Ruined Map - Abe Kobo [10]
“There was an address book, wasn’t there?”
“Now that you speak of it, I guess there was. When you slid the button to the initial and pressed the cover it opened up. It was black enamel … about this big. If I remember right, it was always on that shelf.”
“Did it disappear along with your husband?”
“No. If it was taken, then it was my brother who took it. He couldn’t just let me wait around and do nothing. He looked and looked, but there wasn’t a single entry of any use. I wonder if he just didn’t put it away and forget it. If a thing like that were where it would always catch my eye, even I would have had to do something. My brother was against my doing anything so dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
“He says a single map for life is all you need. It’s a saying of his. The world is a forest, a woods, full of wild beasts and poisonous insects. You should go only through places where everyone goes, places that are considered absolutely safe, he says.”
“It’s rather like saying one should disinfect the soap before washing one’s hands.”
“Yes. It is. Really, my brother’s that kind of person. Even when he comes home he spends forever washing his hands, gargling, and things like that.”
“Well, would you please try getting him on the phone for me now.”
Suddenly a gray shadow masked the girl’s expression. No, a curtain rose. Perhaps it was the real color of her skin that was coming out. For the first time she focused her eyes. As she gently felt along the edge of the table with the aligned fingertips of both hands, she stood up soundlessly and passed round in back of the narrow chair, making a shallow billow in the lemon-yellow curtains. She was a girl that black suited. A slender waist that defied gravity. Taking up the receiver, she dialed without consulting an address book, and, using the same finger she had used for dialing, she pinched a pleat in the curtain. A slender finger that seemed quite without articulations. She was apparently in the habit of pinching anything—perhaps some newly formed propensity to avoid biting her nails. The pinched curtain moved gently. I wondered if she weren’t a little drunk. But black and yellow were signs of “Danger, beware!”
“It’s true,” she murmured in a low, rasping voice, as if she were beginning to talk to someone in front of her. “I’m always too inclined to let things take care of themselves by talking to myself. Of course, the best thing is to hear directly from the person in question. Even I couldn’t believe it at once … just after that casual whistling … he said he rather had the feeling my brother was surprised. Hmm … strange, isn’t it … no one answers … could he be out? I wonder.”
“Where are you phoning to?”
“To someone who lives in the back of the house.”
“A last eyewitness? Oh, let it go. Surely, he’s already sick of your telephone calls. Anyway, that’s not the telephoning I’m asking for.”
Surprised, she replaced the receiver on its hook as if she were holding a caterpillar.
“Well, then, where should I call?”
“To your brother, of course.”
“That’s impossible. Because …”
“As for me, I need maps, ten or twenty of them. What in heaven’s name do you expect me to do with an old matchbox and a photograph like this? I’m different from you; it’s my business to go around snooping in dangerous places. It’s written right here in the request application I showed you. I don’t think it’s at all unreasonable of me to ask you to provide any and all evidence you can.”
“My brother knows there’s nothing of any use. He’s done some investigating on his own.”
“He’s got a lot of confidence. For god’s sake, why did you hire me then?”
“Because I couldn’t stand waiting any longer.”
Of course, it was hard to wait. Even so, I would keep on waiting. Slowly I walked along, paused, turned around, and walked back again. At intervals, a bus pulled up and stopped. Then came the straggling sounds of footsteps … invisible figures. It was not only the figures I did not