Кобо Абэ - The Ark Sakura

“It’s the weather. And what you smell is some disinfectant I scattered around.”

“I don’t think that’s all. Pardon me for saying so, but I suspect it has more to do with your personality, Captain. Overly defensive. Frankly, with a captain who’s so determined to shut people out, I must say the prospect of a long voyage doesn’t offer much excitement.”

“Look — if you were dealing in pots and pans or medicine bottles, you’d have an obligation to make them watertight, wouldn’t you? With a ship, it’s even more vital. Your whole life depends on it.”

“I’m not taking the shill’s part, mind you,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong. But a ship’s captain has got to be a trifle more broad-minded, it seems to me. ”

“You were the one who kept insisting they were people to keep an eye on.”

“You’ve got to keep an open mind. If they managed to get inside despite all the obstacles in their way, they’d deserve a prize, wouldn’t they?”

“That’s right; it would be too much for that girl, anyway.”

“But then, anything you could handle—” he said, and quickly caught himself. “Oops, sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. Remember now, a ship’s captain has to be tolerant. That just shows how much I really trust you. Anyway, don’t forget we live in an age when women climb the Himalayas. Although between these dogs and this garbage dump, it might be too much for her at that.”

I was starting to feel the same way. Maybe I was only jumping at shadows. It seemed impossible that the padlock on the entrance — or the gangway, properly speaking — would be missing. Was it merely fear of shadows that had led me to acquire a weapon in the person of the insect dealer — a weapon for which I would have no use?

“Okay. If the dogs go after you, I’ll distract them,” I said. I turned off the engine, and together we stepped out of the jeep. I handed him a penlight, and lit the way for him with a large flashlight. “The door on the driver’s side of that car opens directly into the tunnel, so watch your head. It’s about thirty feet to the entrance. I’ll be right behind you.”

The insect dealer grabbed the rope and hauled himself up, his feet knocking down large clumps of dirt and sand at each step. This did not signify that he was any less surefooted than I; the slope was steep, and on it lay junk of all sizes and shapes, precariously piled together, each item supporting and supported by the rest. A monkey could have done no better without knowing where the footholds were.

A thin, runty black dog with long ears came sidling over to my feet. Was this a newcomer, paying his respects? Thanks to my talented howling, the pack of dogs had quickly accepted me as their leader. With humans it wouldn’t be so easy.

I put on my rubber boots and heavy-duty gloves. The insect dealer disappeared inside the abandoned car with a wave of his penlight. After the rope stopped swinging, I grabbed it and followed him. As I went up, I placed my feet safely and securely in the footholds, enjoying a mild sense of superiority. The rusted metal plate of the car door came before my eyes — beyond it gaped the mouth of the tunnel, exactly 4.83 feet square. I could see the insect dealer’s light flickering up ahead. Why they had chosen that exact measurement I did not know. The entranceway itself had a steel frame, but from there on the walls were bare rock, still showing the marks of the power saw with which they had been carved out. At my feet were rusted rails, their width adjusted to that of the handcars used for hauling stone. The tunnel cut directly under the town road, and continued another sixteen feet. Directly above the inmost part was where my biological mother had run her tobacco store — the place, incidentally, where I was born.

The farther in you went, the more pronounced the acoustical alteration: high-pitched sounds created mutual interference and were absorbed into the stone walls, leaving only the deep roar of low-pitched sounds. The howl of wind, the boom of waves, the singing of tires on the highway, all had a common denominator: the sound of a great wet canvas flapping in the wind.

“Oh, no — the lock’s gone. Come have a look.” His voice was muffled, as if he were speaking over the telephone.

“It’s over on the far left, as you stand facing the latch.”

He was right. The padlock was gone. It was stainless steel, a fairly big one several inches across, so there was no way we could have missed it. Someone had opened the door. It could only be them. Since it was a padlock, just turning the key wasn’t enough; you had to remove the whole thing from its fastening. They certainly weren’t going to stop there and just take the thing home as a souvenir. I’d been invaded. Bitterly, I regretted the lack of a keyhole that would have let me peer inside. I sat cross-legged before the steel door and listened attentively. Such a mélange of sounds came to my ears that I could hear nothing.

7

THE TRAPS AND THE TOILET

“Looks like they’re here, after all. I’m glad we didn’t make that bet.” The insect dealer spoke in an undertone, wiping the sweat from under his chin with the tail of his shirt. In the process, his pale abdomen was exposed, revealing next to his navel a dark red birthmark the size of my palm.

“I told you I wasn’t being an alarmist,” I said.

“But is it really them?” he asked. “Couldn’t it be somebody else?”

“Forget it. Who else has a key?”

“But we didn’t see any cars parked along the way — and that shortcut would be impossible to figure out from a map.”

“Maybe they took the train.”

“Eh? You never said anything about a train.”

“If you can get right on the express without waiting, it’s faster. Put out that light.”

The door was heavy steel, nearly half an inch thick, so the burden on its hinges was great. There was a certain trick to opening it. You had to pull it toward you, then push it up diagonally to adjust the hingepin before it would swing open silently and smoothly. I listened, and heard only the rumble of the sea, murmurings of conches, drops of water falling — whether near or far was impossible to say.

It was too quiet. I pushed the door open still farther, went inside, and stood on the cedarwood deck. The insect dealer followed behind, gripping my belt. If what we had just come through were the gangway, this would be the hatch, not the deck. We were on the top landing of the stairs leading down into the hold. There was a damp green smell, and perfect silence. Nothing more. What had happened to the invaders? I felt an uneasy premonition.

I had not yet told the insect dealer, but the entire ship was booby-trapped to guard against trespassers. This very staircase leading down into the hold was a dangerous trap. It appeared to be the only way down, but the boards from the fourth step to the seventh held a nasty surprise: on one side they were fastened down with a spring hinge, while the other side was left free so that anyone putting his weight on them was bound to slip and fall. It was twenty-three feet to the bottom. An unlucky fall could easily prove fatal. The only safe way to go up and down was to use the ladder propped inconspicuously alongside the stairs.

Assuming you managed to pass this first hurdle, you still had to get by the stairs leading up to the bridge, a sort of terrace off the first hold. (I always refer to it as the bridge, although technically it’s my own cabin — the captain’s quarters.) Set foot on those stairs without first pushing the cancel button, and a fusillade of skyrockets will instantly fire. Put a hand on the drawer of my desk, and a spray can of insecticide will go off in your face. Nor would it be wise to show any interest in the bookmark stuck invitingly in my diary: Merely reaching for it would trigger an ultraviolet warning device, sending out a shower of crushed glass I made by grinding up old light bulbs. Individual fragments are as thin as mica and as sharp as razors; once they get in your hair you can’t brush them out, and if you tried to shampoo them out, your scalp would be cut to ribbons.