Ruined Map - Abe Kobo [47]
Naturally, everyone’s attention focused on the bus. They followed after it, throwing rocks, some of them trying to jump through the windows. The little bus, that seemed barely a single horsepower at the most, sounding like a metal saw, with its last ounce of power clambered up the embankment, shaking off its pursuers.
The driver’s bold act had provided an opportunity for escape to the other buses as well. Waiting for the moment when the workmen had thinned out in pursuit of the escaping bus, the remaining buses started their motors together and went dashing helter-skelter full speed over the dry river bed.
Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of the brother creeping in the dry grasses below the embankment, his body stooped low to escape his pursuers. Then I too made a dash in the direction of my car, which had fortunately escaped attack until now. Suddenly I remembered something important I had forgotten. The husband’s diary. I had asked for the diary, and he had said he would leave it at his sister’s place tomorrow. I felt I should have once more confirmed the promise. But the brother’s figure had already vanished. Doubtless he had succeeded in escaping. Then a rock suddenly came flying toward me. It struck my shoulder blade as I ran along as fast as I could, my head bent, but I felt no pain at all. Rather, it was as if my throat were strangled by my gasping breath. Obviously the effect of having drunk so much. Yet I felt surprisingly calm. Without much trouble I found the key and was able to start the motor in an instant. Now most of the workmen were gathering in a noisy band at the slope that formed the inclined plane of the embankment, the only road for cars that connected the river bed with the embankment. Just then the last two buses, which had been slow to get away, attempted to break through, charging along, their horns blaring, their headlights turned up. Somehow one got away. But the other, in its hurry, slipped its gear and suddenly halfway up the slope lost speed. Unresisting, it was turned on its side by the attacking workmen and then laid on its back at the foot of the slope. The inclined plane of the embankment was illuminated in bold relief by the headlights over an area of some twenty yards.
A white pole perpendicular in the dry grass was pregnant with meaning, but I did not know of what. Against the background of the embankment, the group, fused together in the dark, swarmed over the bus, its wheels spinning. If there was an agitator, he must surely be there among them. If only I could recognize his distinctive features, the opportunity of discovering the brother’s enemy—provided he actually existed—would be most propitious. I could hear higher-pitched shouts and the sound of breaking glass. The motor stopped and the lights went out, and there remained only the glow of the burning embers that lay scattered here and there in the area where the drum had been. Some men lay motionless on the ground where they had fallen; some were crawling around; others, like somnambulists, staggered and reeled by the edge of the water—perhaps drunkenness, perhaps some injury. Anyway, with the bus overturned, the road had been left unobstructed—a stroke of luck. My car, of course, was not even half the size of a microbus. If I made the slightest mistake in strategy, the fate I could expect would be much the same.
With my headlights off, I deliberately made a wide circuit around the river bed. Three young men from the gang came running toward me in search of help, but they were at once overtaken by the attackers and roughly thrown to the ground and dragged around. Or perhaps there were only two, not three.
I let them pass without interference. I had greatly reduced my speed, but even so, the car trembled violently, as if it were undergoing some durability