Authors: Kōbō Abe
Japanese history books tell about “moving the capital,” a ritual that took place at fixed intervals in ancient Japan. The reason for this was the same, I think—people’s sensitivity to smell. With a dense population, waste disposal eventually becomes a problem. Sewage, trash … and dead bodies.
Once, when I was a boy on a school excursion to Kyoto, somebody explained that one particular ancient classical poem from that era (when, exactly, I don’t recall) meant roughly that whenever the wind blew a certain way, it stunk to high heaven. I remember how shocked I was. But back then, of course, they didn’t bury their dead. They piled them up on the ground, say in a bamboo grove on the outskirts of town. (Maybe that explains why Kyoto is famous for its bamboo shoots to this day; I don’t know.) Anyway, it’s obvious why they would have had to move the capital periodically. People can’t win out over waste matter; at some point it takes over and gets the better of them. In foreign countries, you often come across the ruins of abandoned cities and towns. Buildings made of stone couldn’t easily be moved, so raw sewage and dead bodies accumulated, epidemics were rampant, and the cities were left to fall into ruins. Wooden structures disappear without a trace, but they might have been that much more sanitary. The only way to avoid having to move, or leave empty ruins, is to build your city around a large manhole. The ideal sewage system, in other words, is like a giant umbilical cord: the lifeline of the city of the future.
Sengoku’s first practical application of his manhole theory was to take over the disposal of aborted fetuses from local obstetricians. The plan was successful as well as clever. Previously, the only recourse had been the makeshift device of mixing the fetuses in furtively with raw waste from the fish market. This system had never appealed to those involved, and they were only too glad to wash their hands of it.
Sengoku and I quickly set up a company that we called SWAMDI, or Special Waste Matter Disposal, Inc. “What title do you want?” I asked him. “You can be president, or executive director, or secretary-general. Take your pick.”
“What will you be?” he answered. “Chairman?”
“Just plain manhole manager is good enough for me.”
“Then I’ll be secretary-general. No president or vice-president. More democratic that way, don’t you think?” he said, adding, “Are there any other members?”
“For now it’s just you and me,” I said.
“Even better,” he said. “The more people, the less each one’s share of the take.”
“The fewer faucets,” I said, “the less leaking.”
“Exactly.”
“So for the time being,” I continued, “I want there to be just
one.
Not that I don’t trust you—I do, but I think you’re better off not knowing too much about the manhole. Then there’s no way you could tell anybody anything. I know it seems unfriendly …”
“No, I don’t mind,” he said cheerfully. “If anything ever happened, I’d get off lighter not knowing.”
The very unconventionality and flamboyance of this first project of ours made it difficult to attract orders. And unless you’re dealing in dead bodies or industrial waste, the disposal business pays next to nothing. Finally, in our third month, we began handling hexavalent chromium. Soon we were doing so at regular intervals, and this became our chief source of revenue. Sengoku gave spending money to his mother, who was still busy proselytizing, and talked her into letting him virtually close up the store. Sometimes, when he was in the mood, he would bake some of his prize sweet-potato cakes just for me.
That was all about a year ago. Since then everything had been going smoothly, until I ran into Inototsu in front of the Plum Blossom Sushi Shop. Sengoku and I worked together well, in a spirit of genuine friendship. Besides meeting once a week at 4 p.m. for the delivery of hexavalent chromium, we met often in a back room of his store (now closed), to drink coffee, chat, exchange last month’s magazines, and play an occasional game of chess. Sometimes we would drink a toast to the manhole. Sengoku used to declare that he had never known such a sense of fulfillment in all his life. The vague anxiety he felt was probably due to his recovery from impotence, but that, he said, smiling, was like the sense of exhilaration you get after washing your face with fine soap. Time seemed to weigh on his hands, so sometimes I had him help me with other things besides the SWAMDI work. Things like purchasing and transporting supplies for the ark: parts for air conditioners, materials for gunpowder, and so on. I realized now that I should have explained everything to him then. It wasn’t that I doubted him at all. I fully intended to give him a ticket to survival too, but I kept putting it off. My failure to include him owed solely to my own lack of decisiveness. He must have suspected something, but he never once asked anything approaching a question— either because he knew his place or because he had suffered a lot for a man his age. He had a habit of saying, “Peace is wonderful.”
“So we beat out your friend Sengoku, eh?” said the shill, upending his fourth can of beer and sucking up the last remaining froth. “He’d be mad as hell if he knew.”
“That’s why I feel guilty. I’ll have to tell him about you three, who’ve contributed nothing, and get his approval after the fact.”
“I wouldn’t trust that person Sengoku,” said the girl, leaning back and tugging at the hem of her skirt. Man-made leather hardly stretches at all, so the only effect was to accentuate the gap between her knees.
“Try to remember, Captain,” said the shill, stifling a yawn. “Was it before or after you ran into Inototsu that you began to sense the presence of an intruder?”
“How do I know?”
“But that’s the crux of it all: that’ll tell you if you can trust your secretary-general or not.”
“Why?”
“It only makes sense,” said the girl. “That man Sengoku sounds too reserved.” She covered the end of her sentence with a smile, to keep me from opening my mouth. “Are you sure he wasn’t in league with the Broom Brigade from the start?”
The question was not lacking in merit. I myself wondered at what point Sengoku had learned of Inototsu’s connection with the Broom Brigade. He certainly knew both that the hexavalent chromium came from there and that Inototsu was my biological father. If he had remained silent while knowing Inototsu to be the head of the Broom Brigade, that suggested not mere reserve but a deliberate lack of candor. Had he wanted to keep his trump card hidden until I was more open about my life in the quarry?
The insect dealer slumped from the table down onto the floor. He landed in a sitting position, eyes half open, but the angle of his neck showed he was fast asleep. Too bad—he was back in position to look up her skirt but unable to do anything about it. Now if only the shill would go to sleep too. I threw him his fifth beer.
“Shall we get ready to turn in?” I said.
“Are you serious?” The shill opened his can, peering under the table.
“That’s right—don’t you know what time it is? It’s still only five after eight.” The girl too looked under the table, pressing her cheek against the chaise longue.
Everyone but me disappeared below the surface of the table. As I kept my gaze level, I was assaulted by a wave of loneliness. Along with quiet came unrest.
“The evening is young. Shall we be setting off?” said the shill.
“Where to?” I asked.
“Cave exploring, of course. Spelunking.” He was still under the table. “What’s this in the bag next to the Styrofoam box—a sleeping bag?”
“Could be, if it’s got dark blue and red stripes.”
“It’s covered with dust.”
“That’s a top-quality brand, I’ll have you know. It’s in a different class from the chintzy stuff they palm off on you in sporting goods stores.”
“What’s the difference?” asked the girl.
“Enough so that a little dust doesn’t matter. The bottom is triple-layered, with nylon, carbon fibers, and a spring, so that whether you’re lying on rocks, gravel, or whatever, you can sleep as comfortably as in a hotel bed.”
The shill tucked the crossbow under his arm, inserted the remaining aluminum arrows in his belt, and stood up. Going around the table, he pulled out a sleeping bag and threw it down from the parapet. Then he grabbed the shoulders of the insect dealer, who was asleep, leaning against the table leg, and began to shake him roughly.
“Okay, Komono—time to go downstairs and go beddy-bye. Wake up, will you!”
“There’s no point in moving too fast,” I counseled. “At least let’s wait till Komono is sober. The more help we have, the better.”
“It’s worse to let the enemy get an edge on you. Don’t forget, the best defense is a good offense. When politicians want to sound tough, they start talking about their indomitable resolve. In a fight, the trick is to let fly a stiff punch that will put a damper on your opponent. You can’t let guys like that Sengoku have it all their own way. Corrupts discipline.”
“But there’s no hard evidence that he
did
turn traitor. It’s all circumstantial, isn’t it?”
“The best way to check it out is to go back there for a look.”
“Why are you so eager for a fight?”
“Drink sharpens my faculties, remember? What is there to be afraid of?”
“All right, then, let me
contact
Sengoku. His radio is set up in the store. If he’s there, that’ll give him an alibi, and disprove your idea that he’s in league with the Broom Brigade.”
“I haven’t got anything personal against the guy, mind you,” said the shill. “He’s just one possible suspect. But go ahead and try to contact him, if that’ll make you feel better. If he’s there, he may have some new information for you, and if he isn’t, the cloud of suspicion will deepen and you can throw away your doubts.”
“I’ll give it a try—but somehow I just cannot believe that he’s that rotten.”
My radio set was in locker number three. The lock combination was easy to remember: 3-3-3. I set the dial and switched it on.
—Channel check. Channel check. Is anyone using this channel?
No answer.
—I repeat. Hello, this is Mole. Mole here. Come in, please.
No answer.
Twice more I repeated the call; still there was no answer.
“That settles it.” The shill clapped his hands. “You’d better give up, Captain. You want to take your camera along when we go? I hear you’re a professional. A photograph of the evidence could be worth a fortune. And, Komono, you wake up. We’ve got to get moving. Come on, I’ll take you downstairs.”
He gave the insect dealer’s shoulder another hard shake, until at last Komono stood up, his whole body emanating sleepiness. Even so, he never loosened his grip on the converted toy Uzi.
“I’ve got to pee,” he mumbled.
The insect dealer leaned on the shill, whose knees buckled. There was a good four-inch difference in their heights, and their weights must have differed to a corresponding degree. Using my head as a prop as he went by, he passed in back of me, nearly knocking over a chair in the process. He had terrible body odor. The odor itself was menacing, and even apart from that there’s something about big men I don’t like—probably from association with Inototsu. As he wavered, unable to negotiate the turnabout, the shill grabbed his belt and held him up. Their unsteady footsteps receded down the staircase.
“What shall I do?” The girl, still lying curled on the chaise longue, looked up at me with a troubled expression.
“Can you swim? I think probably we’ll be diving underwater.”
“No, I can’t. And I can’t hold my beer very well, either—unlike him.”
“Then you shouldn’t come. You’d just end up an encumbrance.” As I went by, I gave her bottom a light slap. Without a flicker of expression, she sighed and said:
“You know, you’ve got to hide your feelings better than that.”
“Was it so obvious?”
“Just like a dog looking for a pat on the head.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I think he wants to start a new life. But don’t forget, he has only six months to live.”
From down below, mixed with the sound of someone passing water, came the noise of voices quarreling. Then a queer voice, with laughter in it. A pause, and then the roar of the toilet being flushed, like a subway train thundering by in the middle of the night.
“He seems nicer than he looks.”
“He’s a fairly complicated person,” she answered thoughtfully. “That may be the very reason why he acts so simpleminded.”
“Has he ever used violence on you?”
She put a hand on her hip where I had slapped her, and said nothing. From below, the shill’s voice boomed out, echoing through the hold.
“C’mon, Captain, let’s go!”
The shill went first, clutching the loaded crossbow in his arms, and I followed, holding a trigger-operated tear gas cylinder. Kicking aside the sprung trap, we cut across the work hold, our footsteps resounding. From habit I tried to muffle mine, but the shill strode boldly ahead, apparently eager to cover ground. Each step we took created its own echo. The sum effect was a loud pattering like the noise of falling raindrops.
“If we make this much noise they’ll hear us coming,” I said. “You know, whoever it was that got away before might have doubled back, and be waiting in ambush up ahead.”
“That’s okay,” he said. “As long as the enemy isn’t planning an all-out attack, it’s safer to make a lot of noise as you approach, whether it’s a bear you’re up against, or anything else.”
By the time we reached the top of the lift, I was panting. I stopped to lean against the wall and catch my breath, but the shill signaled me to hurry, indicating his watch. After a few more yards we reached a room of medium size (still easily as big as a school auditorium), with a split-level floor. Light from the work hold provided soft, indirect illumination, covering the walls with a thick velvety sheen. I planned to set up a periscope here someday for outdoor observation. For the present, taking advantage of the room’s soundproof structure, I used it to test-fire converted guns and mock bullets.