Ruined Map - Abe Kobo [3]
The first noticeable thing on entering the living room was a cylindrical kerosene stove with its flickering circle of blue flame. Then, in the middle of the room was a round table, with a vinyl throw, printed with a lacy design, that reached all the way to the floor. Bookcases occupied half of the left wall and the rest was taken up by a window. On the facing wall was a Picasso lithograph, perhaps clipped out of some magazine, depicting a girl looking up and to the left. The fact that it had been framed indicated it had a definite importance for the owner. Next to it was a cutaway sketch of an engine, Formula I, three times the size of the Picasso. There was a line drawn to one part of the engine and an annotation in red written with a ballpoint pen. A triangular telephone shelf fitted into the window corner. In the opposite corner, against the wall of the next room, stood a stereo amplifier, clearly a do-it-yourself assembly. The speakers were installed in the wall about three yards above it, at right angles. Thus they mutually canceled out the sound, and the stereo effect was probably nil. A chair was placed with its back to the amplifier. Offering the fact that she lived alone as an apology, the girl parted the curtain and went into the kitchen, doubtless to prepare some tea. As she passed, the faint breeze created by her movement dissipated the smell of kerosene, and in its place lingered a fragrance of cosmetics.
With the girl’s disappearance beyond the curtain even my impression of her suddenly became faint and indistinct. I was annoyed. Once again I slowly breathed in, and after ascertaining that there was neither the smell of tobacco nor that of a man, I lit a cigarette. I turned up the hem of the floor-length table throw and made sure there was nothing suspicious there. Yet, it was a strange business. The window was beginning to grow dark in the early winter evening, but it was not yet time to turn on the lights. If I concentrated I could just make out the black pen cap that had rolled under the telephone shelf. I had really seen her clearly. She had advanced a chair for me on the other side of the table and we had faced each other scarcely six feet apart. I was quite unable to understand why my impression had suddenly blurred. It was already four and a half years since I had been in the business. Though I was not particularly aware of it, I had the habit of grasping the distinguishing features of things seen and filing them away. I formed portraits with them, and when I needed to I could draw them out and at once restore them to their original state. For example, the child on the roller skate a little while ago … His overcoat was a dark blue woolen material with a wide, reversible collar. The muffler was of gray woolen yarn, the shoes white duck. The corners of his eyes turned down, his hair was stiff and thin, the hairline almost straight, the space between his mouth and his nose was red and inflamed. Fortunately the gradient was abrupt, and as my brakes had functioned well it turned out all right, but if the slope had been only half of what it was and the horsepower of my car twice as much, no matter how I might have cut the wheels it would have been too late. The boy would have tried to avoid the car, twisting his body to the left, but in so doing would have exposed his right flank and been forced under the wheels of the car from the other side. It would have been even better for him to have broken his leg. He would have had no ground resistance because of the roller skate, and the part of his body that was struck by the car wheels would have become a fulcrum. He would have been swung far out and flung full against the guard railing. If he hadn’t had his skull broken, his collar bone would have snapped. His eyes would twitch and frothy vermilion blood, brilliantly clear, would well out of his mouth and ears. It