The Box Man

by Kōbō Abe

  Thus rather than asking who is a real box man, it would be better to ascertain who is not a real one; that is an easier approach to reality, I think. A box man has experiences that only a box man can talk about, adventures that apply to him alone, that a fake box man can never tell.

  For example, the first several summer days a box man experiences on becoming a box man are the beginning of his ordeals. A feeling of suffocation makes him want to scratch out his memories with his nails. But if it’s only the heat, one feels one can somehow still put up with it. If worst comes to worst, one can go to the entrance to a building facing an underground passage and get the outflow of the air conditioning. The uncomfortable thing is the sticky sweat that has no time to dry and builds up layers of dirt. They constitute only too good a culture for bacteria, yeast, and mold. Below the layers of fermented dirt the sweat glands stop breathing, panting and gasping like dried mollusks at low tide. The itching of disintegrating skin is more difficult to stand than any visceral pain. Stories of torture where one is covered with tar or where some dancing girl painted with gold dust goes insane are very meaningful to me. The whiteness of fruit from which the skin has been peeled away with a knife flickers radiantly before my eyes. So many times I have thought how I would like to strip off my own skin including the box the way one peels off the skin of a fig.

  But in the long run, my attachment to the box won out. After four or five days, perhaps my skin had become used to the dirt, but I experienced almost no discomfort. Or perhaps my body, as far as the skin’s rate of breathing was concerned, had adapted itself to husbanding the amount of oxygen consumption. If that were true, then I who had originally sweated profusely at this summer’s end had come to sweat but very little. As long as one sweats he is a fake box man.

  While I am about it, let me write about the Wappen beggars. That’s the most unpleasant person a box man can meet. Doting old beggars all covered with insignia and badges and toy decorations like fish scales, with little flags bearing the rising sun sticking out of their caps like birthday-cake candles. One came after me shrieking every time he saw me. Once I was unable to avoid his surprise attack, for being used to ignoring him, and was inadvertently off my guard. Emitting senseless shrieks, he swept down on me and thrust something in from above the box. Later, when with difficulty I had driven the beggar away and drawn the object out, I saw that it was a little flag with a rising sun that had graced his cap.

  I was profoundly disturbed. Another few inches to the side, and the haft might have pierced my ear. After that, with Wappen beggars only, I decided to strike first, though I don’t usually. Thanks to that I have been able to get the hang of throwing heavy things from the box. In the first place (in case one is right-handed), horizontally on the inside you bend your right arm, that goes out through the observation window, using the elbow as a fulcrum and twisting the upper part of your body including the box to the left. Following your body back, you extend your arm firmly in the direction of the objective. Essentially it’s a discus throw without the running. You can’t claim to be a real box man unless you can deal with Wappen beggars.

  But usually a box man’s days, after he goes out into town, pass tranquilly. There are almost no incidents that merit the name. One’s self-consciousness and diffidence toward others at most last only two or three months. Clinging to one’s outward appearance interferes with living. No matter how much one may be a box man, he cannot very well stop such daily functions as eating, defecating, and sleeping. For sleeping and evacuation, one doesn’t choose any special place, but that will hardly do for eating. When the foodstuffs on hand are exhausted, like it or not, one can’t very well not bestir oneself. If you want to get food without paying and without causing trouble, the first thing is to go foraging for leftovers. And for that you naturally turn in the direction of the busier areas of the city that have both abundance and variety.

  Foraging for food has its own knack to it. But the situation is different from that of vagrants and beggars, who have gradually got used to the circumstances of foraging; not anything will do for a box man just because it is edible. It’s not a question of luxury but of a sense of hygiene. It doesn’t necessarily follow that leftovers are unclean, but one way or another the impression they make is not very pleasing. One is especially disconcerted by the foul odors. Over a period of three years, in the final analysis, the stench was the only thing I was never able to accustom myself to.

  I remained unaccustomed to the smell because of the disagreeable feeling produced by tastes that did not match. Fish have the smell of fish, meat that of meat, vegetables that of vegetables—everything has its own individual smell, and when we confirm the quantities as they mix together in our mouths, we are at ease and satisfied. If we expect fried shrimp, we are nonplused at the taste of bananas. A piece of chocolate is disgusting if it has the taste of fried clams. All the more then, there is no way of equating a given food to the smells of leftovers that are mixed together at random. Even if one understands this situation in principle, psychologically it is quite unacceptable.

  Now the first step in foraging for food is to look for those items which as much as possible are dried and odorless. However, these are surprisingly troublesome. Leftovers thrown out by restaurants generally fall into two categories. The first are those goods that easily deteriorate, that do not keep well; and from the standpoint of quantity these are overwhelmingly the most numerous. Inedibles (used chopsticks, wastepaper, broken dishes, and the like) are placed apart, and the edibles are gathered in great plastic containers, which are picked up by the trucks from the hog farms every morning. The second category comprises those items that have a definite shape and cannot be served again to one client after the preceding one has left—for example, bread, fried items, dried fish, cheese, pastry, fruit, and the like. They would seem to be common enough, but no matter how you hunt you cannot find them. I wonder if it’s because they can be used again since they do not rot easily even though they are divided into pieces. Indeed, if you break up dried bread you get breadcrumbs, and you get delicious stock from plain fried fish and chicken bones.

  I’m sure I wrote about this before, but a box man can easily obtain food from store counters. He doesn’t actually need to resort to foraging for leftovers. But it does provide a good opportunity to get accustomed to the town which you really have to do in order to enjoy life as a box man among the crowds. When he’s used to the town, wherever he is, time begins to describe concentric circles around the box man as the center.

  One is absolutely never bored, for the background goes by swiftly; but the foreground passes at a snail’s pace, and at the center things are perfectly still. Anyway it’s the fake box man who’s bored in his box.

  Now I’d like to have you think about this. Which one of us was not a box man? Who failed to become a box man?

  The Case of D

  D was a boy who yearned to be strong. Often he would pray to be stronger. But he didn’t know how to increase his strength. Suddenly it occurred to him one day: he decided to try and construct a kind of periscope out of plywood and cardboard and mirrors. At either end of a tube he placed two parallel mirrors inclined at an angle of forty-five degrees, by which his eye shifted to the further extremity of the tube held horizontally or vertically. He attached paper hinges especially to the mirror situated at the upper end, and by manipulating a cord from below he had a device where the angle could be altered considerably.

  For the first test, he decided to try it out between the fence and shed of a neighborhood apartment. It was a place that he had discovered as a child when he still used to play hide-and-seek; a narrow space set at a blind angle with the street and, of course, the side of the apartment. When he crouched down he could smell the odor of mouse droppings mixed with the smell of wet earth. First, supporting his two arms on his knees, he pressed the body of the periscope firmly to his forehead. Gradually he tried pushing the upper end above the fence. The street was a steep slope, and even the pedestr
ians who were quite tall did not come to the height of the wall there. Furthermore, since the footing on the slope was not very secure, very few people paid any attention to anything above eye level. Reassuring himself, D calmed his fears, but when he saw the vista of the street reflected in the mirror in which he was looking, he was terror-stricken. He had the impression that the whole view had turned into eyes that reproached him. Instinctively he ducked his head. As he did so the tip of his periscope struck against the fence and simply broke off with a wet thud like the squashing of an orange. He repaired it with cellophane tape as he wiped away the sweat that pearled on his face.

  The second time he continued watching in defiance of the vista that bore down on him from the eyepiece. When he once tried returning the pressure, his tension too simply began to slacken. When he realized that there was no reason to fear anyone’s looking back at him, his sense of guilt vanished at once, and the vista began to change before his eyes. He was vividly aware of the change in the relationship between himself and the scene, between himself and the world. It would appear that he had not indeed missed his first objective in constructing the periscope.

  There was nothing particularly novel. Every detail of the scene was pervaded by a soft but penetrating light, and everything that struck the eye was velvety smooth and graceful. Anything that might cause feelings of hostility was completely erased from the pedestrians’ expressions and from their actions. Nowhere was there a cross or faultfinding glance to be seen. The rough edges had been taken from the various projections and depressions that made up the view—street signs, telephone poles, walls, and concrete pavement. The world was filled with a softness as of an early Saturday evening that would go on forever. He looked playfully at the street beyond the mirror. And the street returned the smile of the amorous boy. Just by looking at it, the world was happy for him. In his imagination he put his signature to a peace treaty between himself and the world.

  Thoroughly encouraged, D, who had become courageous, peered at the street, shifting from place to place. The street too did not challenge him. As long as he looked through the periscope, the world was unconditionally magnanimous. One day he artfully thought up a little adventure. He decided he would try peeking at the toilet of the place next door. It was an independent cottage a little way from the main house inhabited by a lady instructor in gymnastics at the Middle School. Perhaps she did not actually live in the cottage but, simply taking advantage of the fact that it was soundproofed, from time to time played the piano there. He was not very clear about that, nor did he particularly try to find out.

  But once the thought of spying on her occurred to him, he had the feeling that he had been thinking of it for a long time. He even felt that all his efforts had been in preparation for that. The cottage came flush to the fence and directly on the other side of it was his little study that had been made independent by partitioning off the end of a corridor. Thanks to this position, the sounds of flushing water in the toilet were clearly far more audible, far nearer, than the muffled voice of the piano, whose high notes were deadened by the soundproofed walls. As a matter of fact the sound of the piano and the noise of flushing were not audible at the same time, but in D’s head the lady teacher’s favorite piece, which was sweet and sad and which she always played last in her practicing, and the sound of rushing water mixed with the swirling air in the white porcelain cavity overlapped in a seemingly meaningful way. At the mere thought of a human presence in the neighboring toilet he had the impression of smelling steaming urine, and the accustomed melody was enough to make the sinews of his back twitch with sensual desire.

  According to reconnaissance that he had previously carried out on the sly, there was a narrow opening for sweeping out the dust at just about floor level. If that were open, there would be no problem; but if not, the only thing left was to peek in through the vent near the ceiling. It would be difficult to see through, but it would be absolutely reliable since there was only an insect screen, for the ventilating fan had been removed (it was doubtless out of order). But as much as possible he liked to peek into toilets from below. By simply imagining the act of peeking, a squirming living cream fell into his eyes.

  According to his reckoning up until now, the lady teacher next door finished practicing the piano sometimes about five o’clock in the afternoon and other times about eight. The probabilities of her going to the bathroom after practicing were greater around eight o’clock. But as far as he was concerned that time was inconvenient. Since both his parents were at home, it was difficult to go out into the garden. At five o’clock his father would not yet have returned home, and his mother was liable to be out doing the shopping for the evening meal. If he was going to carry out his plan, five o’clock was decidedly the time. As it was still light, there was the danger of being discovered by the teacher, but then he could only have faith in the periscope. By observing the town from various places, he had gained absolute confidence in managing the instrument. Furthermore, once he had made up his mind, the impulse to peek covered his hesitation like a thick coat of primary color.

  When he got back from school that day, in order to ensure his freedom around five o’clock, he made up some excuse to delay his mother’s shopping. About four forty, after he had made sure that the practicing was over and that the usual final piece had begun, he at last got his mother out. After slipping on a pair of canvas gym shoes with the backs trodden down, and with his periscope under his arm, he sneaked out into the garden. Contrary to what he had imagined, the periscope would not reach the little window from this side of the board fence. Being caught in the act of peeking on this side of the fence might be rather more sticky. He felt that the chances of being challenged would be less by getting on the other side. As long as he didn’t expressly inform his victim that he was peeking … as long as his victim, even if she was aware that she was being spied on, kept on pretending to take no notice … he vaguely expected that a kind of collusion would arise between the person being spied on and the person spying. He certainly could not consider that the timid and reserved confession of love that peeking is was all that censurable.

  D slipped under the board fence and came up on the other side. It was more damp than the garden of his own house. The space between the building and the fence was scarcely two feet wide, and it was rare that anyone entered; spongy liverwort formed a thick covering. Slipping in sideways, he crouched in the space between the toilet and the fence. He was lucky. The edge of the dust opening was open about two inches. Naturally he used the periscope horizontally. His breathing quickened and his chest hurt. Leaning back against the fence, he closed his eyes. After taking a breath, he adjusted the periscope and took his position. First of all, the porcelain toilet bowl came into view. It was not white as he had imagined it, but a baby blue. Yet the floor was of white tiles, and rubber sandals painted silver stood in a line. No matter how he adjusted the mirrors, the field of vision just shifted right and left and he was not able to establish the necessary angle. He must be calm. Since he was using the instrument horizontally, he would have to revolve the tube so as to see up and down. The walls were plyboard printed with wood grain.

  It seemed to him that time passed extremely slowly. The music too today seemed especially long. His whole body felt warm, and his breathing sounded like a whistle. His cranium opened with the pressure, and his eyeballs flew out like cork bullets. His mother would doubtless be coming back soon. The pretentious rhythms of the piano attacked the joints of his knees like some nervous disease. He was carried away by a compulsion to enter the house, to destroy the piano.

  Nevertheless, the music somehow drew to an end. Soon came the several final bars he was accustomed to … then the final drawn-out chord. D told himself not to expect too much, that to anticipate success the first time would be too presumptuous. Since the temperature today was high and the day dry, the number of times one urinated would necessarily be proportionately fewer. Yet, he could not but be expectant. D began to quiver. He
could not get enough air through his nose alone. He left his mouth open, and his whole body was pulsating like a pump.

  Suddenly a voice sounded next to his ear.

  “And just who are you? What are you doing? And don’t try and get away. If you do I’ll report you.”

  He cringed. He was pinned to the ground. He had no strength to shift his glance in order to see from what direction the voice was coming. His gasping breathing, he thought, was like the red, lighted end of a sparkler dangling at the end of its paper string.

  “Go around in front and come in through the entrance.” The voice was not all that threatening, and that was a relief. “All right … get up … quickly now.” Quite definitely the voice seemed to come from the toilet. But he could see no one. From where and how, he wondered, could he be seen? “Don’t forget that weird piece of machinery there. Go directly round in front. The door’s not locked, and you can come right in.” Was she going to finish urinating, he wondered, or would she stop now? The position of his periscope was definitely wrong. “Do you understand? You’re not to run away. Now go around in front right away, and no loitering.”

  It looked as if there were nothing for him to do except do as he was told. It certainly seemed out of the question to take to his heels. If he interpreted the warning not to run away as meaning that if he did not she would not report him to the school or to his parents, then whatever his punishment he had best get it over with here. In the state of mind of a lamb being led to slaughter and clutching his periscope that had proved useless to his breast, he circled the building and proceeded in the direction of the entrance. The door, which had always suggested to him the sensation of touching folds of flesh, had now changed to a feeling of concrete.