Ruined Map - Abe Kobo [61]
Q. I would just like to get some clue as to what happened to Mr. Nemuro. In short, was the Camellia a private employment agency for temporary drivers?
A. Yes, it was. Besides having good coffee, it opened up early in the morning, so naturally it was a place the drivers hung around. That gave the owner the idea of the employment bit, I suppose.
Q. You said the drivers wanted to make money. About what is the difference in earning power as compared to what a regular man makes?
A. To make up for severance pay, set salary, and health benefits, they used a commission system for temporary work: from forty to forty-two percent of net income. If you work ten days a month you easily make forty to fifty thousand yen. I understand that those who specialize in temporary driving and know how to work tourist attractions, race tracks, and the big holidays make as much as a hundred thousand for three days’ work.
Q. Pretty good work.
A. If you’re young and unmarried and like flashy things, you don’t often have it so good. If you get sick or have your license suspended, well, it’s tough then, but if you can forget about tomorrow the world’s yours.
Q. Were there a lot of fellows like that in and out of the Camellia?
A. No, in Tokyo alone the taxi drivers amount to about eighty thousand. That may be a lot, but out of that number only a few came, say, twenty or thirty men. And furthermore, sixty per cent of the Camellia men were temporary like myself. No matter how easy it is, a man doesn’t live for ease alone, does he? Actually, those who used to work only for the money, though they looked carefree, gradually became depressed. You get in the habit of wearing first-class uniforms, the best shoes, and imported wrist watches, but in the end you get quarrelsome and irritable. After you’ve been a temporary driver for five years, you even look different. You can tell at a glance.
Q. Did Mr. Nemuro seem to notice the business behind the Camellia?
A. I remember having spoken to him about it.
Q. Are there other places like the Camellia?
A. Very probably there are. A little less than twenty per cent of drivers are temporary men. Just the other day, there was an article in the newspaper saying that some unlicensed agency had been raided.
Q. Are they strictly regulated?
A. They’re in violation of the labor law. They’re treated the same as crooks, and that’s about it.
Q. Was the Camellia linked with some organization too?
A. I don’t know. I didn’t look that closely—and didn’t want to.
Q. Can’t we suppose the possibility that Mr. Nemuro was under some obligation to the Camellia or to some similar agency?
A (Surprised and thoughtfully serious). Well, Mr. Nemuro, if I remember correctly, was a division head in a legitimate business. If he was up to some shenanigans, then I could understand the obligation. Of course, there are all kinds of off-beat types among the drivers: men who used to be school-teachers, fishermen, priests, painters. It’s hard work physically, but it’s different from other work; the relationship between the men is not troublesome. It’s a good job for someone who finds it congenial always to be his own master … no matter what crowd he may be in. But you can’t have aspirations for the future. All year long you keep running for other people’s purposes, and you get to feel pretty insecure, wondering where in the world you yourself are going to get. They used to have what they called pirate taxis, and they really were pirates. To some people on the outside they were considered regular men of the world sailing from one corner of the earth to the other, but they weren’t at all. Such a queer profession … A street’s a street whether it’s a noisy main street or a quiet back one. And a customer’s a customer, man, woman, rich or poor. The customer’s usually a piece of baggage mouthing trivialities more than another human being. Every day you run around jostling hundreds and thousands of beings, yet