Authors: Kōbō Abe
“I don’t know what kind of sensors you may be using, but how can you be so certain?” The insect dealer’s light came closer, leaving a wavering tail of flame in the air.
“I’m not; I’m just stating the most obvious possibility.”
Darkness in a room or a cave is of varying dimensions. The darkness of, say, a clothes closet can actually be soothing, not frightening in the least. But the vaster the scale, the more menacing darkness becomes. The custom of burying the dead in coffins might have arisen from the desire to protect them from the uncertainty of large darkness by surrounding them with small darkness. Here there were only seven of us, but it sounded like hundreds of fish gasping in a water tank lacking sufficient oxygen.
“I want to know what makes you think so,” said the insect dealer, thrusting the flame of his light toward me. “It could have been set off by a sudden squall, couldn’t it? There’s a front going by. Maybe your sensor is just too sensitive.”
“It’s far more sophisticated than that,” I said, feeling less and less confident in my ability to outtalk this man whose tongue was his fortune. “It’s computer-controlled. There are pressure anemometers at the northern and southern extremities of the mountain, and when the difference in their measurements is greater than one-third, the computer registers it as a local, small-scale disturbance without proceeding to the next stage. Other factors taken into consideration are duration of pressure, presence or absence of a heat wave, rate of temperature climb, and, of course, tests for radioactivity… . There’s no way it could be set off by a mere squall.”
Light fell on the tunnel entrance. It was from a large portable lantern hanging from the adjutant’s shoulders, carefully positioned in such a way that his body was visible from the waist down only.
“Excuse me, sir.” His tone hadn’t changed a whit. Nerves of such steely resiliency demanded respect.
“An emergency situation has arisen,” responded the insect dealer. “Possibly a nuclear explosion.” He seemed inclined to affirm that possibility rather than deny it. Flakes of light appeared in the flame of his lighter—a sign he was running out of fuel. “Nuclear weapons are essentially designed to be used in a preemptive strike. It’s common knowledge among military analysts that in all-out nuclear warfare there would be no declaration of war.”
“I’ll go get a lantern,” said the shill, and groped his way upstairs.
“What’s that smell—radioactivity?” It was the young scout.
“No, ding-dong—gunpowder,” said the adjutant flatly. “Powder smoke, it’s called. To a real man it smells sweet as roses.”
“We’ll be safe from radiation in here,” said Sengoku, reassuring himself.
“Is there a radio?” asked the adjutant, and clapped his ear with the palm of his hand. He had apparently received a considerable physical shock.
“There won’t be any broadcasting stations left,” I said. “A one-megaton blast wipes out everything in a three-mile radius. Within a six-mile radius, high winds full of glass fragments whip around.”
“Yes—so if there
was
reception, that would be a good sign.”
I had to be cautious. This man was not only deranged but fast-thinking. “The walls are so thick I don’t think radio waves would have a chance of getting in. Even if we had a radio.”
“You know, Captain,” said the insect dealer, “you should have put everything you had on that bet. You were too fainthearted.” He explained to the adjutant, “The captain and I had a bet going, you see, as to whether or not the bomb would fall in the next twenty-four hours.”
“It was the next five minutes,” I corrected.
“What’s the difference?” said the insect dealer. “Money’s worthless now, anyway. You couldn’t lay wagers even if you wanted to.”
“I know something just as good as money, or better,” persisted the adjutant. “How about those junior high school girls? They’d make perfect stakes.”
Lamplight flashed from the parapet on the bridge, crossing the ceiling in a straight line until it rested on the ruined hatch. The destruction was more complete than I had imagined. The center of the steel door was smashed, and stone rubble had poured through; the shape was that of an expensive Japanese-style confection. The dogs had doubtless been scared out of their wits. The light moved on, fastening on the blue-sheeted corpse, which was covered with several fist-sized chunks of stone. If he hadn’t been a corpse already, he would have been screaming in pain. Maybe he would even have died from the injuries.
Suddenly Sengoku slammed a fist into his palm and hollered, “Then we did it, man! We survived!”
The light vanished, and the shill came down the stairs.
“You mean we’re not dead. That’s all,” retorted the girl glumly.
“We’re alive! We survived!” Sengoku repeated, in tears, and sniffed.
“Now comes the tough part: going on surviving,” said the adjutant, stroking Sengoku with his light. “Commander, what are your instructions?”
“I don’t care—we survived,” said Sengoku again, kicking the floor. “Everybody else has croaked. Right, Mole?”
“Lower your voice, will you?” I said. “You’re giving me a headache.”
There was a percussive sound, clear and carrying, but not sharp; rather like a distant drumbeat. If this was the sound of falling water, then just as I’d hoped, there might have been an alteration in the flow of water underground. I detected a change in the wriggling of the worms in my calf. Was I imagining it? Surely it was too soon for the effects to reveal themselves.
Beaming his lantern ahead of him, the adjutant approached Red Jacket—who, had he stayed where he first was, would almost surely have been severely injured in a fusillade of stones.
“Excuse me, sir!” screamed the young scout.
“Is he dead?” asked the adjutant.
“No, sir.”
“Did he confess?”
“No, sir.”
“Scout A, have you forgotten your orders?”
Just as the adjutant raised his steel-centered broom, the insect dealer issued a brisk, professional command.
“Emergency directive. Divide the Broom Brigade into squads, and assign each squad a turn at the air-purifying equipment. A schedule of shifts will be issued later. All men will be expected to participate in the work of charging batteries with the pedal-operated generators. Choose all those men with mechanical experience, and start work on building a new generator, top speed. Register all men according to their skills, make up a list of names arranged by specialty, and appoint one man in charge of each division.”
There was no mistake; it was definitely the sound of water drops hitting the storage drum. Three in a row, a pause, then two. A clear sign that the flow of water had altered.
“Repeat those orders,” said the adjutant to the young scout, jabbing him with the broom handle.
“I can’t,” the youth replied, his voice shaking.
“You have to be able to repeat an order,” said the adjutant. He might equally have been reproving the youth
or
the insect dealer.
The flame of the cigarette lighter went out.
“Adjutant, let’s be off,” said the insect dealer, leading the way toward the work hold. “Bring along the captive and set him to work.” He seemed desperate not to lose command. In the light from the shill’s lamp, held up to see him off, we could see that he was gripping the small of the Uzi’s butt. As if suddenly remembering, he swung around and said, “Captain, how about the filters on the air purification system? All in place?”
Knowing this to be sheer claptrap, I responded in kind. “Absolutely. BG-system triple-layer cooling filters.”
“Everyone who can spare the time, report to the work hold,” he declared. The adjutant followed, driving the youths before him. After him went Sengoku, muttering to himself. “We survived … we survived… .”
“ ‘Spare the time’? Who could have more time to spare than us?” said the shill in disbelief.
“Careful,” warned the girl. “Don’t let them out of your sight, or who knows what they might do.” She pushed the reluctant shill along, lighting the way for him with the lantern. The beam traveled on, crawling along the wall and up to the ceiling, where it captured some sort of movement, like the swarming of bees. Of course it was no such thing: it was a curtain of water spilling out over quite a wide area. The noise of droplets hitting the drums came from a very small portion of the water on the ceiling. With change proceeding at this pace, I became hopeful that the inner workings of the toilet might soon be affected too.
“Water’s leaking,” said the girl, exploring the whole area with her lantern. “Is it always like this? Look, there’s enough behind those drums to raise goldfish in.”
The flood was building up swiftly. It was just after that that some sort of shock took place in the depths of the toilet. My ears couldn’t hear it, but my leg did: it was like the sound of elevator doors echoing down in the base of a high-rise building. Had the control valve turned around at last?
“Would you mind gathering things up before they start to get wet?” I said. “The maps and tickets and eupcaccia box, for starters.”
“You think the water will come this far?” she asked.
“Probably.”
“Are these chocolates?”
“Liqueur-filled. I eat them with my beer. I’ll bet you think that’s weird, but it tastes surprisingly good.”
“What shall we do?” the girl said anxiously, choosing a chocolate. “Now that this has happened, won’t the toilet be more important than your leg, after all?”
She stepped up on the edge of the toilet with one leg and put the eupcaccia box on the upper shelf. The hem of her skirt was at my eye level, her bare kneecaps just in front of my lips.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” I said. Cautiously, as when mixing gunpowder, I held my breath, and then said in a rush—as if unwrapping a gift that had cost an entire year’s salary—“It’s all a lie. Now listen to me calmly, without getting excited. There was no nuclear explosion. I lied. Nothing of the kind happened.”
The girl did not say anything right away. The liqueur-filled chocolate in her fingers was crushed without a sound.
“A lie? You mean what you said was a lie, or the explosion was a lie?”
“It was all a lie. That was only some dynamite before. You helped me, remember? By pushing that lever on the switchboard.”
“But why … ?”
“Two reasons. First, I was scared. The nuclear war hadn’t even started yet, and look what was happening already. I couldn’t bear it. The other reason is selfish: I did it because of the toilet—because of my leg. I figured there was only a fifty-fifty chance it would work—or less; maybe one in three. Remember, you and I talked about it before—the valve below. It was my last hope. I wanted to change the flow of the water underground, and see if that wouldn’t change things. ”
“Did it?”
“Yes. Look how the water is dripping from the ceiling.”
“What about your leg?”
“Just as I’d hoped. It feels completely different.”
“Better?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that. When your leg goes to sleep it feels worse when the circulation starts coming back, after all. Right now it hurts even to cough. But that sensation of being slowly sucked down is definitely gone. If someone gave me a hand, I bet I could manage to get out of here somehow.”
“You’d better not tell anyone.”
“I know. If they found out I’d wrecked the toilet, they’d murder me.”
“Why did you tell me?”
“You’re going to run away with me, aren’t you? To where we can see the sky.”
“How? The passageways are all blocked off.”
“There’s a way out. A secret passageway.”
“Where?”
“Don’t tell anyone. Nowadays all you hear is the public’s right to know, but it seems to me that lying is often more practical. It’s upstairs, locker number one… . I’ll tell you everything. The combination is one-one-one. Take off the back panel and there’s a tunnel there that leads down underneath the city hall.”
“The outside world is safe, then… .”
“Yes. And the sky. Cloudy skies and sunsets, blue skies, smog… .”
The shill returned from the work hold, following the small circle of light emitted by his penlight; he was walking slowly and carefully to avoid splashing himself—as if making his way across a swamp.
“If you want someone to help you, it’ll have to be him,” she said.
“I suppose so,” I agreed.
The shill hailed us cheerfully, his voice a sharp contrast with his dragging footsteps. He seemed already completely at home with the Broom Brigade. “Everybody’s hard at work,” he said, “taking turns pedaling the five bikes. But the strongest ones are all out in the search squad looking for the girls, and so far the pedalers have managed only to light up seven miniature light bulbs, the size of a candle flame. But you should hear the way they talk! Just like a bunch of cats in heat. Old men have the dirtiest minds.”
“The captain says he thinks his leg might come out.” I did not know what to make of her mentioning only this and not the hidden escape route.
“Why?” he asked, in exaggerated surprise. “Maybe his blood started flowing backward, and it’s affected his mind. Do you suppose that could happen?”
“Why not tell him the truth?” I said.
“The truth?” he said. “What are you talking about?”
She ignored me. “How are things going over there?” she asked. “Do you think you can hit it off with Komono and the adjutant? Do you think you can make a go of it here?”
“Good question.” He rubbed his face with his palms and said, “Oh, I’ll probably manage one way or another. I’m used to playing up to people. Not like the sweet-potato man; he strikes me as a manic-depressive type. After being all that gloomy, now he’s whooping it up hysterically. Just sitting still doing nothing, he says the joy of being alive comes in through his belly button and goes out the top of his head. Says it makes a noise like the beeper on a wristwatch. Can you believe it? I’m not that far gone, but I’ll admit it will be a relief not to have to wear disguises and run away from loan sharks. The ones following me around are all old buddies of mine, which only makes it worse. Of course, I have to say being superintendent of the captain’s weapons and supply room sounds a bit out of my line. That place is a real fortress.”
“It’s stocked with guns and medicine and food supplies—”
“No, foodstuffs all come under the jurisdiction of the sweet-potato man.”