The Ruined Map (33 page)

The pain brought back my energy. I tried moving my shoulders; fortunately the ache had nothing to do with them. My two hands were covered with blood. Looking into the rear-view mirror, I could see splotches of blood on my face, as if someone had been playing tricks with paint. My nose was blocked, and it was difficult to breathe. I took out from under the seat the old towel I used for cleaning off the windshield and wiped away the blood. But I couldn’t do much against the slimy red that clung to my face. My nose hadn’t stopped bleeding yet. I pinched my nose with two fingers and, leaning my head against the back rest, I waited for some time with my face upward. But I could not spend a long time like this. There were almost no passers-by yet, but the window of the Camellia had already become a black mirror, and the surroundings had taken on color with the onset of morning. Then the quiet and deserted street was suddenly swarming with people. I could not let a face like mine be seen. I rolled up a Kleenex and plugged my nose. Aware of the eyes that were surely peering at me from the window of the Camellia, I started the car and slowly pulled away. The booth at the parking lot was still dark, and fortunately the figure of the old man was not to be seen.

                 A
ND AGAIN
the white sky … to which the white road seemed directly connected. The street lights had already closed their eyes; the street had broadened to about ten yards at a rough estimate. Only in the open mouths of the various buildings and in the entrances to stairways did a remembrance of the night still linger; a boy on a bicycle had just made the last milk delivery and now passed the car on his way down the slope amid the clicking of empty bottles in his sack.

Fortunately there was still no one else around. I rushed up the stairs, two at a time, and rang the white bell in the white iron door, bordered with its dark green frame. Although it had only been on a day since I had been here, I felt like someone who has been on a ship and touches land for the first time in a month. Whatever the meaning of the curtains that had changed to stripes, this blood-spattered face of mine should afford me free admission.

At the second ring the cloth over the peephole was rolled up. It was not surprising she had taken so long, considering the hour. I heard the chain being hurriedly unfastened. The handle turned, the door opened wide.

“What has happened to you? It’s so early in the morning …” she gasped in the amazement I had anticipated.

“It was the Camellia. Will you let me wash up my face?”

At least there were no men’s shoes in the entryway. She wore a net over her hair and had on a strange pajamalike quilted garment that made her look like a young girl. I still couldn’t make her fit in with the impressions I had gleaned from the photo that I had spent two successive evenings intently studying.

“When you say ‘Camellia,’ you mean that coffee house?”

I took off my topcoat and my jacket; my sleeves and my collar were blood-soaked. As I carefully wiped away the stains with absorbent cotton, which I dipped into the basin of lukewarm water she had brought me, I briefly explained the situation to her. With exaggeratedly painful breathing I told her about the worrisome information I had got out of the parking lot attendant … and the driver Toyama’s story which supported it … and the unlicensed employment agency for temporary drivers that was forbidden by law.

“You’d best not touch the cuts too much. Shall I change the water?”

“A nose bleed, I guess. The cuts don’t amount to much. They sting, but they’re no more than bruises.”

“Why did they have to be so violent, I wonder.”

“I guess they had to be.”

“Anyone who takes refuge there must be desperate not to be found out.”

“Did you know that Tashiro committed suicide?”

“Suicide?”

“Why does everybody want to run away?”

“What was his motive? I suppose he had some reason.”

“Motives … I have some things to tell you about when I get the time, but … To make a long story short, he got lost … where was he? … did he really exist the way he
thought he did? It was others who proved both his existence and his whereabouts, but since not a single one took any notice of him …”

“If that were the case, I’d have to be the first to die,” she said, her tone of voice suddenly normal again as she tossed back her remark. “Do you want to try on my husband’s shirt? I hope it fits you.”

“But I’ve lost my job on account of him. The chief’s got an extreme case of police phobia. If there’s any possibility at all of getting involved in complications, it means dismissal. What about it … will you let me go on with the investigation for the remaining two days plus, even though I’ve lost my status?”

“Maybe it’s my fault.”

“You changed the front curtains, didn’t you?”

“I’ve put on some coffee. Yes, let me think, it must have been the day before yesterday … the day of my brother’s funeral. That’s right, it was right after your visit. The coffee stain just wouldn’t come out. Then I sent them to the cleaners. I was talking to someone who absolutely had to have a cup of coffee. I prepared it all right, but as I was carrying it out, he suddenly tickled me from behind …”

Suddenly I felt a rising nausea. A violent pain radiated from my eyes, reverberating against the back of my skull, focusing at the back of my neck, knotting my throat.

“Was this fellow another dream about your husband?”

“Yes, I guess so. I guess it was, when I think about the tickling.”

“I liked the others … the lemon-yellow ones better, you know.”

“They’ll be back in two or three days.”

“I have fifty-eight hours to go. A whole two days and ten
hours … until the investigation contract expires … it said a week, but with Sunday out, it comes to six days.”

“I’ll go out to work. I’m worrying about expenses.”

The nausea was growing worse. My stomach was as heavy as lead and I was chilled.

“There are apparently some eighty thousand taxi drivers in Tokyo alone. There are about four hundred companies, but if you include the independents, there may be more than a thousand. Even if I want to visit taxi companies every day, at the rate of five per day, you can see how long it would take to cover them all.”

“Do you feel bad?”

“A little, yes.”

“Then you’d better lie down …”

The pain in my head and the nausea had reduced my vision, and all my senses concentrated shamelessly on her small hand that lay on my arm, as if that were the cosmic axis. I leaned forward, desperately fighting down the vomiting that threatened to erupt at any moment. For the first time I passed through the door to her room. I saw the white bed still rumpled from her sleeping … and the depression she had left in the sheet. I could clearly catch her scent despite my stuffy nose. The depression she had left lay away from the center, slightly toward the wall … a vessel for my sleep … the purple membrane between a frog’s spread toes.

“Sorry. Anyway, the map I drew was too simple compared to the actual town.”

“It’s not good to be talking when you’re nauseous. There are still thirty-four hours to go.”

She sat down at the foot of the bed, staring at me intently from some place I could not see. Was she really looking at me? I wondered. Or, like the guest she had had to coffee,
was I being made to join the phantoms who played the foil to her monologues with herself?

For whom does it beat … this enormous heart of the city that goes on pulsating, not knowing for whom? I changed my position and looked for her, but she was no place to be seen. If that were the case, where in heaven’s name was I, looked at by that nonexistent her?

“What time is it now?”

“After five.”

Suddenly the floor lamp at the bedside was lit and she was standing in front of me. The quilted pajamas had changed into a soft yellow kimono; the hair net had vanished and long tresses cascaded across her shoulders.

“Five after what?”

“Just about five minutes ago the contract expired.”

“What?” Taken by surprise, I rose up in bed. “What does that mean?”

“Don’t get upset.” She glanced over her shoulder, and taking three or four steps, stopped in the middle of the room. “I go to work from tomorrow on.”

Her faint freckles spilled from her face just before she looked around, leaving a delicate taste on my lips. An unrecognized recollection pressed hard on my chest. How did I know so well that she had been doing something before she had turned on the light? Now her gaze followed the wall beside my bed to the waist-high window immediately beside the mirror stand … the chestnut-colored curtains with a white-dotted crystal pattern.

“What were you looking at?”

“A window.”

“No, no. I mean what were you looking at through the window?”

“Windows … lots of windows. One by one the lights are going off. That’s the only instant you really know somebody’s there.”

“Well then, it must be evening already.”

“Five after.”

“Has it been as long as that?”

“No. I’m going to bed now.”

She shook her head, exposing the nape of her neck, and slowly swung her long hair in great arcs, to the right and to the left. Through the kimono the flesh of her hips and the two supporting columns could be distinctly seen twisting and turning. I quietly slipped my body to the edge of the bed and placed my left foot on the floor. Leaning my whole weight upon it, I left the bed. I took a step forward, and stretching out both hands, I thrust them under her arms and suddenly tickled her hard. Giving a short cry, she wrenched free of me and made as if to escape. But she went neither for the door nor for the window—she came directly at me. We crashed together and fell onto the bed. In my eyes faint brown freckles smiled … and the beautiful purple membrane was stretched taut. The depression she had left in the bed … the vessel for my sleep.

A wardrobe stood on the other side of the bed. It had large, burnished, light metal fixtures; the surface was painted a smooth dark-brown teak color, and it reflected like a mirror anything within two yards. Somewhere—perhaps in the kitchen—she was humming in a low voice. Since I could hear only the higher tones, I could not tell what the song was. I put on my coat and began walking … and she too began to walk … when she crossed in front of the lemon-yellow curtains, her face became black, her hair white, and her lips white too, the irises of her eyes became white and the whites
black, her freckles became white spots, white like dust that has gathered on the cheekbones of a stone image. I began to walk too … Muffling my footsteps, I began to walk in the direction of the door.

                 I
SLOWLY
came to a halt there. I stopped as if pushed back by the spring of the air. The weight which I had shifted from the ball of my left foot to the heel of my right flowed back again and came down heavily on my left leg. The slope of the road was steep.

The surface of the street was not asphalt but a rough-textured concrete with narrow grooves about five inches apart, apparently to prevent slipping. But they did not look as though they would be much help to pedestrians. The purposely rough concrete surface was covered with dust and tire shavings, and on rainy days, even if one wore old rubber-soled shoes, it would surely make for difficult walking. No doubt the pavement was made in this way for cars. If so, the grooves every five inches would be very effective. When the drainage of the street was obstructed by melting snow and sleet, they looked as though they would be useful in channeling the water into the gutters.

Yet there were few cars, despite the care taken to build
such a road. Since there were no sidewalks, four or five women carrying shopping baskets had spread out over the width of the street and were walking along completely absorbed in their chattering. A young boy perched on a roller skate and imitating a horn came sliding down the middle of the slope. Hastily I gave way to him, for I too had naturally been walking down the middle of the street.

I slowly came to a halt there. I stopped as if pushed back by the spring of the air. The weight which I had shifted from the ball of my left foot to the heel of my right flowed back again and came down heavily on my left leg.