Ruined Map - Abe Kobo [62]
Q. Supposing that he had taken the plunge. What about it, would there be a good way of locating him?
A. That’s a hard question. Reputable firms do a thorough character check at the time you take the job test, so the company wouldn’t look askance at such an investigation, but if it was some place like the Camellia …
Q. Is it difficult?
A. Between them and the drivers there’s a mutual agreement not to ask for names, to say nothing of one’s past.
Q. Even if I explained the circumstances?
A. If the circumstances are known they protect their men all the more.
Q. Supposing you were still working for the Camellia, even if you were asked to give information would you refuse?
A (After a moment’s thought). Why does the world take it for granted that there’s a right to pursue people? Someone who hasn’t committed any crime. I can’t understand how you can assume, as if it were a matter of course, that there is some right that lets you seize a man who has gone off of his own free will.
Q. By the same reasoning the one left behind might insist that there was no right to go away.
A. Going off is not a right but a question of will.
Q. Maybe pursuit is a matter of will too.
A. Then, I’m neutral. I don’t want to be anyone’s friend or enemy.
“HOW BLUE it is!” exclaimed the uniformed schoolboy in an amazed voice as he looked up at the sky. Following his gaze, his companions, taking deep breaths, their mouths open, narrowed their eyes as if abashed.
“Boy! That’s really blue!”
But with the deepening of the blue of the sky, the wind increased, and the boys held down their flapping coat hems with the briefcases they were carrying. With their free hand they grasped the brim of their caps and leaned into the wind, waiting for the railroad barrier gate to rise. Directly to the left of the crossing stood the interurban station. The ticket puncher’s box was higher than the street by only four concrete steps. Right at the top of the stairs was a newsstand, and on a projecting shelf newspapers and weekly magazines covered with a thin sheet of vinyl were set out side by side. A middle-aged woman with a thick turban around her head was struggling with hands, arms, and even her breasts to hold down the fluttering vinyl. The sky sparkled metallically as if dusted with aluminum, and across it clouds like lightly strewn cotton floss scuttled from the northwest toward the southeast. The sun slanted to the right and all the shadows lay perpendicular to the road.
In the sky, the clouds were sailing at full speed; on the ground the wild rush of irregular pieces of paper caught the eye. It was unbelievable that so many could be scattered over the road. Of course, one never thinks of streets as being clean. But this was the first time I had seen wastepaper upstaging the scenery. Some were white, but most of them were weathered to the color of dead leaves and, having lain in windrows for some time, were covered with dust. Now the papers came dancing over the tracks in the middle of the street. Somehow they did not rise more than two yards from the ground, weaving and frisking between people and cars, again and again repeating their complex movement. They cheated one’s expectation, caught one by surprise, suggesting the swimming of certain kinds of fish. By them one was made aware that air was matter. Just as they seemed to be gliding smoothly over the surface of the ground, they suddenly changed and rose upward, flew horizontally, plastered themselves against the side of some car, then gently slid to the ground and pinned themselves beneath it.