Apocalypse for Beginners

by Nicolas Dickner

  Scientific discovery of the day: Yes, a baseball stadium can burn.

  I had trouble understanding how fire could spread in an empty structure like the bleachers, but in the end maybe that old dry wood had only been waiting for the right opportunity.

  The police were surveying the different entrances to the site, and a dozen firefighters were in the midst of a confab, huddled in a semicircle near the trucks. Apparently, this was their first-ever stadium fire and they were trying to decide how to approach the blaze: Would it be better to make their way across right field or over home plate, or whether (more fundamentally) it was really worth the trouble to save the creaky old wreck.

  They finally uncoiled the hoses, hooked them up to a fire hydrant planted at the edge of the vacant lot and started spraying, but there was a visible lack of conviction in the operation. A column of smoke rose into the sky, black on black.

  I pedalled away, neither rushing nor looking back. When I arrived home, flakes of soot were snowing down on the neighbourhood.

  76. THE NINETEENTH STOP

  The address of Mekiddo changed more quickly than the local weather. That day, their offices were to be found in the Gilo borough, at the other end of the city. According to Merriam, the train ride there would take an hour.

  Hope took just enough money to pay the return fare, pocketed her Rough Planet and set out immediately. She liked to think that speed was important, that one day she would succeed in overtaking Mekiddo. Up to then, she had lost the race twenty-seven times.

  Tokyo was between rush hours and the suburban trains were quiet. The passengers got on and off without saying a word, lost in thought. Housewives, toothless centenarians, miscellaneous riders.

  Hope stepped off at the nineteenth stop, light years from the city centre. The streets around the station were fragrant with hibiscus and wood fires. There was something about this neighbourhood, a kind of aura, despite the nondescript architecture. Gilo had evidently been an outlying village. Tokyo had swallowed it up during the sixties, but the village spirit was still lurking in the vicinity of the train station.

  Rough Planet in hand, Hope walked for about ten minutes until she reached the address she was looking for. Needless to say, however, there wasn’t the slightest trace left of Mekiddo. At any rate, why would a multinational locate in a neighbourhood like this? Instead, there stood a new baseball stadium, which looked as if it had gone up the night before. The box office still smelled of fresh paint and some employees were sweeping up. A group of kids were already playing on the field.

  Hope bought a can of Star Cola at a vending machine, but just as she hit the button, she realized her mistake: she had just spent the money for her return ticket!

  She banged her head a few times against the vending machine. Dispirited, she nevertheless collected her beverage and climbed the bleachers to sit down.

  The players were no more than twelve years old and wore Tokyo Swallows uniforms that were too big for them. The only sound was the whack of the balls and the occasional shout. The newly drawn lines were so neat as to appear unreal.

  Hope looked around for an adult but saw none. She tried to imagine a world that, through some mysterious disaster, had been rid of all humans over twelve years old. The result, she mused, would not exactly be the apocalypse—more like a Charlie Brown comic strip.

  Sitting in the uppermost bleachers, she could make out the tops of the downtown skyscrapers, like the echo of a distant universe. How on earth was she going to get back to the Jaffa? She searched through her pockets—on the off chance—but came up with nothing but her old train ticket, duly cancelled. She tore it into bits and scattered them on the breeze.

  Shouts rose up from the playing field. A boy was trying to steal third base. He dashed away and then drifted into his slide, raising a cloud of reddish dust. The ball arrived a second too late: he was safe.

  At that exact moment, the man entered the ballpark.

  He wore a black suit and a tie, despite the heat, and a New York Mets cap. Hope thought he looked like a major league scout. He stationed himself behind the backstop and glanced mechanically at the game. Then he scanned the bleachers, shielding his eyes against the sun, until he spotted Hope, at which point he calmly climbed up the steps, greeted her with a nod and, gesturing, asked if he could sit down beside her.

  Hope did not object.

  They followed the game for a while without speaking. Hope wondered whether it was Japanese etiquette that required a person to go sit next to a stranger, and if she might find an appropriate phrase in her Rough Planet. She leafed through it momentarily, wavering between You moto zai / sumi no firutaa o sagashi te i masu? (“I’m looking for some iodine tablets / carbon filters”) and Sekijuuji no kyuukyuu sha ga tooru no o mi mashi ta ka? (“Did you see the Red Cross ambulance go by?”).

  Inexpressive but courteous, never taking his eyes of the field, the man said, “Vous pouvez me parler en français, Mademoiselle Randall.”

  77. MADAME SICOTTE

  “Have you heard from Hope?”

  My father stepped out of the shower as I was leaving for the cement plant. He had been working late for some time and sleeping in until 7:30 a.m.

  I shook my head. No, no word from Hope. He sniffed and ran his hand over his face to check his shave. One of those eloquent father-son dialogues.

  Sitting on the stairs in the hallway, I was lacing up my workboots when I heard him blurt out a loud and unexpected “shit!” (My father rarely indulged in immoderate language.)

  He had drawn back the curtains in the living room to look at God knows what.

  I went out to see what in the outside world could be so disturbing. At first sight, nothing. I headed toward the front of the bungalow, where I saw Madame Sicotte, our neighbour three doors down, walking in the middle of the street, looking distraught, her bathrobe half-open.

  “Madame Sicotte?!”

  She slowly turned her head in my direction. Her face was ashen, her eyes red and the left side of her robe was streaked with blood. There was a gaping wound on her neck, a bite from a Rottweiler or something of that magnitude.

  Never had I seen a gaze so vacant.

  She let out a harsh groan, and I instinctively recoiled toward my house. My father was watching through the living room window, coffee cup in hand. We looked at each other incredulously. He signalled that he was going to make a call to ask for help. I asked myself who exactly he planned on calling—the police, the fire department, the army?

  Madame Sicotte had swung around and was now moving toward me, dragging her feet. At that speed it would take her a while to reach me. Still, I opened the door to the Honda and put one foot inside. Just in case.

  In windows nearby, curtains could be seen cautiously opening—but no one seemed in a hurry to come out and get a closer look at the situation.

  A few minutes later an ambulance screeched into my field of vision. A pair of Clint Eastwoods climbed out, stethoscopes around their necks, thumbs hooked into their belts. Madame Sicotte instantly moved toward them. The two paramedics traded meaningful glances and then brought out the rubber straps.

  Standing behind me, overwhelmed by the events, my father looked on. He had never seen a zombie movie—the poor guy’s education was incomplete.

  While the paramedics were endeavouring to immobilize Madame Sicotte on the stretcher, our old neighbour struggled, drooled, scratched, gnashed her teeth, all the time emitting that inhuman groan. They finally managed to strap her down, slid her into the ambulance and sped away.

  My father looked as if he were about to have a nervous breakdown. I placed my hand on his shoulder, trying to come up with some reassuring words—but nothing came to mind. What could anyone say? Everything was unravelling since Hope had taken off.

  78. THIRTY-SEVEN MINUTES

  Hope felt her heart pounding all the way to her temples. To regain some composure, she took a gulp of Star Cola. Her hand trembled a little.

  “You speak French?”
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  “The Kamajiis have a gift for foreign tongues.”

  A boy came up to bat and hit a home run. There was a sharp crack and the ball went sailing over centre field at a perfect angle.

  While Kamajii’s eyes followed the ball’s trajectory, Hope surreptitiously looked him over. Fortyish, at most. Thin, nervous, shaggy-haired under the cap. His suit was stained, his shirt badly ironed and the knot in his necktie (a botched half-Windsor) appeared much too slack. His whole bearing suggested that he would rather have been elsewhere but that he had accepted this unpleasant task out of loyalty to the company—or some other exotic concept belonging to the Japanese econosphere.

  The ball dropped well beyond the fence and three players ran off to hunt it down. Kamajii turned toward Hope with a troubled look.

  “You seem disappointed to meet me.”

  “What bothers me is that I didn’t find you first.”

  “That would have been most surprising. We have been watching you since you visited our offices in Seattle, in March.”

  “You’ve been following me for four months?”

  “One hundred and twenty-seven days, to be exact. You have travelled an impressive distance.”

  “I have good boots.”

  Hope shielded her eyes and looked at Tokyo. The sun was beginning to set and the downtown skyscrapers seemed farther away than ever.

  “You might have come to see me sooner.”

  “We thought you would give up your investigation after a few weeks.”

  “The Randalls have a stubborn streak.”

  “Indeed. Your obstinacy has started to be a source of concern for our company. That is why I was sent to meet you.”

  “In other words, you’ve been sacrificed.”

  He squinted in vague amusement.

  “We would simply like to spare you a waste of energy.”

  Hope made a sign of acknowledgment. Reassured, Kamajii thrust his hand into his jacket and drew out a pack of Noblesse Light cigarettes. He offered one to Hope, who declined. He slipped one between his lips and looked at his watch.

  “Do you think that thirty-seven minutes will be sufficient?”

  79. CROSSWORDS WEEKLY

  Thrown off balance, Hope fidgeted with her can of Star Cola. What exactly did she want to ask Kamajii? She was afraid to look foolish.

  But was there anything to be gained from splitting hairs? She had crossed North America and the Pacific Ocean for the purpose of asking just one simple question, no matter how silly it might seem: Why, of all possible dates, had he chosen July 17, 2001?

  Kamajii greeted the question with an approving nod.

  “It was not I who chose the date, but rather the date that chose me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Kamajii lowered the visor of his cap. He gave the impression of following the baseball game—it was mid-inning and the two teams were trading positions—but in fact he was looking for the right words. It had been some time since he had last spoken French and he did not wish to make any errors.

  “The story begins in 1971. I was twelve years old and my family had just moved. To tell the truth, we had been expropriated. Our neighbourhood had been razed in order to make room for a highway.”

  “You were living in Tokyo?”

  “Yes. A few kilometres from here. I could show you exactly where my school was located, under an interchange …”

  The first hitter stepped up to the plate, spat into his hands, whipped the bat around a few times.

  “That summer, we lost everything. Our noodle restaurant, our house, our friends. The monetary compensation we were given was inadequate to open a new restaurant, and my father spent his days looking for work. The apartment where we lived was squalid, overcrowded and in a bad neighbourhood. I slept in the bathroom. There was a heat wave and each night I was afflicted by nightmares … various nightmares.”

  The cigarette hung from his lips. He had not yet lit it and seemed to have no intention of doing so. It quivered to the rhythm of his speech like the needle of a seismograph.

  “Then, one night, I experienced … something different. It was not an ordinary nightmare. It was a vision.”

  “A vision?”

  “I woke up in the middle of the apocalypse. Flames. Melting asphalt. Corpses piled one on top of the other. I will spare you the details. Actually, I have already written all this in my book.”

  Hope cautiously concurred. She did not dare admit that she had never read the book (which, come to think of it, was an aggravating factor in her Tokyo escapade).

  The batter hit a low ball toward left field. It bounced a few times before being trapped by the shortstop, who hurled it to first base. From there, the ball flew swiftly and fluidly around the field.

  “Do you know if other members of your family ever had similar visions?”

  “I am not aware of that. We do not discuss these matters.”

  “So why did you write your book?”

  The batter, called out at first, jogged back to the dugout.

  “The idea came to me while I was in the airplane to Seattle. For the first time in my life I was going to find myself thousands of kilometres from my family. No one would know me. I think now that this may have been the only reason why I had applied for a position overseas …”

  He paused momentarily while he pondered this hypothesis.

  “In short, when my new supervisor suggested that I westernize my name, I jumped at the opportunity. In the telephone directory of Seattle, I chose the most ordinary identity of all. A camouflage.”

  “Charles Smith!”

  “Precisely. There were almost sixty of them in the metropolitan area of Seattle.”

  There was an awkward silence. A new batter came up to the plate.

  “Thus, I wrote down my vision and sent it to approximately fifteen magazines, chosen at random. I was quite unschooled in these matters. The manuscript arrived at the office of a publisher in New York.”

  “Sammy Levy?”

  “You know him?”

  “I met him. A charming man.”

  They exchanged a brief, knowing smile.

  “At that time, Levy was publishing the Crosswords Weekly, a collection of puzzles and word games. He included a very abridged version of my text in the puzzle section. Readers who decoded the secret message were eligible to win a 1980 Ford Mustang.”

  “But there was no coded message and no Ford Mustang.”

  He nodded.

  “The text achieved some notoriety. Readers began to make photocopies or even to copy it by hand. Homemade editions were sold in taverns and on street corners. Public readings were held. Such a success was unhoped for. Frankly, I began to feel somewhat anxious. I was losing control of the situation.”

  He loosened his necktie a little.

  “Things deteriorated when Levy decided to publish a complete, authorized edition. I found myself with hundreds of thousands of readers. Many of them were not willing to settle for just a prophecy—they needed a piece of prophet as well. They converged on Seattle and …”

  “And your camouflage couldn’t hold up.”

  He sighed.

  “This went on for two years. Then, fearing that the whole business would draw too much attention, my superiors repatriated me to Tokyo.”

  Kamajii seemed to become aware once again of the cigarette between his lips. He grabbed it, looked at it as though it had just emerged from an interdimensional gap, and put it back in its package, which he then slipped into his jacket pocket.

  80. DISTORTING THE COLLECTIVE PSYCHE

  On the field, the baseball game had broken up into little groups, and some boys began to collect their equipment. But Kamajii had barely hit his stride. Visibly pleased to practise his French, he had launched into a tirade about the uneasy relationship that Tokyo residents maintained with the end of the world.

  “You know, many of us believe the apocalypse must begin here.”

  Hope sipped on her now flat Star Cola.
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br />   “First time I’ve ever considered the end of the world from a local perspective.”

  “Strange, isn’t it?”

  “The Japanese read too many mangas.”

  Kamajii looked at his watch with an air of detachment.

  “In fact, this is a rather ancient sentiment. Several theories exist on this subject. Some, for example, see the influence of Buddhism. Others point to the successive destructions of Tokyo—earthquakes, typhoons, bombardments. In this regard, our town planners have greatly contributed to distorting the collective psyche. Finally, there are those who believe that it is simply one facet of nationalism—the vain belief that the apocalypse must begin on Japanese soil.”

  His tone became reassuring.

  “But, you know, not all of us share this point of view.”

  81. A UNIQUE ABILITY

  Kamajii vanished without any warning. He announced that he would be gone for a minute, walked down the bleachers and went into the chemical toilet that had been left behind after the stadium’s construction. He never came out.

  After ten minutes, Hope began to worry and went to knock on the door.

  “Monsieur Kamajii?”

  No answer. The toilet door opened a crack and Hope saw that there was no one inside. Yet not for an instant had she let the latrine out of her sight. The mysterious man had just evaporated—a unique ability that Mekiddo employees perhaps acquired through their repeated unexpected moves.

  Hope imagined the process of his disappearance: first the feet, then the legs, the upper body, and finally the face, with the lopsided smile lingering for a few seconds in the twilight.

  The sun was going down, and there was a warm wind blowing across the city. Hope consulted her Rough Planet and estimated that a mere 20 kilometres stood between her and the Jaffa, about three hours on foot. She decided to walk.

  82. THE SPEED OF THE WORLD

  As she walked through the door of the Jaffa, Hope had the fleeting, reassuring impression of coming home. A dozen students were drinking beer in a corner, a cassette tape of Hebrew dub played softly, and Merriam sat at the counter, finishing a bowl of soup.