by Kōbō Abe
Or could it be that the secretary is interfering? The more I think about it, the likelier it seems that she had my predecessor killed not so much to provide the assistant director with a substitute for the emergency doctor as to stop the chief from disclosing something he knew about the pill thief. If she was determined to get me too, then I would have to watch my step. If it came to a question of letting me escape alive or taking me dead, she would probably choose the latter.
Whenever I am out, I take the opportunity to do a little snooping around myself. It could be the white security supervisor’s uniform with its three black stripes, but so far not one person has refused to cooperate. Doctors, nurses, other employees, patients, all of them have come volunteering information of their own accord. The only trouble is that everything they tell me is a transparent fabrication. Or if not an out-and-out lie, then it is an analysis of thieves in general, or a speculation on possible new crimes using the pills. Thus there is no way to act on the reports, much as I wish I could. To give them all the benefit of the doubt, probably they are simply unwilling to plead ignorance in the face of a direct command of the chief of security. The gang of pill thieves seems to be operating in strict secrecy.
No matter how secretly they may carry on their activities, though, it’s only a matter of time now. Once the curtain rises on the anniversary eve party, they won’t be able to stay under cover like this any more. Since the whole point of it all has been preparation for a party stunt, they will be forced to show themselves then. Every year at five o’clock the assistant director cuts the customary tape, and the drumbeats announce the official opening. In another hour or two it will automatically come to a showdown. Even now, as I sit waiting, second by second I am closing in on them. No one can halt the advance of time.
From the time I was a boy, though, I was never very fond of festivals. They always fill me with an ominous foreboding. I am too conscious of the devils at another festival beyond the one visible, staring curiously my way.
(I drink down a bottle of tonic and light my fourth cigarette of the day. I take out my contact lenses and massage my eyes for a while. My tear glands make squeaky little noises like tree frogs. The girl is breathing softly in her sleep. Sleep is all very well, but I have a feeling she’s overdoing it a bit. I hope it isn’t a sign that her condition is getting worse… .)
Let me see. It was the morning after I was appointed chief of security. I didn’t want to be labeled an accessory to the crime for having watched the murder of the former chief in silence, so I intended at least to let the assistant director know that I had been an eyewitness, and try to find out where the responsibility lay. The assistant director never showed his face around the main building, however, so I set out for the cartilage surgery ward myself.
Eight in the morning is the busiest, most active hour on a ward. Children having blood drawn scream and wail; white-uniformed nurses sweep from room to room bearing thermometers; patients holding urine bottles in their hands wander down the halls; practical nurses argue with patients over whether the windows should be open or closed; and young male patients have their stiffened penises batted by the fingertips of female doctors.
I went directly to the third floor and tried knocking on the director’s door; there was no answer, even though the in sign was hanging up. I turned the handle, and the door opened. The emergency doctor was nowhere in sight, but there were the two beds that I had seen that first day through the peephole in the ceiling of room eight, and a confused melee of electrical gadgets and equipment. Over by the wall was an office desk. It struck me that the lower wall paneling behind it seemed slightly loose. That would be the way through to the opening in room eight. I closed the door and latched it, then crawled under the desk and explored the paneling. It was an amateurish job, with a wire ring fastened in one corner. When I pulled on the ring a section of paneling just the width of the desk came out in my hand. From that side it was easy to remove, but it might have been more difficult from the other side.
Light was shining from within. Head down, I crawled slowly inside. Rusty-smelling particles of dust entered my nostrils; my chest hurt as if it would burst, but I suppressed the desire to sneeze. To keep from making noise, I groped my way down the ladder hand over hand, one rung at a time, finally hanging upside down with my knees spread apart, braced for support against the walls. Through a crack in the curtain I could just make out the lower half of the room. The girl was naked. Hips thrust out, knees open, she was rubbing her slender hands on her small kneecaps, bobbing her head up and down and panting like a long-distance runner. At her feet was the assistant director, one hand draped across her thigh, the other rubbing his own crotch on top of his trousers. He seemed to be saying something, but I couldn’t catch what it was. Anyway, the scene was a bit much for eight o’clock in the morning.
Hurriedly I crawled back up out of the hole, and stamped noisily around by the paneling. That way, thinking that someone was already in the upstairs room, the assistant director would be unable to use the secret passageway and would be forced to go around from the outside to see who it was. But since I had latched the door from the inside, he wouldn’t be able to get in. It would take him twenty or thirty minutes before he gave up and went to call for help.
Everything went just as I had planned. I heard the door of room eight open and shut, waited a moment or two, and then climbed down feet first. When the girl saw me, somehow she didn’t seem very surprised. I smiled at her, and she sucked on a finger and smiled back shyly.
“Let’s hurry. Where’s your suitcase?”
“I haven’t got one.”
“You need some clothes.”
“Haven’t got any of those either.”
She lifted her rolled-up pajamas in the air, holding them in her toes. Her legs were so long, slender, and lithe that it was hard to believe she had a bone disease.
“Okay then, put those on.”
Still lying down, she obediently put her arms through the pajama sleeves. In the meantime, I checked her bedside stand. Two bananas, a papaya cut in half, a hair dryer with brush, two ball point pens, two girls’ magazines, some unfinished lace, and a red leather purse with a bell attached. The clasp on the purse was broken, and the contents fell out on the floor: 6,300 yen in cash, a blood-type badge, a patient’s registration form, a gold fox three millimeters big, and an eighteen-carat ring with a small stone like a hardened drop of blood. I spread out a towel, laid her washbowl on it, packed everything inside, and tied it up loosely by the four corners. That way I would be able to sling it across my shoulder and have both arms free for the girl.
“Can you walk?”
She had just got her pajama bottoms on, and was sitting on the edge of the bed. Cocking her head to one side, she braced herself with both arms and slid slowly off the bed. She managed to stand up, but immediately stuck out her arms and started to fall. I held out an arm to her, and she grabbed it tightly and regained her balance, smiling so happily that her two front teeth shone. Leaning on my arm, she took a step forward, tongue thrust out between her teeth. Lines of dirt were caked on her ear lobe.
“It’s so high… .”
“What is?”
“It’s like looking out of a two-story window.”
“You mean you’ve never stood up and walked by yourself before?”
“I used to be fatter.”
“This is impossible. I’ll have to carry you.”
“When my body stretches out too suddenly, the nerves are pulled and I get tired real easy.”
We didn’t have much time. If there was another way into the director’s room on the third floor, any minute now he would notice the missing plywood, and see through the whole scheme.
“Is the intercom switch on or off?”
“Off.”
Hanging the bundle around my neck so that it lay down across my chest, I picked the girl up on my back and carried her out into the hall. I had expected to draw stares, but evidently in a hospital strange s
ights are less conspicuous, not more. No one even gave us a second glance. The fact that it was eight in the morning must have been in our favor, too.
Still, I had an idea that the elevator might be risky. She was stuck on my back as closely as crude rubber; I could hardly feel her weight. I sprinted down the stairs and was about to dash through the waiting room toward the exit when I pulled up short. My instincts had been right. Among the people standing waiting for the elevator was the assistant director’s secretary. No doubt she was after me. They were all looking up impatiently at the dial. The elevator seemed to be stuck somewhere, perhaps unloading freight. The heel of the secretary’s sandal tapped out a restless staccato against the floor, moving gradually faster and faster. What if she gave up waiting and decided to take the stairs? After all, she was the one who had masterminded that plot to kill the father of the little girl on my back. In such emergencies, the eyes automatically search out a way of escape. High piles of wooden crates had kept me from noticing before, but now I saw that the stairs went on down behind the crates and below ground.
Somehow I squeezed behind the piles of crates. Stealthily I crept to the bottom of the stairs and came out into a dark corridor, lit only by the little light that straggled down from between the crates. There was a cold draft that smelled like the musty air under old cellar floorboards.
“Where are we going?”
“Let’s see, where shall we go?”
I could hardly say that we were on our way to get lost. I decided to start out walking.
“When you get tired of walking, let’s stop and eat a banana.”
“I just started.”
The corridor angled left and was darker than ever. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, however, I discovered that there was just enough light to see where I was going. The corridor went on and on. Mentally reviewing the design of the building, I was puzzled. We had to have left the building grounds behind some time ago. There were no turnoffs, and no rooms on either side. Perhaps it was not an ordinary corridor, then, but an underground passage leading to some other building.
“Let’s go back.”
“No.”
“But you forgot my urinal.”
“I’ll buy you another one real soon.”
“Where are we going?”
“Where would you like to go?”
“Someplace brighter.”
“It won’t be long now.”
I was getting tired. I thought we had come pretty far, but I wasn’t sure. Since I was walking slowly, we might not have covered much distance yet.
“Where do you live?”
“I used to live in ward three … before Mother turned into a quilt.”
“Before she turned into a what?”
“A quilt. You know, you put it over you when you go to sleep, and it’s got cotton inside.”
“How did she do that?”
The girl trembled suddenly and told me that she was in pain, speaking in a voice so low that I could barely hear. It must not have been wise to keep her in one position for such a long time. Hurriedly I put her down on the floor, sat myself against the wall, and set her on my lap with my arm around her. She leaned against me limply, her cheek against the back of my hand where it lay on her shoulder. It didn’t seem to be anything serious. The corridor wall was made of rough concrete, and it dug into my back. The floor was damp; I felt uncomfortable. But neither did I feel like getting up and walking on again right away. It wouldn’t do to go back, and yet there was no point in going ahead, either. It was as though we had got lost on our way to get lost.
“Is the pain better?”
“Uh-huh.”
“How did your mother turn into a quilt?”
“Did you ever hear of watafuki disease?”
“No.”
“It’s when cotton starts to come out of the pores in your skin.”
“You don’t mean real cotton. It must be some kind of fat or something.”
“No, cotton. They tested it in the lab and everything.”
“Huh. That’s funny.”
“At first it was here, on the back of her hand____”
She took my hand, the one her cheek had been leaning against, and traced on it with a fingertip. “It happened when I was real little, but I still remember. It was like a scary dream; you could pull it out piece by piece. No matter how much you pulled, there was always more… . Pretty soon there were big holes in the skin on her hands, and you could see the bones. She said it didn’t hurt, but Daddy was worried and he put some Mercurochrome on it. But since it was just cotton, the Mercurochrome only soaked in right away and didn’t do any good. He put on so much, he ended up using a whole bottle. Her hands looked like red cotton gloves. When you held them up to the light you could see the bones perfectly. The next day she went in the hospital, but it was already too late. They said she was full of cotton everywhere, in her neck, her bottom, her ears, even inside her breasts. The doctor said it was best to get rid of it fast before it spread any more, so Daddy and I picked cotton every day. Her hands and feet looked like the bones had on big baggy gloves and socks; it was awful creepy. Six months after she went in the hospital, the cotton went to her heart, and she died. That was terrible. We had picked enough cotton altogether to fill three kerosene-stove crates, so we had a quilt made out of it. I wanted to keep it, but my stupid Daddy said that was too morbid, and went and gave it to a museum. IT1 bet he wanted to get an award or something. It’s still there in the museum, but just the same, it’s really my quilt/’
As soon as she finished talking her breathing changed; she fell fast asleep. To keep from disturbing her, I stayed motionless, patiently enduring the hardness of the wall and the wetness of the floor.
(I just came back from my sixth phone call to security headquarters. There was still nothing on the pill thief. I was taken aback when the florist’s son urged me in a sickeningly sweet voice to hurry back because the assistant director and his secretary were worried about me. Or was he trying to tell me ironically that they had tracked down our hideout long ago?
On the way back, wary of being followed, I took a slightly different route. I went underground from the bottom of a pond by the museum (now dried up), near cages where animals were once kept. That way is many times farther than the underground passageway, and if I weren’t careful it would be easy to get lost. Exactly for that reason, it is also quite safe. I mean to take the same route when I go to the anniversary eve party, so this was also a little reconnaissance trip for that purpose. Along the way I came upon one place where a brick wall had collapsed, blocking the passage. I cleared the rubble to one side, making just enough space for the wheelchair to get by.
The museum garden overlooks the party grounds from behind. There still wasn’t much sign of the proper atmosphere as far as I could tell, except for that rock band sullenly practicing in front of the fountain across the street in the park, while their leader yelled frantically at them and a few patients looked idly on. Maybe the party isn’t as big an event as it’s built up to be after all. I met an elderly couple dragging a concession stand down the road in front of the park, from the direction of the wards. Both of them were patients, one suffering from chronic gastritis and the other from pituitary cachexia (Simmonds’ disease); with rapt, dreamy expressions, they told me, speaking in the past tense, about all the enthusiasm and excitement the party used to generate every year.
It’s almost four now. Have I been bluffing all this time just for a legendary illusion? That’s why you can’t trust festivals.)
I must have slept, too. The girl’s voice woke me up.
“What’s that noise?”
“Probably a bug.”
“Is it true that cemeteries have bugs that eat the dead bodies?”
“Nowadays everybody is cremated.”
“That’s true.”
I hurt all over. My crossed legs were pressing hard into my calves. I shifted my position. The girl screamed, then said apologetically in a surpris
ingly mature voice, “My bones are melting little by little, like gelatin. When I change my position the effect of gravity changes, too, so the flow of my bones changes and the nerves get pulled around. That’s why it hurts.”
“What position is most comfortable for you?”
“It doesn’t make any difference. I can get used to any position right away… .”
Drops fell on my wrist where I was supporting her head. I was unable to tell if they were tears or drops of drool. I ran my free hand down along the curve of her spine. It was quite a bit different from the normal curvature. I couldn’t tell what position she was in. Had her entire skeletal structure changed to adapt to the contour of my crossed legs?
“Try to bear it, okay?”
Alarmed, I lowered her off my knees and leaned her gently against the wall, as carefully as if she were a disjointed doll. She seemed pretty misshapen. Maybe it was only that sensations were exaggerated in the darkness.
“I shrank a lot.”
“No, you didn’t.”
My luminous watch dial was hard to make out. The two hands were overlapping; the time seemed to be somewhere between eight and nine. Eight forty-four, evidently. I thought I had slept a long time, but it must have been only a moment or two.
Slowly, like a lump of butter being squeezed in the hand, my sense of reality returned. No, it must be 8:44 p.m. It had been about eight-forty in the morning when I took the girl out of her room. It was impossible to believe that only four minutes had elapsed since then. It felt like at least half an hour. Had I slept for nearly twelve hours? The luminous paint on the watch was starting to fade, another indication that a considerable amount of time must have gone by. No wonder the child’s body had become distorted. The pain in my own body sharpened. Tiny stones felt embedded in the flesh of my buttocks, and something sharp was digging into my ribs. She must be in even worse pain.