Six ten.
Foreshortened by the angle of its approach, it raised its two derricks like the horns of a great black beetle.
Six fifteen.
It was quite clear now to the naked eye, but it hesitated black on the horizon like an object forgotten on a shelf. The distance was accordioned, and it stayed on and on, a black beetle left on the shelf of the horizon.
Six thirty.
Through the lens, diagonally, he could see the funnel mark, a red “N” in a circle on a white ground. He could make out piles of lauan.
Six fifty.
Now broadside in the channel, the Daichū-maru was showing red mast lights against a cloudy twilight sky which no longer held a moon. It slipped past the Okitama, making its mirage-like way out to sea. There was a considerable distance between them, but the lights were caught in fore-shortened perspective; and it was as if, out on the dark sea, the embers of two cigarettes were brushing and parting.
In from a foreign port, the Daichū-maru had two great iron rails on its deck to keep the lauan from falling overboard. In such quantities that the waterline was not showing, great trunks burned by the tropical sun lay piled one on another, like the bundled corpses of huge, powerful brown slaves.
Tōru thought of the new regulations for waterlines, jungle-like in their details. Waterlines for lumber vessels were of six varieties, summer, winter, winter North Atlantic, tropical, freshwater summer, and freshwater tropical. The tropical category was further divided into tropical by zone and tropical by season. The Daichū-maru fell into the former, and under the “special regulations for deck lumber transport.” Tōru had memorized with fascination the lines that define the tropical zone.
From the east coast of North America along the thirteenth parallel east to sixty degrees west longitude; thence directly to ten degrees north by fifty-eight degrees west; thence along the tenth parallel to twenty degrees west; thence along the twentieth meridian to thirty degrees north; thence to the west coast of Africa . . . thence to the west coast of India . . . to the east coast of India . . . to the west coast of Malaya . . . thence along the southeast coast of Asia to the tenth parallel on the coast of Vietnam . . . from Santos . . . the east coast of Africa to the west coast of Madagascar . . . the Suez Canal . . . the Red Sea, Aden, the Persian Gulf.
An invisible line was drawn from continent to continent and ocean to ocean and what was within was named “tropical,” and so, suddenly, a “tropical” made its appearance, with its coconuts, its reefs, its cobalt seas, its storm clouds, its squalls, the screams of its multicolored parrots.
Trunks of lauan, splashed with the scarlet and gold and green labels of the tropics. Heaped-up logs of lauan: they had been wet by tropical rains and they had reflected warm starlit skies, they had been attacked by waves and eaten by the shining bugs of the deep; and they could not dream that they were headed at the end of the journey for the boredom of everyday life.
Seven.
The Daichū-maru passed the second pylon. The lights of the harbor were aglow.
Since it had come in at an odd hour, quarantine and unloading would have to wait until the next morning. Even so, Tōru made the usual calls: the pilot, the police, the harbor superintendent, the agent, the provisioners, the laundry.
“The Daichū is coming into three-G.”
“Hello? This is Teikoku Signal. The Daichū is coming into three-G. The cargo? The line is barely showing.”
“Shimizu Provisioners? This is Teikoku Signal. Thank you for everything. The Daichū has just come into three-G. It’s off the Mio lighthouse at the moment.”
“Shizuoka Police? The Daichū is coming in. Tomorrow at seven, if you will, please.”
“The Daichū. D-a-i-c-h-ū. Yes, if you will, please.”
14
Immediately to the south was a lumber yard more than a hundred yards square, its huge cross-section dark under lights. The lumber sometimes seemed to Tōru like a great silent beast.
There was a crematory in the grove beyond. Tōru would like to have seen a flame that could show itself in the smoke from such an enormous chimney. He never had.
The summit of the dark mountain to the south was Nihondaira. He could see the streams of automobile lights on the road leading up to it. There were clusters of hotel lights, and the red lights of television towers.
Tōru had not been to the hotels. He knew nothing of the affluent life. He did know that wealth and virtue were incompatible, but he had no interest in making the world virtuous. Revolution could be left to others. There was no concept for which he had a greater dislike than equality.
He was about to go inside when a Corona pulled up at the stairs. He could not make out the details, but he was sure he had seen it before. He was startled when the superintendent got out.
A large envelope clutched in his hand, the superintendent lurched up the stairs, as he always did when he came to the signal station.
“Yasunaga is it? Good evening. I’m glad I caught you at home. I’ve brought something to drink. Let’s have a drink and a talk.” He did not mind being overheard.
Overwhelmed by this unique visit, Tōru reached for the door behind him.
“You’re very neat.” The superintendent seated himself on the cushion Tōru offered, and, wiping at his forehead, looked around him.
The building had been finished only the year before. It was as if the dust had not been allowed to gather. There was a maple-leaf pattern on the frosted glass of the aluminum-sashed windows, inside which were paper doors. The walls were lavender, the wood of the ceiling was of almost too good a grain, waist-high at the door was a frosted pane with a bamboo pattern, and the doors between the rooms too were decorated in unusual patterns. The tastes of the occupant demanded the newest wares.
The rent was twelve thousand five hundred yen a month, and two hundred fifty yen besides went each month into a common maintenance fund. Tōru thanked the superintendent for the half of the rent paid by the company.
“But aren’t you lonely, all by yourself?”
“I’m used to being alone. I’m alone at the station too.”
“That’s true, of course.”
The superintendent took a bottle of Suntory Square from his bag, and side dishes as well, shredded cuttlefish and prawn crackers. If Tōru had no glasses, he said, cups would do as well.
Something unusual was afoot. It was not the superintendent’s practice to come calling upon subordinates thus provisioned. The visit could mean no good. Since Tōru had nothing to do with the accounts, it was not likely that he was about to be charged with fiscal venalities; but he must have made a grievous blunder without himself being aware of it. And here was the superintendent pressing liquor upon the boy he had scolded for his addiction to tobacco. Tōru was reconciled to dismissal; but he knew well enough that, even without a labor union, it was a world in which industrious young men were not to be treated roughly, though they might be no more than signalmen third class. There were plenty of other jobs, if he took the trouble to look for them. In control of himself once more, he glanced at the superintendent with something like pity. He was confident that he could meet with dignity whatever came, even if it be notice of his dismissal. Whatever his adversary might think, Tōru knew that he was a jewel not easily come by.