Salmonella Men on Planet Porno (Vintage Contemporaries)

by Yasutaka Tsutsui

  “How many times do I have to tell you? Just stop telling people about it! Tell me, if you like. But for God’s sake, don’t tell other people! Why do you think the Section Chief dislikes you, then? It’s because you’re always going on about your bloody illness! He must be sick to death of hearing about it. The moment he asks you to do anything, it’s ‘oh, my heart, my heart’. And whenever you think it’s beating a bit funnily, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, you have to make a great song and dance about it and rush out to the nearest hospital!”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Of course I know, it’s easy! You’re the laughing stock of the company, don’t you get it? It’s no wonder you never get promoted! This latest island duty is all because the Section Chief hates you so much he wants to get rid of you! Of course it is!”

  “Don’t you care if I die, then?” I yelled angrily. “Maybe you’re right, maybe the Section Chief doesn’t like me. But does that mean you have to talk like that too? Heart disease is a killer, you know. Of course, the healthy will always make fun of the sick. But I don’t care. I’m looking after my health because it wouldn’t be funny if I died. Why do you think I keep going to the doctor’s? It’s for you and the boy, of course!”

  “DON’T BLOODY PATRONIZE ME!”

  “What do you mean?” I hit the dining table with my fist and stood up.

  “If you’ve got a heart problem, why didn’t you tell me about it before we got married?” She stood up in turn and glared at me. “That’s it! You tricked me, didn’t you?!”

  “What do you mean, tricked you?! I didn’t have the illness then! It’s come on since we’ve been married! What could I do about it?”

  “So now you’re saying it’s my fault! And I suppose they’re all saying that at your work, too! Bloody hell!” She was shrieking now.

  “Hold on, hold on. Hold on.” I quickly tried to return to the original discussion. “Let’s not have another row! We’re just going over the same old argument as always. I haven’t told you where I’m going yet.”

  “What do I care where you’re going?!” She stopped short and peered at my face. “Of course, you are going on your own, aren’t you.”

  I was flabbergasted. “How could you be so heartless? You want to pack me off to a remote island on my own, in my state, with no doctor?!”

  She laughed coldly. “Well, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to go.”

  “I’ll be promoted to Section Chief when I get back. Aren’t you pleased for me?”

  Now her hair virtually stood on end. “PLEASED? NO! I’m not pleased at all! Maybe if you said ‘Department Manager’, yes! After all this time, you’re the last to be promoted. Why the hell should I be pleased about that?!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous! How could I jump straight to Department Manager without being Section Chief first?! And I won’t even get that if I don’t go to the island!”

  “God, you’re so stupid!”

  “What do you mean, stupid?” I kicked the chair over.

  Our son is so accustomed to our rowing that he doesn’t cry any more. He started playing on his own.

  “Anyway, we’re all going to the island together. Understand?” I said, breathing hard through my nose.

  She looked at me aghast. “Do you want to turn our child into a barbarian?!” she said, performing her customary leap of logic.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?!”

  “You don’t stop to think of your family, do you. He’s just started at private nursery school, hasn’t he?! Do you know how hard I worked to get him in there?!”

  “That was just for your vanity!”

  “All right. So you think it’s better for your son to have no friends, and to turn into an imbecile like some fisherman’s boy, on some God-forsaken shit-hole of an island in the middle of nowhere, do you?! Just when he’s started learning to read?” She burst into tears and ran over to hug the boy. “I’m sorry, poppet! It’s only because your father is such a rotten good-for-nothing!”

  “What’s more important, then? His nursery school or my work?!” I bawled at her. “The only reason you don’t want to go is because you won’t be able to buy flashy clothes and go parading in front of everybody!”

  “Oh, you hate that, don’t you,” she said, staring at me. “That’s why you’re going to drag me there with you. You just want to give me a hard time!” She stamped her foot on the floor. “No. I am not going with you! I’d go stark raving mad, stuck there on a lonely island with no one to talk to, with only an invalid like you for company! I’m definitely not going, all right? You can bugger off on your own. Go and have your bloody spasms. Serves you right. You can stew in your own juice for all I care!”

  “Wha… wha… wha…” I wanted to shout back, but was suddenly unable to breathe. My eyes bulged as I gasped for air.

  A sharp pain pierced my heart. I screwed up my face and crouched on the floor clutching my chest. My heart was clearly palpitating. I moaned helplessly and felt a cold sweat coming over me.

  “Oh look, he’s having another one.” She stood over me with a twisted smile on her mouth. “Funny how it always happens when he’s losing an argument. What a very convenient heart problem.”

  Still wheezing for breath, I stretched out my hand towards her. “M-my pills, w-would you get m-my pills.”

  “Get them yourself,” she said, and started clearing away the dinner things.

  I rolled sideways along the carpeted floor. “In my, in my j-jacket pocket. W-would you get them for me.”

  Our son got up and looked down at me. “Daddy not well!”

  “Oh, leave him. He only wants attention.” She stomped off loudly into the kitchen.

  Terrified by the sharp pain and the fear of death, I crawled along the floor and managed to reach the coat pegs as wheezing sounds still issued from my throat.

  “All right, all right. Well done.” Sighing, my wife came back out of the kitchen, took the bottle of pills from my jacket, and threw it down in front of my nose. “Good performance. I nearly believed you.”

  “And so, you see, I need eight months’ medication,” I told Dr Kawashita the next day, having taken the morning off to go to his clinic.

  “Well, yes.” Dr Kawashita pulled a wry face. “I could give them to you, but…”

  “You’ve got to!” I pleaded. “They’ll be my only hope on a remote island without a doctor!”

  “But you’ll take them all at once, won’t you.” He scratched his head vigorously. “The problem is that you make no effort to remove the cause, but just keep taking the medicine. That’s no good at all.”

  “No, it’s not true. I am making an effort. I’ve stopped smoking and drinking coffee, as you advised. I avoid strenuous exercise and work of a highly urgent and responsible nature as far as possible,” I said with a bow of the head. “And of course, I’ve stopped having sexual relations with my wife.”

  “What?” He lifted his face and stared at me. “Altogether?!”

  “Yes, altogether. Well, that comes under strenuous exercise, doesn’t it?”

  “As I’ve said many times before, no visible symptoms can be observed in your case,” the doctor said with a long sigh. “It’s not good to dwell on your condition too much. The worst thing for you is marital discord. If you’ve stopped having intercourse with your wife altogether, that could be another cause of marital discord.”

  “Surely you’re not going to say I’m imagining it too?!”

  “I’m not saying that. You are definitely sick. But anxiety will only make your condition worse. And then you’ll merely grow more anxious. It’s a vicious circle. I don’t want to frighten you, but if that happens, even a regime of complete rest and a change of air won’t work. You need to relax, and try not to get angry. That’s the best cure.”

  “But my wife makes me angry. I can’t help it.”

  “Will your wife accompany you to the island?”

  “Of course.”

  “You se
e, this is your perfect chance for a complete convalescence.” He screwed up his face. “Is there no way you could go alone?”

  “You’re joking! I couldn’t leave a skittish woman like that on her own. Who knows what she’d get up to.”

  “Distrust between partners, suspicions of infidelity, these are things that can directly aggravate your condition, you see.”

  That hit a raw nerve. “Are you saying I’m jealous?” I said loudly. “How can I help it? She’s a wanton woman, I’m telling you!”

  “All right, all right. Calm down.” The doctor hurriedly tried to pacify me. “That’s exactly what I mean. You mustn’t allow yourself to become so agitated!”

  “Can I have the medicine?”

  “Well, if you promise not to waste it, I’ll let you have eight months’ supply. But don’t come to me saying you’ve used it up and could I give you some more. This is all you’re getting. Do you understand?”

  “I understand.”

  “Serpentina alkaloid,” he said to the nurse before turning back to me. “Whatever you do, don’t take too many. Your blood pressure isn’t very high, so if you exceed the dose it could be life-threatening.”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  Huh, he’s only trying to frighten me, I thought. Once I’d got the pills I could do what I liked with them!

  The rule in my company, Marine Chemical Resources Development, is that, once a decision has been made to send an employee to an island or coastal observation point, the work has to start within a week. But this only applies to single employees. I was given special dispensation of two weeks in which to prepare, as I’m a family man. And on the final afternoon of those two weeks, I boarded a small steam ferry to Pomegranate Island from Cape Ichizen with my wife and child. The ferry crossed to the island and back once a day.

  “What? WHAT?! What sort of island is that?!” my wife shouted at the top of her voice as we approached Pomegranate Island. We could now see the whole of the island before us. “What kind of shape do you call that?!”

  In the middle of the island was a mountain shaped like an upturned helmet. The top of the mountain was split wide open like a pomegranate exposing its obscene red insides.

  “You’ve got to be joking! I can’t live on an island that looks like that!!” my wife shrieked at me in a state of shock. “Why of all places do we have to live on an island that’s got its top split open?”

  “How could I have known?!” I shouted back. “I’ve only seen it on the map. Nobody told me Pomegranate Island was an island with its top split open!”

  “Aha, ahaha, ahahahaha!” Our son pointed at the island and laughed merrily.

  “It’s a volcano, that’s what it is! What are we going to do if it explodes? The whole island will be wiped out!”

  “Are volcanoes shaped like that?!”

  “It’s a bloody volcano, I tell you! Of course it is!” She started to sob. “What am I going to do? I wish I’d never married you. I had another proposal after we were engaged, I’ll have you know. Now he’s been posted to Europe with his family. What a mistake it was to choose you!!”

  “It’s because you say things like that and make me angry that my condition gets worse,” I said slowly, deliberately, breathing deeply to control my rage. “Dr Kawashita has said it many times. Marital discord, and particularly quarrelling, is very bad for my heart. Some of his patients have even died of heart failure during rows with their wives.”

  “Well, if you’re so scared of dying, hurry up and divorce me, then! All you ever say is Dr Kawashita this, Dr Kawashita that. He’s nothing but a ruddy quack!”

  “He is not a quack!” I screamed. “Do you want me to get angry and die?”

  “Are you dying then? ARE YOU?” she screamed back. “Go on then, die! Then I might believe you!”

  “H-how… h-h-how—” Her logic was so absurd that I could find no words in reply. “How could you say—” I could hardly breathe. A prickling pain pierced my heart.

  “It’s the company that’s trying to kill you by sending you to this island! They want you to die. They’ve no intention of promoting you. Of course they haven’t.” She stamped her heels noisily on the deck.

  “Stop… please st-stop.” I clutched my chest and sat on a bench. “My p-pills, please, my p-pills. In the c-cabin. In my bag. In my b-bag.”

  She tutted, and peered down at me with a look of disgust on her face.

  “Daddy not well again,” said my son.

  “Come on, let’s leave him. Let’s go,” she said icily, without expression. She took our son’s hand and hurried off to the after-deck.

  I was beside myself with rage. The palpitations started and I stopped breathing altogether.

  “Uhhh… uhhh… uhhh…”

  Moaning, clawing at the air with fingers bent rigid, I twisted and contorted my body until, at last, I reached the cabin. I opened my bag with fitful hands, took out the medicine bottle and swallowed three tablets without water. The doctor had instructed only two at a time, but two were no longer enough.

  Once I’d regained my composure I peered at the bottom of the bottle. There were only four or five tablets left.

  Suddenly struck by a feeling of unease, I rummaged around inside the bag. I wanted to make sure the package containing the eight months’ supply was still there.

  It wasn’t.

  I hastily tossed aside the suitcase and emptied the contents of my wife’s bag all over the cabin. But there was no sign of my medicine.

  “Where’s my medicine?” My heart was starting to beat like a drum.

  “What’s the matter with you?” my wife asked, looking at me coldly. I’d raced out of the cabin with my hair all over the place.

  “My medicine!” I yelled. “The big package with my medicine in it. What have you done with it?”

  “How should I know?” She gazed out across the sea. “It’s in your bag, isn’t it?”

  “It’s not in my bag. It’s not in yours either. What have you done with it?” I screamed. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH IT?”

  Frightened by my unusually savage appearance, my son clung tightly to his mother.

  “Would you keep your voice down? Look, you’re scaring him. And you’re upsetting the other passengers.” Actually, a solitary old woman on the after-deck was the only other passenger.

  “Never mind that. You were shouting yourself just now, weren’t you? Answer my question. Where have you put the package with my medicine in it? If I don’t have that medicine, it could hinder my chances of staying alive!”

  “It could hin-der his chan-ces of staying a-live, he says,” she repeated to the boy with a snigger. “What grand expressions he uses. Answer his question, he says.” She turned to look at me with spiteful eyes. “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?”

  “I’m sorry. I apologize,” I said more calmly, trying not to accept the provocation. “Could you please tell me what you did with the package?”

  “What package.”

  “It was about this big, wrapped in brown paper. It had eight months’ supply of medicine in it. I’ve only got four or five tablets left in my bottle. I need to refill it, you see.”

  “There. Why couldn’t you have said it like that before,” she said like a schoolteacher. “That package. Yes. I put it in a trunk with our winter clothes and sent it by Daitsu.”

  As Daitsu were the most reliable carriers in the country, I was somewhat relieved. But would the trunk arrive before my medicine ran out?

  “You shouldn’t have done that without asking me,” I said in a plaintive voice. “I’ve only got four or five tablets left.”

  “If they’re so important to you, why didn’t you look after them yourself?!”

  “And when will Daitsu deliver the trunk to the island?”

  “They said it would take four to five days. That was four days ago, so it should be there by tomorrow.”

  I’d have to make sure I didn’t have an attack before the next day.

&nb
sp; As we arrived on the island, an old man came to meet us on the ferry landing stage. He said he was the village headman, and took us to the observation point, where I would live and work for the next eight months. Near the coast about a mile out of the village, it stood on sandy ground below a cliff. It was made of wood, measured about thirty by thirty feet, and was of course newly built. It would probably be destroyed at the end of the observation period. Though crudely fashioned, it had a large carpeted room at the back, and looked much more comfortable than I’d expected.

  “Well, we should be able to make do with this,” I said.

  Standing in front of the village headman, my wife said nothing.

  The observation equipment had already arrived. I started unpacking and assembling it as soon as the headman had left and my wife had started cleaning. It was well into the night by the time I was finished.

  My wife came on to me that night.

  With the uncertainty of a new environment, she probably need ed to immerse herself in an activity that involved monotonous repetition, something that felt familiar. I shared that feeling, but of course I didn’t make love to her. I might have suffered a spasm if I had. I reminded her that I only had four or five tablets left. But she just repeated the same old complaint as always.

  The next day, I carried the observation instruments to the rocky beach and set them up at six points. It took a whole day.

  There was no Daitsu delivery that day.

  “It hasn’t arrived!” I complained to my wife.

  “It’ll probably come tomor row,” she answered with her customary indifference.

  “You’ve got the receipt from Daitsu, haven’t you.”

  “I wonder. Did I bring it? Look in my handbag. If it’s not there, I’ll have left it at home.” As irresponsible as ever.

  I hurriedly emptied the contents of her handbag onto the table, and hunted for the receipt. I was relieved to find it there, crumpled into a ball.

  But there was no Daitsu delivery the following day either. After completing my observations I went down to the ferry landing stage to check. The ferry had already left, and there was no sign that it had brought any kind of baggage. This was driving me mad. I hurried back to the observation point and picked up the telephone.