Кадзуо Исигуро - Klara and the Sun

‘This turning perhaps. Please, if possible.’

The Cootings Machine hadn’t been where I’d seen it earlier, and as the streets grew unfamiliar again, I gazed in every direction. The Sun sometimes shone brightly through the gaps between buildings, and I wondered if he was wishing to encourage me, or simply watching and monitoring my progress. When we turned into yet another street and there was again no sign of the Cootings Machine, my growing panic may have become obvious, because the Father said, in a kinder voice than any he’d so far used towards me:

‘You really believe this, don’t you? That this will help Josie.’

‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

Something seemed to change within him. He sat forward – and then, like me, he was looking left and right with urgent eyes.

‘Hope,’ he said. ‘Damn thing never leaves you alone.’ He shook his head almost resentfully, but there was now a new strength about him. ‘Okay. A vehicle, you say. One used by construction workers.’

‘It has wheels, but I don’t think it’s a vehicle as such. It needs to be towed everywhere it goes. It has Cootings written on its body and is pale yellow.’

He glanced at his watch. ‘The construction guys may have finished for the day. Let me try a few things.’

The Father began to drive more skillfully. We left behind the other vehicles, the passers-by, the storefronts, and entered the smaller streets shaded by windowless buildings, and large walls bright with cartoon writing. Sometimes the Father would stop, reverse, then steer slowly down narrow spaces beside wire-mesh fences, on the other side of which we could observe parked trucks and dirty cars.

‘See anything?’

Whenever I shook my head, he’d make the car lurch forward again, in a way that made me anxious we’d strike a fire hydrant or the corner of a building as we turned sharply around it. We looked into more yards, and once, we entered between two crookedly open gates, even though there was a sign hanging from one saying ‘Strictly No Admittance’, and drove around a yard filled with vehicles, stacked crates and a construction crane at the far end. But there was still no Cootings Machine, and the Father then took us into a shadow neighborhood with broken sidewalks and lonely passers-by. He steered into another narrow lane beside a looming Floors For Lease building, and behind this building was yet another yard bound by wire-mesh fencing.

‘There! Mr Paul, there it is!’

The Father jerk-stopped the car. The yard was on my side so I placed my head right against the window, and behind me the Father was adjusting in his seat to see better.

‘That one there? With the funnels?’

‘Yes. We’ve found it.’

I didn’t take my gaze from the Cootings Machine while the Father reversed the car slowly. Then we stopped once more.

‘That main entrance has a chain on it,’ he said. ‘But the side entrance there…’

‘Yes, the small entrance is open. A passer-by could enter on foot.’

I released the safety belt and was about to get out, but then felt the Father’s hand on my arm.

‘I wouldn’t go in there until you’ve decided exactly what you intend to do. It all looks ramshackle, but you never know. There may be alarms, there may be surveillance. You may not have time to stand around and think.’

‘Yes, you’re right.’

‘Are you quite certain you have the correct machine?’

‘Quite certain. I can see it clearly from here and there’s no doubt.’

‘And disabling it, you say, will help Josie?’

‘Yes.’

‘So how do you propose to go about doing that?’

I stared at the Cootings Machine sitting near the center of the yard, separated from the other parked vehicles. The Sun was falling between two silhouette buildings in the mid-distance overlooking the yard. His rays weren’t for the moment blocked by either building, and the edges of the parked vehicles were shining.

‘I feel very foolish,’ I said finally.

‘No, it’s not so easy,’ the Father said. ‘On top of which, what you’re proposing would count as criminal damage.’

‘Yes. However, if the people up in those high windows over there happened to see anything, I’m sure they’d be happy to see the Cootings Machine being destroyed. They’d know just what an awful machine it is.’

‘That may be so. But how do you propose to do it?’

The Father was now leaning back in his seat, one arm quite relaxed on the wheel, and I had the impression he’d already arrived at a possible solution, but for some reason was holding back from revealing it.

‘Mr Paul is an expert engineer,’ I said, turning to face him directly. ‘I was hoping he’d be able to think of something.’

But the Father kept gazing through the windshield at the yard. ‘I couldn’t explain it to Josie earlier in the cafe,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t explain to her why I hate Capaldi so much. Why I can’t bring myself to be civil towards him. But I’d like to try and explain it to you , Klara. If you don’t mind.’

His switch of subject was highly unwelcome, but anxious not to lose his good will, I said nothing and waited.

‘I think I hate Capaldi because deep down I suspect he may be right. That what he claims is true. That science has now proved beyond doubt there’s nothing so unique about my daughter, nothing there our modern tools can’t excavate, copy, transfer. That people have been living with one another all this time, centuries, loving and hating each other, and all on a mistaken premise. A kind of superstition we kept going while we didn’t know better. That’s how Capaldi sees it, and there’s a part of me that fears he’s right. Chrissie, on the other hand, isn’t like me. She may not know it yet, but she’ll never let herself be persuaded. If the moment ever comes, never mind how well you play your part, Klara, never mind how much she wishes it to work, Chrissie just won’t be able to accept it. She’s too…old-fashioned. Even if she knows she’s going against the science and the math, she still won’t be able to do it. She just won’t stretch that far. But I’m different. I have…a kind of coldness inside me she lacks. Perhaps it’s because I’m an expert engineer, as you put it. This is why I find it so hard to be civil around people like Capaldi. When they do what they do, say what they say, it feels like they’re taking from me what I hold most precious in this life. Am I making sense?’

‘Yes. I understand Mr Paul’s feelings.’ I let a quiet few seconds go by, then continued: ‘It seems then from everything Mr Paul says that it’s even more important that what Mr Capaldi proposes is never put to the test. If we can make Josie healthy, then the portrait, my learning her, none of it will matter. So I ask you again. Please advise me how I might destroy the Cootings Machine. I have a feeling Mr Paul has an idea how we might do it.’

‘Yes, a possibility has occurred to me. But I was hoping a better idea might come along. Unfortunately it’s looking like that isn’t going to happen.’

‘Please tell me. Something may change at any moment and this opportunity will pass.’

‘Okay. Well, here it is. That machine will contain inside it a Sylvester broad generation unit. Middle-market. Fuel-efficient and robust enough, but with no real protections. It means that machine can stand any amount of dust, smoke, rain. But if anything, let’s say, with a high acrylamide content got inside its system, for example a P-E-G Nine solution, it wouldn’t be able to handle it. It would be like putting gasoline into a diesel engine, except a lot worse. If you introduced P-E-G Nine in there, it would rapidly polymerize. The damage is likely to be terminal.’

‘P-E-G Nine solution.’