Кобо Абэ - The Ark Sakura

Until eight years before, Mount Boar had been densely wooded, in better keeping with its name. Quarry motors vied in emitting murderous screeches, while big dump trucks fought for space on the narrow roads, flinging gravel and spraying muddy water as they went. Indeed, there had been an atmosphere of sufficient danger to frighten children away without any need for “Keep Out” signs. Now there were orange-colored streetlights at regular intervals, curbs painted in yellow wavy lines, glass-walled telephone booths, quiet cherry-tree-lined streets used solely by local residents, and row upon row of houses, each with its own modest, fenced-in garden, each running its own air conditioner.

Suddenly the insect dealer broke into a nasal falsetto, singing a children’s tune: “ ‘The gold bug is a rich old bug—’ ” Equally suddenly he broke off into an embarrassed cough. “Sorry — I can’t help it. Before the eupcaccia, I used to sell stag beetles.”

“I heard about it from the shill. They have horns, don’t they?”

“Here’s my old pitch.” He held up his left index finger in the air, and said in a loud voice, full throttle: “Can you see it? Look, right there, the tiny insect on the end of my finger. Stag beetles bring luck, ladies and gentlemen, just as we Japanese have been singing for centuries in that old song. But did you know that ours is not the only country in the world to value the stag beetle so highly? The ancient Egyptians called it the scarab beetle, and worshipped it as a manifestation of the sun god. And as any encyclopedia will tell you, the famous French entomologist Doctor Fabre devoted his life to its study. Buy one today and let it bring you luck. The one I have here is especially rare. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the world’s smallest beetle, found only in tropical jungles. Can you make it out? It may be too small to see with the naked eye. They say the magnifying glass was invented just to aid in observing stag beetles. That led in turn to developments in astronomy, so you see you can hardly underestimate their importance.”

“Did they sell?”

“You bet they did — more than the eupcaccias, anyway.” The best customers are mothers with their children in tow. All the kids have to do is give me a sidelong glance, with just a hint of a smile, and the mothers are caught off balance. They always end up loosening their purse strings.”

“You have a smooth delivery.”

“That’s right, smooth as butter.” He stuck out his tongue, wiggled the tip, and said, “Well, that’s a mother for you, isn’t it.”

The downhill road ends by the city hall complex, with its covering of black glass and black imitation marble; from there a four-lane prefectural road carries you due south to the harbor. The area went into a decline after stone hauling came to an end and the bypass opened up, but even so, we encountered a fair amount of traffic as we proceeded — mostly pickup trucks, two or three lined up at every red light. This harbor still has the largest freezing facilities of any fishing harbor in the prefecture.

“The race is as good as over. Whichever way you come, you end up here. I hope we get there before they do.”

“I don’t know. That wasn’t much of a shortcut. All we did was cross one little hill.”

I knew that without being told. Did he have to squash my last fragile hope? He was the one who made us lose time at the start.

“The national road swings way around, north of the tracks. If we left at the same time they did, we should have picked up a good fifteen minutes on them.”

“Aye, aye, Captain. Straight on to the sea it is.”

The sensation of being called Captain, now that I could finally taste it, brought nothing like the satisfaction I had so long anticipated. On the contrary, I rather felt he was laughing at me.

“See that row of orange streetlights up ahead? That’s the bypass. Take a left just before you reach there.”

6

THE DOOR OF THE

ABANDONED CAR

We crossed over a narrow stream, and the asphalt began to buckle and roll. We were on a dilapidated town road whose surface was rough with gravel. Soon the elevated bypass loomed overhead, supported by thick ferroconcrete piers. At first the town road runs parallel with the bypass, but at the second pier it pulls away, swinging around sharply until the two roads cross by the bay. The crescent of land this formed is private property owned by Inototsu, my biological father, who let slide his chance to sell it to the highway department.

The old fishermen’s inn was located on a rocky ledge directly under the present bypass. No trace of it survives, neither grounds nor building nor wharf. All that’s left to show for it is that steep crescent of land sandwiched between the bypass and the town road, hardly big enough for a doghouse. It’s of so little value that not even Inototsu pays it any attention, so I had no difficulty in appropriating it for my own use. At the center of the crescent is the entrance to the quarry — the place where I was taken in and chained twenty years ago, when I was accused of rape. The vein had been exhausted and abandoned even then. A number of artisans were using the site to make stone lanterns, as I recall; they used to sneak me tidbits from their lunches. Just what connection there was between the quarry and the grounds of the inn, I have never understood. Inototsu probably could tell me, but rather than face him, I prefer to remain in the dark.

The town road was made by open-cut excavation in that steep slope which falls away to the rocky shelf in the cove, like a hard-boiled egg sliced at an angle. From the highest point, the center of the curve, the drop is nearly twenty-five feet, and so rough and precipitous that descent is impossible without a rope.

“Hang a right in front of the first concrete pier,” I directed him.

“There’s no road.”

“You’re forgetting this is a jeep.”

Tall weeds covered what was once the entrance to the fishermen’s inn. To get back to the rocky promontory, you have to go under the bypass and skirt the beach.

“They’ll never figure this out,” said the insect dealer.

“Now pull over and cut the engine.” I took a flashlight from the toolbox behind my seat, and stepped outside.

“Your knee seems okay now, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, now that you mention it.”

I had too much on my mind to go on pretending otherwise. I crouched down, peered around, and pricked up my ears. If the shill and his companion had indeed read the map correctly and beaten us here, they would have had to abandon their car in this vicinity. There were no fresh tire tracks. The only sounds that I could make out were the vibrations from cars whizzing by overhead and the whistle of wind on the waves. I detected no whir of an engine trying to pull out of the sand, nor any foreign object interrupting the horizon’s faint glow. We were in time.

“Isn’t that a footprint over there?”

The insect dealer, Komono (it will take me a while to start calling him by his name), leaned out from the driver’s seat and pointed to a section of sand near the pier. I turned my flashlight on it. In a mound of sand between the pier and the ledge were two small indentations that did bear a certain resemblance to footprints. Absorbed in tracing the probable route of the other car, I had somehow overlooked them.

“Probably a dog.”

“Too distinct for that. Or are they?”

“Let’s get a move on.” Motioning to him to slide over, I climbed into the driver’s seat, put the gears in four-wheel drive, and started up in second, heading for the sands, gradually picking up speed as we circled around and went up from the beach onto the ledge.

“Easy! Don’t push your luck.” Clutching the dashboard, he put a cautionary hand on the steering wheel.