Кобо Абэ - The Ark Sakura

With the ark in danger of springing a leak, this was no time to loiter. It was essential to go straight below and take defensive steps. But the other two seemed content to stay where they were. After the insect dealer’s ritual assertion of supremacy just now, I could not bring myself to go off and entrust the girl to his keeping. The situation called for deportment worthy of a captain, to make them recognize my leadership. What if I went ahead and gave her bottom a resounding slap myself?

“Anyway, let’s get going,” I said. Taking advantage of the opportunity my words provided, I gave the girl’s bottom a slap that was bold in spirit, if less so in reality. The sound effect was poor, but the tactile impression was richly rewarding — the moist, clingy feel of artificial leather, and a heavy warmth that sank deep into my flesh.

The girl straightened up and turned red. She opened her eyes wide and looked straight at me, whether in fear or embarrassment I could not tell.

“I didn’t know you had it in you,” said the insect dealer, licking his lips, and reaching past the girl to slap my shoulder. He flashed me a secretive, friendly grin in which I could detect no trace of irony or ridicule. Had it been a success? The insect dealer walked ahead, leading the way. Reality returned. It was as if at last the ship’s rudder had begun to work. The day’s events had not been a total waste.

11

AT FIRST GLANCE THE PASSAGEWAY

APPEARS TO BE A MERE CRACK

OR SLIT IN THE SEAM BETWEEN WALLS

At first glance the passageway appears to be a mere crack or slit rising high in the seam between walls. This is because of its enormous height, over fifty feet in all; actually it is wide enough for a small truck to pass through easily. We were dwarfed as we drew near.

About fifteen feet in, it turned to the right, thus blocking off our light source from the first hold. As we moved on in darkness, the floor began rising. Calling a warning to the others, I halted and stared ahead into the blackness. If the shill was there, the light from his lamp should be visible. Those shadows, light and dark, that moved with my eyeballs — were they mere afterimages, within the eye? I could see nothing else. Had he switched off his lantern, hearing our footsteps? Why? I pushed the second button on the switch control panel hanging from my belt, and fluorescent lights spaced evenly along the walls came sputtering to life. The right-hand wall of the passageway continued on to become the south wall of the work hold. The first hold and the central work hold were linked directly by this passage. The cluster of white pipes along the west wall, like a scale-model factory, was a manually operated air-conditioning system.

“Looks like he found the switch,” the insect dealer whispered in my ear. He hadn’t caught on that I was operating a remote-control switch. I saw no reason to relieve him of his misapprehension.

The girl took a step forward and called, cupping her hands, “Come on out. Hide-and-seek’s over.”

“Watch out.” I grabbed her arm and pulled her back. Why, I wondered, was her skin so soft? For a while I let my fingers stay as they were, pressed into her flesh. It was the first such change in mental state I had undergone since the bottom-slapping incident. He who controls the woman controls the group. Leering in my imagination like a movie villain, I strained my eyes to see the stone floor a few steps ahead.

The worst situation possible met my gaze. The flat steel spring lay blocking our way like a railway crossing gate. By rights it should have been fastened to the wall, set so that the moment anything or anyone touched the silkworm gut, suspended in a zigzag just off the floor, the latch would release and the spring would mow down its prey. Someone (possibly the shill) had either seen through the device and dismantled it safely, or else fallen into the trap.

“Is that a trap?” She clung to my arm. A most favorable sign. The sound of urinating. bottom slapping. and now direct contact. At the same time, I found myself still more apprehensive: a sprung trap, and no sign of prey.

“Yes,” I responded, “but the spring’s been released. Look, the strings on the floor have all gone slack.”

“I’ll be damned. You’re right.” The insect dealer crouched over the steel spring and removed his glasses. “These lenses aren’t right for my eyes — but wait a minute, where’s the victim? If this came down on your leg, you’d sure as hell know it.”

“That’s right; we didn’t hear a scream,” said the girl.

“It didn’t have to be a person, you know. A rat could have set it off easily,” I said.

“Yes, but a rat would get killed, wouldn’t it?” said the insect dealer. “Not only is there no dead rat here; the spring is perfectly clean. There’s not even any hair on it, let alone bloodstains.”

“Then it was a person. Somebody stood back at a safe distance and poked it with the end of a stick, or threw a stone at the string. But to do that you’d have to know before-hand that the trap existed. So it’s impossible.”

“It’s possible,” the girl said flatly. “He’s a master at anticipating people’s moves. Cards, mah-jongg. you name it.”

“Yes, and he’s already been hurt, twice.” The insect dealer put his hands on the small of his back and stretched. “First the staircase, then the fireworks. But, Captain, it doesn’t necessarily have to be the president, does it? Couldn’t it be somebody else, like a spy who sneaked aboard when you weren’t looking?”

There was no point in discussing hypothetical possibilities. The important thing now was to ascertain the shill’s whereabouts.

“Whoever it was, he couldn’t have just melted away. He’s no snowman,” I said, stepping over the steel spring and moving forward.

“He’s terrible, running off like this without a word to anyone,” the girl responded fretfully. The genuine irritation in her voice seemed to rule out any possibility of collusion.

We entered the work hold. It was the same size as the first hold but seemed smaller, as the length and breadth were equal. The ceiling, however, was high, so glancing up, one had an impression of spaciousness. The pillar thrusting upward directly ahead, near the back wall — or in other words along what was an extension of the right wall of this passageway — was exactly twenty-three feet around. The number of pillars, and their girth, were apparently fixed according to ceiling height. Behind the pillar was a tunnel over three feet across and six and a half feet high, easily overlooked because of the old bicycles piled up nearby as camouflage. There were twenty-eight of them, which I planned someday to turn into a foot-powered electric generator. Catty-corner from the pillar — or from where we were, at the far end of the near left-hand wall — gaped the opening of a second passageway. Rusted rails indicated that this had been a main tunnel when the quarry was still in operation. A third opening was near the ceiling, straight ahead on the left, below which a lift — a sort of vertical conveyor belt — was attached. Excavation work customarily proceeds from high to low, so probably in the beginning this was used to transport excavated stone to the surface. When it became apparent that the layer of high-quality rock extended deeper than was anticipated, they must have dug out the main passageway, to raise efficiency.

“What a mountain of rock! Whoever made off with all this must have earned themselves a pile of dough.” As he said this, the insect dealer swung his big head around as if his neck had no vertebrae. “So where do you think our friend went? Where would you look, Captain?”

The lift was over forty feet high — a bit much even for a former Self-Defense Forces member. The secret passage in the shadow of the pillar looked like nothing more than a scrap heap. Our eyes turned as if by agreement to the large tunnel entrance on the left, where the end of the rails could be seen.