Japan Sinks

by Sakyo Komatsu

  “The lifeboat is coming back,” called a sailor from the end of the bridge.

  “How’d you do? Did you find him?” somebody shouted over the rail.

  “We got him,” a sailor answered. “The only thing is he’s out of his head.”

  “Professor Tadokoro,” said Onodera, turning around to where Tadokoro stood behind him, wearing not even a rain-coat. “The whole coastline around the bay seems to have been badly hit. It looks like the Tokyo waterfront has been wiped out.”

  “That’s jumping to conclusions,” muttered Tadokoro as the rain beat against his unshaven face. “To say that now would be jumping to conclusions.”

  “How are they at home, I wonder?” said Kataoka absently. “I live in Tamachi.”

  That night of fire and destruction and tidal waves, of inky black rain came to an end with clear skies at dawn, but the fearful aftermath of a city in ruins remained. Fires still burned along the shore. Black smoke, spreading out like a gigantic sea monster, hung low over the bay.

  Onodera left Yokosuka in a helicopter, accompanying Tadokoro and Yukinaga, who had been summoned by the Prime Minister. He looked out the window, his eyes fixed upon the frightful scene below. In Yokohama, Kawasaki, and in Tokyo itself, thin smoke still rose here and there. Beneath a blue autumn sky in which floated high, fleecy tufts of cloud, an eerie quiet lay over that vast population center, the home of more than twenty percent of the Japanese. Aside from the fires still burning along the shoreline, the scene at first glance seemed little out of the ordinary. But when Onodera looked down more intently, the whole panorama of ruin slipped into view, the terrible aftermath of that swift rush of fiery disaster. The packed-together houses lay half in ruins, and burned-out sections, like frightful black blotches, spread out in every direction. In the center of the city, however, the large buildings had come through surprisingly well, despite being cracked and tilted.

  “Chiyoda Ward seems to be in pretty good shape,” said Onodera. “Look! There’s a train running on the Yokohama Line.”

  Beneath a clear autumn sky, Tokyo had begun to come alive once more. A fleet of bulldozers was already at work beginning to clear away the shattered ruins. Large trucks, probably loaded with relief materials, were streaming into Tokyo. And in the opposite direction moved military trucks and buses loaded with commuters who had finally been given the means of returning home. The Japanese, it seems, are on intimate terms with disaster, Onodera said to himself, feeling tears come to his eyes. Such was the surprised observation recorded by a German visitor to Japan in the middle of the nineteenth century, who had seen the great fires that ravaged Edo and then heard the ring of hammers as the people who had lost their homes to the flames cheerfully started to rebuild without sparing a sigh of distress, even while the fires still smoldered.

  This time, however, the scale of destruction was overwhelming. Even allowing for the “traditional” reaction, once the full extent of the disaster became known, and once it became necessary to confront the major problems that would stem from it, what, finally, would be the outcome? Still more—suppose on top of all this . . .

  “The government has come out with an interim report,” said Yukinaga, his ear to the radio. “The dead—estimated at more than two million. The total amount of damage is expected to surpass one billion yen.”

  “What’s that?” muttered Onodera, who had noticed from time to time something shiny falling from the windows of tall buildings.

  “Even after the earthquake is over, the glass will come loose and fall out like that, given some tremor or other,” answered Tadokoro, looking straight ahead. “The same thing happened at the time of the Peru earthquake. People would have their heads slashed by glass like that and die long after the quake was over.”

  3

  When Nakata, Yukinaga, Onodera, and Yamazaki entered the Executive Building, which housed the Prime Minister’s Office, everything was in disorder, with all sorts of people hurrying up and down the corridors.

  Nakata turned to Yamazaki and asked: “Have you been in contact with our patron?”

  “Yes ... finally,” answered Yamazaki in a weary voice. His tie was crumpled and his collar dirty. He had aged greatly in a short time. His unshaven cheeks were hollow, and there were wrinkles around his eyes. Besides having suffered the ordeal of the earthquake, he held himself responsible for the severe injuries suffered by young Yasukawa, who had been found in a temporary hospital. “Mr. Watari’s in Hakone. Kunieda is with him.”

  “Good. Professor Tadokoro should go to see him. He’s wasting his time trying to corner the Prime Minister in the midst of all this disorder.”

  “In any case, it looks like we’ll have to close up shop for a while, doesn’t it?” Yamazaki asked as he opened the door of the small room that had been set aside for Plan D.

  “You think so?” Nakata said dryly.

  “Well, with everything up in the air the way it is, we couldn’t expect to accomplish anything for the time being, could we? And then, besides, even if it happens, it wouldn’t be for some time, would it? Say for four or five years or even longer?”

  “It’s hard to say,” Nakata said quietly. “According to a very rough calculation, it could happen that D would equal two.”

  “Equal two?” asked Yamazaki, his jaw dropping. “Two years? Are you sure?”

  “Yes. If worse comes to worst.”

  Yamazaki looked at the three of them, his face haggard. He shook his head. “That’s hard to believe. . . . Well, at any rate, make yourself at home. I can’t offer you tea because of this chaos. How about a glass of water?”

  “Never mind,” said Nakata with a laugh. “The thing I’m concerned about is for you to think about getting in touch somehow with the old Mr. Watari in Hakone.”

  “We don’t have a car, and anyway gasoline rationing is really stiff,” Yamazaki answered as he threw himself into a chair in front of the desk. “Somehow, I just can’t believe it,” he went on as he looked out the window. “Could something like that really take place? This thing . . . couldn’t it be nothing more than the delusion of a senile old man and a scientist a little touched in the head?”

  “I suppose we’ve all wondered that,” said Nakata. He paused for a moment. “I’m afraid it’s really going to happen.”

  “Well, if so . . . what then? There are a hundred million Japanese, you know.”

  “Most of them might die,” said Nakata. “And why? Precisely because nobody is going to believe that such a thing could happen. We ourselves are of two minds, and we’re up to our neck in it. And in the midst of the will-it-or-will-it-not, maybe-so-maybe-no debate, time is slipping away. And the longer the delay, the greater the number of those who will die.”

  “You don’t seem to have any hope,” said Yamazaki in a low voice.

  “Oh, I can hope as well as the next man. I hope that there’s some equilibrium process at work unknown to us, something that will prevent this from happening, or something, at least, that will greatly lessen its impact. But in the meantime we’ve got to act as though it is going to happen, so that we can save as many as possible.” Nakata smiled ruefully. “I have no desire to be vindicated as a prophet. If this thing happens, it will be pure hell, and there’s no point in putting on prophetic airs in hell.”

  Yamazaki crushed out his cigarette. “I’ve got a wife and children,” he said in a hoarse voice. “I wonder what you people think . . . about your families, I mean. If only somebody would take the initiative . . .”

  When they arrived at Hakone, it was already the middle of the night. The roads were damaged so severely and the traffic jams had been so fearful that they had been able to average no more than six miles an hour.

  A small, almost hidden private road wound through the cryptomeria forest at a point midway between Ubako and Gojiri Pass. As the car was climbing the steep, winding road, a one-story house came into view. A brushwood fence surrounded it, and an air of stillness hung over it. The car stopped beside a gate crowned w
ith a crossbeam. And after someone had gotten out and announced their presence into an interphone, it swung open by remote control. The Oribe votive lanterns in the garden lay overturned. Their stone caps had left gouges in the mossy ground.

  The old man was sitting by himself in a rather small room ten mats in size, his legs covered by a quilt concealing a foot-warmer. A cushion seat covered with purple figured silk sup ported his back. He wore a sleeveless padded robe of dark brown over a fine kimono of Yuki pongee. Around his neck a wide scarf of white linen was loosely wrapped. His solitary figure with its bent back looked small and shriveled. His eyes, sheltered by the white brows above, were closed, and he seemed to be dozing.

  Their party of five, including Tadokoro, knelt by the door-way, but Watari gave no sign that he had noticed, merely nod ding as though in his sleep.

  “Well, Hakone is cold, as usual,” said Tadokoro in a loud, heedless voice, very much in character, as he got to his feet and strode boldly into the room. His greasy socks were baggy at the toes, and they made a floppy sound upon the tatami floor.

  A faultlessly groomed girl, dressed in a short Chichibu Meisen kimono too sober for her age, invited them to take places around a huge quilt-covered foot-warmer. Her hair, so thick as to be unruly, was gathered in back. The eyes, set in a face showing no trace of cosmetics, were large. She was tall, and her firm mouth gave her a formidable air. When she happened to laugh, however, one caught a glimpse of dimples and a single crooked tooth which seemed altogether becoming, and her expression became one of artless innocence.

  “You’ve taken a little punishment, I see,” said Tadokoro, stretching his neck as he looked at the alcove behind the old man. Up where the ancient alcove posts of cryptomeria from the northern mountains joined the ceiling, raw cracks ran along the wall, and sand had spilled down upon the alcove step of black persimmon.

  Yukinaga, noticing the Southern Sung painting that hung in the alcove, spoke abruptly. “I believe that’s a Tanomura Chokunyu, is it not?”

  “Very perceptive,” said Watari, his voice hoarse as he laughed. “But it happens to be an imitation. Well done, isn’t it? Do you like the Southern School? What about Tessai?”

  “No, I don’t care much for him.”

  “I see. Well, I’m not too fond of him myself. At my age, that sort of style becomes tedious, you see.”

  The young girl came in with tea, pointing her white tabi-shod feet gracefully as she walked. How like a Noh actor, thought Yukinaga as he watched her.

  In the teacups that she distributed, instead of ordinary tea there was a beverage in which lay a single brownish leaf of some sort of plant.

  It’s an orchid, thought Onodera as he took a sip. Through the steam that rose from the cup, he gazed absently at the scarlet color of the maple leaves in the Mosochiku vase that stood in the alcove.

  “Well, then,” said the old man, coughing faintly, “how do things stand, Professor Tadokoro?”

  “That’s why we’re here, sir,” said Tadokoro, leaning forward.

  “As far as the Tokyo disaster goes, I’m well informed.”

  “I expected that,” answered Tadokoro, gulping down the rest of his orchid tea. “The way I see things now is exactly in line with what I told you before. We must by all means mount an investigation of still larger scope in order to get the facts more certainly in hand. The question is how are we going to accomplish that. And how, furthermore, are we going to broach our desire to the government?”

  The old man, his wrinkled hand like a withered branch, gave the Rakuyake teacup a slight shake. The surface of the orchid tea trembled. His eyes were hidden, sunk deep within their sockets, and there was no way of knowing which way they were looking. He seemed to be staring with a child’s detachment at the trembling liquid. Was he lost in thought, oblivious to every thing? A silence came over the room, and Onodera became aware of a rustling from the dark forest outside. And farther off, the mountains themselves seemed to give off a faint, indistinct noise that was like a moan.

  “From now on . . .” Nakata, urged by some impulse, suddenly spoke out, his voice little more than a whisper. “If we go on as we are, it’s hopeless. If you say go on with the number of men we have now, using the means we have now, we’ll go on ... but it won’t do much good. As the day approaches, of course, more and more people will become aware, but by then it will be too late.”

  The old man was still jiggling his teacup. A faint cough echoed from the throat covered with wrinkled folds. Everyone stared fixedly at the teacup.

  “Professor Tadokoro,” said the old man, raising his eyes and moving his head slightly to one side, “have you seen the flower in that vase there?”

  Tadokoro raised his eyes. From one of the posts at the rear of the alcove hung a gourd vase. Within it was a small flower of vivid red, picked in full bloom and set off by two or three branches of dark green leaves.

  “A Chinese camellia, isn’t it?” muttered Tadokoro.

  “That’s right. Every bush is blooming with wild profusion. It seems to me, Professor, that nature is running wild in all sorts of ways in Japan this fall. A scientist looks at this, and perhaps it strikes him as not too significant. But as for me, I have lived with nature for one hundred years, and I can’t escape the feeling that nature in Japan—plants and trees and birds and insects and fishes—all alike have grown fearful and have lost their composure.”

  The sound of quiet footsteps came down the corridor and stopped outside the door.

  “Did you call, sir?” came a voice.

  “Hanae,” said the old man, “open the door, and then open the outside ones, too. All the way.”

  The inner door slid open. “But, sir,” said the girl, her eyes wide, “it’s really gotten rather cold.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Open them.”

  The girl slid open the glass outer doors with a slight scraping noise. The chill of the autumn night in Hakone rushed into the room, which had no warmth of its own save that from the foot-warmers. There was a ghostly murmur of insects. Branches rustled in the pitch-black darkness of the grove of cryptomeria trees.

  One could look beyond the garden and through the tree trunks down to where Lake Ashi lay. The moon of the seventeenth day of the month hung in the sky. The awesome, chill brilliance of its beams shattered itself upon the rippled surface of the water. The ring of peaks surrounding Hakone loomed up, linked together like a huge black screen touched by the light of the moon.

  “Professor Tadokoro,” said the old man in a voice of surprising strength, sounding behind them as they gazed out transfixed by the beauty of the scene. “Do you see? Take a good look. Take a good look at the mountains and lakes of Japan. As you know, Japan is large. From southwest to northeast it ex tends nearly 1,700 miles. It has islands large and small. It has ranges of mountains with peaks over 9,000 feet. The extent of its land is 142,000 square miles. And here live 110 million people whose gross national product ranks third in the world. This Japan, this massive group of islands—do you still think, really, even now, that it will sink? Do you really believe, even now, that such a thing could occur in the very near future—the swift submersion of all this?”

  “I . . .” Tadokoro spoke as though heaving a deep sigh. “Yes . . . I do believe it. And our next survey will deepen that belief still more.”

  Onodera felt his chest tremble as he gazed at the mountains bathed in the light of a moon just short of being full, and at the dark, brimming surface of the lake, over which that same brilliance was scattered in a thousand silver waves. The sensation was uncanny.

  “Very well,” said the old man’s voice. “That’s what I wanted to hear. Hanae, that’s enough. Shut the doors.”

  Looking up at the moon, whose brightness in that cloudless sky was almost painful, Onodera suddenly frowned. For the ring of brilliance that surrounded the moon sailing through a clear sky suddenly wavered as though a wave of heat had covered it. And then he realized that the chirping of insects had stopped. Even the rus
tle of the wind in the trees had grown quiet, as though every breeze had died.

  Suddenly there came the shrill cry of night birds from the midst of the dark forest, a distressed chorus that sounded on every side. Nearer at hand, on the shore of the lake, dogs began to howl and roosters to crow.

  “It’s coming, you see,” whispered Tadokoro.

  Before he pronounced his last word, the mountains and forests spread before them began to rumble. Tiles trembled. The posts and lintels began to creak and moan, till finally the whole house began to vibrate loudly and the lights went out. The furniture rattled, sand’fell from the wall with a dry rustling noise, and there was the light sound of something spilling over the tatami. The girl gave a frightened cry.

  “Don’t worry. It’s just an aftershock. Hakone and Tanazawa, after sinking a bit, are now coming up somewhat to restore the balance. It’s nothing of significance.” Tadokoro’s composed voice spoke in the darkness. “This isn’t what we have to worry about.”

  Before they realized it, the quake was over. The whole group sat in silence within the darkened room, looking out upon the night scene of the bright moon shining down upon the shimmering, tranquil surface of Lake Ashi as though nothing had happened. The moon was rising higher and higher, and its pale brilliance covered an ever larger portion of the tatami floor.

  “Nakata . . . that was the name, wasn’t it? The young fellow who said something a moment ago,” came the old man’s voice from the darkness behind them.

  “Yes, sir,” Nakata answered.

  “Do you have a fair idea of what has to be done with regard to this next stage?”

  “I have a plan in mind, sir,” said Nakata, altogether com posed. “It’s not yet complete in all respects, but I have the general scheme laid out.”

  “Good. Get it in final order as quickly as possible. Tomorrow I’m going to phone the Prime Minister. I want to meet with him. And furthermore, tomorrow I want somebody to go to Kyoto. Two of you go. In Kyoto there’s a scholar named Fukuhara. He’s still very young, but I know from reading his writings that he’s genuine, a true scholar. Take him a letter from me. I’ll explain the circumstances and ask for his cooperation. Tomorrow I’ll tell you what to say. It’s essential that we get the benefit of his thinking on this matter. The scholars of Tokyo, if you’ll pardon me, have from long past shown a propensity for fads and an incapacity to think their way through complex problems.”