Ruined Map - Abe Kobo [52]
“He also had a movie projectionist’s license and a secondary teacher’s license …”
“A strange character.”
“I suppose he just had to be tops in everything.”
“What was the latest license he was concentrating on?”
“When he disappeared … oh, yes … he said something about wanting to pass radio operator second grade. Whenever he had a free moment he was always tapping out something with his finger.”
“Second-grade radio operator?”
“If he got second grade, he said, he could ship on one of the big merchantmen. If he did that he claimed he’d get three times as much salary as he was getting. He was always counting his chickens before they hatched.”
“I don’t mean to be impertinent, but about what was he getting with Dainen Enterprises?”
“A little over fifty thousand a month.”
“Well, even a taxi driver would make that much, I should imagine.”
“But since his strong point was mechanics, he worked as a commission agent with second-hand cars.”
“I know. I already heard that from your brother.”
“My brother? Have you met?”
“Curiously enough, we seem to see each other wherever we go. Actually, just before I came here, we had a friendly little drink together.”
“That’s very curious.”
“He’s a pleasant fellow. At the rate we’re going, we seem to be meeting ten times a day. Oh, yes, before I forget it, he promised to bring your husband’s diary over here for me tomorrow.”
“A diary?”
“It’s apparently of no value at all.”
I observed her, trying to catch the slightest change in her expression when the subject of her brother came up. Her lips were slightly open, her brow knit. Was she confused, perplexed; or had misgivings about her brother suddenly come to her? But she just smiled mischievously, biting her lower lip.
“My brother’s always taking people by surprise like that. That’s the way he’s always been.”
“If I can read the diary, perhaps I can get some general idea of what sort of dreams your husband had.”
“Dreams?”
“For instance, did he dream of the sea, or something like that?”
“My husband is a very matter-of-fact man. When he became section head he was very happy because he had somehow stopped sliding down the slope of life.”
“But he did leave you, didn’t he.”
“It wasn’t because of his dreams. He used to say licenses were the anchor of human life.”
“Using so many anchors for such a small boat certainly puts him in the category of dreamers, doesn’t it? If he didn’t use them he’d float away.”
She slowly returned the glass, which she had raised to her lips, to the table and fell into silence as if her thoughts were someplace else. Like a withering flower photographed at high speed, her two eyes hollowed as I watched her, her nose constricted, and even the color of her soft skin lost its vitality like an old chamois skin. I was beginning to feel a deep remorse for what I had said. Those to whom murder is legal are only executioners and soldiers on the battlefield; doctors have no right to practice euthanasia no matter how much they are badgered by the patient.
The clock on the wall told me it was one in the morning.
REPORT
13 February: 10:20 A.M.—Went to the library and checked a photo copy of the newspaper. Rainy days before 4 August, the day the man under investigation disappeared, were 28 and 29 July. But rain on the 28th had been forecast as cloudiness the day before, and since late in the afternoon there was a shower, he used his raincoat on the 29th for the last time …
My hand stopped writing and I closed my eyes with an unbearable feeling of weakness. It wasn’t only my eyes; I wanted to shut off my nerves, my senses, my whole being. The reading room of the library was almost full, but it was almost as hushed as if no one were there. There was only now and then a sound of sniffling, of the turning of a page,