Ruined Map - Abe Kobo [31]
A propane dealer! In spite of me, my heart thumped. So could the fuel shop opposite M’s house be his? Could it be that the small three-wheeled trucks driving back and forth with their tanks of gas, raising clouds of dust and rattling like tin horses, were in fact part of M’s business? If M was not merely a councilman but the head of a fuel concern, the plot was much better. There was no longer the slightest mystery about the missing man’s behavior that morning. Dainen Enterprises were tied up with M.
“But it’s so unfair,” said the man’s wife in a cheerful tone, quite at odds with the substance of her remark. “I wonder just how long it’s going to go on.” I turned and looked over my shoulder through the glass in the door. Under the deep zinc eaves peculiar to fuel stores, two young men were unloading tanks, which they placed side by side at the edge of the road and then carried into the storehouse. Its interior was already dark, and I could not see in very well. Evening came more quickly than elsewhere to this valley town screened to the east and west by hills. Uttering a persistent series of little coughs, the wife got up. Then the lights in the post office were turned on. I lit a cigarette, and the few seconds of silence acted, as I thought they would, as a primer to their gossiping tongues.
“Here now. See how the housing project in the second ward is getting finished. They’ve already promised publicly to lay city gas in the town. The place is developing all the time … a real suburb. It’s expanding—and the propane dealers’ purses are expanding right along with it. But sooner or later city gas is going to come in, and when it does they’ve had it. Shops’ll spread, telephones’ll increase, shop clerks’ll be at a premium. Already there are ten three-wheeled trucks, if you include those belonging to the branch stores.”
“Nine.”
“Anyway, they’ve had it. The balloon’ll burst.”
“For a while he came to ask us to sign petitions against city gas. He said propane gas was sanitary, that you couldn’t commit suicide with it.”
“Stupid! At our age who’s going to commit suicide with gas? Whatever method you choose, convenience is the main thing. These days, who’s going to sympathize with the grievances of a charcoal dealer?”
FIRST WARD, F—— City. Former F—— Village’s main street, which begins at the post office. A straight road on a gentle incline about four hundred yards long, ending at the stone steps leading up to the town hall. Mixed among the tile-roofed stores, the farmhouses stood out conspicuously with their lattice doors and high-pitched roofs—apparently the farmers had raised silkworms. In the spacious yards were small passenger cars, bought by the sale of mulberry fields. The same as everywhere else, the electrical appliance shops were unreasonably brilliant. There were even barrel makers, whose shops seemed on the verge of collapse. Generally the shops seemed affluent, still keeping some touch of the old days. However, the paucity of street lights suggested the fate of the old town, which was being left behind and forgotten. Although on the ridge of the low hill to the west the light was still bright enough so that one could distinguish each branch of the trees, the valley town was already completely in the shadow of night. I noted a deep ditch to the right as I slowly drove the car over the pocked asphalt road, which had long lain unrepaired.
An old, gnarled cypress just before the town hall had encroached over a third of the road and towered above me, at what was apparently the entrance to a shrine. There was quite a bit of free space, and a good many cars were parked there. A light-blue or a slightly dirty blue one? Among six, four were various shades of blue and thus provided no clue. The windows of the town hall, except for a part of the second floor, were still bright, probably people working overtime on accounts. I turned the car around and went