The Ark Sakura

by Kōbō Abe

  “Forget it.”

  “Darn. It’s almost time for my favorite show.”

  “Look, TV isn’t going to be around forever.”

  “Don’t you get bored?”

  “I just take a trip somewhere if I do: with three-D aerial-photograph maps, I can fly anywhere I want. Want to take a look?”

  “That’s okay, I’m not in the mood.”

  The shill gave a huge yawn, fell on his sleeping bag, and wiped tears from his eyes. At last, for the first time in hours, it was back: silence. The walls of the underground quarry sighed as if they knew my feelings. CCCCCCcccccccchhhhhh… … a silent mutter as of grass seeds bursting open. Until now these walls had seemed a second skin to me. They had seemed the inner walls of my own bowels, turned inside out for my contemplation. Now that special intimacy was gone forever. Community life meant that they must appear the same to all. The walls were ordinary walls, the floors ordinary floors, the ceilings ordinary ceilings. I would have to refrain from talking out loud to no one but the stone; from singing crazily off key till I was covered in sweat; from dancing ecstatically in the nude. Yes, everything had changed. Even if I could somehow have chased away the shill and the insect dealer, the old tranquillity would never return. Someone was watching me. Even if what I saw had been an illusion, the figment the shill had spotted and chased had at least a ninety percent chance of being real. How else could I explain the way my traps had been tinkered with? Even if the mysterious interloper was Sengoku, it would mean that he not only knew about the secret toilet and the alarm system but also had been listening in on my monologues and songs. The mere thought made every mucous membrane in my body feel soaked in tannin.

  Until I could devise a definite counterplan, there seemed no choice but to keep watch, after all. As I was thinking this, the shill suddenly began to snore. He was fast asleep without any pillow at all, let alone one wrapped in an old undershirt. Now I was the only one awake. That saved the trouble of drawing lots to see who went first. I was angry, but I didn’t feel like forcing either of them to wake up. Collecting the crossbow and the Uzi, I headed for the galley to do what I always did when I couldn’t sleep: sit on the toilet and munch on chocolates, washing them down with beer. I might have a good look now at my eupcaccia too.

  But the focus of my interest turned from there up the stone steps to the top of the bridge. Unreal images began to proliferate. The girl lay asleep now, her whole body pressed tightly against the chaise longue, which was permeated with the smells of my body. Her body nestled in the very curves hollowed out by mine. Perhaps in her dream she was even now smelling my smells. The chaise longue was embracing her bare flesh in my stead. She must be receiving some sort of signal in her dream; if she had normal reception capability, at any moment now she would arise… . And then in fact she did get up and cross over the bridge toward me. She peered down from the end of the parapet, leaned her chin on her hand, and waggled the fingers.

  “Captain, something’s making a funny noise in the lockers.”

  “Ssh.”

  From the waist up she was wrapped in terry cloth the color of a dried leaf; from the waist down she might very well be nude. A T-shirt had been her only upper garment, so it was entirely possible. Pointing to the two men fast asleep in their sleeping bags, I made an exaggerated show of discomfiture, acting as if she and I were accomplices. She waved back. Could she be thinking what I was thinking?

  “I think it’s locker number three. Can you hear?”

  “It’s probably someone trying to reach me on the wireless.”

  At any rate, I was lucky to be able to respond to this new development by myself. Holding the crossbow in my left hand, the Uzi in my right, I climbed the stairs with slow steps. Sniffing, I wondered what it would feel like to slap her bottom on the bare skin, without any skirt in between.

  16

  THIS IS MOLE. OVER.

  —Mole here. Over.

  —Sengoku here. This is an emergency. Can you talk now? Have you got time? Over.

  —What do you mean, have I got time? I’ve been looking all over for you. Over.

  —I’ve got to see you and talk to you in person. It’s very important. Over.

  —Relax, will you? Stop exaggerating. Over.

  —It’s about the Broom Brigade. But I can’t risk having anyone listen in. Over.

  —I’ve already checked to see if anyone’s on this channel. Over.

  —There’s a body. They want me to get rid of it. I can’t have anyone listening in. Over.

  —A body, did you say? Whose? Anyone I know? Do they know who the murderer is? Over.

  —Meet me somewhere and I’ll tell you all about it. Over.

  The girl whispered in my ear: “Don’t let yourself become an accessory to crime. It could be a trap.”

  I was perched on the armrest of the chaise longue. She was seated with knees raised, shoulder against the same armrest. If I so much as turned my head and looked down, our eyes would meet at close range. The voice kept calling.

  —Hello, hello, manhole manager, please come in. Is there someone there with you? Over.

  The girl smiled and stuck out her tongue.

  —You know perfectly well there isn’t. Over.

  —Anyway, it’s not such a bad idea, is it? Considering the nature of the item, I think we could probably charge a fairly exorbitant amount. Of course the Broom Brigade wants to open direct negotiations, but I knew you wouldn’t like that. I explained that you’re something of a recluse, and they finally accepted that. But if you don’t cooperate, they’re going to send their representative charging over there. Over.

  —Who’s that? Not my dear old dad, I hope.

  —Just meet me. Although he isn’t as bad as you make him out to be. Over.

  —You keep your opinions to yourself. Now the son of a bitch has taken up murder, is that it? Over.

  —Nobody said that. Over.

  —I can’t trust you if you’re going to stand up for him, Sengoku. Over.

  —All I’m doing is carrying on hardheaded diplomacy, as secretary-general of SWAMDI. I’m completely neutral. Stop being such a goddamn mole, will you? Over.

  —You’d better have a barbecue or something before that body starts going bad on you. Over.

  —That’s not as safe as you might think. You’d better talk it over with Inototsu. He’s got lots of ideas. Look, now’s the time to forget the past and be reunited, father and son. It’s been five years. Listen to the advice of a friend. Over.

  —I’m disappointed in you, Sengoku. I was going to give you a key to this place. You probably don’t know what that means—then again, maybe you do. A key so you could come and go freely. But now I’ll have to think again. That rat who was running around getting into everything was probably you, anyway. Over.

  “Don’t.” This time it was the girl’s turn to slap me on the bottom. “You mustn’t show your hand.”

  —There seems to be some misunderstanding. Having both you and Inototsu look on me with suspicion puts me in a very difficult position. Over.

  —I have nothing to discuss with you. Over and out. QRT.

  —Wait. He’s not the type to let anything drop. I’m afraid of him myself. Besides, if this new deal works out, I think he’ll reconsider about the shipments of hexavalent chromium too. Over.

  —No comment. QRT.

  —Just the other day he grabbed a pushy junior high school student and crushed his fingers in a pair of pliers. The guy figured Inototsu was just bluffing, so he paid no attention—and damned if Inototsu didn’t go ahead and do it. Crush, crunch. You should have heard the poor guy scream. Over.

  —QRT. QRT.

  —Mole, you’re stubborn. If you change your mind, get in touch with me again right away. I’ll be waiting. QRT.

  As I returned the apparatus to the locker, the girl asked curiously, “What does that mean, ‘QRT’?”

  “It’s an expression used by ham radio operators. It means ‘communication ended.�
� ”

  “Really? How funny.”

  “I feel terrible. Bad aftertaste.”

  “That was amazing,” she said. “Crushing someone’s fingers in pliers! There really are people like that.”

  “Sengoku’s no angel, either.”

  “You were too open with him. I’ll bet Komono would have handled him more shrewdly.”

  “I bought his sweet-potato cakes every day for over six months; I’m his best customer. Not only that, I paid him a straight twenty percent commission on the hexavalent chromium business… .”

  “What are you going to do? If you don’t do something, he said they’ll come charging in here.”

  “They’re trying to scare me with that talk about a dead body. Who could it be? Do they mean to drag me into it so they can implicate me in the murder?”

  “There’s no point in wasting time worrying. The best thing to do is tell the others about it and see what they say.”

  “It won’t work.”

  “Decide that after you’ve talked it over with them.”

  “I just wasn’t cut out to be the leader of a group like this.”

  “Now now, there’s only four of us.”

  “Do you know the three basic conditions necessary for survival in a nuclear shelter? First is waste disposal, second is ventilation and temperature control, and third is management.”

  “Wait,” she said. “Before you wake them up, let me go to the toilet. The noise of flushing it will probably wake them all up, anyway.”

  Was she seriously thinking of straddling that seat wearing nothing but a terry-cloth blanket? Impossible; too indecent. Surely she would put on some clothes first. Here, right in front of me, she would stand in her panties and step into the red artificial leather skirt; then, nude from the waist up, she would pass her arms through the sleeves of that T-shirt with the palm trees on the front. I could gaze at close range on her underarm stubble and the shape of her navel. Finally I too would be able to share a moment of casual intimacy with a woman. All because I had built the ark. Or was I only a pig to her—no one to be shy around?

  The blanket arched through the air, landing on the chaise longue. Unfortunately, she was fully dressed, wearing both skirt and T-shirt. I’d half expected as much. Still, I couldn’t help feeling the wistful pang of a child deprived of a longed-for treat. After she was gone, the terry-cloth blanket remained where it had fallen, folded in half and twisted in a doughnut shape … the shape of eupcaccia dung. Falling on my knees, I buried my face in it, breathing its odor of moldy bread. That was the blanket’s odor, not hers.

  The sound of urination, like an unsteady arc drawn with trembling hand. The sound of paper being torn. Then the roar of flushing: water and air engaged in mutual attack, plummeting simultaneously. I regretted my failure to ask her name. And who, I wondered, was the real cancer patient—him or her?

  After a time, there came the sleepy, cheerful laughter of the men, evidently teasing her about something. With me not there, they seemed to feel liberated. I myself grew weary of my gloomy personality; and yet when I was alone I’d often managed to feel quite gay. Singing, laughing, acting out solo dramas with only the stone walls for audience … dancing with spidery nimbleness on wafers of stone … seldom bored or lonely …

  “Captain,” called the voice of the insect dealer, still thick with drowsiness. “So you heard from them, did you?”

  “Come on down, I’ll make some coffee.” The girl’s too-innocent voice continued, and at last I raised my face from the towel.

  “Looks like we’d better be prepared to stay up all night,” said the shill with a yawn.

  Doing what one wants to do, and refusing what one doesn’t want to do, seem alike, but are in fact utterly different. I didn’t want to meet anyone’s eyes. Holding the converted gun, I sat on the third step. The girl was at the sink, measuring out ground coffee. The shill was seated on the john, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. The insect dealer was sitting up in his sleeping bag, waving a lighted cigarette over his head.

  “This one puts me over my quota for the day,” he said. “Somehow I feel as if I’ve been dreaming a long dream.”

  “I don’t know—however great the water pressure may be, could you really flush a human body down this hole?” The shill stared down between his legs. “It is a human body, I assume.”

  “It must be.” She switched on the coffeepot and wiped her hands on the shill’s shirt.

  “I did flush a dead cat down there once,” I said, and purposely held my hands wide apart, exaggerating its size. “One this big, a tortoiseshell. It just popped right down.”

  “A human body isn’t the same as a cat. The head alone is huge.” The insect dealer inhaled deeply on his cigarette and blew the smoke out slowly through his nostrils, as if loath to part with it. “It can’t get through anyplace narrower than the head. That’s how they space the bars in animal cages, did you know that? By matching the spaces to the size of the animal’s head.”

  “Stop it—how sickening!” The girl seemed genuinely angry. “Do you intend to go through with it?”

  “Certainly not. That’s the last sort of thing I’d want to get mixed up with.”

  “In that case, why didn’t you come out and say so before? You sound so wishy-washy that you end by giving them an excuse.”

  “An excuse for what?” asked the shill.

  “Well, Sengoku said that if the captain wouldn’t enter into negotiations, they’d storm the place.”

  “Starting to talk tough, eh?” The insect dealer snuffed out his cigarette on the sole of his shoe.

  “They’ll come in here over my dead body,” I declared. “I don’t even want to talk to Inototsu. Let me make one thing clear: as long as I’m captain of this ship, he will never, ever, have boarding privileges. Even if I could fit the entire population of the world in here, I’d still keep him out in the cold. For me, survival means one thing: having him die.”

  “I can appreciate how you feel …” The insect dealer opened his eyeglass case and took out a pair of glasses. “… but how are you going to turn him back if he does come on board? Maybe you could if he was alone, but he’s apt to come with his entire entourage.”

  “In other words, the captain’s stymied.” The shill took off one shoe and began to massage the arch of his foot. “Which means it’s our turn now. All we have to do is go to the bargaining table in his place.”

  “That’s right.” The girl poured coffee into the cups. “After all, Inototsu is using that Sengoku person as his representative. There’s no reason why the captain should have to handle this in person. Come get your coffee.”

  “He’s got his representative, you’ve got yours. What could be more fair?” The shill took his cup and without warning dealt the girl’s left cheek a sudden hard slap.

  “Ow!” she screamed, raising a hand to her cheek. Then she held out her hands like a magician, and smiled. “Didn’t hurt a bit.”

  “A little trick I learned.” The shill passed a cup to the insect dealer and nodded. “You fit the hollow of your hand perfectly against the curve of the cheek, and make the air explode. It makes a terrific noise, with practically no pain. Perfect for making it appear you’ve bad a falling-out with your companion, and confusing the other side. Works like a charm. What do you say, isn’t that quite a trick?”

  “It is indeed. Thanks to you, I’m wide awake.” The insect dealer finished polishing his glasses and put them on, reseating himself on top of his sleeping bag. “If you agree, Captain, he and I will take over the negotiations. A charlatan and a shill—now there’s a combination for you.”

  “One practices deception, and the other’s taken in by it. Perfect.” She held out a coffee cup and peered up at me through her lashes. Since I was above her, she could hardly do otherwise, but I deliberately chose to read a hidden meaning into her look. If the insect dealer and the shill went out together, she and I would be alone.

  “Sure,” I said, “go ahead if you want.
It’s okay with me.” I descended the steps and accepted a cup of coffee. The touch of her fingertips was like cold bean curd.

  “But he’s no pushover,” I warned. “Logic doesn’t get through to him. Besides, you talk about ‘negotiations,’ but my position is non-negotiable.”

  The girl gave me a swift wink. I broke off. Blowing on her coffee to cool it, she said:

  “Now that you’re awake, Komono, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. That bug called the eupcaccia—it moves around in a circle with its head facing the sun, while feeding on its own eliminations, isn’t that right? So when it’s dark and it goes to sleep, it’s facing west. Right?”

  “I suppose so,” answered the insect dealer without enthusiasm.

  “Then that’s strange. What happens when it wakes up the next morning?”

  “You’re asking me? Ask the captain. He bought one, he must know.”

  “Actually I never gave it any thought,” I said, “but now that you mention it, it is strange.”

  “Not really.” The insect dealer put his glasses in the steam rising from his cup, clouding them on purpose. “Just use your head. A clock doesn’t have to have a twelve-hour dial. There are such things as clocks with twenty-four-hour dials. I saw one once”