The Box Man (9 page)

-Now what were we talking about?

“You were saying, it seems to me, that you were bored listening to news,” she said, rearranging her legs (apparently she was quite aware of where my interest lay) and lighting another cigarette that she had put to her lips.

From her side the fake box man added, in a muffled voice, “1 don’t understand at all. What’s the use of introducing yourself the way you’re doing?”

-What I’m saying is that there aren’t any baddies among those who don’t listen to news. (I rejected the doctor’s words highhandedly and did not break my smile in the girl’s direction.) I have no intention of changing things here arbitrarily, for not believing the news is, I think, not believing in change.

“What’s illogical?” I said.

“I mean the fifty thousand yen. You took the money provisionally to buy a box, because I thought you were on intimate terms with the box man. It would indeed be illogical if you thought you could keep it or not.”

“Stop twisting things,” I said, flinching from the unexpected counterattack. “You already know very well that I’m identical to a box man.”

“No, I don’t… .”

“There’s no use lying. I’ve proof.” I inhaled slowly in order to calm down and then exhaled. “That morning about a week ago when I came to get my wound treated, you already saw very clearly that I was a real box man. My poorly trimmed hair … my sandpaper face covered with razor scars … although I smelled strongly of soap, bits of skin like dandruff continually peeled off on my neck and shoulders.”

“But they say there are a lot of eccentrics among photographers, don’t they?” she observed lightly as if pointing out a blunder in a game. Could it be that in the last analysis she was in league with the doctor and had simply taken advantage of me?

“But at the time-you admitted it yourself-it was an air rifle bullet that was stuck in the wound in my shoulder.”

“A lot of people around here have air rifles. Weasels apparently have easy pickings in the chicken houses.”

“When I was hit, a thoughtful witness who happened to be present told me about this place. She even gave me the price of the medical treatment. Three thousand yen, in bills that smelled a bit of disinfectant,” I said, staring deep into her eyes. I could not believe that she would betray me so easily. Hadn’t she clearly promised to be my model? She said that when she modeled and felt the eyes of an artist on her she became supercharged. She had indeed been provocative then, but now she was temporizing in front of the doctor. It would be anything but desirable here to have the doctor get up on his high horse. By pushing her too far it was conceivable that I would worsen her position. “Some girl in a miniskirt riding on a new style bicycle … perhaps it was a girl. Unfortunately I only saw her retreating figure, but the legs were terribly beautiful. They were legs that once seen were unforgettable. When you go on living in a box for a long time, since you naturally see only the lower half of those going by, your eyes become trained to see legs and only legs.”

I had the feeling that her cheeks filled slightly with a certain smile. But it was the fake box man who laughed.

“Surely there’s a big difference between wearing a box and looking at one.”

“Let me remind you that I haven’t yet completely renounced my rights of ownership.”

“Indeed. There’s a big difference,” the fake box man repeated reflectively in a calm voice. “Last night for the first time I spent the whole night in the box. I understood the difference very well. No wonder one is ready to become a box man.”

“I have no intention of holding you back by force.” “It’s quite natural that you shouldn’t.”

A chuckle infected the fake box man’s happy go lucky voice. It was both friendly and sarcastic, and I did not like it. It was as if it was out of tune. I felt rather that from the beginning I should have treated him as a fellow box man. Surely there was nothing at all to get excited about. If I were to broach the subject of advice for a box man after he goes out into town, such as methods of procuring foodstuffs, little known but good places to find slightly used articles in relatively good shape, ways of obtaining long distance free travel, or the whereabouts of at least seven fierce dogs to avoid within the city, then we should talk this thing over more calmly. But being in his presence was uncomfortable. Even though I realized that he was a copy of myself, I was embarrassed and shrank from doing so. In a situation like this perhaps I should have challenged him with my own box on. I shifted my attack to her.

“If it were up to you, what would you do? Would you keep him in check or would you let him do as he wished?”

She looked up at me, leaning lightly as she was against the corner of the examination table. As the corners of her mouth were drawn up, she seemed to he smiling, but her eyes did not smile at all.

“I simply think that if we suddenly gave out a tab indicating there was no examination, the patients would be inconvenienced.”

That would be quite true. A sly answer that might be interpreted in a number of ways. But for the time being I suppose I should be content with that much. Now I only had to wait for the fake box man to make a statement.

The box, making a sound, drew my attention and leaned over as if to show off. The vinyl over the window separated and an eye looked out. An eye that simply looked, expressionless. An insolent eye that forced on me the role of being seen, but of not seeing. I wonder when he learned such a technique. It goes without saying that the model was myself. I was depressed. I was being seen, but was the one seeing too.

“No matter how much we exchange words, it’s useless,” said the fake box man in a small voice that was ill suited to his appearance. “Anyway you wouldn’t believe it.”

“What?”

“You won’t believe that I am going to leave here instead of you. In your heart you want that to happen, but you won’t believe that I will.”

“But you have no intention, actually, of leaving.”

“I’ve prepared a little compromise plan.” Clearing his throat, he continued in a lower, more obsequious tone. “For example, how would it be if we tried it this way? What about you making yourself at home in this house? No matter what relationship you establish with her I will absolutely not interfere. I will not interfere or meddle with you or cause you any trouble. But I want you to accept just one condition. I want you to give me the freedom of watching you. Just watching. Of course, wearing the box the way I am. Exactly the relationship that stands between the three of us now. I’m just asking you to let me watch from a corner like this. When you get used to me, I’ll be just like a wastebasket.”

Somehow I had the impression that I had had the fake box act in my place and made a proposition that I myself had formulated. When I stealthily stole a glance at the girl, she had begun concentrating on a stringless cat’s cradle, rapidly moving the fingers of both hands. Slowly she shifted her legs. The hem of her pressed white uniform separated and knees peeped out and made me feel as if I should like to touch them with a finger on which saliva had been applied. Perhaps she was naked under the white dress. The rubber balloon I had swallowed, that had some device for making it swell and which I knew nothing about, I suddenly felt expand in my stomach. Nevertheless, I wondered if I would have the courage in front of the fake box man to ask her to strip off her clothes.

“There’s nothing to hesitate about,” continued the fake box man encouragingly. “If you pay no attention to a box man, he’s just like wind or dust. I myself had an interesting experience in this respect. When I developed a photo I had casually taken, right there in the picture was a close up of something quite unexpected. A man with a cardboard box over his head was nonchalantly walking by. Since I’m no expert like you, the camera was anything but sophisticated.

I wonder just what I intended to take a picture of. This happened some time ago, but I think it was the scene of some funeral. I had decided to take pictures of the funeral of a patient that I had treated myself … as remembrances. Even so, I was surprised. I should have seen him with my own eyes since he was so close. Yet I have absolutely no recollection. If a ghost is something that is not visible, yet which one has the impression of being able to see, a box man is just the opposite. It was since then that I began to be interested in box men. When I keep my eyes open to see if I can spot any, sure enough I see them roaming the streets, looking just the way the one did in the picture. But on the several occasions while I was observing them, I noticed that no one paid the slightest attention. It wasn’t only my oversight. For example, suppose a box man goes up to a greengrocer’s display. He stretches his arm out from a hole like this and begins pilfering stuff right and left in the area. Of course, only cheaper things without a price like tomatoes or milk or fermented soy beans. However, the clerk, dealing with a customer right beside the box man, far from scolding him, pretends not even to notice -pleasant, isn’t it? You know what they say: ‘Sweep the dust under the carpet.’ Packing oneself up like baggage and walking about is an insult to the world and goes beyond just being strange behavior. Or was it so harmless an existence that one could overlook it by merely wishing to? You should be able to ignore me too if you want to.”

The fake box man’s words trailed off, and he stopped talking; I heaved a long sigh. As a condition perhaps it wasn’t so bad. I more than anyone else knew full well that a box man lived a harmless existence. The location of the hospital was inconvenient, but since establishing himself the doctor had surely put aside a little nest egg; and then the very inconvenience of the location would serve to put a distance between us and the world. In the final analysis the question hung on her attitude alone. If she would only agree then perhaps the three of us could really make a go of it. No, no, not three, two and a little more. Treating him as a wastebasket would be stretching things, but if I considered him as a monkey I could keep him in a cage in my bedroom.

“Then it’s all right with you?”

“With me?” She glanced quickly hack at me and then just shifted her gaze toward the fake box man. As she did so, I felt a sharp jealousy at the smile that she let spread over her face. “It’s beyond me. I’m not good at answering when I’m made to take responsibility. When I try thinking about it I’m always doing something strange like dropping a pair of scissors on my foot or sitting on a glass. I wonder what time it is now.”

“Twenty four minutes to ten,” replied the fake box man, speaking rapidly, and I was made to feel guilty as if I were being blamed for my indecisiveness. She went right on, as if to press me.

“How old are you … really?”

“According to the official record twenty nine, but actually thirty two or three, I guess.”

Carried along, I answered in spite of myself, but apparently the question had not been what she really had intended to ask. Before I finished speaking, she had already turned her back to me and begun setting the instrument desk in order. Had she expressed without words that they had not yet decided on canceling examinations? Surely, arranging the instruments was a very normal thing to do. But she didn’t seem all that serious about what she was doing. She simply appeared to be pushing the instruments and the glass containers here and there with her fingertips like model cars. Should I consider this a negative agreement? I wondered. If she did disagree, she would say so in so many words.

The fact that she had shown concern about the time could be an attempt to push me toward a decision. In short, I had the feeling that if I came to a definite resolution everything would be all right. If only I were to say the word and ask her to strip, at once the scene would change: two or three seconds of frantically unbuttoning the nacre buttons of her white tunic … and there she would be, naked before me. From where I was standing barely three yards away I could smell the very odor of her body, depending on the air currents in the room. But then would I be able to play, as they expected, the important role they had assigned me?

(An unpleasant recollection suddenly occurs to me. It concerns the student entertainment program in primary school. I was generally not popular and was thus assigned a trifling role, perhaps because no one else wanted it. It was the part of a horse by the name of Dunce, but for all of that I remember romping around in the greatest of high spirits. However, when it came time for me to go on stage, the short lines I was to deliver at only one point during the play would not come no matter how hard I tried to get them out. When I gave up and started to leave the stage, my classmate who played the role of the horse’s owner, in an excess of anger, gave me a boot in the pants. That made me no less angry, and I kicked him back, whereupon he fell, struck his head on the floor, and lost consciousness. I have no recollection at all of how the play was subsequently discontinued. But it was soon after that that I became terribly nearsighted and squeezed sonic glasses out of my miserly parents. Myopia developed because I deliberately used to read books and magazines with fine print in dark places. I just wanted to run away from seeing and from being seen.)

I am quite aware of my own ugliness. I am not so shameless as to expose my nakedness nonchalantly before others. Of course, I’m not the only one who’s unsightly: ninety nine percent of mankind is deformed. It is my contention that man did not invent clothing after losing his hair, but that his hair atrophied because, aware of the unsightliness of his naked body, he tried to hide it with clothes. (I know very well that such an explanation goes against fact; yet I do believe it.) The reason men somehow go on living, enduring the gaze of others, is that they bargain on the hallucinations and the inexactitude of human eyes. By putting on clothes that as much as possible are identical and by having similar hairdos they manage to make it difficult to distinguish between one another. If I don’t give a straight look, then the other person won’t either; and one ends up leading a life of lowered glances. Thus long ago the punishment known as the pillory used to be used, but it was said to be too cruel and was discontinued in enlightened societies. That the act of spying on someone else is generally looked upon with scorn is because, I suppose, one does not want to be on the side of being seen. When one cannot avoid being seen it is common sense to demand compensation. As a matter of fact, in the theater or in the cinema usually those who look pay money and those who are looked at receive it. Anybody would rather look than be looked at. The fact that they keep on and on selling endless instruments for “looking”-radios and televisions-is excellent proof that ninety nine percent of men are aware of their own unsightliness. I became nearsighted of my own accord, frequented strip houses, became an apprentice photographer … and from there it was but a step, and a most natural one, to being a box man.