Кобо Абэ - The Ark Sakura

“Cancer.”

Mentally I reviewed my impressions of the shill, as if starting again at page one of a book I’d read partway. “What kind of cancer?”

“Bone marrow. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s evidently a kind of leukemia. Don’t tell anyone, okay? He doesn’t even know about it yet himself.”

“Is it serious?”

“Isn’t cancer always? They give him six months to live.”

“Tell me the truth. What’s your relationship to him?”

“It’s hard to say exactly.”

“Why does he call you ‘young lady’? Isn’t that a bit formal?”

“Probably he does it to excite people’s imaginations.”

“More fishing?”

“I don’t know; maybe.”

“But the only ones to be told the truth about a cancer patient’s condition are the next of kin. Isn’t that so?” I felt a rising irritation that was totally at odds with the thrill of being alone with her like two children snuggled in a closet.

Instead of answering, she looked up and waved. The shill and the insect dealer were standing side by side, elbows on the bridge parapet, munching on kamaboko and looking down at us.

“You want your coffee up there?” she asked.

“Nah, we’ll come on down.” The insect dealer placed his hands on the small of his back and stretched. “Less trouble that way, and easier to clean up.”

“No, let’s have it up here.” Waving both hands, the shill disappeared in the recesses of the bridge, then rounded the pillar and came down the stairs. “But first I’ve got to use the john.”

“You can’t — me first!” the girl exclaimed, thrusting at him a tray piled with four clean cups, no two alike. “I’ll bring the coffee up as soon as the water boils.”

What could we say? Wordlessly the shill took the tray and withdrew, and I followed. Together we laid the cups out near one corner of the table. The insect dealer called down to her over the parapet:

“Got anything to eat down there?”

Her voice came echoing back, colored by the reverberation. “Hey! No peeking.” I detected a note of playfulness that I found distasteful. A half-smile lingering on the corner of his mouth, the insect dealer turned away with visible regret.

“Let’s eat, Captain,” he said. “I can’t talk on an empty stomach.”

I was hungry too. The problem as I saw it was to decide what kind of meal we should have; it might well have a profound impact on our future relationships. Broadly speaking, there were three possibilities: the four of us could share a simple meal of instant noodles; we could sit down to a slightly more substantial meal, in a spirit of welcome to the new crew (in that case, we would need more booze); or I could take them all to the food storehouse, where they could each pick out what they wanted, at their own expense. In that case, everybody would be on their own. Personally, I favored the last option, but seeing that living quarters had not yet been formally assigned, it might set some unfortunate precedents. An enjoyable welcome party might serve as an effective social lubricant for all the various relationships among us. If there was some guarantee I could talk to the girl without worrying constantly about the shill, I certainly had no objection to opening a bottle or two of sake. Right now, in order to settle my mind, I needed time for another cup of coffee.

“Is this where you sleep, Captain?” asked the shill, tapping an armrest of the chaise longue.

“Yes — why?”

“What about us? Where do we sack out?”

“For now, anyplace. I have sleeping bags for everybody.”

“Well, in that case, you’ll have to excuse me for a while. Sorry,” said the shill.

With people switching back and forth all the time this way, how could I formulate any plan? I decided to stop worrying about the dinner menu.

“Nothing to be sorry about. Do as you please,” I said.

“I can’t help it,” the shill said, explaining, “I can’t get to sleep without my own pillow. Always carry it with me on trips.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“No, it isn’t.” The insect dealer was stuck to the edge of the chaise longue like a half-dried squid. “It doesn’t have to be a particularly soft one, or anything. But there are people with attachments to a certain pillow. It must be the smell of their own hair oils, absorbed into the pillow.”

“Pillows pick up smells, all right, that’s for sure,” agreed the shill. “Ever stay in a cheap hotel somewhere in the sticks? It’s enough to make you gag.”

“Of all the senses, they say the sense of smell is the most primitive,” said the insect dealer.

“Other people’s smells may be unbearable, but your own never are,” said the shill. “Everyone has a certain affection for their own body odors.”

“That’s true,” said the insect dealer. “Ever see somebody scratch his dandruff, and then sniff the dirt under his nails?”

“Please, would you both just be quiet?” I was fed up. I certainly had never expected life with a crew to be so bothersome. “I went a long time without hearing any human voices here,” I went on. “Now it’s a strain on my nerves.”

Would the old quiet never return? This arrangement was scarcely worth the trouble. Did any of them have the slightest idea of the enormous price I was paying?

We heard a sudden gush of water. The girl had begun to urinate. I hadn’t expected the noise to carry so well. It took little effort to imagine the precise amount and pressure of liquid released. It sounded as close as a cricket would have sounded, chirping under the chaise longue. Too late, I regretted having asked them to be silent. All three of us pulled at our ears, sucked air through our molars, and pretended not to hear. The sound continued unendingly, until I could no longer endure it.

“Anytime people begin living together, there have got to be some rules.” My words serving as a substitute for ear-plugs, I jabbered on at a speed even I found offensive to the ear. “And rules aren’t rules unless they’re kept. And in order for them to be kept, they must be based on the premise of a shared set of fundamental values. What I mean to say is that only people who fully appreciate the utility value of this old quarry can comprehend its true worth. I’m not being overly fussy, I can assure you.”

The insect dealer followed up my words swiftly in a gravelly voice. “That’s right. Just having this much space at your disposal is worth an incredible sum. After all, Japan is a tiny country suffering from absolute space deficiency.”

Was that big skull of his stuffed with bean curd instead of brains, or did he talk like an asshole on purpose?

“Don’t get me wrong,” said the shill. “It’s not only the pillow I’m worried about.” There must have been something catching about the insect dealer’s rapid-fire, hoarse way of talking, for now the shill rattled on in the same way. “There are some pills I’ve been taking, and a book I’m halfway through — after all, we’ve got to get our things and move in, don’t we? But I won’t come back empty-handed, Captain. Will you let me sell some of those passkeys for you? I’ll bring you back some absolutely first-rate people. The kind that think fast and are flexible. This cave has all sorts of possibilities, after all. Right off the top of my head I can think of farm-produce storage, lacquerware factories (they need plenty of moisture), mushroom cultivation, the brewing industry. you name it.”

“Haven’t you got the message yet?” I said. “I don’t want people finding out about this place.”

“I know. What you’re really after is a way to work without paying taxes, am I right? Leave it to me, I’m an expert. For instance, you could form a film studio to make porn videos. They say that really rakes it in. Or you might consider running an underground hotel as a hideout for escaped criminals. You wouldn’t have to spend much on facilities, and you could charge as much as you liked. Even better would be intensive-care rooms for mental hospitals. A mental hospital is really a kind of prison for lifers, so what with local citizens’ protests and one thing and another, finding somewhere to build can be a problem. But once you have that, you’ve got the goose that lays the golden egg. Patients in lifetime isolation wards.”