by Kōbō Abe
There were aluminum ashtrays here and there on the tables big enough to be bothersome. Between the tables were unsightly wastebaskets covered with galvanized iron. Cigarettes had been rubbed out on the table tops, and paper cups, plastic saucers, and chopsticks, deliberately thrown wide of the wastebaskets, littered the whole floor. When the cafeteria was jammed you almost took no notice. The open-hearted, easy-going quality of the place came perhaps from the peculiar sensation underfoot when one trod heedlessly on the abundance of refuse. The only merit of the automatic vendors was faithfulness and obedience. The customers, in their solitude, could enjoy royal privilege in full measure. Thus they vented their anger as much as they could, not on the ashtrays, but on the much larger tables; not on the waste-baskets, but all over the much more spacious imitation-tile floor.
I wanted to talk with somebody I didn’t know about flying saucers. But detachment was the highlight of the place. Since I did not dislike the convention I felt compelled to slip my ten-yen piece into the nearest fortune machine.
Good luck. The sign of auspicious clouds in the south. Your horse is a slow walker, but there is promise of an open gate. You may act positively about turning over a new leaf and about love. Take care of rainy weather and a wallet with holes. What you seek is at your feet. There will be spring rains and radiation. Stay under an umbrella.
The drawback of a paper cup is that it leaks no matter how careful you are. Perhaps that was why the match simply would not obey me when I tried to light my cigarette. In the end I was exasperated. I had the idea of putting two match-sticks together when suddenly I became aware of the difference of the two heads. As I kept turning the screw of my tipsiness, somewhere a part of me awakened and forged a link. It occurred to me that this matchbox which had casually come into my possession, was in fact an important piece of evidence given me by my client. I wrapped it in a handkerchief and thrust it into an inside pocket.
But before I put it away, the significance of the two kinds of matchsticks had been branded deeply on my mind.
White heads
and
Black heads.
My thoughts penetrated like gamma rays through the various events and conditions, and suddenly I was headed straight for the solution. I could easily deduce simply from the damage to the matchbox and the label that he was not a regular customer, constantly coming to the Camellia. Had he been, he could have procured new matches at any time. However, it was also difficult to deny that he was not merely a casual customer, inasmuch as there were the sticks with two kinds of heads. That he was carrying the matchsticks around and even replenishing them was the same as his being a regular customer, even if he actually wasn’t. Otherwise, it was evident that there was an even greater tie-in. I emptied half of my third drink, lit an edge of the fortune slip—with other matches, of course—and pursued the cockroaches, who fled helter-skelter, but my thoughts continued in their straight line. A matchbox from a coffee house he rarely frequented. What conceivable interest could that have? The label design? Ridiculous! Well, then, the telephone number? Yes, conceivably the telephone number. Perhaps in the Camellia there was some doelike girl with a sign on her—“Caretaker Wanted”—that would put a middle-aged man into ecstasies. She would keep his interest alive by pretending to nibble at the bait he cast over the telephone.
At that same moment, my reasoning took such a sharp curve that the cart was almost upset. Don’t laugh. If such a girl really did exist, the very nosy brother would not have overlooked her. He would have got wind of that long ago, and the objective from the beginning would have been to follow her. Perhaps such a girl didn’t exist (and actually she didn’t). If I could believe my client’s words that the matchbox had come from the husband’s raincoat … No, the hypothesis was packed with ramifications. Let’s stop that. There was the business of the old newspaper being in the pocket with the matchbox, and also it might be well to look again into two or three of her explanations after I had cleared away the bothersome trimmings.
A voice spoke to me from the other side of the table: “Hey. Having them for a snack?” It was the fellow who had panhandled the ten-yen piece a little while ago. “I bet they’re poison. But they’ve got a lot of oil, so they’re probably good for you.” When he said this, I noticed I had already wasted over ten matchsticks chasing the cockroaches around and had gathered into a mound over twenty-four that I had killed. “Ah ha. They must be really good, they live on spilt saké. It’s true. Shall we give it a try?” Thinking he was joking, I remained silent, whereupon my companion suddenly stretched out his hand and before my eyes picked up several cockroaches, which he popped into his mouth. I tried to stop him, but he was too fast. A young man, apparently an employee, shoved me aside and swept the remaining dead cockroaches to the floor. “Stop it! It’s disgusting,” he said sharply, without raising his eyes, and passed on. The man who had swallowed the cockroaches, groping with his tongue between his missing front teeth, intently searched for something, his gaze restless. “Boy! This is salty,” he muttered, “dry as paper … toasted seaweed … really cheap, no mistake about that.”
Obviously, if there was anything significant on the match box, it must be the telephone number on the label. Contrary to what one might expect, my client or her brother were probably the ones who really needed the number, not the husband. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to put “needed” into the present and say “the ones who need.” It was probably a feint. They were most assuredly pretending that there was some relation between Nemuro and the Camellia for fear of having me get wind of the actual purpose of the telephone number. By decoying me, they were establishing the number’s irrelevance and thus directing my attention away from the Camellia. Was that not their real goal?
As the time drew near for closing the place, a middle-aged woman, her hair done up in a bun, was beginning at the back of the shop to gather up the refuse on the floor. There were only some fifteen or sixteen weary customers left; they seemed to have nowhere to go. All right, there was absolutely no reason to think I was carrying logic to nonsensical extremes. At first blush, the client seemed to be cast in the role of an unfortunate victim, abandoned by her husband. But the truth of the matter was quite the opposite: she, or her brother, could be said to be aggressors among aggressors … and supposing they were murderers … I did not come to that conclusion particularly, but what if, in some situation, I were to give up my position as investigator? Or, having had the presentiment, supposing I could forecast that between her and her brother there were differences in motive for requesting the investigation and that exposing the brother’s weak point would not necessarily mean hurting her? Naturally, they were quarry for the hunt and it would not do to shun the chase. I did not want them to take me too lightly. Indeed, even if they were indicted, it would probably not mean much money for me. But along with blackmail, there was nothing like murder for a quick buck. So, do me a favor and don’t get me too stirred up.
THE CHIEF was returning to his usual self. He murmured like a water-filled balloon.
“Well, now. I understand he’s gone back to the hospital again.”
There was no need for further explanation between us. He was the one—the very lowest among the numerous investigators—who happened to be obsessed by the strange dream that he would not advance. He had taken an umbrella and jumped off the roof of the building and at once plunged down—lower than the lowest of us all.
On a particular case, the fellow had got himself into the predicament of causing a client to commit suicide. His makeup was such that he took pride in betraying a client by selling information back to the person under investigation. He would say that in a dispute both sides stood to lose. But he knew the rules. He was a shrewd fellow. No actual betrayal of a client had ever come to light, nor had he ever incurred a client’s displeasure. Of course, he was able to do such things because clients are definitely not merely victims. By the very fact of having sustained an injustice a man had to pursue a case. And if he cons
idered the situation carefully, he would realize that he embodied at the same time a goodly proportion of aggressive elements. In extreme cases, the client could be completely the aggressor. There are cases, for example, where the contents of a report really made for the purpose of a character investigation have actually been used as materials for extortion.
However, the client he forced into suicide was, strangely enough, a hundred-per cent victim. The client did not know who her father was and had been raised by women. She had become a lonely young girl with great determination to succeed. She was running a small beauty parlor at the corner of a building. One day a shabby old man, whom she at once recognized as an alcoholic, appeared and testily proclaimed himself to be her father. Since, thanks to him, she had experienced a lot of hardship in growing up, she did not believe him at once. But as she listened to his story, all kinds of details came out which only her father could have known. The little scar, for instance, back of her dead mother’s ear that was invisible since it was usually covered by hair … the coral hair ornament, a memento of her grandmother … the story about the high suspension bridge in her mother’s village, that she herself had seen only in a photograph. And then when he guessed right about her blood type and even the birthmark on her shoulder, she gradually began to feel that the shape of the ears and nose of the man before her were somehow quite like her own.
That day, in view of everything, she handed him a thousand-yen note and got him to go away. But three days later, his breath smelling of alcohol, he put in another appearance, saying he just wanted to catch a glimpse of her—another thousand yen. It became an event that took place every three days, then every other day, and finally daily. The girl gradually grew uneasy. If this were her real father she couldn’t let things go on as they were. So finally she came to our office, and it so happened that he was put in charge of investigating the identity of the self-styled father.
If he had thought only about satisfying her expectations, without paying any attention to the truth, as was his wont, perhaps the tragedy could have been avoided. But for some reason he was suddenly tempted by his old devil. Quite unlike himself, he volunteered to play the role of angel. But unluckily his real nature surfaced at once.
The girl, however, was not satisfied with his report and suggested another investigation. At that time he should have done at once what she really wanted done. It would still have been better to get money by threatening blackmail—he was so good at that—and return to being lowest man as usual. But apparently he was too assiduous in his role as angel. Like a kindergarten teacher who tries to correct a child’s unbalanced diet, he decided to push things through with no concessions. I cannot recall now whether it was a question of the real father or a false one—if you ask someone, they’ll tell you right away, though it makes no great difference which—but anyway, the girl, who knew she had no alternative but to accept the results, committed suicide. When he learned what she had done, he came down with a serious mental disorder. Then, about a half year later, he was put in the care of a mental clinic and at the end of last year was at last discharged. Anyway, that’s the way I heard it.
Wearily, the chief repeated: “He’s back in the hospital, I hear. Anyway, take your eyes off him an instant and they say he stops breathing to the point of fainting. Strange, isn’t it? Can you imagine someone being able to do that? He’s really lost his senses, I’d say.”
Same day: 2:05 P.M.—Left the office. Headed in the direction of F—— City. I went to try to establish contact with Mr. M, the councilman there who on the day of the disappearance had an appointment to deliver some documents to T. Since the source of information relative to Mr. M is for the time being strictly confidential, please note well. (I took the Koshu Turnpike.)
Same day: 4:20 P.M.—Filled up the tank at a gas station (three gallons; receipt appended). To be on the safe side, questioned attendant about the streets. The whole west side, separated by the street, is the third ward of F—— City. In F—— Village which appears on my map (published in a previous year) there is no such division into wards, and the relative position of the streets appears to be quite different. When I inquired I found that they had decided to build near here an interchange for the turnpike at present under construction, that there was a lively buying and selling of land and subdividing into house lots, that the municipal cooperative movement was bearing fruit and was being extended to the present F—— City. So the place was crawling with heavy trucks filled with dirt.
The old F—— Village, where Mr. M’s house is locat ed, corresponds to the present first ward and is an area farther to the west screened by a lowish hill with scrub trees on the right of the highway. F.Y.I. I include below an abridged map of F—— City.
Same day: 4:28 P.M.—Right turn at the second bus stop after the gas station. I stopped the car at the first ward post office and inquired at the corner tobacconist’s. Mr. M’s house was the one to the right of the post office, visible diagonally in front of me. Long fence of building blocks. Garden with many trees. Ordinary residential house in a shopping neighborhood. Beside the gate, you can see a simple garage consisting of only a roof.
LEAVING MY car in front of the tobacconist’s, I decided first to take a look at the post office. A set of painted folding doors with brass handles was flanked by a small flower bed, where nothing was planted now, and a pillar letterbox. The floor was concrete; to the right was a small bench and to the left a public telephone booth. Between the two front windows, side by side, was written: Money Orders, Postal Savings, Postal Life Insurance. Dirty cotton curtains were hung over the windows and there was a sign in the shape of an obelisk: Closed Today. Only the window inscribed Stamps—Parcels—Telephone was open. An oldish man, doubtless the chief, who was cleaning or repairing the rubber stamps, looked up at me. There was the pungent odor of a kerosene stove functioning inefficiently. A ten-ton truck sped by, making the earth vibrate; it suddenly slowed down (perhaps because my car was in the way) and changed gears. As I casually requested ten five-yen stamps, I asked if it were true that at Mr. M’s place they had bought a car. I was posing as a salesman … an old trick in a case like this.
“A car?” The man slowly shifted his gaze from me to the next window place hidden behind the curtain. “Never heard that …”
“There’s no reason for him to have bought a car,” answered the muffled voice of a middle-aged woman unexpectedly from behind the curtain. As in most small post offices, a married couple was in charge here. “A man who goes around boasting about the number of alarm clocks he has is certainly not going to keep silent about buying a car, is he?”
“Oh. I’m relieved to hear it. Because a rather plausible rumor has come to my attention according to which Mr. M is driving around in a red car.”
“Impossible. The car next door is light blue,” said the man.
“Ordinary light blue. He’s really not a bad fellow, you know,” added the wife.
“Be that as it may, what about you yourselves? If you had a car you could enjoy life twice as much, that’s for sure. It’s a lot more advantageous than life insurance.”
“At our stage in life we’re too old to start driving. That’ll be fifty yen.”
I drew out a hundred-yen note and asked for small change. “But Mr. M’s business is apparently thriving, isn’t it?”
“Apparently it is. He used to be only a charcoal dealer,” the wife retorted dryly.
“With the increase in houses, he’s changed from a black-charcoal seller to a propane dealer who takes a bath every day. It’s the times,” the clerk declared, drawing up his thin upper lip, as he pushed toward me the stack of five ten-yen pieces.
A propane dealer! In spite of me, my heart thumped. So could the fuel shop opposite M’s house be his? Could it be that the small three-wheeled trucks driving back and forth with their tanks of gas, raising clouds of dust and rattling like tin horses, were in fact part of M’s business? If M was not merely a councilman but the head of a fuel conce
rn, the plot was much better. There was no longer the slightest mystery about the missing man’s behavior that morning. Dainen Enterprises were tied up with M.
“But it’s so unfair,” said the man’s wife in a cheerful tone, quite at odds with the substance of her remark. “I wonder just how long it’s going to go on.” I turned and looked over my shoulder through the glass in the door. Under the deep zinc eaves peculiar to fuel stores, two young men were unloading tanks, which they placed side by side at the edge of the road and then carried into the storehouse. Its interior was already dark, and I could not see in very well. Evening came more quickly than elsewhere to this valley town screened to the east and west by hills. Uttering a persistent series of little coughs, the wife got up. Then the lights in the post office were turned on. I lit a cigarette, and the few seconds of silence acted, as I thought they would, as a primer to their gossiping tongues.
“Here now. See how the housing project in the second ward is getting finished. They’ve already promised publicly to lay city gas in the town. The place is developing all the time … a real suburb. It’s expanding—and the propane dealers’ purses are expanding right along with it. But sooner or later city gas is going to come in, and when it does they’ve had it. Shops’ll spread, telephones’ll increase, shop clerks’ll be at a premium. Already there are ten three-wheeled trucks, if you include those belonging to the branch stores.”
“Nine.”
“Anyway, they’ve had it. The balloon’ll burst.”
“For a while he came to ask us to sign petitions against city gas. He said propane gas was sanitary, that you couldn’t commit suicide with it.”
“Stupid! At our age who’s going to commit suicide with gas? Whatever method you choose, convenience is the main thing. These days, who’s going to sympathize with the grievances of a charcoal dealer?”