Кобо Абэ - The Ark Sakura

“How can you sit still and listen to this?” said Sengoku, his breath coming somewhat faster than seemed necessary. “I can’t stand it.”

“Nobody’s asking you to,” remarked the adjutant, and continued. “Leaving that aside, we now come to part two of the trial, when this comes into play.” He picked up the telephone directory, which had a well-worn look, placed his hand on top, and clamped his mouth shut as if weighing the effect. The effect was all he could have hoped for. Having some inkling of what this was all about, I became still more depressed.

“Look — isn’t he still crying?” whispered the girl over my shoulder. The youth was standing motionless, his face buried in his arms on the storage drum. It was hard to tell; he might have been crying or he might just have dozed off.

“I think gangrene is setting in,” I said.

“It won’t be much longer now. Hang on. ”

“I suppose it wouldn’t help if I just blasted a hole in the pipe with my Uzi.”

“You’d bleed all over the place, since your leg itself is acting as the stopper,” she said.

“To continue — we use this to search for the right people,” said the adjutant, picking up the directory and flipping through it. All sorts of symbols were inscribed on its pages in different colors of ink: # * % & # $ < > ¤ ¥ § O? “This is what we use to screen people, to determine if they are fit to survive. We go through the whole list in alphabetical order, proceeding at a rate of about thirty names a day. Anyone who receives a strong majority of negative votes will naturally be eliminated. What it comes down to, really, is a death sentence. Where there is a division of opinion, we’ll put a person on hold. There are various ranks among those on hold, and after reevaluation a person can be given a new rank, or have the sentence of death confirmed.”

“What’s the standard for that evaluation?” asked the shill. “How do you propose to gather the necessary data?” I noticed appreciatively that he said nothing about his evolution-based views that human trash would make the best crew, instead taking my side — as per our agreement — and voicing my own doubts.

“I can understand what deeply satisfying work it must be.” The insect dealer nodded sympathetically. “You have absolute power of life and death. It’s obviously very crucial work too — after all, you’re assigning responsibility for the future of the entire human race.”

“Naturally,” said the adjutant, “we use all sorts of data for reference. Files in the city hall computer, giving fairly detailed information on family, occupation, income, and so forth, in addition to reports from private detectives, credit bureaus, and what have you. But there is precious little time, so we have to process an average of at least thirty people a day. No one person can be allotted more than five minutes. As a result, to expedite the process, we occasionally take into consideration gossip about the candidate, his general reputation — even the aura of his residence as seen from the outside — to help in forming a judgment. In the lack of relevant data other than the entry in the phone book, we go by our gut reaction to the candidate’s name and phone number.”

“Is it possible for someone who’s innocent to receive the death sentence?” The insect dealer, sitting with his legs crossed, reversed their position.

“Everyone is innocent before standing trial.”

“That’s true. I guess it’s better than throwing dice.”

“Dice are no good. That way, not enough people receive the death penalty.”

“That many have to die, do they? Well, I suppose it can’t be helped. The number of people who can fit in here is limited.”

“They’re crazy.” The girl’s voice at my ear was hoarse.

“What’s the ratio of death penalties to acquittals?” the shill mumbled, barely opening his mouth; his voice too sounded weak.

“There haven’t yet been any complete acquittals.” The adjutant’s voice remained perfectly calm. Was he only putting on an act for his own amusement? “Most people get the death penalty, and the rest are on hold. There are various categories among the people on hold: retrial, pending, bail, temporary release, suspended sentence, appeal, and so forth. The case is reconsidered after new evidence or new testimony is brought in. Still, mainly it’s the death penalty. If you’ve ever visited a courtroom, perhaps you’ll understand — the greatest excitement among the quintessential castoffs in our company occurs the moment that the death penalty is announced. That seems to be when they feel the greatest pleasure and purpose in their status as quintessential castoffs. I do wish people would stop treating this as some sort of personality aberration.” Laying a palm on the opened telephone directory, without moving his head he looked straight at the shill and the girl. “Sentencing people to death began as a painful means for choosing the few who would be able to survive — but at some point it became an end in itself, and a highly pleasurable one at that. Some might interpret this as the warped mentality of quintessential castoffs, I suppose. But there’s far more to it than that. Out of all the stories I read when I was a boy, two scenes in particular stand out in my mind. I’ve forgotten the rest of the plots, but those scenes are vividly etched in my mind. One is the queen in Alice in Wonderland running around yelling, ‘Off with their heads! Off with their heads!’ at every little thing. The other is in one of Andersen’s fairy tales — which one, I’ve forgotten — where a young prince hiding behind a tree hands out death sentences to passing travelers and cuts them down on the spot. That’s the way it is even in the world of children — how much more so, then, among quintessential castoffs, who in a sense are condemned men (and women) granted a temporary stay of execution. Besides, the sentences we give out can only be executed by the condemned people themselves.”

Leaning back against the flushing lever, which now did nothing but wobble ineffectually, I rubbed the sides of my knee, feeling rather as if I had wet the bed and gotten soaked. If Inototsu’s ferocity and total disregard for others were dissolved, distilled, and crystallized, they would come out resembling this adjutant’s logic. Could I have stopped there, and repudiated his words at face value, there would have been some hope. But the more I thought about it the less difference there was between what he was doing and what I, all unconsciously, had been doing too. How could I defend myself against the charge that my extreme reluctance to part with tickets to survival came to essentially the very same thing?

Both the insect dealer and the shill had repeatedly accused me of misanthropy. They were right. I too had been signing secret death sentences without benefit of trial, all along. Whose way was more cruel? It was hard to say. In any case, I had lost all grounds for criticism of the Broom Brigade. Instead I wanted to criticize myself, crush myself to death like a flea.

“I don’t know,” said the shill. “It sounds inefficient to me to concentrate only on whom you can eliminate.” He snapped his fingers and banged the banister as if determined somehow to turn the tables on the adjutant. “Why not take the opposite approach, and compile lists of all the necessary trained personnel? Doctors, nurses, computer experts, car mechanics. ”

“After the bomb, there won’t be any need for computer experts,” interrupted Sengoku with understated irony. “Electromagnetic waves will make computers useless.”

“We’ve taken scrupulous pains to do just what you’re saying,” answered the adjutant. “Among the brigade members are accountants, cooks, even agricultural workers. We also have carpenters, plasterers, judo experts. butchers. plus a sweet-potato-cake baker, a cameraman, and our commanding officer here, who has a very special talent: mob pacification.”