The Ark Sakura (38 page)

“I’m a girl too, you know,” she said.

“They wouldn’t dare lay a hand on a crack shot like you,” he answered.

“What do you mean?” I said. “You’re both coming with me, aren’t you?”

“I can’t decide …” he said.

“What is there to decide? You’ve had it with those old men, haven’t you?”

“Still, I don’t know… .” He stepped out of the locker and bit his lower lip. A sound like uneven hand-clapping, apparently an echo from the work hold, rose and fell like the sound of rain pelting eaves.

“The world outside is exactly the same as before. All that about a nuclear war was a pack of lies. Don’t tell me you’re going to stay here
knowing
it was a lie.”

“That depends. If you imagine it really happened, then it
seems
real. And you’ve been saying so all along, haven’t you? That one of these days it really would happen. That a nuclear war starts before it starts… .” All three of us pricked up our ears in the darkness. It was either an unintelligible command from the insect dealer, or a howl of laughter from Sengoku, or a scream. The shill went on: “I wouldn’t mind a bit—staying on here as we are awhile longer.”

“You’re out of your mind.” I fixed my eyes on the girl, seeking her support. “I don’t care how good a shot you are—you can’t stay awake twenty-four hours a day.”

“That’s true—the air here is too stale,” said the girl, her voice muffled and hesitant.

“It’s not only the air. There’s no sky, no day and night. You can’t even take pictures.”

“If you’re going, you’d better get on with it,” he said.

The girl drew her lips into a sharp line, tilted her head, and looked from me to the shill and back. What a peculiar fellow—why in the world was he hesitating? I couldn’t understand it.

“Let’s go; there’s no more time for jokes,” I said.

“No—I really think I’ll hold off. Wherever and however I decide to go on living, it doesn’t make a hell of a lot of difference. Besides, professionally speaking, that’s what I’m for—responding to lies as if they were true, knowing full well they’re not… .”

“All right, then, I’ll call Komono.” I thought it was a bit reckless, but I couldn’t just abandon them. “I’ll talk to him for you.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you. You’re only going to make things worse. Thanks, but no thanks.”

“You’re right,” murmured the girl. “Believing it was true might make us happier in the end… .”

“We’re at home with lies, anyway. They’re us. We’re
sakura,
don’t forget.”

If that was the way they were going to be, let them. I had simply felt a duty to tell them of this chance to escape, in return for their help in getting me free. Still, it seemed unreasonable of him to keep the girl there too. All along I had dreamed of escaping with her, just the two of us; and if only the shill hadn’t interfered, she would have come.
I
was the one who had told the shill about this escape route; she had never opened her mouth.

“Why don’t you at least let her go free?”

“She
is
free. Stop talking that way.” He turned to her. “Right? You’re free, aren’t you?” He prodded her along, and she nodded hesitantly.

“Never mind that,” he said. “Do you know how the word
sakura
—cherry blossoms—came to be used for people like us? It comes from the expression ‘Blossom-viewing is free.’ In other words, it costs us nothing to do our shopping.”

I noticed he had stopped calling me Captain. So be it. I handed him the control panel, said what I had to say, and thus carried out what I took to be my duty.

“The key to the jeep is in it, right?”

The shill nodded as he accepted the control panel.

“That’s right.”

“They’ll have it in for you for letting me go.”

“Them? Have it in for me? No.”

“How are you going to explain? I don’t know about Komono, but that adjutant means business.”

“I’ll tell them you got all soft and squishy, and the toilet just swallowed you right up.”

“Who’s going to believe that?”

“They will. All right, go, will you? I’ll look after the ship. Not that I’m all that sure of myself… . But now that the anchor’s up, it would be a shame to sink her so fast.”

“Sorry about that encyclopedia,” said the girl. “The last three volumes are soaking wet.”

She set my camera case down on the floor of the locker, sliding it back in with the toe of her shoe. Meaning to follow her, I tripped over her leg and fell forward, taking advantage of the situation to push her deeper inside the locker, covering her with my body. I couldn’t let this sudden intimacy daunt me; we had a long trip ahead of us, traveling together down this tunnel. We would warm each other as we waited for dawn, protecting each other from cold and darkness.

But my shoulders were hindered by the locker, and my torso hung tilted in the air. My shoulders measured seventeen inches across, and the locker a mere thirteen; there was no way I could get through facing straight ahead.

“Are you all right?” With a wry smile, the shill grasped my left shoulder and pulled, while pushing on my right shoulder, turning me ninety degrees.

My leg was still not what it should be. I felt myself go on crashing to the right, unable to retrieve my balance. The girl slipped out from beneath me. For some reason, the shill’s penlight went out. As I fell, I grabbed hold of the hem of her skirt. There was the sound of my shirt ripping in back; a couple of buttons popped off. Partly it was the fault of the inner construction of the locker, but mostly it had to do with the accumulation of fat on my stomach. My ribs banged against the camera case with a noise like someone pounding rice cakes. Pain flashed not so much there as in my knee and neck. Somebody was grasping my ankle and pushing it. I could feel myself slide with the camera case across the stone floor. Something fell on my back—a shoe. Where was the girl? I could feel her skirt in my hand, yet strangely I could not tell where she was.

“Take care… .” The voice was too far away.

The sound of the locker shelves moving, then the metallic click of the door closing. I pulled hard with the arm that held her skirt, and she came down against me … or so I expected, but to my chagrin, all that remained in my hand was the skirt itself. Had it come off? I could hardly bear to give her up. A moment later, I realized that what I had taken for her skirt was in fact a rubber work apron. When had that misapprehension occurred? She was free, I told myself. Of her own free will she had shut herself up in there. Or was
I
the one who had been shut up in
here?
For a while I lay where I was and rested, clinging to the case. Somewhere only a few feet away she was staring wide-eyed into the dark with those eyes that forced you to trust her, like it or not. But there was no meaning anymore in the units of distance between us. I got up, and immediately fell over again. I took off my shoes and tied them together, slung them around my neck, and started crawling down the tunnel on both hands and one knee, dragging my camera case behind me.

Kōbō Abe was born in Tokyo and grew up in Mukden, Manchuria, during World War II. In 1948, he received a medical degree from Tokyo Imperial University, but he has never practiced medicine. Abe is considered his country’s foremost living novelist. His books have earned many literary awards and prizes, and have all been best sellers in Japan. They include
The Woman in the Dunes, The Face of Another, The Box Man,
and
Secret Rendezvous.
Abe is also widely known as a dramatist. He lives in Tokyo with his wife, the artist Machi Abe.