The Ark Sakura (26 page)

—It was just a game, but at first everyone was a bit confused. The rules, you see, were unusual. There were winners and losers, but no direct competition. Which is maybe the way it goes with survival. First the playing field was divided lengthwise into three tracks, red, white, and blue, each with a starting line and a goal. Picture it. Then at the starting signal, all the participants headed for the flag of their choice. There was no need to hurry, and you didn’t have to decide on a color till the last moment if you wanted, so it was all nice and relaxed. Everyone—teachers and students, families, special guests—they all set off casually, as if going on a hike. It could have had something to do with the prize, but for a junior high school athletic event it was a lavish production. Are you still with me? Over.

The four of us exchanged glances. For my part, as long as I didn’t have to participate in the coming discussions, I was prepared to put up with a little inconvenience. As usually happens, silence was taken for reluctant consent.

—Yeah, I guess so. Over.

—So that’s how the participants all started off, When everybody had chosen their color and lined up accordingly, the head judge rolled a die painted in the three colors. When the winning color came up, drums rolled and the flag of that color was unfurled. At that signal the losing teams were supposed to fall flat on the ground. Get it? Only the survivors were allowed to go back to the starting line. Then the starting signal would be given again. It went on like that, over and over, and the last one left would be the winner. Any questions? Over.

—If the winners were determined by a roll of the die, it wasn’t so much a sporting event as a kind of gambling, was it? Over.

—Well, luck is a crucial factor in any battle, isn’t it? So what if it was gambling? That only added to the excitement. After all, the first prize was a new little red Honda motor scooter, donated by the Association of Local Shopkeepers. I was in the event too, but with someone else throwing the die, there’s really no point in wearing yourself out, is there? Over.

—Stay on the track, please. Just stick to the main story. Over.

—If you don’t want to hear any more, that’s okay with me. Over.

—You’re off the track again. Over.

—Did I mention the weather? It got worse and worse—just the opposite of the forecast—until rain was falling in solid sheets. As if somebody was slathering it with a paintbrush… .

The girl laughed. I didn’t really think it was amusing, but I joined in with an appreciative snort. Our hips were still pressed firmly together. I knew I’d be called to account for this eventually. Both the insect dealer and the shill had their eyes tightly closed; the shill was licking his lips, the insect dealer was swaying his head from side to side.

—The students’ caps were plastered flat on their heads, as if they’d been soaked in oil, and the sand in the playing field was all mucked up with little pools of water here and there. The school physician kept whispering in the principal’s ear, and each time the principal seemed on the point of calling it off. He’d sneak a timid look at the visitors’ tent, but there was nothing doing. That brand-new Honda scooter was there just waiting for someone to claim it. If he’d called the event off just because of a little rain, there would have been violence. A promise is a promise. And so the game went on, one way or another … and what do you think happened? Over.

—What? Over.

—It turned into a circus. You see, the principal believed that everyone’s chances for survival ought to be equal, so he imposed no limits on who could participate. And so the athletic field was jammed with people. They had to shift the starting line up fifteen feet to accommodate them all. Starting time was delayed eight minutes, too. It was really something; you should have seen it. That great mass of people, soaking wet, sending up spray in the air and wearing down the ground under their feet. Mothers running past, dragging bawling kids by the hand; old men waving canes; an invalid, unsteady on his feet, leaning on a nurse’s shoulder; members of the Fishermen’s Union Youth League, charging forward in scrimmage formation. It took an unbelievably long time, but finally everyone poured into the goal area of their choice. The die was cast, the flag unfurled, the drums rolled. A few people got beat up for trying to switch places after it was all over, but for the first round, generally everyone was distributed evenly across the three goals. The only hitch was that at first the losing teams wouldn’t hit the dirt like fallen soldiers, the way they were supposed to. To have to roll around in the mud and rain, on top of losing, is nobody’s idea of fun, after all. The P.E. coach’s voice came screaming from all the loudspeakers: “Losing teams, please fall down. You’re dead. All losers, hit the dirt.” People got sore and started to leave. I was one of them. Then a fusillade rang out: a volley of shots from an automatic rifle. Taped, of course, but it had a dramatic effect. Everybody recognizes the sound from TV and movies, even if they’ve never heard it live. The losing teams started falling down, right according to plan. They must have decided they owed the organizers that much, after all. Actually it didn’t look like a battle so much as a mass execution. Are you still with me? Over.

The part of me pressed against the girl became a separate living creature, in growing control of me. It was wriggling, seeking to take me over completely. And there was another reason for the sense of unreality I felt: as the words came over the radio, each building on the rest like pieces of a puzzle, I sensed the shaping of another Inototsu, totally unlike the Inototsu I knew. I could hardly believe this was the same person. The Inototsu I knew would never talk this way, as if each separate word were just back from the cleaners, freshly laundered and pressed. I felt as if I were witnessing a cicada shedding its skin.

—Get to the point, will you? Over.

—So that’s the way it went. Then the losing participants quit the field, and round two began, at a signal from the referee. The invalid hanging on to his nurse’s shoulder—I think he must have had palsy—well, he was in the winning team, so he made a great nuisance of himself, getting in everyone’s way. Even so, up to round four everything went swimmingly, the group decreasing by two-thirds every time. The end was in sight, and a lot of people started packing up to go. Then at round five, events took a strange turn. Shall I go on? Over.

—We’re all ears. Carry on. Over.

—Thanks, glad to hear it. So they got down to about eleven people, I think it was. Everybody but the paralytic left the starting line together. So far so good. Then for some reason, right in front of the goals they all stopped. Guess what happened? Everybody just stood there, waiting for the paralytic to hobble down and catch up. Seeing him enter the blue zone, they all went in after him. Strange psychology, don’t you think—call it superstition or mob psychology—the we’re-all-in-this-together mentality. And the funny thing was that the die turned up blue. All eleven survived, but this way the prize stayed beyond their grasp. It wasn’t a violation of the rules, though, so not even the judges could complain. At round six, exactly the same thing happened. Incredibly, round seven was the same. It began to seem uncanny. The rain was coming down harder and harder, and the lights came on, although it was really still too early. Even the students, who were usually a source of noise and confusion, stood lined up at the edge of the playing field like so many wet sandbags. Midway through round eight, the committee in charge went into deliberations, and just then the assault began, a sudden fusillade of automatic rifle fire. The sound effects director must have flipped out. All at once the paralytic’s knees buckled and he went down head-first into the mud. Some people misunderstood, and laughed. The school physician came running over, medicine bag in hand, but it was too late. The game was called off. What do you think? I think maybe that’s what survival is all about. Over.

—What happened to the scooter? Over.

—Ah, the prize. They had a raffle among the ten survivors. Then the family of the old invalid put up a squawk: the others had all been waiting for him, they pointed out, in order to do whatever he did, and since he had died
they
should all be regarded as technically dead too. The argument does have a certain logic. Anyway, the issue remains unresolved, and the scooter is kept locked up at the school. Isn’t that a strange story? Over.

—What does it all boil down to? Over.

—I don’t know. Haven’t any idea. That’s exactly why I want to get together with you and talk things over. Maybe
you
can tell
me.
Over.

We all began smiling weakly. From the other end of the wireless there came a noise like a blast of air escaping from a heavy rubber balloon. That was Inototsu, laughing his old, familiar laugh.

Back at the supply room in the work hold, we chose our weapons, the selections varying according to each person’s perception of the situation. The insect dealer took a small converted revolver; had his goal been mere intimidation, something larger and more conspicuous would have served the purpose better. He and Inototsu had seemed to achieve a certain rapport in their exchanges over the radio, but perhaps inwardly he had been preparing for the worst. Or was this only a sign of his natural predilection for firearms?

After considerable hesitation, the shill settled on a tear gas pistol designed for self-protection. Actually it was a spray canister; I call it a pistol only because it was equipped with a trigger, and its range had been greatly increased. This too was for actual use, not mere show—although it served only to render the enemy powerless, and had no lethal effect. It was less potent than a converted gun, and yet it suggested he sought a sure means of self-defense; the knives and crossbows he never gave a passing glance.

The girl and I each took a crossbow. Just as our suppositions regarding the combat determined our choice of weapon, so those choices in turn would ordain the nature of the combat.

To appease the stray dogs out by the garbage dump, I picked out some pieces of dried sardines made from tainted fish (I got them at the fish market once a week, for dog food) and lifted the hatch. As if a curtain had gone up, warm air came sweeping down, and the singing of tires on concrete pavement filled my ears. I scattered the fish from the door of the scrapped car that camouflaged the entrance.

My way of imitating a dog’s howl when I wanted to feed them differed from the howl I used to demonstrate my authority as boss. The effect, however, was similar. I signaled to the insect dealer and the shill to let them know the danger was gone. As long as that pack of wild dogs obeyed me, this was
one
way in and out, anyway, that was firmly in my control.

“When you get back, honk the horn, and I’ll come out to meet you.”

“We’ll do our best not to come back with any unpleasant souvenirs.”

Waving, they jumped hastily into the jeep. The dogs, as if sensing something unusual in the air, fought viciously over the food. I stood watching them off until the taillights disappeared in the shadow of the highway overpass. The high-level road cut off my view like a visor, so I could not see the sky. The rain appeared to have let up, but I couldn’t make out the horizon, so probably there was still a heavy cloud cover. Only the lights of the fishing port on my far right gave any indication of where the sea lay. Traffic was fairly heavy. This was the hour when long-distance trucks passed by, aiming to be in Kyushu, far to the southwest, by morning. Out at sea, a gravel-carrier ship headed east.

On my way back inside the ark, I contemplated what might happen should the two men fail to return from their errand. Day after day alone with the girl, wrapped together in a world the consistency of banana juice—she in her red artificial leather skirt, with those red lips, and drooping eyes, and that straight nose, shiny at the tip; and beside her me, forever gazing at her like a mute gorilla. In fact, if I wished, there was no need to wait for some accident to befall my negotiating team. I could take unilateral steps to bring about the banana-juice conditions anytime I wanted.

All I had to do was set off the dynamite. Then all connection between the ark and the rest of the world would be severed. However many times they might circle the mountain, my two emissaries would never find their way back inside. Not only them—I had power to shut out and nullify the entire world. I knew the magic formula for escape from the world. Given that nuclear war was inevitable anyway, it would only be hastening its onset by a little bit. Then would begin the halcyon days of a eupcaccia (and eventually, no doubt, regret so searing that I would long to chop myself in a thousand pieces and flush myself down the toilet).

She was at the sink, washing coffee cups. Below her short skirt, her slim legs were like blown glass. Now that we were alone, she was somehow harder to approach.

“Never mind that,” I said. “I’ll do it afterwards.”

She froze for a few seconds, then looked at me without a flicker and asked, “What were you planning on doing first?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The dishes will come after something else, right?”

“I didn’t mean that.”

“Mean what?”

She turned off the faucet, went slowly up the stairs, and sat down on about the fifth step from the top, knees together, elbows in lap, chin in hands. Whether she was offended or being deliberately provocative, I couldn’t tell. Remembering when the insect dealer got such positive results by slapping her on the bottom, I thought that on the whole it was probably better to assume the latter, even if wrong. But the right words wouldn’t come. That’s the way it always goes. I let my best chances slip away.

“I must say I don’t like your attitude very much.” Her voice was flat and colorless.