Read Online The Box Man by Kobo Abe - Free Book Online Page B

him. You ask too many questions.
    -I only want to know the truth.
    -I’d at least like to forget what’s over.
    -Apparently there are things you want to forget at any cost.
    -Unfortunately they’re nothing you imagine, Doctor.
    -If that’s true, fine.
    -It is. First he wiped away the eye mucus and made me take all kinds of poses; he watched me as if he were on a treasure hunt. But the shot began to take effect at once, and the look in his eyes gradually became strange. In less than five minutes he was staring at the fluorescent light and seemed quite oblivious of me.
    -It’s all right to let him dream the way he wants. -But last of all he made me give him an enema.
    -An enema?
    -It was too much. The same question over and over. I wondered if he would never tire of asking. Imagine it… he asked me to check to see whether he had an erection or not. I was so annoyed I fooled him and told him it looked about eighty percent up. Immediately he got angry. He told me to stop talking nonsense, that he should know best about himself.
    -If he knew, he didn’t have to ask you, did he?
    64 / The Box Man
    -Then he began badgering me. When he smelled my perspiration he apparently got an erection, so he told me to get more to the side.
    -Don’t joke. What part of the castrated pig was up, I wonder.
    -Well, he wasn’t up. He began to cry instead. I was amazed. Or maybe he was pretending to cry. When I looked closely I could see he was crying, but only by the set of his mouth and his voice. And then… what halitosis! As long as he was badgering me, I could stand it only by holding my breath. He was apparently rather excited. He said he couldn’t stand looking up my crotch when I was on alI fours.
    -Did you go so far as to do that?
    -Not at all. It was the fault of the shot. I just stood there stock still. And he just imagined what he wanted. But it’s strange, isn’t it. Maybe that’s hypnotism. He wasn’t actually seeing me, yet just by thinking that he wanted to, I somehow came to have the impression I was being seen. From the moment I thought I was being seen by him all my strength suddenly left me, and I was unable to give up imagining I was on all fours. The blood left my buttocks, and they grew pale and numb. I had the feeling of turning into a stone.
    -What about the enema, then?
    -Oh, that was later. Suddenly just when he stopped crying, he let out a scream like a patient with a heart attack, saying to hurry up, that he wanted nitroglycerine.
    -A weird fellow.
    -All the same, he didn’t have an erection, but apparently there was some reaction. He ground his teeth and panted, and when I listened closely I could hear him saying, “Thanks … thanks.”
    -Why didn’t you refuse the enema?
    You yourself said not to take it seriously, didn’t you?
    -Quite true, quite true.
    -Please, let me rest. I wanted you to tell me that all this was unimportant.
    -Well, let’s take a pause here. Don’t just stand there • . . come over here. Take off your stockings.
    -I’m not wearing any stockings.
    -Hurry up, come on… . What sort of pose did he explicitly want you to take?
    -Turn off the light… .
    In Which It Is a Question, of the Sullen Relationship Between the I Who Am Writing and the I Who Am Being Written About
    The naked girl on all fours. The inverted triangle formed by her torso, her thighs, and her upper arms was burned deep into the backs of my eyeballs; and wherever I looked a flesh colored openwork forever overlaid my field of vision. The pores of my whole body opened their mouths at the same time, and tongues dangled limply from them. I was nauseous … abnormally tense … from lack of air. I had not had enough sleep either.
    Nonetheless, when and how did I get to this point? Apparently I’m deceiving myself. Eighteen minutes past three. Now I’m here at the municipal seaside bathhouse facing the Port of T across the harbor. A deserted sandy beach where hermit crabs crawl noisily about. A soaked green triangular