by Kōbō Abe
“Just tell me what you want to know. I’ll look it up for you.”
“No—I want to pile it up and sit on it. My knee can’t hold me up much longer.”
“Five or six volumes enough? Seven would do it for sure, I guess,” he said, and trotted up the stairs.
The adjutant opened a large notepad and drew a line with a felt pen. He marked it off at regular intervals, adding numbers. “Excuse me, sir. Allow me to explain briefly the daily routine. Work ends at 0430 hours. Then showers and baths, then chorus.”
“Chorus means the martial songs,” stuck in Sengoku.
“That’s right. You know—‘Here we bide, hundreds of miles from home, in far-off Manchuria …’ ”
“I don’t like it. Too jaded,” said the insect dealer, shaking his head.
“It’s a good song for quintessential castoffs,” said the shadow. “It expresses so well the heartfelt sadness of soldiers forced to die meaningless deaths.”
“It’s sad, all right—especially the part that goes: ‘My friend lies ’neath a stone in yonder empty field.’ ”
“Ah, but that’s not the line that gets to them the most. It’s ‘tears in my eyes.’ That’s the one place where they manage to sing in perfect unison.”
“Same difference.”
“At 0500 hours, everyone assembles in the mess hall.”
“Where’s that?”
“Starting today we’ll be using room number two, next door to here.”
“Oh, you think so, do you?” I expostulated. “Who the hell said you could do that? Who do you guys think you are, anyway?”
“But the construction squad has already started transporting food and materials.”
“Look, Komono,” I said. “Just because you’re the new head of the Broom Brigade doesn’t mean you can do things like that.”
“Is it out of the question?” asked the adjutant, and went on swiftly in a well-rehearsed tone. “Oh, well, we could always switch to room number three, above the lift; about eighty percent of the items have been moved that far already. All the men are anxious to join the search squad in looking for the junior high school girls as quickly as possible. It has a direct bearing on morale.”
“Captain, would you mind leaving this up to me?” said the insect dealer. “It seems to me that in the middle of a confusing situation, changing everything around is only going to compound the confusion. I’m doing my best to work things out to everybody’s satisfaction… .”
Having anticipated a more convincing argument in his old, flowing style, I felt vaguely disappointed. If this was how he stood up to the adjutant, I feared the worst. How had he managed to secure the position of commander in so short a time, anyway? If it was solely by virtue of having shot and killed Inototsu, then they were no better than a pack of monkeys. To push Komono any further might only be playing into the adjutant’s hands.
Just then the shill came down the stairs, carrying the encyclopedia volumes piled on his shoulder.
“Besides,” I said, “I’ll have you know the room next door isn’t room number two, anyway. It has a proper name—the work hold.”
“I beg your pardon.”
The girl and the shill together piled up the volumes catty-corner behind the toilet, adjusting them to the proper height. Sengoku held me under the arms, helping me to sit down without putting any additional strain on my knee. Once I had endured a pain rather like that of stretching a sprained muscle, I did feel more comfortable. A wreath of mist swirled lightly around inside my head, like drowsiness. In my knee and the arch of my foot, it was as if electrodes had been implanted, sending out electrical current in rhythmic pulses. Slowly, very slowly, the current was gaining in strength.
“It won’t be long now,” said the adjutant, crinkling his eyes; the wrinkles in the corners looked as if they’d been pasted on. His shadowy existence was gradually fleshing out, beginning steadily to fill its proper share of space.
“Drugs may ease the pain, but they won’t solve the problem,” I said.
“For now at least let’s ease the pain,” said the insect dealer, with a wave and a smile. “That encyclopedia was a clever idea. It must feel a little better anyway, with your weight off the leg.”
“If he suggests knocking me out with drugs and then cutting off the leg,” I said, looking first into the shill’s eyes and then into the girl’s, and finally resting my gaze on Sengoku, “I want you to protect me. Don’t let them lay a finger on me, do you hear?”
The insect dealer turned till he was facing me directly and said, “Captain, watch your manners, if you don’t mind. You’re going too far. Please be more discreet.”
“You’re responsible. What do you mean, the SDF was a disappointment? You seem to be enjoying yourself, all right, the way you snap out those commands… .”
“You know, it surprises even me. I’m not lying, either. (I only do that for pay.) It’s a fact: there’s all the difference in the world between getting orders and giving them. It’s like the difference between the steering wheel and the driver.”
“I want to see the sky,” said the girl, between sips of water over at the sink. Her voice was a monotone, like that of a child reading from a textbook.
“I still say that owning your own country is the greatest luxury there is. Excuse me, sir.” The adjutant’s pencil struck the third point on the line he had drawn on his notepad. “Breakfast begins with recitation of the Broom Brigade oath: ‘I pledge to sweep away all trash blocking the way ahead.’ This morning—at this time of year the sun must be about ready to come up; it must be morning by now—I’d like to include some time for silent prayer in memory of Commander Inototsu. Showing the proper courtesy toward the one you felled will go far in engaging the men’s trust. If possible, a eulogy from the captain would be—”
“Don’t make me laugh.” I snorted.
“Very well, I won’t insist. Excuse me.” He continued with his litany. “At 0545 hours, breakfast is over. Then there’s a fifteen-minute break. At 0600 hours, the trial begins. It’s divided into two parts, the first being mutual arraignment, which involves having Broom Brigade members submit anonymous written indictments of each other. Yes, I know what you’re going to say—but a certain amount of mutual distrust is like a shot in the arm, vital if the system is to operate smoothly. There is certainly no need to publicize all the reports; you and I can pigeonhole them if we want, Commander, or we can create our own—”
“You mean trump them up, don’t you?” said the shill accusingly from the top of the stairs, shooting off the words like paper airplanes.
“As you wish.”
“Depressing. These guys are all so depressing,” lamented Sengoku.
“Nonsense,” sniffed the adjutant. He sucked on a back tooth, stretching his jaws open as far as he could without opening his mouth. I suspected he had false teeth. “Let’s have no high-sounding talk. This method is being used all over—corporations, schools, everywhere. It’s called the ‘self-supervision system.’
“Well, shall we proceed to part two of the trial? This is by far the most important activity of the day … unless, of course, by this time the junior high school girls have been netted, in which case we may have to change plans. I’m afraid the brigade members are painting a rather lurid picture of what will follow in that case—something to the effect that they will divvy them up by lots on the spot. Extreme caution will be essential in handling the female brats, and in persuading the brigade members to exercise self-control. No one has to participate who doesn’t want to—although I for one am looking forward to it, and the captain might just find the information he’s looking for. First we’ll line them up and introduce them to the brigade, and then the four of us can conduct in-depth interviews in private. How does that sound?”
“How can you sit still and listen to this?” said Sengoku, his breath coming somewhat faster than seemed necessary. “I can’t stand it.”
“Nobody’s asking you to,” remarked the adjutant, an
d continued. “Leaving that aside, we now come to part two of the trial, when this comes into play.” He picked up the telephone directory, which had a well-worn look, placed his hand on top, and clamped his mouth shut as if weighing the effect. The effect was all he could have hoped for. Having some inkling of what this was all about, I became still more depressed.
“Look—isn’t he still crying?” whispered the girl over my shoulder. The youth was standing motionless, his face buried in his arms on the storage drum. It was hard to tell; he might have been crying or he might just have dozed off.
“I think gangrene is setting in,” I said.
“It won’t be much longer now. Hang on… .”
“I suppose it wouldn’t help if I just blasted a hole in the pipe with my Uzi.”
“You’d bleed all over the place, since your leg itself is acting as the stopper,” she said.
“To continue—we use this to search for the right people,” said the adjutant, picking up the directory and flipping through it. All sorts of symbols were inscribed on its pages in different colors of ink: # * % & # $ < > ¤ ¥ § O ? “This is what we use to screen people, to determine if they are fit to survive. We go through the whole list in alphabetical order, proceeding at a rate of about thirty names a day. Anyone who receives a strong majority of negative votes will naturally be eliminated. What it comes down to, really, is a death sentence. Where there is a division of opinion, we’ll put a person on hold. There are various ranks among those on hold, and after reevaluation a person can be given a new rank, or have the sentence of death confirmed.”
“What’s the standard for that evaluation?” asked the shill. “How do you propose to gather the necessary data?” I noticed appreciatively that he said nothing about his evolution-based views that human trash would make the best crew, instead taking my side—as per our agreement—and voicing my own doubts.
“I can understand what deeply satisfying work it must be.” The insect dealer nodded sympathetically. “You have absolute power of life and death. It’s obviously very crucial work too—after all, you’re assigning responsibility for the future of the entire human race.”
“Naturally,” said the adjutant, “we use all sorts of data for reference. Files in the city hall computer, giving fairly detailed information on family, occupation, income, and so forth, in addition to reports from private detectives, credit bureaus, and what have you. But there is precious little time, so we have to process an average of at least thirty people a day. No one person can be allotted more than five minutes. As a result, to expedite the process, we occasionally take into consideration gossip about the candidate, his general reputation—even the aura of his residence as seen from the outside—to help in forming a judgment. In the lack of relevant data other than the entry in the phone book, we go by our gut reaction to the candidate’s name and phone number.”
“Is it possible for someone who’s innocent to receive the death sentence?” The insect dealer, sitting with his legs crossed, reversed their position.
“Everyone is innocent before standing trial.”
“That’s true. I guess it’s better than throwing dice.”
“Dice are no good. That way, not enough people receive the death penalty.”
“That many have to die, do they? Well, I suppose it can’t be helped. The number of people who can fit in here is limited.”
“They’re crazy.” The girl’s voice at my ear was hoarse.
“What’s the ratio of death penalties to acquittals?” the shill mumbled, barely opening his mouth; his voice too sounded weak.
“There haven’t yet been any complete acquittals.” The adjutant’s voice remained perfectly calm. Was he only putting on an act for his own amusement? “Most people get the death penalty, and the rest are on hold. There are various categories among the people on hold: retrial, pending, bail, temporary release, suspended sentence, appeal, and so forth. The case is reconsidered after new evidence or new testimony is brought in. Still, mainly it’s the death penalty. If you’ve ever visited a courtroom, perhaps you’ll understand—the greatest excitement among the quintessential castoffs in our company occurs the moment that the death penalty is announced. That seems to be when they feel the greatest pleasure and purpose in their status as quintessential castoffs. I do wish people would stop treating this as some sort of personality aberration.” Laying a palm on the opened telephone directory, without moving his head he looked straight at the shill and the girl. “Sentencing people to death began as a painful means for choosing the few who would be able to survive—but at some point it became an end in itself, and a highly pleasurable one at that. Some might interpret this as the warped mentality of quintessential castoffs, I suppose. But there’s far more to it than that. Out of all the stories I read when I was a boy, two scenes in particular stand out in my mind. I’ve forgotten the rest of the plots, but those scenes are vividly etched in my mind. One is the queen in Alice in Wonderland running around yelling, ‘Off with their heads! Off with their heads!’ at every little thing. The other is in one of Andersen’s fairy tales—which one, I’ve forgotten—where a young prince hiding behind a tree hands out death sentences to passing travelers and cuts them down on the spot. That’s the way it is even in the world of children—how much more so, then, among quintessential castoffs, who in a sense are condemned men (and women) granted a temporary stay of execution. Besides, the sentences we give out can only be executed by the condemned people themselves.”
Leaning back against the flushing lever, which now did nothing but wobble ineffectually, I rubbed the sides of my knee, feeling rather as if I had wet the bed and gotten soaked. If Inototsu’s ferocity and total disregard for others were dissolved, distilled, and crystallized, they would come out resembling this adjutant’s logic. Could I have stopped there, and repudiated his words at face value, there would have been some hope. But the more I thought about it the less difference there was between what he was doing and what I, all unconsciously, had been doing too. How could I defend myself against the charge that my extreme reluctance to part with tickets to survival came to essentially the very same thing?
Both the insect dealer and the shill had repeatedly accused me of misanthropy. They were right. I too had been signing secret death sentences without benefit of trial, all along. Whose way was more cruel? It was hard to say. In any case, I had lost all grounds for criticism of the Broom Brigade. Instead I wanted to criticize myself, crush myself to death like a flea.
“I don’t know,” said the shill. “It sounds inefficient to me to concentrate only on whom you can eliminate.” He snapped his fingers and banged the banister as if determined somehow to turn the tables on the adjutant. “Why not take the opposite approach, and compile lists of all the necessary trained personnel? Doctors, nurses, computer experts, car mechanics …”
“After the bomb, there won’t be any need for computer experts,” interrupted Sengoku with understated irony. “Electromagnetic waves will make computers useless.”
“We’ve taken scrupulous pains to do just what you’re saying,” answered the adjutant. “Among the brigade members are accountants, cooks, even agricultural workers. We also have carpenters, plasterers, judo experts … butchers … plus a sweet-potato-cake baker, a cameraman, and our commanding officer here, who has a very special talent: mob pacification.”
The last three were apparently offered in light jest, to show off the accuracy of his information. I was distracted, however, by the deliberate pauses before and after “butchers.”
The shill spoke up defensively. “I happen to be a past master of legerdemain.”
“We’ll need you, then,” said the adjutant, quietly closing the telephone book. “Because not only utility goods are necessary for survival. Any struggle requires a dream. Spiritual self-sufficiency is the greatest recompense of all; that’s what the trial is all about.”
“I used to sell dreams,” said the insect dealer, gazing at me as if searching his way through dark
ness. “The rest of the eupcaccias are still out in the jeep, aren’t they?”
“Dreams aren’t enough, either,” said the shill. “We need knives and guns … and toilets.” Suddenly he sprang up, shaking with tension. Then he took a deep breath and sat back down. “In here it’s as if there wasn’t any need to sweat over money. I suppose even outside, after the apocalypse—the New Beginning—debtors and creditors will cease to exist. But right now, step one foot outside and they’re crawling everywhere, playing hide-and-seek with each other. How can it ever be any different? How can there ever be a New Beginning?”
“We need air too,” repeated the girl vacantly.
“That’s why we carried out the hunt for junior high school girls,” said the adjutant. “The younger the better—don’t you agree, Commander? Like wet paper, in a way: the time you spend slowly warming them up, before they catch fire, is the most enjoyable. Say, that fellow’s taking an awfully long time getting back, isn’t he? Where’s that medicine? Let’s have the scouts check up on him, and on the progress of the search too. Commander, will you give the orders?”
Nodding, the insect dealer stood up. Lightly rubbing his gold badge with the ball of his thumb, he stared intently at the youth, whose face was still buried on the storage drum, and drew a deep asthmatic-sounding breath, filling his chest with air, about to speak.
Just then the steel hatch creaked open and a scream echoed. All the air the insect dealer had inhaled rushed out of him, before he could say a word.
