Ruined Map - Abe Kobo [114]
Saying nothing, I gave her the thousand-yen note, and she returned my change in silence. She did not speak, but three times she made the sound with her lips she had made before. I had no idea whether there was any meaning to it or not. Yet for an instant I waited, expecting her to speak. She smiled as if in apology, and I was embarrassed. The freckles on her cheeks suited the smile. Even if she smiled at me again, I could do nothing about it. There must be words before the smile. I was made aware that I was the one who had confused the order, like it or not. Furthermore, I had already received my change and there was no reason for me to stay here any longer.
I HAILED a taxi. It was a dark-blue one with only the top painted yellow. The automatic door closed, screeching as if it were on the point of disintegrating. In the ashtray that had been left open the preceding customer’s cigarette was still smoking. I was some time in telling the young driver my destination, and he furiously tore off his regulation cap and slammed it down on the seat beside him. I gave him five hundred yen and asked him to take the direction I indicated, since it really was quite close. At once his attitude changed, but he did not put his hat on again.
“Say, just what’s the name of the place at the top of the slope?”
“You mean High Town?”
“Yes. I suppose they call it that because it’s up on a plateau.”
The street was choked with light. It seethed up in the final animation of the day. But for some reason I did not feel it to be essentially different from the deserted scene of a while ago. I now no longer understood why I had been so frightened by that deserted view. If the same situation by chance happened again, I would not be upset. Supposing that, in place of people and cars, crowds of emus and giant anteaters began walking around, I would accept that as factual and simply try and understand.
At length, the slope … but the taxi neither slowed down nor stopped. Suddenly the sound of the motor changed, making my blood run cold, but the driver had just shifted into a lower gear without losing speed and now was circling in the direction of the curve. I pressed my feet on the floor and my body against the back of the seat. I held my breath, waiting to see the actual form of the town that had run away.
I was not thrown into a vacuum. Far from a vacuum, it was an immense housing development as far as I could see that stretched away before me. The groups of four-storied residences, although they were on high ground, had sunk to the bottom of a dark ravine, unfolding an orderly fretwork of light. I had not dreamt that such a view would appear. The very fact that I had not posed a problem. Spatially there was no doubt that the town existed, but temporally it was the same as a vacuum. Although it did exist, how frightening it was to say that it did not. The four wheels of the car were certainly turning on the ground and there was no doubt that I was experiencing vibrations. Nevertheless, my town had vanished. I should perhaps never have gone beyond the curve. Now it would forever be impossible for me to go beyond it. White perspective of street lights. Crowds of people hurrying home, becoming transparent with every step. I screamed at the driver who had begun to slow down as if to make some inquiry: Turn back, quick! Get out of this development as quick as you can! I had to get to a place where freedom of space was secure. If it had anything to do with a place like this, I would lose even space, to say nothing of time. I would be plastered into the wall of reality, exactly like the white hand in the restaurant.
Fortunately the other world was safe. It was perhaps well that I had chosen this taxi, a vehicle for anyone’s use. We came out on a main street and I got out of the car in front of the first