by Kōbō Abe
“That’s why I’m thinking. The way I see it, they must be from the Nationalist Army because the Eighth Route soldiers behave properly. The way I see it, well … Yes, this question is important.”
“Which side would be better?”
“That’s obvious.”
“I wonder.”
“We’re going to Shenyang,” Kō replied curtly as he slowly got up. Staggering, he leaned against the wall. With a loud sound, a mouse suddenly jumped out by his feet and ran outside.
“You stay here.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s better to be alone when negotiating with soldiers. Don’t worry. What do you think I’ve entrusted with you? Leave it to me.”
“But what are you going to negotiate with the soldiers?”
“I won’t know until I try.”
Kyūzō didn’t like the idea. If he followed Kō’s suggestion, then the time before he could eat would be delayed that much longer. Nevertheless, he decided to stay behind because he was suddenly overwhelmed by an intense drowsiness and thought that there was no way he could walk all the way to town.
As he listened to Kō’s pitiful footsteps receding in the distance, Kyūzō leaned against the wall and absentmindedly dozed off. While sleeping, he slowly moved toward the remaining small sunny spot by the northern wall, in front of which he came across something like rotting wood. He felt that he recognized the object, but it was strange and inexplicable. It was a mummy that had been devoured by mice.
There were a total of five mummies. All were completely naked. Three were large, one medium, and the last one extremely small. Long hair still remained on the head of the medium-sized mummy as well as on one of the larger ones. They were each in different positions, but all were lined up alongside one another. Their faces and internal organs had all been completely gnawed away in identical fashion.
By their heads, partly bathed in sunlight, characters could be read that appeared to be carved out by stone.
Alas
halfway there
all of us
died
here
with a feverish disease
summer, year 21
Mizuura Takeshi
and four others
At first, Kyūzō was annoyed that his rest had been interrupted. Given that these people had also been Japanese, however, he then felt a bit sorry for feeling this way. Who were they? Where had they come from? Seeing that there was a child among them, he suspected that they might have been a family or perhaps colleagues from a company or something. The small mummy must be the child of the female mummy. Which one had died first? Suddenly Kyūzō somehow felt afraid. Perhaps this group had walked through the wasteland like us. Could they possibly have believed that they still had to die after so much suffering. No, there was absolutely no way they could have believed such unfairness. Kyūzō drew back in horror. He felt that these mummies hated him.
There were other markings that appeared to be characters. However, he could barely make them out. Only in one place there seemed to be the form of the character for “water.” Could that be the “water”—mizu—from the name Mizuura? Or did it refer to drinking water? Of course it had to be drinking water. Suffering from high fever, there wasn’t one of them who could fetch water. All they could do was think about it, and so they had carved out that character. Its sound still seemed to be floating around. Year twenty-one was the year of the typhus epidemic. Speaking of typhus, there was lice. Kyūzō recalled the louse that had crawled out from Kō’s collar by the marsh, and his entire body suddenly throbbed with itchiness. The mummies clearly wanted to entangle him in their fate. He quietly tiptoed away so as not to awaken them.
His throat stung. Swallowing his saliva when he finally reached the exit, his throat’s inner lining made a sound as it peeled off.
XXIII
Kō was furious to find Kyūzō crouching outside the hut.
“Hey, come on! How about being a bit responsible?”
“There are corpses inside.”
“There’s nothing in the world more gentle than the dead. It’s the living who are scary. From now on, be more careful!”
Yet Kō was in a good mood. His negotiations seemed to have gone well. Forcibly dragging the reluctant Kyūzō inside, he proudly spread out the food he had bought before jokingly spitting at the mummies.
“Just look at how gentle the dead are! They don’t complain no matter what you do!”
There were steamed buns, salty meat in oil, and some spongy fried food. On top of which, it was a real luxury to have cider. It would have been ideal if there were a fire, but Kō strictly forbade that.
“How did it go?”
“We’re very lucky! They were Nationalist soldiers after all. I was able to bribe them. Don’t be shocked, but we can get a ride on a truck—a military truck. Now that they’ve agreed to take us, we’re practically already there. We’re very lucky! And they said that it’s the last truck.”
This was certainly welcome news. After such long suffering and despair, it was at first unbelievable that things were now going so well.
“That was typhus over there, right?”
“That’s enough! You’re going to ruin the food.”
“Shit, I’m unbearably itchy.”
“Me too. We’ll get used to it soon. By the way, the soldiers had already heard about the train accident. Their unit is indirectly involved, and it seems to be a topic of gossip among the officers. Well, that was helpful. They trusted me because of that accident. I suppose I can tell you now, but in fact I was the one who provided them with the train information.”
“I knew that already.”
Kyūzō greedily devoured the food. Drinking some cider, he choked a bit. Kō began laughing loudly. Kyūzō thought that this was the first time he had ever heard Kō laugh like that. Yet this did nothing to help his gloominess.
Alas
halfway there …
all of us …
As he chewed the meat, it had a mummified taste. Yet the taste was at the same time wonderful and joyous. Happiness and guilt mixed together in such a way that, for him, emotions themselves became a heavy burden.
The plan as Kō explained it went mainly as follows: The person whom he dealt with was a paymaster-general named Bai. Yet there was nothing surprising to hear that Bai was a general. The Nationalist Army probably had the highest number of officers in the world, and at times that number was even greater than the number of soldiers. In any case, Bai was a man of considerable talent and possessed a truck for his own private use. As Kō described, he had fortunately been passing by when the Nationalist troops were beginning their rapid clearing out upon news that the Eighth Route Army was set to lay siege to Qianjiadian, which was located immediately to the south. Here, too, Kō employed his typical ruse of introducing himself as a newspaper reporter. He also managed to introduce Kyūzō by explaining that, while escaping, he had rescued a Japanese youth who had been enslaved by the Eighth Route Army. General Bai was a reasonable man, and so the two had soon struck up a friendship. At first the general was planning to travel to the Rear Banner, but would now “go all the way to Shenyang for a patriot like you”—and this, as Kō added, after a mere thirty-five minutes of conversation. Kō had nothing but praise for the general, whom he described as smart, cultured, and beyond reproach. A poem that the general had composed hung on the wall, he remarked, and the calligraphy was stunning. Since they had to pass through the Dalin railway bridge before dawn, their departure was set for early the next morning. Dalin was the railway station located just one stop east of Qianjiadian. The general had suggested that we rest in his quarters until then. However, he asked that we wait until dark before visiting him. There were a great many people seeking a ride on the truck, stated the general, and it would cause resentment if we were too obvious.
Kō’s plan indeed made sense. Above all, Kyūzō found himself strangely moved by the word “patriot” that Kō had casually ment
ioned. What had now disappeared, of course, was the heavy echo that the word possessed during that period in which all one’s conscious thoughts existed as a result of external coercion. Kyūzō even felt a strong repugnance for that word itself. Yet he seemed to feel a kind of wistful longing for that very world that was governed by such an insubstantial sign. This feeling was not unlike the relation between hate and love that he experienced with regard to that past world that had abandoned him and escaped. Moreover, the old, hackneyed quality of the word “patriot” somehow called to mind a Korean floor heater. There would certainly be such a heater in the general’s residence. His idle thought about the moment of lying there crudely seized hold of all his senses, refusing to release them for even a second. Although he tried not to dwell on this thought for fear of betrayal, it doubly or triply exacerbated his current pain. In any case, it was the mummies more than any floor heater that were physically closest to him now. Instinctively he almost cried out, gasping for breath.
“By the way, how much did you say you have? Ten thousand yen?”
“But why?” At first Kyūzō could not believe his ears.
“And you’ve got a wristwatch.”
“But I can’t give you everything. I still have a long way to go.”
“You’ll manage somehow or another. The important thing is what we need to do now, breaking through the border. Even I gave that guy a gift of twenty-five grams of heroin. In terms of money, that would be no less than fifty thousand. Also, we’ll prepare exactly thirty thousand in cash. At any rate, I promised a total amount of one hundred thousand … Just think if we had been robbed by that kid in the wagon. We really can’t complain. We’re asking the military to take care of us!”
“But you have that thing on the train, Mr. Kō.”
“Well, if that load of polytar was safe, there would have been change left even after paying a hundred thousand.”
“There’s no need to give so much. I still might need boat fare at some point.”
“Hey, hey, don’t play dumb! We’re not even halfway through this journey. Or do you still want to trudge along for the next week or ten days? Besides, don’t forget that I’m a person of some means. I’m sure this goes without saying, but I don’t want you to say anything about this. All right, enough already with this pointless conversation. Let me handle things.”
Exactly! It’s precisely this kind of conversation that will help clarify things. Thoughts of “patriots” and Korean floor heaters were watered down by the misfortune of having all his money taken from him, and the situation now became much more real. In his heart, therefore, Kyūzō had already agreed. Even though he knew that he was arguing merely for argument’s sake, however, he could not remain silent since he wanted to see how Kō’s words would further embellish his own dreams.
“But wouldn’t it be better to hire a wagon?”
“Let me remind you that I’m Kō Sekitō. I’ve been involved in the political movement since I was young and am rather well known. Naturally, I have both enemies and allies. For better or worse, I stand out. For me, the towns where the two-legged beasts lurk are far more dangerous than the fields where the wolves roam. And that’s especially true now that I’m carrying something valuable.”
“You’re thinking too much. We’ve already come close to dying so many times.”
“No. These Nationalists have come all the way from the south, and they’re easy to deal with. The fact is that I feel good about this. For better or worse, these men are strangers. If we just give them some money, they won’t get in our way.”
Kō continued talking despite the fact that he was so tired that he was forced to concentrate on each word so as to avoid tripping over his own tongue. From the start, Kyūzō knew that he was in no position to choose, and so there was no need for such pointless conversation, as Kō had said. But just as a heart patient cannot lie in bed keeping his eyes closed forever, so, too, the two men utterly lacked the courage to keep their mouths closed as a way of confirming their own sense of safety.
“Aren’t we being tricked and they’ll just take our money?”
“Other officers know that I’ve arrived here. Besides, that book will surely catch someone’s eye. Naturally they’d know where I disappeared. They’re not just nobodies, you know.”
The two men continued their interminable discussion even as their voices grew hoarse and they rubbed their stiffened faces. Soon it grew dark.
They set off walking close together. With a stride that suggested they were rolling an invisible log, they didn’t even glance back at the hut.
Martial law commenced at the same time as sunset. The sound of gunfire could sporadically be heard from the town. The town contained an inordinate number of gates. Gates could be found within gates, and within those gates there were even more gates. Sentries stood at each gate, yelling as they thrust out their guns from a distance. With a brief reply, Kō appeared to establish communication with them, and he and Kyūzō were immediately allowed to pass. The doors of the houses were shut tight, the town was darkly frozen, and the streets were choked of life. When they passed through several gates and finally arrived at the mansion with its courtyard that General Bai was occupying, even Kō had lost the energy to speak and was nearly shot. For some reason, his communication with the final sentry did not go well. Suddenly doubts about Bai’s intentions flitted through Kyūzō’s mind. In the next instant, however, the two men found themselves standing before a round smiling face, one that was shaven clean and white. The area smelled of acetylene torches and the air was hot and stuffy. There was also a Korean floor heater. The only thing that Kyūzō vaguely remembered thereafter was desperately sipping a bowl of hot water and then unconsciously putting up stiff resistance when an orderly tried to take their coats.
However, the floor heater fell short of expectations. It looked like some special torture device devised to persistently abuse them. The hunger and cold that had been unleashed for ten days exerted its last bit of strength, raging powerfully within them. Their bodies pounded and throbbed in agony, and their internal organs swelled to the point of bursting. As they writhed to escape the pain, the orderly who shared their room became so annoyed that he was forced to drag his blanket and flee to the next room.
At 3:30 a soldier came to wake them, turned on the lamp, and set down a washbowl filled with hot water. Kyūzō and Kō had crawled down from the floor heater and were sleeping on the earthen floor. Yet they were both dripping with sweat, and felt as if sticky machine oil had been poured between two pieces of skin. Their ears still ached, as did their fingertips and the area around their mouths. But what unbearable sleepiness!
In front of the building there echoed the sound of a car engine being started. Kō finally rose to his feet.
“Being at a dead end—that’s the right expression.” Crossing the earthen floor with bent knees and a strange gait, he suddenly plunged his face in the washbowl and began drinking the water.
Kyūzō pressed his fingers and face against the cool wall. It felt good. The skin on his lips had peeled; it had died and turned black. The sweat was irritating. It was a pity that his shirt had been stolen. At the very least, he wanted to strip down and wipe off his body. Kō, however, was absolutely against this. Finally reaching a compromise, Kō allowed Kyūzō to unbutton his shirt and air out the area under his vest.
He began to feel unbearably itchy from his shoulders to his belly. There had to be lice jumping about. When he scratched himself, a large clump of dirty skin fell down between his shirt and pants. If he were to roll this skin into a ball, he mused, there would really be quite a lot.
XXIV
The departure took place quietly but quickly. It seemed that there had been bad news. Kō referred to Bai as “general” while Bai called him “sir.” The two engaged in eager consultations, but the language was from the south and Kyūzō understood little of it. Judging by the occasional use of Mandarin mixed in, however, it appeared that during the night flyers fr
om the Eighth Route Army had been posted at important points around town, and that these contained messages hinting at danger.
Kō shaved—if somewhat roughly—dusted off his clothes, and brushed his hair with a comb that he borrowed from an orderly. If nothing else, his appearance was now more or less tidy, and yet he still suffered in comparison when standing next to Bai, who was tall, broad chested, and looked quite sharp in his uniform. Bai was also extremely pompous. His gray sideburns, gold-rimmed glasses, smooth skin, and strong double chin eminently suited his grave bearing and composed manner of speaking, and the sense of calm he displayed was in keeping with the name “general.”
The two men treated one another with ridiculous courteousness. Ignoring the hurried activities of the soldiers, they appeared to be quite carefree, as if discussing the issue of poetry composition. As Kyūzō watched the faint smile that constantly hovered over Bai’s lips as well as the large ring and long, polished nails on his fingers that moved before his mouth as if playing the koto, he felt unable to avoid the sense that reality was gradually slipping away. Kō held out the forty thousand yen as well as Kyūzō’s watch. Holding the watch to his ear for a moment, Bai pocketed the object and then promptly counted out the roll of banknotes with a practiced hand.
Kō turned around and spoke. “We’ll eat later, as it seems that we’ll depart soon. And they say that they have something interesting to show us.”
Kyūzō didn’t respond. He was disappointed. He was sure that he had just heard, in the depths of his ears, the sound of dishes clanging together. To hell with something interesting! It’s probably just another empty boasting of that “expert calligraphy” thing. For ten thousand yen and a wristwatch, they should really be entitled to ask for more. At the same time, however, he felt the desire to go to sleep as soon as possible. These two desires canceled each other out, and he wasn’t concerned about anything else.
The truck was already waiting in the courtyard. It was a six-wheeler that had been used by the Japanese army, with a hood and high chassis. Outside the gateway several soldiers as well as two junior officers who were no longer young stood crowded around something. That was what was so interesting.