Кобо Абэ - The Ark Sakura

“There’s definitely more than two,” repeated Sengoku. “And the skirmishing has gone on three full days now. It’s time for a decisive battle — right around tonight.”

“But your leader is dead,” said the girl, holding her nose and shrinking back as if suddenly remembering the body. “Who’s fighting whom? Who were those two guys running away from in such a hurry?”

“The leadership may change, but not the strategy. The old men are very keen on their strategy.” Something in Sengoku’s way of speaking was terribly disturbing. It made me think of a fishing barb wrapped skillfully in bait.

“How ridiculous,” sighed the shill. “Who gives a damn?” He looked from me to the sheeted bundle and back again. “Maybe we should go ahead and call a doctor,” he said.

Sengoku burst into loud, jeering guffaws.

“What’s so funny?” demanded the shill.

“I was just thinking you wouldn’t talk that way if you knew what the war was all about.”

“I’m talking about a doctor.”

“No doctors make house calls at this hour, and you know it.”

“All right, I give up. What is the war about?”

“Oh, you’d be interested, I guarantee. I’d even bet on it.”

“Of course he would,” snapped the girl. Then, reverting to her professional smile, she added more graciously, “After all, that’s his job. His and mine. It has nothing to do with our real feelings. Don’t forget, we’re sakura. Decoys. Shills. Our job is showing interest to attract customers. Anytime we can be of service, just give us a call.”

“I must say I don’t think you have the proper attitude,” said Sengoku, puffing himself up self-importantly. “When some problem arises, you’ve got to try to understand the other fellow’s point of view — isn’t that the basis of communal living? Before I express any doubts to the captain, I always think back on all the sweet-potato cakes of mine he’s bought and try to figure out what went wrong.”

“Bully for you.” The shill sucked in his saliva and clucked his tongue. “Sorry if our line of work offends you.”

“I–I didn’t mean it like that.” Sengoku stumbled over his words as if he’d lost his bearings. “I mean — I’ve worked in election campaigns, and that’s pretty much the same thing, isn’t it?”

“What are you trying to say?”

“That cleaning up humanity is part of the Broom Brigade’s business. Also that the kids in the Wild Boar Stew gang are real punks, the lowest of the low.”

“The what, did you say? Wild Boar Stew gang?”

“That’s right. Clever, don’t you think? It’s apparently deliberate provocation. Because the men in the Broom Brigade go around puncturing the tires of their cars.”

“Komono isn’t going to go for any war like that,” I argued, rubbing the back of my knee. “No way.” Even if he was a former SDF man, in love with firearms, at heart Komono was a selfish cynic who believed in nothing but quick, sure profits. Nobody in search of everlasting hope could possibly succeed as a showman like him. “Still, you know, if he ever did catch one of them. ”

“Don’t forget, Komono’s got a gold-plated badge with three stripes,” said Sengoku.

“Yes,” said the shill, “and he issues commands like the real thing. He’s probably humoring the old men.”

“No, he’s serious, I think,” I said.

“Don’t be silly,” said the shill. “What is there to worry about?”

“I can’t help it.”

“Even granting the Wild Boar Stew gang is the dregs of humanity — absolute scum — there still isn’t much to choose between them and the old men in the Broom Brigade. Anyway, basically I don’t believe in dividing people into trash and nontrash. Evolution taught me that much.” He gave a quick self-deprecating smile, and added, “Garbage is the fertilizer that makes the trees grow.”

Again my leg began to throb painfully in time to the beat of my pulse. I had a presentiment of terrible pain, as if my skin were to be slashed with a knife. A dangerous sign. Even a person who normally can’t stand dentists will head straight for one as soon as his toothache gets bad enough. You get so you wouldn’t care if he used pliers to take it out. At this rate, I feared I might soon start begging them to cut my leg off. I addressed the shill.

“If anything should happen to me, I guess you’d make the best successor as captain,” I said.

“Me? Captain?” The shill’s face froze in the beginnings of a laugh. “You sure you haven’t got me mixed up with somebody else? If I were the captain, this would be the S.S. Sakura —a shill ship. What a laugh! No compass, no charts. Just a ship that pretends to be going somewhere, when all along it has no intention of moving an inch.”

“I never had a compass, either, you know.” My leg continued to swell. “If you could catch one of those hoodlums, though, I sure would like to question him about a tunnel leading up under here.”

“I’ll bet they’re still around, those two — maybe just outside.” The girl supported the crossbow with her knee, and laid her fingers on the bow.

“It’s probably hopeless,” said Sengoku. “They couldn’t know very much about the quarry layout. It’s only the last two or three days they came in this far, running away from their pursuers. Funny thing is, the Broom Brigade was really after junior high school girls the whole time.”

“I beg your pardon?” I asked.

“You heard me. Junior high school girls.”

22

THE SHADOW ADJUTANT

We stared at the steel door over the landing. The girl was standing three paces in front of the toilet, crossbow at the ready; the shill was at the foot of the staircase, hand on the pillar, frozen halfway to a sitting position; Sengoku was leaning against the wall that connected with the galley. Each of us pondered separately the possible meaning of that striking remark about junior high school girls. We all sensed the importance of understanding it, in order to catch the youths cowering behind the door.

That was why when a figure appeared in the tunnel to the operation hold, nobody noticed until he spoke up.

“Excuse me,” he said. His manner of speaking and his attitude were different from those of the other two, yet he was unmistakably one of them. Half of his teased hair was dyed yellow, and he looked like a dead branch soaked in oil. Swiftly the girl repositioned her crossbow, as Dead Branch gave the interior of the hold a nervous once-over.

“Excuse me,” he repeated, this time with a bow and a salute in the direction of Sengoku, whom he clearly recognized. Sengoku acknowledged the greeting with an annoyed wave of the hand and said, “What are you doing here?”

“Excuse me,” Dead Branch said again. What set him apart from the Wild Boar Stew gang was the small bamboo broom in his right hand, and the silver badge on his chest. He drew out the antenna on a large walkie-talkie slung around his left shoulder, and called: “Headquarters, come in. This is Scout A, reporting from room number one by the oceanside entrance. All’s well. Over. That’s correct. No sign of any suspicious persons. Over. That’s correct. Four in all. Over. Roger. Over and out.”

“Calling Komono?” asked the girl. She lowered her crossbow and made a sucking sound, as if rolling a pill on her tongue.

“Commander Komono is on his way here now. He’ll be here very shortly. He’s going to set up mobile headquarters in this room. I’m to wait here for him. Excuse me.”

His peculiar way of accenting every sentence was typical of his generation, yet his expression and demeanor were as flat as those of a tired old man. Not even my queer predicament elicited any sign of interest or surprise. Was he playing the part of a modern, callous youth, or had constant association with old men turned him into a fossil? Or perhaps he was a very model of allegiance — the sort who gave constant obedience, even in the absence of a command. There was no denying that he inspired a certain dread. Yet now he leaped nimbly up onto the first storage drum and seated himself, swinging his legs and beating out a rhythm with the handle of his broom. Surely he wasn’t humming an old war song.?