The Ruined Map (27 page)

Indeed, the pictures had no narrative quality, that indirect suggestiveness of a professional’s work, and no penetrating analysis of the subject. As a whole they seemed flat—perhaps it had to do with the lighting or the shooting technique. And then the model always filled the picture to the same extent and the surrounding space was not made the most of. It was pointless to criticize such things, for the husband’s interest was doubtless more in the subject than in the composition. Nevertheless, there was
some
purpose to the six photos, a will to find something. It was not just some naked girl who had been snapped, but a model. Then, every photo was from the back, and though the various poses were different the chief point of interest was the back down to the hips, the buttocks to the thighs. The face, of course, never appeared. The back of the head with the hair falling down was half out of the picture, the face being completely hidden by the back as she squatted over. Tashiro’s criticism that the legs were short for the body and that they were like an insect’s was not, on close inspection, because of the model, but, I felt, a conscious distortion produced by the lens. Take, for example, the one that Tashiro said was like a horse’s tail. The buttocks were turned toward the camera in a posture as if for an enema, and the white backs of the two heels occupying the two corners of the photo were magnified in the greatest detail as if there alone a magnifying glass had been applied. The focus was not quite perfect, but even the pores
could be seen. The single hand that was grasping the flesh of one buttock was so heavy-boned and ill-matching that it gave the illusion of being someone else’s—from the perspective, a man’s. It quickly narrowed and faded into nothing as one’s gaze followed it from wrist to elbow. Surely the effect of a wide-angle lens. Once he had decided on the purpose of the picture, being technically minded as he was, then this kind of effect would be relatively simple. But the purpose was the problem. I could interpret the picture as a desire to dissect the woman right out of existence. If it had been the brother’s work, I could have understood; but as it was the husband’s, I was at a loss. My client, at least, was not one to inspire such vengefulness. She was rather an enigmatic type, the opposite of physical, and a man would get pretty irritated in his effort to understand her. What in heaven’s name ever made the husband so enthusiastic about such work?

“What did you say the model’s name was?”

“Saeko. She says she’s twenty-one, but I’d make it twenty-five or six.” Pushing up his glasses, he spoke sharply: “Watch out! The waiter’s coming.”

I turned the stack of photos face down and raised my eyes. Directly across the open space outside, in the shadow of a pillar, a middle-aged man was squatting on his heels, absentmindedly looking around him. The hem of his overcoat touched the tile floor and was folded back: judging from the folds, the material did not seem cheap. The briefcase put down at his side suggested that he was a very ordinary office worker. The coffee was placed on our glass-covered table and the bill slipped under the cream pitcher. The man in the shadow of the pillar followed the randomly and constantly moving crowd around him with an unfocused gaze
quite as if he were looking at scenery. It was not as though he were watching for some specific person, nor did he look as if he were waiting to be found. From his position and attitude it was not likely that he was some vagabond at a loss for a place to go. Where he was now was an area only for walking, a space where people passed by and vanished, each step taking them closer to their destination. It was, as it were, a nonexistent world of emptiness for people other than photographers, detectives, and pickpockets. His sitting there was an unnatural act, which the more one saw of it the harder it was to understand. But the passers-by appeared to be little concerned with the strange man, perhaps because he was a part of the space there, vanishing among the legs like the tile design of the floor.

It suddenly occurred to me that the man might be dying. Was he not appealing, with difficulty, entrusting to his eyes the agony of his final hour, unable to call for help, his throat constricted by his swollen tongue? But his call was fruitless. The space here was only for walking. No matter how he might appeal, no one would turn and look at something that didn’t exist.

But suddenly he arose as if nothing were wrong and quietly moved off into the crowd of pedestrians.

“By the way, that last picture … that’s too much. Not only is the photography strange, but the girl’s a little funny too, isn’t she?”

The expression “too much” didn’t exactly fit the case. In terms of indecency, I had seen worse. The background was completely black. Against it a girl with knees spread was half squatting, the weight of her body on her left leg. She was bent far over toward the front, and coiled behind her buttocks was her hair, which passed under her crotch. She was
grasping it with her right hand, which she had extended around her side. Her position, for all its unnaturalness, was quite unexciting. The picture itself simply made one feel a psychological resistance to the continuing physical discomfort of the model. Only the expanse of flat, white hip, unrelated to the model’s twisted limbs, was as expressionless as the carapace of a crab. Beneath her shell the girl was forced into an almost impossible position. It was an incomprehensible picture. There was no obscenity, no sadistic stimulus, only unnaturalness, only a feeling of strangeness, like flowers arranged with their cut ends up. If I had to find something positive about the picture, it would be the strange cooperation of the model. I could understand it to some extent, I felt, if I interpreted it as showing his power to dominate her, but …

“Tashiro, do you think there’s any hope in following up this model?”

“I really couldn’t say. But this is a side of Mr. Nemuro that wasn’t known, I guess. I felt obliged to tell you about it.”

“But since he went so far as to entrust the safekeeping of such pictures to you, you had his confidence, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Mr. Nemuro was, how shall I put it, on the difficult side when it came to personal relations. He was nice on the outside, but inside he didn’t trust others very much.”

“I think you’re going to have to let me have a look at your room one of these days. Perhaps there’s some other unexpected clue of importance among the things Nemuro entrusted to you, something I would recognize if I saw it but that would appear insignificant to you, if you noticed it at all.”

“Ah. To tell the truth …” His eyes grew smaller behind his glasses; he was flustered. “These pictures weren’t in my
room. Look, you remember the rented darkroom I told you about the other day? Mr. Nemuro had a locker there for his own exclusive use.”

“If it’s a locker, it has a key, I suppose.”

“Sure. Lockers do …”

“How did you open it?”

“Well, there’s a master key and … uh … this chum of mine runs the place.”

“You mean you opened it without permission?”

“Actually, I found the newspaper clipping in the locker. Don’t you think it’s quite important? It’s dated the end of July or the beginning of August. Just about the time Mr. Nemuro disappeared. Maybe he was put up to it by reading the article. It probably occurred to him that with eighty thousand missing persons, another to swell the ranks wouldn’t make much difference.”

“One way or another, you did open it without permission, didn’t you?”

“But it was for Mr. Nemuro’s own good. When someone’s on the verge of committing suicide, I don’t think it constitutes a crime to break down the door to get in.”

“I’m not blaming you particularly. I’m just asking for the facts.”

“What for?”

“Why didn’t you tell me from the first that the shop in F—Town was a fuel supplier? Don’t tell me you didn’t know. You haven’t been frank with me. Is there anything else you’ve been hiding?”

A blush spread over his face. Defiantly he stuck out his lips. His breathing was heavy. “You really do say things that destroy a person’s good intentions. I showed you those pictures of my own accord … without any thought of reward.
If I hadn’t said anything you would never have known about them. What a fool I was to tell you.”

“It’s strange of you to say that. Weren’t you particularly trusted by Mr. Nemuro? Isn’t it natural for you to cooperate spontaneously with me?”

“I don’t think it can be put that simply,” he said sulkily, biting his lip. “You’d like to put it that way because it’s your business, but … there’s more to life than just pursuing. Sometimes it’s more important to shield.”

“But Mr. Nemuro’s disappearance doesn’t necessarily depend only on his own will. Perhaps he’s been killed, or maybe he’s being held by force somewhere.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

“Does that mean you’re shielding him?”

“How would you expect me to have such power? Personally, I hope Mr. Nemuro will come back. But I don’t think I’m entitled to say so. Supposing, for the moment, I saw him somewhere. I don’t know whether I’d go up to him or not. I don’t know whether I could do that even if I wanted to. If I had the chance, I would like to talk to him with the understanding that I would say absolutely nothing to anyone. It’s natural, because I’m very interested in the case. He’s great! I could never do what he did.”

“He didn’t do anything so great.”

“Well, could you do what he did?”

“Unfortunately, I’ve never yet been the head of a section.”

“I couldn’t. That stupid business. I’d like to put the torch to it when I think how they prostitute valuable human lives for a business like that. But I suppose it’s the same no matter where you go. As long as you work there, somehow or other you’ve got to try and rise to head clerk, then section head, then department head. At least it’s just too miserable if you
don’t do something. You get ahead of your fellow workers and dance attendance on your superiors. Even fellows who don’t have any hope for advancement try to pull the others down. They’re all mixed up together like so much fluff.”

“Then, unexpectedly, a fellow who has sought shelter by disappearing from another world slips in among them.”

My companion looked at me in surprise. Since he was trying to see me through glasses that had slipped down his nose, his face was somewhat elevated, and some hairs left by the razor stood out like thorns above his pointed Adam’s apple.

“Yes, indeed,” he said, lowering his voice somewhat, as if relieved and expectant. “Look. So many people all the time walking somewhere. Each one has some goal. A fantastic number of goals. That’s why I like to sit here and watch. If you cling to trifles, you’re left behind. They all keep on walking like that without resting. Whatever would they do if they lost their goals and were put in the position of just watching others walk? Just thinking about it paralyzes my feet. Somehow it makes me feel lonely and miserable. I really know how lucky they are to be able to be walking, no matter how insignificant their goals may be.”

Suddenly, quite out of context, I was skeptical as to why my client had not tried to go to the crematorium after her brother’s funeral. Even though the syndicate had taken charge of everything, she was the only blood relative, and it would have been natural for her to insist on going along. Or did she wish to avoid facing her brother’s death? I wondered. I could understand how she felt, though it was unnatural. Under the circumstances I felt not the slightest suspicion about that unnaturalness precisely because she had
acted so naturally. Or wasn’t it probably that she had come to think of her beloved brother as dead, as nonexistent, even while he was alive? It made sense, if you assumed that her almost unconditional way of trusting him was a kind of mourning for the dead one. I also felt that I understood the reason why she had not shed a tear as she so agitatedly talked about her brother at the foot of the hill when they were carrying out the coffin. In the living room filled with whispers and idle thoughts, there was no need to be formal even if a dead man had joined the company. The same went for the missing husband as well …

“It’s already a long time ago, but I once had a terrible experience that still makes me shudder,” continued Tashiro, his gaze flitting regularly between me and the outside. I had the feeling he was quite off his guard. “At the time, I was relaxing on a bench in some park. On the bench right next to mine a beggar was stretched out asleep. He was over three yards away. Since the day was terribly hot, I was obliged to put up with him for a little. Meanwhile, it occurred to me that things had got pretty noisy around me, and then a huge demonstration came along from somewhere with a lot of red flags and blue flags. Groups singing songs, groups shouting threateningly through loudspeakers, groups imitating double time, their arms linked, streamed endlessly by. Before I realized it, the beggar had arisen and was looking at them. Suddenly he burst out crying. His lips were all contorted, and he was shedding great tears as he clutched the front of his torn shirt, his shoulders heaving. Never before or since have I witnessed such mournful sobbing. He was weeping for the demonstration, of course. Since the day was hot and he was covered with dust, beggar that he was, the teardrops
falling from his chin were pitch black, like dirty water wrung from a mop. You’re pretty far gone if you get sad and lonely just watching people walking by.”

“Let’s go someplace else and have a drink, shall we? It’s on me.”

“You don’t have to do that … really …”

“That’s all right. Besides, I have two or three more things I’d like to ask about.”

“Ah. You mean blackmailing retailers and that sort of thing?”

“Where’s a good spot? Some place not very expensive … one that’s interesting.”

“Then let’s go to the bar next door to the studio where Saeko is. The models on call spend their time drinking there while they wait. It’s not exactly regular, but the management’s in on it and they give a discount to customers waiting to be called. In any case, you’d like to meet Saeko, wouldn’t you?”

“Are you a regular customer?”

“Absolutely not. How much do you think my salary is?”