The Ark Sakura

by Kōbō Abe

  “But doesn’t its head always point to the sun?”

  “All it has to do is push against its dung and turn a half-circle. It all fits.”

  “Brilliant.” The girl laughed, and pressed against the coffee cup, rippling the surface of the coffee. “You could make anything sound plausible. And it all comes off the top of your head—I really have to hand it to you!”

  “Well, I’m afraid I can’t be much of an optimist,” I said gloomily.

  “Don’t worry,” said the shill, and slurped his coffee noisily.

  “That’s right. My guiding principle,” said the insect dealer, “is to think first, last, and always of your viewpoint, Captain. You’ve asked for our assistance, and we won’t let you down.”

  “But this request for negotiations could be just an excuse for a skirmish, couldn’t it?” I said.

  “As a former SDF man, what do you say, Komono?” One eye on my Uzi, the shill kept going through the motions of pulling the trigger. “Could we defend ourselves if we had to?”

  “Well, the enemy is a bunch of old men, and amateurs to boot. Structurally this place would make a good stronghold … and besides, you’ve got five crossbows, and seven remodeled guns, right? Pretty good fighting power.”

  There was an intermittent buzz—a call on the radio. All four of us stood up at once and raced to the stairs, the shill in the lead, with the insect dealer holding the girl’s hand and me pushing her by the hips (there was no need to do so, but somehow it made me feel better).

  The voice that came out of the radio receiver sounded like an elephant with a cold. This time it was not Sengoku, but Inototsu.

  17

  SURVIVAL GAME

  —Hello, son, how’re you doing? It’s been a long time. This is your dad. Over.

  —You’ve got one hell of a nerve. I have nothing to say to you. Period. Over and out.

  —Wait. Let’s bury the past. We’re both grown men. Over.

  —Impossible. Over and out.

  —Listen, this is a deal you can’t afford to pass up. Over.

  —Over and out, over and out.

  —Listen, will you? They’re onto me.

  Suddenly the shill gripped my wrist. My fingers opened and the microphone dropped, to be passed to the insect dealer’s waiting hand. He shouldered his way up, pushing against my chest and forcing me out of the front position. That loss was more than made up for by the fact that my buttocks now pressed squarely against the girl’s abdomen.

  —Hello, please continue. This is the captain’s representative. Over.

  —Who the hell are you? Over.

  —The name’s Komono. I’m the captain’s liaison man. Please state your business. Over.

  —Liaison, huh? That’s a good one. Suppose you tell me what you really do. Over.

  —I sell educational materials. Insect specimens, that sort of thing. Now let’s get straight to the point—who is onto you, and why? Over.

  —You’re quite a character. I’m talking about the body, of course. Over.

  —Yes, I understand you have some problem about a dead body. Exactly what kind of body would this be—homicide, or accidental death, or what? Over.

  —How am I supposed to know? Ask my son. Over.

  —Stop playing games. What’s that supposed to mean? Over.

  —Just what I said. This is a body you people abandoned, after all… .

  “You’re crazy!” I yelled. “I don’t know a goddamn thing about any dead body!” The radio was one-way, not adapted for integrated conversation; as long as the other person didn’t push the right button, your voice wouldn’t get through. Knowing this, I still yelled out, in reflex. The insect dealer patted me quickly on the shoulder to shush me up, and the girl pressed harder against my buttocks. Inototsu’s voice continued, oblivious.

  —Of course I have no hard evidence to prove it, but there’s circumstantial evidence galore. If this gets out, it’s going to be rather awkward. You see, my garbage collection business is a responsible social service organization: any illegally discarded objects we come across, we have a legal obligation to turn in to the authorities. But I’m willing to be flexible. Why not settle this just between ourselves? My son is still there, isn’t he? You tell him not to be so stubborn. Children never understand their parents’ feelings. Son, can you hear me? I think you’ve got a very worthwhile enterprise there, and I want you to know I’m supporting you one hundred percent behind the scenes. I certainly don’t want to put you in a compromising situation. I think we can work together, help each other out. Over.

  The shill called loudly from beside the mike. “What do you mean by a ‘worthwhile enterprise’? Garbage collection?”

  —Save your breath. I know all about it. You’ve got a nuclear bomb shelter, right? A very promising venture. Shows great foresight. I can’t go into all the details now—that’ll have to wait till we can get together—but I’m already making some moves on my own. Signing up members. My roster has some pretty impressive names on it too. You see, I think I can help you… .

  “It is a threat,” whispered the girl, her breath brushing the back of my earlobe.

  “That dead body is a trick of some kind too, you can bet on it,” said the insect dealer.

  The shill bit his lip. “Looks like he’s one jump ahead of us.”

  Inototsu continued talking, aware of these interpolations.

  —You’d really be surprised. Why, I’ve got city officials, the director of a credit union, two doctors at the city hospital—even the president of Hishitomi Storage has signed a contract. Very promising, this little venture—it could really go places. You’re not going to let a little thing like a body or two cramp your style, are you? That’s all I have to say. Over.

  Leaving the radio switched to reception, the insect dealer stuck out his jaw, teeth clenched, and said, “Captain, are you positive you know nothing about that body?”

  “Of course I am,” I answered.

  Without even waiting for me to finish, the shill grabbed the microphone out of the insect dealer’s hands and pushed the switch to transmission.

  —Would you mind telling us the victim’s age and cause of death? Over.

  —You’re new. What’s your department? Over.

  —I’m the purser. In charge of passengers’ quarters. Over.

  —Cute. To answer your question, I’m no pathologist, so I haven’t any idea. Aren’t you the ones with that information? Over.

  —That’s a leading question. No fair.

  The shill switched off the radio and looked hard at me. “Couldn’t one of those old men have wandered in and got caught in a trap? Say he got temporarily blinded, and staggered off that cliff… .”

  “But the traps were all tampered with. Knocked out. Remember?”

  “Whoever it was might have started doing that after he had already met with some sort of accident.”

  “I doubt it. Spray plastic takes a long time to harden that way.”

  “As far as that goes, the body may not be fresh, either,” put in the insect dealer.

  The buzzer sounded, urging the resumption of communication.

  “Maybe it’s that guy I chased before.” The shill snapped his fingers. “Maybe he fell in the water and drowned. Wait a minute—that’s it. I bet it’s that fellow Sengoku.”

  “No, it couldn’t be him,” said the girl, her breath again tickling my earlobe. “The captain talked to him on the radio while you were both asleep.”

  “In that case, this body could be very fresh indeed,” said the insect dealer, and slowly took back the transmitter, with an air of grim determination. “The murder could have taken place after that conversation. Even now, by rights, it ought to be the sweet-potato man we were talking to. Inototsu must know the captain hates his guts.”

  The buzzer kept squawking impatiently.

  “That’s right,” I said. “Now that you say so, it is odd—because the other transmitter is in Sengoku’s store. It’s strange for Inototsu
to be talking on it.”

  “That’s peculiar,” said the shill. He licked his lips and swallowed. “Then was the sweet-potato man given the job of disposing of his own corpse?”

  The insect dealer flicked the transmitter on.

  —Wait a minute, please. We’re having a consultation.

  He turned the switch back off and said, “Supposing the sweet-potato man was killed at his store. Circumstantial evidence could very well point to the captain as prime suspect. But what motive could there be?”

  “None—seeing as how I didn’t do it!” I retorted.

  “I mean Inototsu’s motive.”

  “There’s no point in thinking about it,” said the girl. “You don’t even know for sure that the sweet-potato man was the victim.” Her hand rested lightly on my shoulder.

  Instantly her opinion struck me as unassailable truth. “Check it out,” I commanded the insect dealer. “Ask to speak to Sengoku.”

  Nodding, he flicked the transmitter back on.

  —Come in. Sorry to keep you waiting. Would you mind putting the sweet-potato man on the line? Thanks. Over.

  —He’s gone out, but I can leave him a message. Over.

  —What do you mean? You’re in his store, aren’t you? Over.

  —No, I’m in the office over by the tangerine grove. There’s a radio transmitter here too. “Sweet-potato man,” eh? That’s a good one. Suits him, all right. [Sounds of whispering.] Ah—it seems he’s gone out on his motorcycle to get some cigarettes. He should be right back. Over.

  “Ask him where they found the body,” prompted the shill.

  —Where’d you find the body? Over.

  —As if you didn’t know. Over here, by the tangerine grove entrance, of course. If you won’t get rid of it for me, I’ll have no choice but to go to the police. In which case, like it or not, the entire quarry will be the focus of a police investigation. I’d like to avoid that as much as you. Put my son back on the line, would you? I assume he’s still there, listening. It’s high time we had a reconciliation, son. You’ve got the wrong idea about me. If it’s the way I punished you when you were a kid that bothers you, I want you to know that I did it solely out of fatherly love. If that incident had ended up in family court, the shame would have followed you for the rest of your life. Then and now, I have only your best interests at heart… . You’re there, aren’t you, son? Try to understand. And as for that business about trampling my wife to death, it’s a damned lie. What do you say, shall we make a deal? We are father and son, after all. Let’s team up and do something really big. Besides, I’ve changed. Mellowed. And I’m not getting any younger. Over.

  Shoving my way between the insect dealer and the shill, I stuck my face up to the transmitter and yelled:

  —Quit the father-son baloney. It gives me the willies!

  —I can’t help it, it’s true. Half of your chromosomes came from my sperm. Over.

  —Over and out.

  —Wait. All I want is a little bit of happiness in my old age. The Broom Brigade has made a good reputation for itself, and I’d like to do more for society. I want to live a useful life. You see, I have changed. Over.

  “Oh, why did that damn body have to butt in like this?” I muttered. I felt defeated. It had been a bad day. Every conceivable contingency had burst on me with the force of a tidal wave. It was enough to make a person believe in Friday the thirteenth, or unlucky days on the Buddhist calendar, or any such baleful influences.

  The insect dealer drew the microphone close to his mouth and said quietly, in a voice suggesting strong willingness to compromise:

  —I’m sorry, but could you give us a little more time? Over.

  —I hate to repeat myself, but I want to patch things up with my son. It’s only human nature. I’m human too, after all. Over.

  “What do you think?” The insect dealer switched the set off and sighed.

  “There really isn’t any choice, is there?” The shill turned toward me, speaking rapidly. “Isn’t that right? If you don’t want to get on the wrong side of the Broom Brigade, you’ve got no choice but to go ahead and dispose of that body. If the real culprit would only turn up, there’d be nothing to fear… . That’s it, we’ve got to come on strong there. Because if the captain didn’t do it, then the murderer must be one of them.”

  “Not necessarily,” said the insect dealer. “I believe the captain too. But that doesn’t guarantee they haven’t tampered with the evidence. Even supposing it’s all fake, if they did a good job we can’t let down our guard.”

  “Are there really only two entrances to this cave?” asked the girl. She rested her knee on the chaise longue, thereby shifting her weight so that our bodies were no longer pressed together. “Couldn’t some other outfit be camped out somewhere else in here?”

  “It’s awfully hard to imagine,” I said. I had no proof to justify ruling it out. With the rapidity of a high-speed printer, I flipped mentally through the surveying maps stored in my memory. Certainly there were large areas of the cave that I had not yet attempted to map or explore—I had in mind especially those old excavations midway down the eastern cliff, like settings for rock-carved Buddhas. But no tunnel connected them to the interior. The ground there was dry, and the quality of the rock poor; presumably they were trial borings that had been summarily abandoned. To the best of my knowledge, there had been no indications of human comings and goings anywhere, except at the tangerine grove entrance. I added, “And there’s been absolutely no sign of anything… .”

  “Once you start letting your suspicions grow, there’s no drawing a line,” said the shill. “Based purely on circumstantial evidence, I’m a prime suspect myself.” Covering his mouth, he giggled in a way I found unbecoming and unsavory. “You have only my word that I let some suspicious character get away; there’s no proof. Maybe I killed him, and I’ve just been putting on an act all this time. Seeing is believing, isn’t it? I think we should go on over and see for ourselves.”

  “We’ve got to draw the line somewhere. We’re just groping around in circles.” The insect dealer put the radio back on the shelf, clasped his hands, and cracked his knuckles. “In a case like this, all the conjecture and speculation in the world won’t get you anywhere. We’ve got to analyze the situation according to the facts at hand, and map out our strategy. Right? At the moment there are two issues facing us. One is the handling of the body, if it is a body. The other is the proposal from the Broom Brigade, or from their leader, Inototsu, concerning management participation.”

  “Hold on,” I interrupted. “Quit taking the discussion in your own hands, will you?” By the barest fraction of an inch, taking care not to be observed, I nudged closer to the girl. The difference was so slight that I could not tell for sure whether or not our bodies were again touching.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. Perspiration made his glasses slide down his nose. “As captain, your word is final; that goes without saying. I was only trying to clarify our situation. In other words, those two issues—the body’s disposal and Inototsu’s proposal—have to be dealt with separately. Otherwise you play into his hands. He’s trying to use the body as bait for his deal, and you mustn’t fall for it. Isn’t that so?”

  The buzzer sounded again.

  “That makes sense.” The girl nodded briskly; the vibrations conveyed themselves to my buttocks. “They are separate issues. But supposing we turned down his offer of a merger—isn’t it possible that he’d refuse to hand over the body?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Somehow we’ve got to find his weak spot.” Boldly I edged over another tiny fraction of an inch.

  “Nothing could be easier,” said the insect dealer, wiping his glasses on the tail of his shirt. “Leave the bargaining to me. My tongue has gotten me through many a tight spot before. It’d be a cinch.”

  Somehow it had become established that either the insect dealer or the shill, or both, would represent me in the negotiations. I did not fully trust either one of
them, and yet it was a welcome development. For one thing, I doubted my ability to confront Inototsu on an equal basis; for another, if the two of them went away, I’d be alone with the girl.

  “But it’s so disgusting.” Disgust rolled around on her tongue like a taffy. “The toilet won’t be fit to use anymore once we stuff a body down it, will it?”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, “there’s no blood.” It was a lie. Even when I had flushed away the cat’s body, let alone the aborted fetuses, it had been a while before I could bring myself to come near the toilet again. Once I forced myself to urinate there, and ended up vomiting. It was four or five days before I could begin fixing meals near there again. The only reason I was so calm now was that I still didn’t take seriously the existence of this “body.”

  The buzzer went on screaming at us.

  “Okay?” The insect dealer looked at each of us in turn. The shill and the girl gazed at me.

  “Okay,” I said, “but I must insist you stick to the matter of the corpse. Whatever happens, I’m not letting Inototsu on board.”

  The insect dealer flicked the radio back on.

  —Hello. Sorry to keep you waiting. This is Komono, the liaison man. Do you read me? Over.

  —Come in, come in. What took so long? Over.

  —We’ve decided to consider your overture. But we can’t settle on a fee until we’ve had a look at the body in question, and hear a detailed report about its place of discovery, condition at the time, and so on. Where would you like to meet? Over.