myself and flagellate myself for doing such a thing. I knew before I heard it what the chief’s answer would be: the investigation of the brother’s record was precisely the invasion of privacy he was talking about. The point was probably well taken.

  THIS MORNING, in the parking lot in front of the Camellia coffee house, he—my client’s brother—had actually been ingeniously evasive with me. He had cleverly urged me to take care, for I had been close to overlooking the No Entrance sign.

  Certainly, only the area where I was licensed was the hunting ground indicated by my client. Since one motive the client had placed out of bounds for the investigation, as was clearly set forth in the application, was the one connected with his—her husband’s—disappearance, I would pursue him in all events, successful or not, and there was no need to question why I should be doing so. In the meantime, even though my client might begrudge me information or force conflicting information on me, I must not worry about it.

  You knew that all the time. You were not about to be enlightened by the chief. Supposing that the client was using us to cover up her own crime, even so it was our business to keep the line clear and we had no right to refuse her.

  For example, the brother’s clever explanation about our much too accidental encounter in the parking lot saved me from giving up my role as investigator and at the same time, from another angle, strengthened my suspicions. If the husband was so conversant with car repair and equipment, then there was the possibility of his having something to do with a ring of car thieves. That was brought to my mind by a newspaper article I had recently read about the arrest of a gang of crooks that had been operating on a large scale.

  No, it had to be something a lot more run-of-the-mill. He was working on the scratches on a car in some hit-and-run case, for instance; or he was changing license plates; or he had been compelled by someone to do so; or he himself was the hit-and-run driver.

  Fortunately, thanks to the excellence of his techniques, the incident had become labyrinthine, and contrary to his expectations had resulted in his being cornered himself. In the end, it would get too hot for him and he would go into hiding somewhere. However, supposing the wife, who was the client, knew all about these events and was covering up his escape … Then I had no role to play here.

  But if I did nothing at all, I would be sorry later. Whatever happened I could not give up—there was some hope, albeit slight. I had been numbed to the bone like a frozen fish by that frigid wind, but the faint light of the lemon-yellow window had transfixed me. I could not help but feel I was being beckoned in, that she wanted me to ignore the fence and come in. There was no basis for such a thought. Yet my heart throbbed. I had a nagging suspicion that my client’s fence was not necessarily one and the same as that of her self-styled brother. No, I was not happy with things. Somehow I had a terrible feeling of alienation from the brother. So I would be as watchful as a hunting dog, hiding myself in the breach in the fence ready to jump through at any time.

  The breach in the fence was the matchbox …

  There were no untruths in the report I had composed con cerning the Camellia coffee house. Not only were there no untruths; there was a definite line of thought. I had not been able to make a single discovery linking the husband with the Camellia. Providing I took into consideration only the exterior of the matchbox. Once I looked inside, there was that bothersome fact which I could not make jibe with the plot no matter how I might plead and entreat: the different kinds of tips—nine white tips mixed with twenty-six black tips. For, yes, the tips of the matchsticks which I had received this morning at the Camellia were white, and so the twenty-six black ones must obviously have been added later. Could there be anyone today who went around filling coffee house matchboxes? No matter how prices soar, matches and water are still free wherever you go.

  But I had passed over that in my report. I had not broken down the protective fence. I wanted very much to, but I hadn’t got up enough determination … yet.

  It was sometime last night that I had noticed the different kinds of matches. After I had been rejected by the lemon-yellow window and at last got in my car, the heater simply drove my cold numbness inward; and my frustration became a ceaseless trembling, which I could not control, so great, indeed, that I had misgivings about being able to drive. Impatient with the increasingly congested traffic, I decided to leave my car in the lot in front of S—– station.

  I went past a movie theater and turned down an alleyway. Dark depressions, ripped asphalt, uneven walls crowded against expectant faces. But the commotion was illusory, and what I saw was in reality only a man, squatting in the shadow of a telephone pole plastered with advertisements. Hastily I finished urinating and with a blank expressionless face pushed open the left-hand side of the great double doors leading into a brightly lit saké cafeteria on the next corner. I was surprised at how late it was. I had an unpleasant feeling of quiet, for there was less than half of the usual number of customers. At the cashier’s box by the entrance I changed four hundred-yen coins into ten-yen pieces. Against the back wall, side by side, stood white rectangular boxes bordered in vermilion—eight in all—which, had brand names not been painted on them, would have looked for all the world like pumps in a gas station. Slipping between the long, narrow tables, which were arranged in five parallel rows, I at once placed myself in front of the machine on the far right, which happened to be free. A characteristic pungent smell. The city stench of foul water backing up when, after ten in the evening, the flushing of sewage suddenly slackened. I inserted a ten-yen coin into the brass-framed opening beneath the red arrow on the right of the machine. With every succeeding coin a piano wire resounded, and at the eighth a red bulb flashed on. I shoved the paper cup provided for the purpose into place and when I pulled on the stainless-steel lever, precisely 4.0 ounces of a slightly overheated amber liquid spurted out. I cradled the cup in my two hands lest the warmth escape, downing in a swallow about a third of the drink. Then I drank the rest in five or so gulps as I shifted to the machine bearing my preferred brand name.

  There was already a customer standing at my machine. Under his faded dark-blue work clothes he wore a gaudy muffler, into which was knitted a design. He wore no overcoat. He was well built and thick-set. Black oil had collected underneath the nails of the hand holding the paper cup; perhaps he was a boilerman from a nearby building. Most of the eight-o’clock customers were white-collar workers, but after that hour, the type abruptly changed. As the fellow made place for me, he looked over his shoulder and remarked: “Hey! If we pissed in dribbles like that, we’d be diabetics.” He put the tip of his tongue between his gaping front teeth. He seemed to be drunk already, and as he swayed, his center of gravity shifted back and forth between his heels and his toes, but unfortunately there were no chairs in the place. Noisily sipping at his paper cup, he kept steadily observing my hands. “Hey, you like this saké too. What about that!” Then lowering his voice: “Come on, lend me ten yen. I’m a regular customer here. I’m not trying to get away with anything. If you think I’m lying I’ll sign an I.O.U. Just ten yen. You can’t be crooked here.”

  The advantage of the place was that no one usually talked to you very much. I began to feel the effects of the saké. Good-naturedly, I took out a ten-yen piece and gave i
t to him. Snatching the coin, he thrust it into his ear and without a word of thanks went off toward the window where they sold specially boiled vegetables, there being no automatic machine for that.

  On the tables, side by side, stood smaller vending machines, which carried over thirty kinds of peanuts, salted beans, pine seeds, dried shellfish, and even fortune slips. Besides these, there was a contrivance like a toy robot whose arms and legs had been severed that sold boiled bean curd; it was the only one in the whole country. There was usually a humming like that of a vacuum cleaner as the queue of customers was being served, but this evening, because the machine was all sold out, it was hushed and motionless. First, ten yen for pine seeds. I caught them in the palm of my hand and popped them into my mouth in a single gesture—there were only twenty or so. As I finished half of my second cup of saké, my nose suddenly began to run. Then I bought boiled whale bits that came in a three-cornered bag. I began to feel the effect of my drinking this night in the region of my forehead, and it seemed gradually to be descending, making a noise quite like that of a cat on a tin roof. When I had drunk my third cup and returned to my place, I felt somehow weightless.

  A fortune machine happened to be at the place I went back to. Perhaps it was because the easing of my tension was too sudden or again it might have been that there was no need to protect my paper cup by extending my elbows as I always had to in the rush hours—anyway, I gave myself up to the whirlpool of my tipsiness that was revolving faster and faster. Suddenly I noticed that the top of the table was a synthetic contact paper printed to represent knotted wood; furthermore, I saw that the whole surface was in reality pockmarked by cigarette burns. Among the pockmarks a number seemed to be moving, and I discovered that they contained cockroaches. I was overcome by an impulse to stop time right there and limit the world to what I saw before me.