Salmonella Men on Planet Porno (Vintage Contemporaries) (19 page)

I, on the other hand – milking the privilege accorded to a fashionable author – would instruct my editors to buy cigarettes for me, and continued to smoke as freely as before. “Pay me in cigarettes,” I would say. “No smoke, no manuscript.”

The poor wretches would scour the length and breadth of the land to find cigarettes that were still being sold, secretly, in remote country villages, or black-market contraband being trafficked in underworld “smoke-easy” joints. These they would present to me by way of tribute.

Nor did it seem that I was alone. Incorrigible journalists would occasionally produce features on celebrities who were still smoking. In their articles, they would list about a hundred people who, like me, declared themselves to be smokers and openly indulged in the habit.

“Which of these headstrong fools will be the last smoker?” ran one of their titles.

As a result, I was soon in constant danger, even at home. Stones were thrown at my windows, and suspicious fires would burn here and there around my walls and hedges. The walls became covered with multi-coloured graffiti, which was always renewed no matter how often I painted over it.

“SMOKER LIVES HERE”

“DIE OF NICOTINE POISONING, DIE!”

“HOUSE OF A TRAITOR”

The frequency of abusive calls and letters merely increased, most of them now consisting of unveiled threats. Eventually, my wife could bear it no longer. So she went off to her mother’s, taking our son with her.

Articles headed “
WHO WILL BE THE LAST SMOKER?
” appeared in the newspapers on a daily basis. Some commentators even made predictions, and the list of names gradually shortened. But the pressure grew in inverse proportion to the declining number of targets.

One day, I telephoned the Human Rights Commission. A man answered in a brusque, dispassionate tone.

“We can’t help you here. Our job is to protect non-smokers.”

“Yes, but smokers are in the minority now.”

“That’s been so for a long time. We’re here to protect the interests of the majority.”

“Yes? Do you always side with the majority, then?”

“But of course. The very idea.”

So I had no option but to protect myself. Smoking wasn’t actually illegal yet. Instead, the lynchings became more violent (presumably out of frustration). I surrounded my house with barbed wire – electrified at night – and armed myself with a modified handgun and a samurai sword.

One day around this time, I received a call from a painter, Kusakabe, who lived not far away. Originally a pipe smoker, he’d switched to ordinary cigarettes when he could no longer obtain his favourite “Half and Half”. Of course, he was one of the remaining twenty or so “smoking artists” who were always being targeted by the newspapers.

“That things should have come to this!” Kusakabe bemoaned. “I’ve heard that we will soon be attacked. The press and TV companies are inciting the NAF to torch our homes, so they can show pictures of our houses burning on the news.”

“The infidels,” I said. “If they come here first, can I escape to your place?”

“We’re in the same boat, aren’t we? If I’m hit first, I’ll drive over to yours. Then we’ll go up to Tokyo together. I know a safe house there. We have comrades there, too. If we’re all to suffer the same fate, better to die glorious deaths together!”

“Agreed. Let us die magnificent deaths. Let them write in future school textbooks, ‘They died with cigarettes in their mouths’.”

We did laugh.

But it was no laughing matter. One evening just two months later, Kusakabe drove to my house covered in burns.

“They got me,” he said as he parked his car in my garage, which was converted from a utility room in the main house. “They’ll be here next. Let’s get away.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, closing the garage door. “I’ll gather up as many cigarettes as I can.”

“Good idea. I’ve brought a few with me, too.”

We were loading packs of cigarettes into the boot of the car when we heard a sudden commotion around the house. My porch window was smashed.

“They’re here!” I said to Kusakabe, trembling with anticipation. “Shall we let them have it before we go?”

“Shall we? All right, let’s. I’ve been itching to do this!”

We went into the dining room, which looked out onto the garden. A man was tangled in the electrified barbed wire on the back wall, his body making popping, cracking noises. I heated up a saucepan of oil I’d prepared earlier. Then I handed Kusakabe the modified handgun, and picked up my samurai sword.

We heard a noise in the toilet. I burst in. A man had broken the window and was trying to climb through. He must have jumped across from the neighbour’s roof. I sliced his arms off at the elbow.

“……………….”

He disappeared from the window without a sound.

About a dozen others burst into the garden. They’d probably cut through the barbed wire. One by one, they started to prise open my shutters and windows. After a short discussion with Kusakabe, I went upstairs with the saucepan and poured boiling oil onto the garden from the veranda. The wretches started howling in agony. That was the signal for Kusakabe to start firing at random with the handgun. Terrified shrieks and screams.

They obviously hadn’t expected us to be so prepared. The gang withdrew, carrying their wounded with them. But they’d started a fire near my front door, and the house was starting to fill with smoke.

“A parting gift for us smoke-lovers,” Kusakabe quipped as he coughed. “But I draw the line at being burnt alive. Let’s get out of here!”

“The garage door is very weak,” I said as we got into the car. I sensed that there were people waiting for us in the driveway. “Just drive through it.”

Kusakabe’s car was a Mercedes Benz – built like a tank. I didn’t
have a car of my own any more. My son had taken it over recently, and he’d driven it off to his grandmother’s.

The Merc started up, smashed through the garage door and roared onto the driveway. Then we turned into the street at the same speed. We seemed to have bulldozed through about a dozen photographers and reporters, clustered around my house like piles of garbage – but did we care?

“Well. That was fun!” laughed Kusakabe as he drove away.

I still don’t know how we avoided all the road blocks on the way to Tokyo. The burning of our houses would certainly have been reported on television, and both the NAF and the police must have been on the lookout for us. But we drove on through the night, and arrived in the capital as day broke.

Kusakabe’s safe house was in the basement of a luxury apartment block in Roppongi. There, we met about twenty comrades who’d also escaped after their country residences had been burnt down. This was originally a private club, partly financed by Kusakabe, and the owner was one of us, too. We vowed an oath of allegiance and resistance, honoured the god of tobacco and prayed for victory. The god of tobacco, of course, has no physical form. We merely raised the red circle of Lucky Strike, and worshipped this while puffing away.

I won’t go into too much detail about our struggle over the next week or so, as it would be too tedious. Suffice to say that we made a fairly good fist of it. Our enemy was not only the NAF, along with the police and armed forces (which had merely become its tools). For now they were joined by the well-meaning conscience of the whole world, backed by the World Health Organization and the Red Cross. In contrast, the best support
we
could expect was from unscrupulous rogues who were continuing to sell cigarettes illegally. It would have hurt our pride as smokers to depend on them.

Eventually, the god of tobacco could no longer bear to see our plight, and sent assistants to help us in our hour of need. But they were only the dove of “Peace,” the bat of “Golden Bat,” the camel of “Camel,” and the penguin of “Cool” – none of which were of
much use to us. The last that came to assist us was a young superhero with gleaming white teeth, sent by “Smoker Toothpaste”. At first, we thought he might serve some purpose. But soon we realized there was nothing behind his façade either.

“We lived through the horrors of war, survived postwar austerity, and for what?” asked Kusakabe. “The richer the world becomes, the more laws and regulations are imposed on us and the more discrimination grows. And now, we are not free at all. Why is that?”

All of our comrades had fallen, and only two of us remained. We’d been pursued to the top of the national parliament building, where we sat puffing cigarettes for all we were worth.

“Is that what people prefer?”

“I suppose it must be,” I replied. “In the end, we’d have to start a war to stop this kind of thing.”

At that moment, a tear gas canister, fired from a helicopter, hit Kusakabe full on the head. He plummeted down without a sound. The masses swarming below, merry with alcohol as if at a festival, sent up a great cheer and started to chant.

“Only one left! Only one left! Only one left!”

But I’m still here, a full two hours later, still resisting doggedly at the top of the parliament building. I’m quite proud of myself, actually. If I’m going to die anyway, I might as well use up all the energy I have left.

Suddenly, everything went quiet down below, and the helicopters disappeared. Someone was talking over a loudspeaker. I strained my ears to catch what he was saying.

“…won’t we. But it’ll be too late then. And what a terrible loss that will be. For he is now a precious artefact from the Tobacco Age. He should be turned into a natural monument, a living treasure. We must protect him. Will you help us? I repeat. We are SPS, the Society for the Protection of Smokers, created today for the urgent…”

A shudder went through me. Please, no! Don’t let them protect me! This was the beginning of a new sort of cruelty. Protected
species are doomed to extinction. They’re turned into peepshow freaks, photographed, injected and isolated, their semen is extracted, and other parts of their bodies are messed about with in different ways. And what happens in the end? They just wither and die. But that’s not all. After they die, they’re stuffed and put out on show. Was that what I wanted? No. I’d rather die in my own way. I rushed forwards and jumped off the roof.

But it was too late. They’d already put out a safety net.

High above me, two helicopters approached with a rope mesh stretched out between them. Slowly, slowly, they descended towards me…

My foreboding turned out to be correct.

Just as I thought, it was to inform me of my forthcoming “island duty” that the Department Manager called me all the way to the Reception Room.

Usually, “island duty” was reserved for unmarried researchers. But I have a wife and a three-year-old child.

Why did the Department Manager have to tell me in person? Because the Section Chief didn’t know how to. It was a sign of the Section Chief’s malice towards me. It was he who’d plotted this “island duty”. I was sure of it.

I was to be posted to Pomegranate Island, a small island in the middle of the Japan Sea. It was about twenty miles off the coast of remotest Shimane Prefecture.

“Are there any telephones on the island?” I asked the Department Manager as I glanced over the map.

“The wife of the village headman is the switchboard operator. I’ll have one installed in your office,” he replied with a smile.

“You mean they’ve laid cables to the island?”

“God, no! Radio telephones, of course.”

“Surely we don’t have to go so far out to test water quality in the Japan Sea? We could do it on the coast. What about this place, Cape Ichizen? Couldn’t we do it there?”

“Citroxin levels are unreliable on the coast. You get better readings out at sea. You should know that.”

“There are still five or six single men in the Development Section. You don’t have to send me.”

“Ah, but they can’t work alone yet. You should know that.”

I refused to back down. “I’ve got a chronic illness.”

“Yes, I know. Your heart problem.”

“The Section Chief told you, then.”

The Department Manager gave me a duplicitous look.

“No. It was Dr Masui.” He was the company doctor.

“I don’t think he knows anything about my illness. What did he say?”

“He said it’s a nervous disorder.”

“Not heart disease?”

“He said you yourself claimed it was heart disease,” the Department Manager replied with a grin.

“In other words, he thinks I’m imagining it.” I sighed. “That’s why these quacks are no good.”

“What does your own doctor say, then?”

I started to explain my illness to the Department Manager. As I’m always telling people about it, the words slip out effortlessly. And by nature, I tend to get quite worked up when I’m talking about it. “It certainly is a nervous disorder. But this cardio-angio-neurosis, as it’s called, is not like other nervous disorders, nor is it an ordinary heart disease. It’s a very complicated illness. Dr Masui knows nothing of neurological medicine. That’s why he makes such irresponsible statements. My physician is Dr Kawashita. He knows all about both psychoneurology and internal medicine. I’m lucky to have met such a wonderful doctor. If I hadn’t, I might have died of heart failure long since. No – I definitely would have done. Indeed, before I had the good fortune to meet Dr Kawashita, I went to a lot of different hospitals and argued with a lot of doctors, because all they ever said was that it was a nervous disorder. I mean, I actually have palpitations and get a gripping pain in my heart. Sometimes I can’t even breathe. How could that be just a nervous disorder?! Dr Kawashita was the only one who correctly diagnosed it as cardio-angio-neurosis.”

The Department Manager had listened to my tale with a bored look, but now lifted his hand to stop me in mid-flow. “All right, all right. Let’s call it cardio-angio-neurosis. So what causes it, then?”

“In my case, it’s apparently too much stress.”

“Well, that’s perfect!” He smacked the desktop with his hand, a look of hearty agreement on his face. “If you go to a remote island, there’ll be no more stress or irritation from human relationships. You can take your time with the work – all you have to do is go and test the sea water a few times a day. You could see it as a kind of convalescence! Eh? What do you think? Hahahahaha!”

I was lost for words.

Well yes, I suppose I could see it that way. But what about the other cause of my illness – marital discord? My wife is of a purely hysterical nature. On top of that, she has showy tastes, and loves parties and socializing. She could never endure life on a remote island inhabited by a dozen or so fishermen. If she were forced to stay there, she would only become even more hysterical and torment me day and night.

But of course, it would have been unmanly for me to plead family circumstances to my superior, the Department Manager.

“Er…” I started nervously. “How long for?”

“Eight months.”

“Couldn’t it be a bit shorter?”

“It usually takes a year to monitor changes in citroxin levels. You should know that. I reduced it specially for you. Since you’ll have to be away from your wife and child.”

“Away?” I asked with widening eyes. “Can’t they go with me?”

Now he widened
his
eyes. “Would you want them to?”

“Oh, come on. If I went alone, who would help me if I had an attack?”

“Well, all right, I suppose they can.” He smiled again. “I hear your wife’s quite a good-looking woman.”

His implication was that I was worried about leaving her alone. And to an extent, he was dead right.

“Next year, the Development Section will split off from the Research Department and become an independent department of its own,” said the Department Manager, suddenly looking serious. “The current Section Chief will become the Manager of the Development Department. And there’ll be two new Sections beneath him.”

“I see.” I swallowed.

“I can make you a promise,” said the Department Manager, nodding solemnly. “When you come back from the island, you will be one of the Section Chiefs.”

“Hey. I’ve got island duty again,” I reported to my wife on arriving home that day. “I didn’t think it’d happen now that I’m married. But it seems it’s my turn again.”

For a few moments, my wife just stared at me blankly.

“Why didn’t you refuse?” she asked at length.

“Well, I couldn’t, could I. The Department Manager promised to promote me to Section Chief in return.”

“You’ll get promoted anyway, won’t you? All the others who joined at the same time as you have been promoted long since. Some of them without doing island duty once!”

“That’s because they’re not in the technical line.”

“But you’re the only one! You’re the only one who did island duty four times before you were married. So why do you have to do it again, now that you’ve got a family? Why on earth did you accept? Just how much of a pushover do you have to be?!” Her voice gradually rose in pitch as her words gathered speed. “That company of yours stinks. Can’t you see? They’re just using you! All the other wives will be laughing at me again. I can’t show my face outside!”

Our three-year-old son, standing wide-eyed next to his mother, stared at her with a look of puzzlement.

“I did try to refuse,” I said. “I explained about my illness.”

“Oh, for crying out loud!” My wife looked up at the ceiling, gave out a long breath and shook her head in disbelief. “So now you’ve even told your Department Manager about your sodding illness. And as always, I suppose you went on and on and on about it. I suppose you were gesticulating all over the place, going on about your heart, your poor heart, exaggerating the whole thing!” She made her eyeballs bulge and distorted her lips in imitation of me.

“What do you mean, exaggerating? I always talk truthfully about it,” I retorted indignantly. “How could he understand if I didn’t explain?”

“How many times do I have to tell you? Just stop telling people about it! Tell
me
, if you like. But for God’s sake, don’t tell other people! Why do you think the Section Chief dislikes you, then? It’s because you’re always going on about your bloody illness! He must be sick to death of hearing about it. The moment he asks you to do anything, it’s ‘oh, my heart, my heart’. And whenever you think it’s beating a bit funnily, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, you have to make a great song and dance about it and rush out to the nearest hospital!”

“How do you know that?”

“Of course I know, it’s easy! You’re the laughing stock of the company, don’t you get it? It’s no wonder you never get promoted! This latest island duty is all because the Section Chief hates you so much he wants to get rid of you! Of course it is!”

“Don’t you care if I die, then?” I yelled angrily. “Maybe you’re right, maybe the Section Chief doesn’t like me. But does that mean you have to talk like that too? Heart disease is a killer, you know. Of course, the healthy will always make fun of the sick. But I don’t care. I’m looking after my health because it wouldn’t be funny if I died. Why do you think I keep going to the doctor’s? It’s for you and the boy, of course!”

“DON’T BLOODY PATRONIZE ME!”

“What do you mean?” I hit the dining table with my fist and stood up.

“If you’ve got a heart problem, why didn’t you tell me about it before we got married?” She stood up in turn and glared at me. “That’s it! You tricked me, didn’t you?!”

“What do you mean, tricked you?! I didn’t have the illness then! It’s come on since we’ve been married! What could I do about it?”

“So now you’re saying it’s my fault! And I suppose they’re all saying that at your work, too! Bloody hell!” She was shrieking now.

“Hold on, hold on. Hold on.” I quickly tried to return to the original discussion. “Let’s not have another row! We’re just going over the same old argument as always. I haven’t told you where I’m going yet.”

“What do I care where you’re going?!” She stopped short and peered at my face. “Of course, you
are
going on your own, aren’t you.”

I was flabbergasted. “How could you be so heartless? You want to pack me off to a remote island on my own, in my state, with no doctor?!”

She laughed coldly. “Well, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to go.”

“I’ll be promoted to Section Chief when I get back. Aren’t you pleased for me?”

Now her hair virtually stood on end. “PLEASED? NO! I’m not pleased at all! Maybe if you said ‘Department Manager’, yes! After all this time, you’re the last to be promoted. Why the hell should I be pleased about that?!”

“Don’t be ridiculous! How could I jump straight to Department Manager without being Section Chief first?! And I won’t even get that if I don’t go to the island!”

“God, you’re so stupid!”

“What do you mean, stupid?” I kicked the chair over.

Our son is so accustomed to our rowing that he doesn’t cry any more. He started playing on his own.

“Anyway, we’re all going to the island together. Understand?” I said, breathing hard through my nose.

She looked at me aghast. “Do you want to turn our child into a barbarian?!” she said, performing her customary leap of logic.

“What’s that supposed to mean?!”

“You don’t stop to think of your family, do you. He’s just started at private nursery school, hasn’t he?! Do you know how hard I worked to get him in there?!”

“That was just for your vanity!”

“All right. So you think it’s better for your son to have no friends, and to turn into an imbecile like some fisherman’s boy, on some God-forsaken shit-hole of an island in the middle of nowhere, do you?! Just when he’s started learning to read?” She burst into tears and ran over to hug the boy. “I’m sorry, poppet! It’s only because your father is such a rotten good-for-nothing!”

“What’s more important, then? His nursery school or my work?!” I bawled at her. “The only reason you don’t want to go is because you won’t be able to buy flashy clothes and go parading in front of everybody!”

“Oh, you hate that, don’t you,” she said, staring at me. “That’s why you’re going to drag me there with you. You just want to give me a hard time!” She stamped her foot on the floor. “No. I am not going with you! I’d go stark raving mad, stuck there on a lonely island with no one to talk to, with only an invalid like you for company! I’m definitely not going, all right? You can bugger off on your own. Go and have your bloody spasms. Serves you right. You can stew in your own juice for all I care!”

“Wha… wha… wha…” I wanted to shout back, but was suddenly unable to breathe. My eyes bulged as I gasped for air.

A sharp pain pierced my heart. I screwed up my face and crouched on the floor clutching my chest. My heart was clearly palpitating. I moaned helplessly and felt a cold sweat coming over me.

“Oh look, he’s having another one.” She stood over me with a twisted smile on her mouth. “Funny how it always happens when he’s losing an argument. What a very convenient heart problem.”

Still wheezing for breath, I stretched out my hand towards her. “M-my pills, w-would you get m-my pills.”

“Get them yourself,” she said, and started clearing away the dinner things.

I rolled sideways along the carpeted floor. “In my, in my j-jacket pocket. W-would you get them for me.”

Our son got up and looked down at me. “Daddy not well!”

“Oh, leave him. He only wants attention.” She stomped off loudly into the kitchen.

Terrified by the sharp pain and the fear of death, I crawled along the floor and managed to reach the coat pegs as wheezing sounds still issued from my throat.

“All right, all right. Well done.” Sighing, my wife came back out of the kitchen, took the bottle of pills from my jacket, and threw it down in front of my nose. “Good performance. I nearly believed you.”

“And so, you see, I need eight months’ medication,” I told Dr Kawashita the next day, having taken the morning off to go to his clinic.

“Well, yes.” Dr Kawashita pulled a wry face. “I could give them to you, but…”

“You’ve got to!” I pleaded. “They’ll be my only hope on a remote island without a doctor!”

“But you’ll take them all at once, won’t you.” He scratched his head vigorously. “The problem is that you make no effort to remove the cause, but just keep taking the medicine. That’s no good at all.”

“No, it’s not true. I am making an effort. I’ve stopped smoking and drinking coffee, as you advised. I avoid strenuous exercise and work of a highly urgent and responsible nature as far as possible,” I said with a bow of the head. “And of course, I’ve stopped having sexual relations with my wife.”