Ruined Map - Abe Kobo [39]
“I’ll go and look for it right away,” she said, turning her joined hands at me and nodding in agreement at my words, which seemed to flow endlessly, and after a very slight pause, which I might have overlooked, had I for a moment been inattentive, she added: “Will you come in and wait?”
Again, in the lemon-yellow room, I seated myself in the same chair as the one I had occupied the evening before; I rubbed my hands together briskly. She had apparently just turned the stove off, and a little warmth still lingered along with the smell of kerosene. While there was no reason for it, I somehow had a feeling of indifference. I was indifferent to myself. When I thought about it, I had the impression that a chill had begun the instant I had sat down in the chair. A feeling as if, in sitting, I had pushed something aside—something like the shadow of a mist-shrouded tree, melancholic, unresistant, faint. I thought perhaps it was the husband. For the first time, however briefly, I felt the reality of him. At once he returned to the flat, depthless photograph that had submissively stood aside to let me sit, but in my heart there was a cold feeling of shame, slowly spreading, like a drop of ink suspended in water.
I had grown very suspicious. I would begin by reviewing again the same things I had seen on the preceding evening. First the ashtray on the table. Fortunately, it was clean and dry with no telltale traces that it had been recently used. I filled my lungs with air. There was indeed a faint smell of cosmetics mixed with the odor of kerosene. There was not the slightest smell of cigarette smoke. Beneath the table throw there was only a transparent gloom. Next, my eyes shifted from the curtains to the bookshelf and from there farther along to the telephone. Then a little piece of paper pinned to the corner of the curtain caught my eye and brought me back to the reality of his nonexistence. With my ears cocked for any sound in the next room, I walked softly round the table to investigate. Seven digits had been written on the slip with a ballpoint pen. Small but precise numerals characteristic of a woman. It was a telephone number I remembered seeing … the very one printed on the label of the Camellia matchbox. Yet why was I not surprised at the discovery? Rather than that, the chill within me deepened. Although I tried to reject the possibility that she knew something, hadn’t I foreseen precisely that after all? Apparently she had not been purely a victim all along.
Suddenly I felt defiant and churlish. Well, why not? I said to myself. No one could drive me out of here now. The final trump card of the different matchsticks was mine and, furthermore, either way, my adversaries were a gang of blackmailers. But what terrific cold.—“You really must be drunk, I fear.”—“It’s probably because I’m sobering up.”—“Well then, what do you want here?” Hmm, let me think, what was it then? Until a little while ago I had so much I couldn’t handle it all, but … I stopped my car in the street down there and looked up at the lemon-yellow curtains, hesitating a while—should I get out or shouldn’t I? I smiled to myself as if I were looking into a mirror when I turned off the motor. Stealthily mounting the concrete stairs … The interlaced black and white rectangles of the landing were illuminated like an altar by an all-night light … But, no, I was empty-handed, as much so as if I had been fleeced by some highway robber.
—“You must be drunk, I fear.” That was so wrong. On the contrary, I’d been sitting there about two hours with the heater on and the window wide open, my face exposed to the night air and its icy thorns. Then, the fault was with the saké, not with me. Nobody else but her esteemed and thoughtful