The Ruined Map (4 page)

                 I
WALKED
slowly ahead, halted, turned on my heel, and walked back again over the rough asphalt sidewalk. With normal strides, it was thirty-two paces from the corner of building number three. When I looked up, the row of street lights, artificial eyes that had forgotten how to blink, seemed to be waiting for a festival procession that would never come. The pale, rectangular lights reflected in the windows had long since abandoned such festivals. The wind slapped at my sides like a wet rag. Raising the collar of my coat, I began walking again.

If I believed her literally—or the words she spoke to herself—within these thirty some paces an unreasonable and unforeseen event had lain in wait for him. And as a result ofit he had not only disregarded the appointment at S—– station, but had boldly and irreversibly stepped across a chasm, turning his back on the world.

                 “A
LL RIGHT
. Purely in terms of imagination, the following is conceivable. For example—don’t take it amiss—a blackmailer who knew some weakness of your husband’s. For example, an old mistress, a child he may have had by her—these things happen—some youthful error still outstanding that could crop up like an unexpected ghost. Furthermore, it’s August, the month when they say dead souls come back to earth, just the right season for ghosts. And women aren’t the only ones who come back as spirits. A sometime accomplice in embezzlement, now ruined by dissipation, is a fine candidate too … a vindictive second offender just out of prison. Don’t you know of some habitual blackmailer who may have been arrested through secret information given by your husband? Of course, the trap might also have been set by some perfect stranger. We’ve had our hands full with forgery cases lately. Apparently, forceful methods are in fashion … like secretly taking out insurance on a man in one’s own name and then killing him by running him over in a car. Of course, unless the body is discovered and the identity confirmed, it isn’t worth a yen. But I should imagine that’s not your husband’s case. Perhaps, since there’s still no word from the police, we should consider the case as accidental death or the same as accidental death. If it’s
murder, he’s probably incased in cement at the bottom of the ocean somewhere. But if that’s true, it complicates matters. It would mean that he was involved with a pretty dangerous gang. A smuggling organization, maybe, or a counterfeiting ring.”

The girl had stopped drinking halfway through her second glass. One by one the bubbles collapsed, the beer turning to dregs before my eyes. I didn’t stir. Was she deep in thought, was she angry, or was it absent-mindedness? Her lower lip protruded slightly, a lip like that of a still-nursing child. Because of that—at the angle at which her head was bent, the nostrils were barely visible—her nose had a certain impertinence.

“No, what would probably be more difficult to handle than such an organization would be a nobody. A worthless cigarette butt tossed away in the street. The fated accident, as it were. This happens to be a true story: a certain head of a branch bank, who was reputed to be especially conservative among his naturally conservative fellow bank employees, had arrived at the age of retirement. On the day he left work, he happened to go to see a nude show and was instantly infatuated with one of the girls. She was just one of the chorus line, nothing much in particular. She had the habit of constantly gnawing at her fingernails. Even while she was performing on the stage she was liable to keep on biting at them—perhaps she didn’t care. Anyway, she made a rather poor showing. However, the fact that she bit her nails seemed to please him privately. After going back to the place for three days, he wrote a fan letter. On the fourth day, things seemed to be going pretty well, and he thought he would take her out to dinner or something. Then, suddenly on the fifth day
things took an unexpected turn—a sensational double suicide in the girl’s room. It was done with something like a safetyrazor blade. The harder they are the easier they break, you know.”

Not the slightest change was visible in the girl’s expression. The bubbles in her glass were rapidly fading away. Seen from the side, the surface of the foam made one think of the top of a jungle in an aerial photograph. What was she seeing? I wondered. Suddenly there was a swelling, like freshly painted enamel, along her lower eyelid. A tear perhaps? I was disconcerted. I hadn’t really meant it that way.

“But, let me say … about the paper clip … perhaps, as you claim, it is proof he was really thinking about the documents. But whether he intended to deliver them to S—– station or not, as he had in fact promised, is another question, I think. Of course, it also depends on the contents of the documents.”

“He said no one knew what the contents were.”

Her answer had come back effortlessly, like a ball rebounding with its own momentum, but the tone of her voice did not differ in the slightest from before she had fallen silent.

“But was it company business?”

“It certainly wasn’t very important, I know.”

“I need the truth, not a conjecture like that. Now, about the documents … tomorrow I’ll go and investigate at the company. But I really don’t understand. You yourself claim to have no clues. Yet the fact that not a single concrete item was left—no diary, calling cards, or address book—is incomprehensible, since he was a most orderly man. There’s some contradiction here. You, his wife, have no clues, so you apparently want to believe that his disappearance was
accidental. But aren’t the facts rather the opposite? ‘Flying birds leave no tracks’ would seem to fit the case somewhat better, I should think.”

“But there’s the clip. And then he absolutely didn’t touch the savings book.”

“Clip, clip, clip … If I may say so, how can you positively claim it wasn’t a feint in order to convince you? You can’t, can you? And then, maybe he was trying to say goodbye to you for the last time.”

“Certainly not. All the time I was looking for the clip he kept whistling in a funny way as he brushed his shoes.”

“Funny?”

“It was some television commercial, I guess.”

“Come, come, now. You’re welcome to pull the wool over your own eyes, but it serves no purpose to hoodwink me.”

“Well, then, maybe there was something. Maybe a book for addresses and phone numbers …”

For the first time she turned in confusion toward the corner of the room where the telephone was located, and just as she was on the verge of biting her thumbnail, she pressed her hand which she had doubled hastily into a fist against her lips. It was no use to hide it. Even though she fought against the habit, there was a white scar along the edge of the nail, on which the polish had been applied especially thick. She smiled apologetically.

“There was an address book, wasn’t there?”

“Now that you speak of it, I guess there was. When you slid the button to the initial and pressed the cover it opened up. It was black enamel … about this big. If I remember right, it was always on that shelf.”

“Did it disappear along with your husband?”

“No. If it was taken, then it was my brother who took it.
He couldn’t just let me wait around and do nothing. He looked and looked, but there wasn’t a single entry of any use. I wonder if he just didn’t put it away and forget it. If a thing like that were where it would always catch my eye, even I would have had to do something. My brother was against my doing anything so dangerous.”

“Dangerous?”

“He says a single map for life is all you need. It’s a saying of his. The world is a forest, a woods, full of wild beasts and poisonous insects. You should go only through places where everyone goes, places that are considered absolutely safe, he says.”

“It’s rather like saying one should disinfect the soap before washing one’s hands.”

“Yes. It is. Really, my brother’s that kind of person. Even when he comes home he spends forever washing his hands, gargling, and things like that.”

“Well, would you please try getting him on the phone for me now.”

Suddenly a gray shadow masked the girl’s expression. No, a curtain rose. Perhaps it was the real color of her skin that was coming out. For the first time she focused her eyes. As she gently felt along the edge of the table with the aligned fingertips of both hands, she stood up soundlessly and passed round in back of the narrow chair, making a shallow billow in the lemon-yellow curtains. She was a girl that black suited. A slender waist that defied gravity. Taking up the receiver, she dialed without consulting an address book, and, using the same finger she had used for dialing, she pinched a pleat in the curtain. A slender finger that seemed quite without articulations. She was apparently in the habit of pinching anything—perhaps some newly formed propensity to avoid
biting her nails. The pinched curtain moved gently. I wondered if she weren’t a little drunk. But black and yellow were signs of “Danger, beware!”

“It’s true,” she murmured in a low, rasping voice, as if she were beginning to talk to someone in front of her. “I’m always too inclined to let things take care of themselves by talking to myself. Of course, the best thing is to hear directly from the person in question. Even I couldn’t believe it at once … just after that casual whistling … he said he rather had the feeling my brother was surprised. Hmm … strange, isn’t it … no one answers … could he be out? I wonder.”

“Where are you phoning to?”

“To someone who lives in the back of the house.”

“A last eyewitness? Oh, let it go. Surely, he’s already sick of your telephone calls. Anyway, that’s not the telephoning I’m asking for.”

Surprised, she replaced the receiver on its hook as if she were holding a caterpillar.

“Well, then, where should I call?”

“To your brother, of course.”

“That’s impossible. Because …”

“As for me, I need maps, ten or twenty of them. What in heaven’s name do you expect me to do with an old matchbox and a photograph like this? I’m different from you; it’s my business to go around snooping in dangerous places. It’s written right here in the request application I showed you. I don’t think it’s at all unreasonable of me to ask you to provide any and all evidence you can.”

“My brother knows there’s nothing of any use. He’s done some investigating on his own.”

“He’s got a lot of confidence. For god’s sake, why did you hire me then?”

“Because I couldn’t stand waiting any longer.”

Of course, it was hard to wait. Even so, I would keep on waiting. Slowly I walked along, paused, turned around, and walked back again. At intervals, a bus pulled up and stopped. Then came the straggling sounds of footsteps … invisible figures. It was not only the figures I did not see, I also could not distinguish a single trace of anything resembling a fault, a fissure, a magic circle, a secret subway entrance. There was only the black and empty perspective I had grown weary of waiting for. That, and the biting wind of a February night.

To say nothing of seven thirty of an early morning, that most cheerless of all hours … an hour like distilled water when nothing strange ever happens. What in heaven’s name could be the worst imaginable mishap in the life of a section head for a fuel wholesaler? They had tried to make a fool of me, or maybe I had chanced on a half-witted client. It made no difference which; in either case, invisible was invisible. There was no reason why one should be able to see, nor did I intend to look.

Something I wanted to see was already visible. I would continue to concentrate on the single point I could see. That faint rectangle of light … the lemon-yellow window … the window of the room I had taken leave of only a moment ago. The lemon-yellow curtains mocked me derisively—I who was frozen in the dark, who, for her sake, resolutely held in check the invasion of darkness. Yet, one way or another, I was the one who would betray her. I would wait. I would keep on waiting until then.

The sound of footsteps, as if someone were walking only on heels, drew hurriedly near, and for the first time I diverted my eyes from the lemon-yellow window. The clippity-clop of high heels of someone late … a woman’s timid footsteps.
Even the darkness could not hide the white coat, furtrimmed at the collar and cuffs, and a paper sack carried under her arm. She pretended to take no notice of me, but she could not fool me; the upper half of her body facing me was still, armor-like. How would it be if, suddenly, I were to drag her over and throw her down on the grass? She would fall easily, without a sound, like a stone statue—and, of course, pretend to lose consciousness. Since the white coat would be too conspicuous, perhaps I should sprinkle some dry grass over her … a motionless girl buried under dead grass. Under the grass, she would quickly slip out of her clothes—naked. Only her arms and legs, projecting from the grass, would be uncovered. The wind would blow, carrying away the grass around her face … and then the face would suddenly change into that of the woman on the other side of the lemon-yellow curtains. A still stronger wind would arise and scatter the remaining grass. But instead of the naked body that I expected, only a black hole would appear. The white-coated silhouette of the girl turned directly under the street light, swelling out before my eyes, and then vanishing into the darkness. Her arms and legs disappeared too, and only the hole, like a bottomless well, was left.