Inter Ice Age 4 Page 10

  “Well then, what are you saying we should do?” At some point-1 myself was unaware when-1 had walked around through the narrow space between the machines.

  “There’s nothing left for us to do but find out what the trap really is.” When I did not answer, he pressed me further. “What about putting the solution of the situation to the machine?”

  “That’s enough!” I was shocked in spite of myself and angry at the fact that I was. It seemed as if I had been anticipating his words for some time. Yes, I had, but I was nonetheless afraid of them apparently.

  “Why? You’re saying you don’t trust the machine, aren’t you?”

  “The machine is theoretical, it’s not that I don’t trust it.”

  “By that you mean . . . ?”

  “I mean that this is not worth-while asking the machine’s help for.”

  “Strange. Then do you admit, for instance, you recognize the value of my idea?”

  “There’s nothing strange at all.”

  “But you’re vacillating, sir. Can you believe in the machine and not in the theory?”

  “Think whatever you will.”

  “That won’t do. You’re only clinging to the performance of the machine; you’re openly admitting you’re not concerned with the nature of the forecast.”

  “Who said that?”

  “It’s true, isn’t it? The fact that you don’t make up your mind, sir, is not because you can’t believe but because you don’t want to. Ultimately you’re going to admit what those who oppose the forecasting machine have to say. You’re a type of man who can’t bear having foreknowledge of the future, and you’ll end up incompetent to be in charge here.”

  Suddenly my anger changed to remorse, and my face became congested and red with fatigue.

  “Well, perhaps it’s as you say. People your age think nothing of saying pretty cruel things.”

  “Don’t say that.” Instantly his tone changed to one of friendliness. “You should know better than anyone that I’m awfully blunt. I know it’s offensive.”

  “I don’t want to leave here. I wouldn’t know what to do if I dropped the work I developed myself. If things get out of control, I suppose I’ll give everything up and resign. There’s no other alternative, is there? It’s really funny that a forecasting technician should be reluctant to know the forecast of his own future. But I don’t want to discuss with the machine what I should do.”

  “You’re tired.”

  “You’re a sly fellow, you really are.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I mean you’re not frank.”

  “But if I can’t get you to tell me on precisely what points . • . ,” said Tanomogi querulously.

  “I agree for the present that we’ve got to devote all our efforts to finding out just what this trap is. But to do that, I wonder whether visiting the aquatic mammals is all so urgent. Oh, I don’t have to ask to know you think it is. You wasted half a day at the laboratory, and now, this late, you’re hell bent for some reason on dragging me over there. Oh, I understand. But for some reason you haven’t made the slightest attempt to produce an explanation why you want to. You say that if the business about the buying and selling of fetuses is the truth, the laboratory for raising fetuses artificially outside the womb would probably afford some opportunity of getting clues. But it’s quite inconceivable that you would be so excited about going for such a vague reason alone. As you say, there are only three more days until the committee meeting. If you’re not fully convinced of success, isn’t it a waste of valuable time to go off looking at water dogs and water mice? I’m convinced you’re still concealing something.”

  “You’re imagining things.” Tanomogi smiled self-consciously, perhaps because my tone had been so mild. “It’s my idea that we’ve absolutely got to leave there once we’ve found out the truth about the buying and selling of fetuses in order to set up a clear line of action. But I don’t have the nerve to force you into it, sir. I’m very much aware of how mad this venture is. It’s disagreeable for anyone to be compelled to contemplate the unimaginable. Yet if I can get you once actually to see the life of these aquatic mammals, you will at least believe trade in fetuses is possible. Actually, after I learned about how they lived, I was almost able to accept the trade as fact.”

  “But I doubt if it’s worth taking the trouble of going to see them. Why not just accept the hypothesis that they exist and set up a concrete line of action accordingly?”

  “But can you take seriously something you don’t believe?”

  “I’ll make myself believe.”

  “No, you still don’t believe. You can’t come to believe so simply.” I involuntarily gave a strained laugh. “There,” he said, picking me up, ‘‘you laughed. It proves you don’t believe.”

  “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “If you believed even a little, you wouldn’t be able to laugh. Just think about it, being able to produce several millions of aquatic humans year after year.”

  “There are too many blanks in what you say.”

  “Since you don’t believe me, you can only consider ail possibilities blanks. We can’t establish any line of action if you’re like this.”

  “I know. I know. Then let’s let it stand: Every year they can produce several millions of aquatic humans.”

  “And among them, your own child, sir.”

  I burst out laughing. However parched the tone, it was laughter. Indeed what answer could I have made other than laughing? From deep in my consciousness the exchange that I had had with my wife several days ago and that I had paid little attention to came struggling to the surface of my memory. I remembered clearly: It had occurred on the evening the last committee meeting took place. I was seated in bed mixing a highball, and my wife was right beside me, saying something, trying to get my attention. For no reason I was unhappy. It was not only the hard time I had had with the committee; I was irritated at my state of exhaustion, and had my attention not been drawn thus, I should not have looked around at her. Her very presence was oppressive, as if she blamed me. “Why don’t you go ahead and buy it,” I said, glancing sideways at the catalogue of electrical appliances as she smoothed out the dog’s ear at the top of the page with her index finger. I hurriedly raised the glass to my lips.

  “Buy? Buy what?”

  “You asked about this air conditioner, didn’t you?”

  “Really! You haven’t listened to a word I’ve been saying!”

  It was true. The fine wisps of hair that fell over her forehead were conspicuously white against the light and terribly suggestive of the passage of time. She had been talking a little while ago about the baby.

  This was a continuation of the subject from last night. My wife had received the diagnosis of her pregnancy, and we were discussing whether or not she should have it terminated. Even if that had not been the case, women seem to like to talk about such things. Just recently I had a casual conversation with Wada Katsuko about the same thing. Of course, when I considered the conversation now, I was very suspicious as to whether it had been all that casual. Whatever, there was no reason for my answer to be any different. The problem was my wife’s physical make-up, which predisposed her to extrauterine pregnancies. There was nothing to do but let the doctor make the decision; at this point it would serve no purpose to start an argument. However, though my wife realized the futility of it, she wanted to engage in verbal battle. I understood how she felt, but even so it seemed foolish to agree with her. I didn’t want a child, nor did I particularly not want one. Children don’t create life, they’re only created.

  The doctor had said that this time there was the possibility that the pregnancy was normal, but that it would be safer to decide on a D and C and remove the fetus. It would be fantasy to inject a moral judgement into a situation like this, one that had nothing to do with any decision. It may be difficult to distinguish between abortion and infanticide, but it’s easy to distinguish between abortion and contrace
ption. Even though it’s true enough to say that man exists in the future and that murder is morally wrong because it robs him of that future, the future is forever a projection of the present. Who can assume the responsibility for the future of something that doesn’t even have a present? Such a person is trying to turn away from reality in the name of responsibility.

  “You’re saying I should have the abortion?”

  “I didn’t say anything of the kind. I’m saying that I leave the decision up to you.”

  “I’m asking your opinion.”

  “I don’t have any particularly. Either way is all right with me.” If the bickering was absurd, avoiding it would have been blatantly dishonest. After all, people who are close have to hurt each other senselessly like this. But I believed only in my own logic and made light of the matter, saying that it wouldn’t affect me whatever she did. I slowly drank my second glass of whisky and did not follow my wife, who suddenly rose and crumpled the catalogue in her hand. The next instant I was able to put the whole conversation completely from my mind.

  But that one phrase of Tanomogi’s that my own child might be becoming an aquatic human suddenly quite undermined my assurance. My child who was not to be born, staring fixedly at me from the murky depths of the water. The dark lines at the base of the jaw were gills. The ears were normal, but the eyelids were completely different. White arms and legs leaping in the dark water. My child who was not to be born. My child, created as I sat cross-legged on my bed, savoring the psychological satisfaction I experienced from the wounds my wife and I had inflicted on each other. The indolent self-deception and the stupid self-conceit of that evening were now being revenged. Thus the wounds mutually inflicted had become wholly one-sided. My wife was flagellating me cruelly with the specter of our child who had been forced into life. The more I tried to protect it, the more I hurt it; but when I tried to escape, it was there before me, its wide, fixed stare waiting for me in the water.

  I stopped laughing . . . awkwardly.

  Tanomogi scanned my face. “No, it won’t work, will it?” he said as if he were handing down a sentence. “I still would like you to see the real thing in the lab.”

  “All right. You’ve convinced me what’s got to be done.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’ll tell you that once we’ve been there and seen what there is to see.”

  Relieved, Tanomogi groped for the pencil he had stuck in the breast pocket of his shirt and quickly set about clearing the machine.

  “Look here, was the machine recording all this time?’’ “You said nothing about shutting it off, so I let it go.” Then opening the little window and showing me the meter that recorded the running time, he said in a playful tone: “This’ll stand in place of a will, just in case.”

  A faint, gentle murmur welled up, shrouding the room. The machine, silent as usual, somehow did not seem to be as it usually was. It was as if the road to the future was ready to open up just beyond it. Suddenly the future was not the simple blueprint it had been until now, but seemed like some frenzied living thing that possessed a will independent of the present.

  Program Card No. 2

  Programming is essentially the operation of reducing the qualitative to the quantitative.

  23

  Outside it was sultry and hushed. Perspiration oozed from between my fingers as if I were wearing gloves that had just been aired in the heat. There were no stars, and the moon tinged with red showed its roundness now and again through rifts in the clouds. On our way out we stopped at the guardroom and Tanomogi made a phone call. The guard cheerfully brought some fruit juice as if he had been expecting us. Trying to keep up appearances was decidedly unpleasant.

  “Did you contact them?” I asked at random.

  “Yes, I did,” Tanomogi replied with a pinched smile, setting out briskly.

  From then on we were silent. There was no sign we were being followed. 'When we got to the main street, we hailed a taxi. I took out my handkerchief, but not soon enough to catch the drop of perspiration that fell from the tip of my nose.

  Tanomogi gave instructions: “From Tsukiji you go through Harumi and there’s a bridge that leads to Area 12 in the reclaimed land. You know ... I think they call it the Yoroi Bridge. You cross that and it’s right there.”

  The middle-aged driver, a towel wrapped around his head under the regulation cap, glanced suspiciously over his shoulder, but he bore down on the accelerator without speaking. Rows of disconsolate wooden houses, stagnating in the heat, flowed disinterestedly by the taxi window. The streets had gradually absorbed the sultriness. After driving about an hour we left Harumi behind us, and the countryside changed to one of utter desolation with only a needlessly wide road flanked by concrete walls. In the meantime we rambled on, grumbling to each other about the frequent little earthquakes, the sinking of the land, the unknown origin of the high tides, the sudden changes in weather ceaselessly repeated over the years. I had the impression I dozed off some ten or fifteen minutes.

  At length, in the clammy sea breeze the Yoroi Bridge came into view, gleaming greenly. There was something profoundly disturbing about the striking illumination in the midst of this oppressive landscape. The instant we crossed the bridge, I heard somewhere the short, low sound of a steam whistle. Evidently it was sounding midnight.

  A limousine had stopped by the side of the road. A man with a pocket flashlight was leaning over the engine, apparently checking some malfunction. Tanomogi had the taxi stop and paid the fare. “This is it,” he said, proceeding in the direction of the car at the side of the road. The man with the flashlight pulled himself up and nodded his head politely as we approached.

  We changed to the car that had come to meet us and rode on for some twenty minutes. This road too was wide and easy to follow, but it continually circled. At last I lost my sense of direction; as we had crossed some three large bridges, perhaps we were no longer headed in the direction of Area 12 on the reclaimed land. I didn’t even bother to ask, for I assumed that since the whole business was so complicated I would not get a straight answer if I did. And then, if they intended to provide one, I might just as well have them explain it to me with a map later.

  Suddenly we were there. A deserted town with only great warehouses. We stood before a small wooden one-story structure surrounded by an ordinary concrete wall that had been , cut down in front and from which a road led to the sea. A sign was suspended almost out of sight in a corner of the entry: Yamamoto Laboratories. In the garden stood a number of empty, weather-beaten drums. I looked up hurriedly at the sky, but unfortunately the moon was hidden behind the clouds. Even if it had been visible, I didn’t imagine it would help much in discovering what the place was. The surrounding shore was open in all directions with the exception of the north.

  Yamamoto himself had come to meet us. He was a large man, with a pale, dirty face. “My brother is much in your debt,” he said in a modulated, forceful voice; and the calling card which was offered appeared tiny between his fleshy fingers with their sunken nails. When he said this, I recalled that his younger brother had been in charge of the electronic diagnosis room at Central Welfare Hospital, and I could not help thinking that this relationship was like some strangely threatening password. When one has amnesia and is expelled from the natural order of the world, I imagine everything begins to appear enigmatic like this. Trying to conceal my uneasiness, I made a stab at returning his greeting.

  “Now that you say it, you look a lot alike.”

  “Oh, no. We’re brothers, but only by marriage.”

  Yamamoto laughed heartily and began to walk ahead of me. Here they wore white robes and sandals too, the way we did, but the white garments were terribly oil-stained, inasmuch as they dealt with living things. His large hands hanging limply at his sides seemed exceedingly heavy. I wondered if such fingers would be better at handling delicate living creatures. It was different from dealing with abstractions, with things that were invisible, th
e way we did. These fingers might in fact be surprisingly adept.

  The interior of the structure was exceedingly shabby and scratched as if it had been some old elementary school building. But for all of that, at the end of the corridor, to the left, there was an elevator in a hollowed-out shaft. We got in, and Professor Yamamoto pressed the button; suddenly the elevator began to move downward. When I thought about it, it would have to go down, for the building had but one story. But expecting an upward acceleration out of force of habit, I was so surprised I gave an involuntary cry. Professor Yamamoto, as if he had been waiting for this, laughed loudly. It was a guileless laugh, enough to make me forget that it was one o’clock in the morning and the peculiar situation we were in. Certainly he did not seem to be a conspiratorial type. My first bracing, evil intention to discover his true colors, bending its back, had changed into a feeling of expectancy.

  The movement of the elevator was slow, but I thought that we had descended about the equivalent of three storys in an ordinary building. There was a long transverse corridor presenting a line of doors. Aside from the peculiar cool dampness it was no different from any laboratory. Turning right, we were led through the door at the end.

  An amazing scene stretched out before us: devices seemingly made of blocks of dirty ice, veritable three-dimensional aquariums. Large and small tanks of water were intricately linked together; and the spaces in between were filled with all kinds of pipes, bulbs, and meters. Iron bridges for workers to pass over stretched in every direction, in some places as many as three tiers of them. It made one think of the engine room of some ship. The sweating green walls, the strange, lively commotion, the scent of a half-dried beach off some shoal-it was all like a dream one has before coming down with a cold.