The Ruined Map

by Kōbō Abe

  “Let me give you a lift. Which way are you going?”

  “You mean where am I going?” Her voice was challenging and unexpectedly contained. “There’s no use my deciding that.”

  Involuntarily I gave a forced smile, and she too contorted her features in a mirror image.

  “Does that mean you’re ready for anything?”

  “You’re a despicable person.”

  Suddenly I slammed the door in the girl’s face. I put my foot on the gas; the tires churned up the gravel and the front end of the light car sprang up like a boat cresting a wave. The girl, abandoned, was dumbfounded, standing there as expressionless as a frozen fish.

  I WAS standing around. Just standing around, outside of time, in front of the telephone at the corner of the counter in the Camellia coffee house.

  “Is he dead?”

  “It looks as if they tortured him slowly to death.” The strangely excited voice of the chief came ringing from the diaphragm of the receiver. “Is anything wrong? Don’t tell me you don’t have an alibi.”

  “How could I?”

  “Well, anyway, get in touch with the client right away. She’s already called here three times since this morning.”

  “Where did you get this information?”

  “The client, of course.” Suddenly his tone changed. “Oh, do we get information any place else?”

  “I was just asking. All right. I’ll get in touch with her immediately.”

  “May I remind you once again that every one of us has to take the responsibility for his own complications.”

  “Yes, I understand. I’ll show up at the office around noon.”

  I stood motionless. He was dead! I replaced the receiver and stood motionless.

  By this time the police were in an uproar no doubt. I wondered if, in the investigation, my existence might possibly come to their attention. Supposing it did, then the extending ramifications of the inquiry would reach to the M Fuel Suppliers. The man in the light car. The man who claimed he came from Dainen Enterprises. The inquiry would shift to Dainen Enterprises. And there again the man in the light car would come up. So whether I liked it or not my presence would come out. But it didn’t necessarily follow that this would mean trouble for me right away. First, I had no motive. And then, if they wanted a suspect there were lots of others. But if I could, I wanted to avoid getting involved.

  Perhaps I needn’t worry. There was no reason for the police to entertain the wild fancy that, behind the dramatic events, M Fuel Supplier’s was involved. At this point, I was sorry I had not been able to establish clearly what he intended to use as blackmail.

  And there was something else, something that was basically changed by his death: the funds for paying the investigation expenses were cut off. Perhaps my work ran counter to the fundamental wishes of my client—which would mean that the curtain would fall all too soon, doubtless within the week.

  Yet, wherever did this feeling of being balked in my expectations come from? I wondered. I returned to my seat, and as I stirred my lukewarm coffee, I began to be invaded by the gloomy and sentimental feeling that I had only myself to thank. Perhaps it was a feeling of sadness for the dead man. No, that couldn’t be. Beyond the black-mesh curtain lay, today too, the open-air parking lot, bleak as a head cold. If I remember right, yesterday about this time he had called to me from the second pillar there, his oily smell spreading like a gelatinous sap, especially from his stiffened shoulders. It had begun then, a prickliness like hives, created by my awareness of him and even now not in the least quenched.

  If there was anything at all strange, it was perhaps a variation of my impression of his pride which became arrogance. Definitely my client had paid her money to retain me; she was my employer. But she usually made eyes like a begging dog or else flashed her servile smile as if she somehow felt guilty. At such times, in order to make her feel at ease, I would smile servilely along with her, thinking that people were like that. I would show her I was willing to handle her dirty wash. Since within our hearts we secretly want everything in existence to be dirty, we always recover our self-respect and discover light and hope in life. But her brother made no effort to show the slightest bit of this wretchedness. From the first, he did not try to conceal that he was covered with filth, but he stubbornly refused to let me see that filth, much less to touch it. He was quite different from the type of customer I had had up to now. It was true that he was a strange fellow, but I could not claim to be unprejudiced. When I realized this bias, I had the feeling of being able to recall, however, dimly, that I had overlooked—no, had actually tried to overlook—something. His earnest expression, for instance, the time he asked for my opinion of his “sister as a woman.” Or his thoughtfulness in details, as when he ordered a free egg from the owner of the microbus stall. If I hadn’t clung so to my preconceptions, if I had kept myself at the same level with him without deciding from the first that he was a wall obstructing my view, he might have surprised me by changing from a wall into a door, through which he might have invited me in.

  Of course, the wall was no more. And with it the possibility of a door had vanished too.

  It was already too late.

  What he didn’t want to say as well as what he perhaps did want to say, as he crawled away through the dry grasses of the embankment like some broken umbrella, was now nonexistent. The puzzle ring forcibly taken apart has no more relation to a puzzle.

  I glanced at my wrist watch. It was 11:08, but even if I entered that in my report sheets, there was nothing to write after it. No, it was not only this moment; I had practically no hope of anything to report on, even after an hour, three hours, or ten hours. Harassed by these thoughts, I downed the remaining coffee and rose. But what should I do? Was there something to be done? Again I stood there indecisively … just standing, like the girl I had left behind at the foot of the library steps. Being dragged around in the dark, deprived of freedom, ignorant of one’s whereabouts or objective, was vexing enough, but suddenly being picked up on the street with neither explanation nor excuse was really insulting treatment.

  Behind the counter the proprietor of the shop was buried up to his neck in his newspaper. The sulky waitress, her elbow on the cash-register stand, held to her ear a small radio, the volume low, as she stared vacantly outside. As she stood there her lips were contorted in an unconscious sneer—was she laughing at the radio program, or at me standing there so indecisively, or was she laughing at something else? Following her gaze, I looked out of the window and saw something terribly unnerving. A group of three men, apparently salesmen, were passing by, discussing something among themselves. Each carried the same kind of briefcase under his arm, each had an expression filled with hostility. Beyond them, the endless flow of cars. And beyond that, the parking lot—something that stirred my memory irritatingly, like the edge of a broken molar. Digits … seven digits at the bottom of the parking lot sign. The telephone number!

  The matchbox label … the Camellia coffee house … the classified ad in the old newspaper … the little piece of paper pinned to a corner of the lemon-yellow curtains—the telephone number had appeared repeatedly on all of them.

  At length I recovered my sense of time and, however faintly, my memory of the map. Without removing the radio from her ear, the girl pulled the lever of the cash register. “Do you take reservations for the parking lot over there?” I inquired, raising my voice.

  Instead of answering, the girl merely looked sideways at the proprietor. The newspaper sank to the counter and the man raised his eyes. When our eyes met there were sparks. He spoke in a high-pitched voice, ill-suited to his growth of beard.

  “Full up, I guess. Sorry.” Ignoring me, he lowered his ill-humored face to the newspaper.

  “You’ve got a lot of free time around here.”

  “What’s that?” snapped the girl grimly, taking the radio from her ear, overly reacting quite as if I had played some trick on her. Though I was bewildered, my imagination wa
s unexpectedly stimulated. My resentment was washed away: it was as if I was under a hot shower, grasping my penis … an urge for release that made me want to laugh like an idiot, welling, pulsating within me. Perhaps I really did laugh—just a little. With my eyes fixed on the girl’s face, I walked around the register and grasped the receiver. I dialed Dainen Enterprises and asked to be connected with the young clerk Tashiro.

  —“Tashiro? I want to thank you for yesterday.…” When I identified myself, he had a moment of confusion before responding. For an instant, I suspected he might have already heard about the death, but apparently not. As soon as I recalled to him his promise to have a drink with me, his tone changed to one of friendliness and intimacy—perhaps he had little experience in sharing confidences like this with strangers. I stared at the thick line of hair behind the girl’s ears. “Let’s meet at S—– station … where you drew the map for me yesterday … hmm, the spot where you were supposed to meet Mr. Nemuro.… I’d just like to check it out. Let’s say seven o’clock, all right? Then, most important, I’d like you not to forget to bring along the … uh … those special nude shots.” The girl hastily brought the radio to her ear, but there was no sign that she had turned it on. “After I’ve thoroughly gone over the nudes again, I’d like, if possible, to interview the model as soon as I can.…” Of course she could not hear the suddenly businesslike answers, so my exchange sounded quite meaningless. Then I lowered my voice and added—no, rather than an addition it was probably my real purpose: “Another thing I’d like you to think about: how would you go about blackmailing a fuel supplier? An ordinary fuel supply place … hmm … a retailer. I’d like your advice. What kind of blackmail is there? Think about it till we meet.”

  I had the feeling of having tweaked the girl’s pug nose—as far as that goes, the proprietor’s too—with my conversation. Of course, from where I stood I could not make out her nose very well, for it was hidden by the wrist holding the radio. The proprietor’s face remained buried behind the newspaper and he was motionless. Immediately above his head the poster of the South American coffee plantation was comical, for one could suppose, in place of the lighting fixture discolored with dust, a sun scorching men and plants to a tawny yellow and gilding the distant mountain range. I could hear someone walking on the floor above. Slowly the sound of steps drew near, stopped directly over my head, and at the same rate withdrew again. I no longer stood motionless. When my surprise had passed, I regained my balance, like surf beating in on the shore, then returning to its original water line. His death had hurled the wave unexpectedly high, washing over my feet, sweeping away the slender line of road along the verge of the cliff, but when the water subsided there was nothing new, nothing to make much of a fuss about. In the final analysis, the burden I was charged with had simply been reduced to the limit of the first thirty thousand yen. The obligation remained for me to carry on the investigation five days more. Yet I could not even guarantee that her attitude too might not suddenly change, that she would not simply propose a cancellation, saying she would like me to drop the matter this very day. That I was somewhat reluctant to do; it would leave an unpleasant taste. But as far as business accounts were concerned, it would be by far the best way. The chief would be satisfied too, I supposed, and would probably make no objection.

  It suddenly occurred to me that this might be the real reason I was putting off telephoning her. I was overcome by a strange sense of shame, as if I were looking at myself peering through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars in front of a mirror. Though I had not been asked and I myself was unaware of having done it, had I unthinkingly signed a receipt for over thirty thousand yen? Ludicrous. Among my fellow investigators nothing would be considered so ridiculous. As the chief was always saying, a client’s not a person; think of him as food to stuff our craws. We’re a bunch of syphilitic curs.

  Actually, binoculars, if used in a certain way, give the effect of X ray. For instance, you can read more expressions and characteristics from a single photo of a given person than you can by meeting him face to face. First you set the photo up vertically and if possible remove the ears and darken the background. Adjust the source of light so there is no reflection. Then kneel at a distance about twenty or thirty times the length of the diagonal of the photo. No, you don’t really have to kneel, but the picture should be at eye level. Use binoculars with a rather narrow angle of vision and a magnifying power of about fifty times. You can fill in the background any way you will by your imagination; and any trembling of your hand, rather than being detrimental, will actually help in lending mobility to the expression. At first you see only a magnified picture at a distance of about a yard. You’ve got to keep at it at least ten minutes. Then about the time the strain makes the eyeballs feel hottish, an ordinary photo suddenly begins to take on a three-dimensional aspect and the skin becomes flesh-colored. When that happens, you’ve got it. You concentrate fixedly without blinking and you strain your eyes to the point of feeling pain. It’s as if your stare cannot be endured, and the eyes in the picture, or the corners of the lips, twitch spasmodically. If it’s a side view, the face will seem to look askance at you; if the face is looking directly at you it will avert its glance and repeatedly blink. Next, as if nerve tendrils were stretching out and commingling in the space between the picture’s eyes, its lips, and other elements of expression and your own, you begin to be able to read what lies beyond the expression as if it were your own mind. What is most important is that you see private things, things that are never exposed to others. (I had tried it once before going out, and I would never have overlooked the missing man even if I were to pass him on some escalator going in the opposite direction.) He—the husband—bit down hard on his right inner molar, projected his lower lip and half opened his eyes; his eyes moved unstably around his feet at a thirty-degree angle, and his feelings, not once ruffled, as usual carefully combed and held in place with oil, now rose up threateningly like the fur on a cat’s back in the face of an enemy. For an instant it was the husband, with a forlorn expression he had never exposed to anyone. The method was an original technique of observation I had thought up myself, and when I saw that among my fellow investigators it was rather well thought of, I was quite pleased with myself. The chief thought differently. He thought any enthusiasm, as such, stupid.

  Of course, ideally, the time of observation should be at night. And you’ve got to spend at least two hours at it. Furthermore, have an imaginary meal with the subject; be his superior and issue orders; be a colleague and listen to his complaints; be a subordinate and be reprimanded. If it’s a question of a woman try and sleep with her; if it’s a man be a woman and try and get on friendly terms. But I had not exerted myself to this extent with the husband. Something other than procrastination hampered my zeal, and I could do nothing because the fault lay with my client herself. As for me, the real motives of my client, and not the whereabouts of the missing husband, were by far the more suspicious and offensive element. Even more, my suspicion that the request for an investigation was a feint for the purpose of concealing the husband’s whereabouts had not been entirely erased.

  And yet, the brother-in-law of the missing man had died, the one who had beclouded my view, who had scattered the seeds of suspicion like wind-blown pollen. The sky had for some time been rent by a strong wind, and after a long interval a frail sun was streaming through rifts in the clouds. And so, again, I attempted to look at the husband’s picture upside down.

  THE PHOTOGRAPH lay with its head toward me. Again I was at the window of the parking attendant’s shack. “Yes, eighty yen,” he said indolently. “I don’t want the change,” I said, throwing down a five-hundred-yen note … and on top of it the picture. The conspicuously uneven hair line, which he had apparently not had for long, had not yet grown sparse.

  “There’s something I’d like to ask you.”

  The old man had placed a blanket over his knees, and on it lay an open comic book; his lips moved incessantly. H
e pushed his preadamite glasses up on his forehead, and his reddened eyes looked suspiciously back and forth at the picture and the five-hundred-yen note.

  “Say, have you got a brazier going under that blanket? It’s bad for you, you know. Your eyes are so red because they’re irritated by the gas.”

  “No, it’s electricity. Sorry …”

  “Then it’s too dry.”

  “I’ve got the kettle going.”

  “Well, it’s entirely off the fire.” I laughed pleasantly, making my voice cheerful, and pushed the five-hundred-yen note closer to the old man. “I wonder if you don’t remember seeing the man in this picture. Maybe quite some time ago …”

  “Why?”

  “We’re looking for a stolen car,” I said at random. From the upside-down picture I suddenly sensed something aggressive. My decision, which until now had been to treat the husband naturally as the victim, began, surprisingly, to waver. There was no basis for assuming that he was a victim, and there was even a fifty-fifty chance that he was an aggressor. If I let my imagination run wild, he could actually be the one pulling the strings behind the brother’s killing. No, such detective-story events rarely happen. If it were a question of a game in a sealed room, the mystery man would have to sit in the chair right next to me; but in the actual world he would camouflage himself and conceal himself quietly beyond the horizon. Be that as it may, it seemed that this evening I would have to spend some length of time getting reacquainted with him through the binoculars. Even if it was too late, the leading man is the star after all.

  “A stolen car, you say?”

  “Not necessarily. I mean, maybe it was one that had been in an accident.” I gave in at once to the old man’s expression, which was like a rusted lock, and placed three more hundred-yen coins on the notes. “What’s the proportion between the monthly customers and the casual ones who use the parking lot?”