Ruined Map - Abe Kobo [45]
“No, he’s not a bad sort. Look, all these girls are rejects. The men living on a work site like this would fuck a hole in a tree, otherwise they’d take to their heels with soft pricks at the sight of them. The girl with the biggest clientele beats a mare’s cunt. She can take on a hundred men, and right in the middle she snores away. The story goes she’s put away a hundred thousand yen.”
“Does he have some enemy?”
“Look,” he lowered his voice abruptly, “I don’t like the way the customers are gathering a little before the corner over there … pretty strange. Don’t you think it’s funny? I don’t like it … this rumble. The one on the embankment must be a lookout … there.”
“Aren’t you getting carried away?”
“I don’t like the way those guys are pouring it down. One after the other the buses are emptying. They’ll be coming over here soon.”
“Somebody’s pulling the strings from behind the scene, don’t you think?”
“I … I don’t know.”
“Somebody local, with influence … a councilman, for instance.”
“Do you have a badge? If you do, say behind your lapel, get rid of it quick.”
Yet I couldn’t take it all seriously. Even if something were brewing, it would doubtless be at most some unpleasant words or a demonstration. A demonstration would mean, in other words, that the brother had enemies. The most important thing now was to get some clue as to who the enemy was. There’s a beginning and an end to every cycle. In any labyrinth, if there’s an entrance there’s got to be an exit. Well, do what you can and do your best to make a good showing.
It may have been the cold or the tension, but I felt no effects from the saké. Or was it that, since the glasses were so thick, I had not drunk so much as I calculated from the number of glasses piled up? I asked for still another; perhaps this was the fourth.
Finally, three workmen came swaying over to my bus, their arms linked together, and got in. The three were weaving because two of them were supporting on either side the already dead-drunk one in the middle, who was wearing a padded kimono. The big fellow on the left with a square jaw glanced sharply at my face and my chest, but said nothing. Was he, in fact, looking for a badge? Between shouts of “Saké! Saké!” the man in the padded kimono sobbed in a choked voice.—“You! I’m on the list of missing persons for investigation. Ha, ha. My wife’s put in a request at the town hall for an all-out search.”—“Never mind,” said the smaller one, a friendly, balding man, patting his sobbing comrade on the back, “if you start worrying about that, there’ll never be an end to it.”—“Saké!” shouted the man in the padded kimono, still grumbling. “What’s a missing person? I’ll send a letter. If they knew I was working that’d be the end of the welfare checks. That’s what I told my wife. Try and put up with it for two years and not say anything. Be patient, and just imagine your husband’s dead. You can scratch along on welfare.” The larger fellow spoke in a quiet voice that carried surprisingly: “Don’t worry, it’s not your wife’s fault. It’s the interference from the city government. Interference from the government wanting to cut off your welfare checks. The head of the gang came with the search papers and threatened her. Look at this. Shall I contact city hall, or will you write a letter yourself? Don’t worry, we’re witnesses that you’re here. Look, you’ve got hands and feet; it’s a big laugh, you being missing. You are right here, aren’t you?”—“Right, I am. Ah ha!”—“You’re right here,” chimed the big fellow and the small one from either side.—“Saké, damn it! Still, do I have to write a letter? It’s a plot in the government office. Never mind. I’m so sad. I can’t play my favorite pinball any more. I’m missing. I get drunk all the time.”
The cook raised his thumb in a kind of signal. When I glanced in the wide-view