Ruined Map - Abe Kobo [93]
“But am I qualified to do that?”
“Qualified?”
“The section head I saw in town seemed like a different man. Not a thing withdrawn or pitiful about him. His step made you think he felt life was worth living.”
“I take it you mean he was walking?”
“I was so surprised I almost stopped breathing. I was just on the point of speaking to him, but seeing his expression, I somehow felt timid. I wondered if I really had the right to interfere.”
“Was the street wide … or narrow?”
“An ordinary one … about like this sidewalk.”
“Did he give you the feeling of brooding or nervousness? He might have seemed vigorous at first glance …”
“Absolutely not. I made no mistake. He was just the opposite of nervous. He was carefree and seemed to be fully enjoying his walk.”
“Then I wonder why he didn’t notice you. You had plenty of time to study his expression. Funny, don’t you think?”
“But it was terrifically crowded. The offices were just letting out.”
“Well then, I suppose you were in the position of following after him, weren’t you?”
With two fingers, Tashiro jammed onto his face the glasses he had finished wiping with a wrinkled handkerchief, grinning broadly at me.
“Ha! You think I’m going to be taken in by that? You wanted me to say yes, and then you would ask how I had made out his expression walking behind him. Unfortunately I am telling the truth. You can’t catch me like that.”
“All right. But even so, you mean you let him go right by you?”
“Well … I guess so …”
“Is it as important as all that?”
“It’s a question of being qualified. We’ve decided that people have established residences and that we should put a chain or something around runaways’ necks and bring them home. But just how valid is such a concept? Who has the right to interfere with another’s living and against his wishes?”
“You leave one place and you’re bound to settle in another. It’s not a matter of will, is it? Rather you’ve got to consider your obligations and responsibilities to the first place you lived.”
“Perhaps even the abandonment of those obligations is itself an act of will.”
“When did you see him … and where?”
“The newspaper clipping I showed you a while ago claimed that missing persons run at the rate of one per thousand. One out of a thousand … and that includes people who can’t move of their own free will, like invalids and children. I think it’s serious. If you take into account the people who expect to run away but who have not yet done so, the figure’s astronomical. Those who don’t run away, rather than those who do, are the exception.”
“Was it in the summer … or after it got cold?”
“Before going into that, you’ve got to clear up the question of qualification.”
“Doesn’t the worry of the one left behind make any difference? You remember, I think, the story about Mrs. Nemuro’s brother being killed.”
“Does that have anything to do with the worry of someone left behind?”
“What was the color of the suit he was wearing at the time?”
“You know, I’m scared to death when I’m squeezed like a sardine in the streetcar in the morning. Just by being on friendly terms with a number of people—a hundred, a thousand—whom you know by sight, you feel you have your own place in the world. But the people who hem you in so tightly, so close to you, are all strangers; they’re by far the bigger number. No, I suppose what I’m really afraid of is that the streetcar will finally get to the end of the line.”
“Just tell me the color of his suit. If you go on like this, saying whatever comes into your head, I’ve come on a fool’s errand.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Suddenly he shrank back, ashamed, gulp ing again and again. “The color of his suit … if I remember right … ah, yes, I think it was a raincoat, not a suit.”
“Are you certain?”
“It didn’t rain that day, but maybe it looked like rain. Anyway, Mr. Nemuro was always prudent. All of us used to laugh at his mania for licenses: license for driving, license for radio operator, license for stenography …”
“I know all about that.