Salmonella Men on Planet Porno

Bad for the Heart

My foreboding turned out to be correct.

Just as I thought, it was to inform me of my forthcoming “island duty” that the Department Manager called me all the way to the Reception Room.

Usually, “island duty” was reserved for unmarried researchers. But I have a wife and a three-year-old child.

Why did the Department Manager have to tell me in person? Because the Section Chief didn’t know how to. It was a sign of the Section Chief’s malice towards me. It was he who’d plotted this “island duty”. I was sure of it.

I was to be posted to Pomegranate Island, a small island in the middle of the Japan Sea. It was about twenty miles off the coast of remotest Shimane Prefecture.

“Are there any telephones on the island?” I asked the Department Manager as I glanced over the map.

“The wife of the village headman is the switchboard operator. I’ll have one installed in your office,” he replied with a smile.

“You mean they’ve laid cables to the island?”

“God, no! Radio telephones, of course.”

“Surely we don’t have to go so far out to test water quality in the Japan Sea? We could do it on the coast. What about this place, Cape Ichizen? Couldn’t we do it there?”

“Citroxin levels are unreliable on the coast. You get better readings out at sea. You should know that.”

“There are still five or six single men in the Development Section. You don’t have to send me.”

“Ah, but they can’t work alone yet. You should know that.”

I refused to back down. “I’ve got a chronic illness.”

“Yes, I know. Your heart problem.”

“The Section Chief told you, then.”

The Department Manager gave me a duplicitous look.

“No. It was Dr Masui.” He was the company doctor.

“I don’t think he knows anything about my illness. What did he say?”

“He said it’s a nervous disorder.”

“Not heart disease?”

“He said you yourself claimed it was heart disease,” the Department Manager replied with a grin.

“In other words, he thinks I’m imagining it.” I sighed. “That’s why these quacks are no good.”

“What does your own doctor say, then?”

I started to explain my illness to the Department Manager. As I’m always telling people about it, the words slip out effortlessly. And by nature, I tend to get quite worked up when I’m talking about it. “It certainly is a nervous disorder. But this cardio-angio-neurosis, as it’s called, is not like other nervous disorders, nor is it an ordinary heart disease. It’s a very complicated illness. Dr Masui knows nothing of neurological medicine. That’s why he makes such irresponsible statements. My physician is Dr Kawashita. He knows all about both psychoneurology and internal medicine. I’m lucky to have met such a wonderful doctor. If I hadn’t, I might have died of heart failure long since. No – I definitely would have done. Indeed, before I had the good fortune to meet Dr Kawashita, I went to a lot of different hospitals and argued with a lot of doctors, because all they ever said was that it was a nervous disorder. I mean, I actually have palpitations and get a gripping pain in my heart. Sometimes I can’t even breathe. How could that be just a nervous disorder?! Dr Kawashita was the only one who correctly diagnosed it as cardio-angio-neurosis.”

The Department Manager had listened to my tale with a bored look, but now lifted his hand to stop me in mid-flow. “All right, all right. Let’s call it cardio-angio-neurosis. So what causes it, then?”

“In my case, it’s apparently too much stress.”

“Well, that’s perfect!” He smacked the desktop with his hand, a look of hearty agreement on his face. “If you go to a remote island, there’ll be no more stress or irritation from human relationships. You can take your time with the work – all you have to do is go and test the sea water a few times a day. You could see it as a kind of convalescence! Eh? What do you think? Hahahahaha!”

I was lost for words.

Well yes, I suppose I could see it that way. But what about the other cause of my illness – marital discord? My wife is of a purely hysterical nature. On top of that, she has showy tastes, and loves parties and socializing. She could never endure life on a remote island inhabited by a dozen or so fishermen. If she were forced to stay there, she would only become even more hysterical and torment me day and night.

But of course, it would have been unmanly for me to plead family circumstances to my superior, the Department Manager.

“Er…” I started nervously. “How long for?”

“Eight months.”

“Couldn’t it be a bit shorter?”

“It usually takes a year to monitor changes in citroxin levels. You should know that. I reduced it specially for you. Since you’ll have to be away from your wife and child.”

“Away?” I asked with widening eyes. “Can’t they go with me?”

Now he widened his eyes. “Would you want them to?”

“Oh, come on. If I went alone, who would help me if I had an attack?”

“Well, all right, I suppose they can.” He smiled again. “I hear your wife’s quite a good-looking woman.”

His implication was that I was worried about leaving her alone. And to an extent, he was dead right.

“Next year, the Development Section will split off from the Research Department and become an independent department of its own,” said the Department Manager, suddenly looking serious. “The current Section Chief will become the Manager of the Development Department. And there’ll be two new Sections beneath him.”

“I see.” I swallowed.

“I can make you a promise,” said the Department Manager, nodding solemnly. “When you come back from the island, you will be one of the Section Chiefs.”

“Hey. I’ve got island duty again,” I reported to my wife on arriving home that day. “I didn’t think it’d happen now that I’m married. But it seems it’s my turn again.”

For a few moments, my wife just stared at me blankly.

“Why didn’t you refuse?” she asked at length.

“Well, I couldn’t, could I. The Department Manager promised to promote me to Section Chief in return.”

“You’ll get promoted anyway, won’t you? All the others who joined at the same time as you have been promoted long since. Some of them without doing island duty once!”

“That’s because they’re not in the technical line.”

“But you’re the only one! You’re the only one who did island duty four times before you were married. So why do you have to do it again, now that you’ve got a family? Why on earth did you accept? Just how much of a pushover do you have to be?!” Her voice gradually rose in pitch as her words gathered speed. “That company of yours stinks. Can’t you see? They’re just using you! All the other wives will be laughing at me again. I can’t show my face outside!”

Our three-year-old son, standing wide-eyed next to his mother, stared at her with a look of puzzlement.

“I did try to refuse,” I said. “I explained about my illness.”

“Oh, for crying out loud!” My wife looked up at the ceiling, gave out a long breath and shook her head in disbelief. “So now you’ve even told your Department Manager about your sodding illness. And as always, I suppose you went on and on and on about it. I suppose you were gesticulating all over the place, going on about your heart, your poor heart, exaggerating the whole thing!” She made her eyeballs bulge and distorted her lips in imitation of me.

“What do you mean, exaggerating? I always talk truthfully about it,” I retorted indignantly. “How could he understand if I didn’t explain?”

“How many times do I have to tell you? Just stop telling people about it! Tell me, if you like. But for God’s sake, don’t tell other people! Why do you think the Section Chief dislikes you, then? It’s because you’re always going on about your bloody illness! He must be sick to death of hearing about it. The moment he asks you to do anything, it’s ‘oh, my heart, my heart’. And whenever you think it’s beating a bit funnily, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, you have to make a great song and dance about it and rush out to the nearest hospital!”

“How do you know that?”

“Of course I know, it’s easy! You’re the laughing stock of the company, don’t you get it? It’s no wonder you never get promoted! This latest island duty is all because the Section Chief hates you so much he wants to get rid of you! Of course it is!”

“Don’t you care if I die, then?” I yelled angrily. “Maybe you’re right, maybe the Section Chief doesn’t like me. But does that mean you have to talk like that too? Heart disease is a killer, you know. Of course, the healthy will always make fun of the sick. But I don’t care. I’m looking after my health because it wouldn’t be funny if I died. Why do you think I keep going to the doctor’s? It’s for you and the boy, of course!”

“DON’T BLOODY PATRONIZE ME!”

“What do you mean?” I hit the dining table with my fist and stood up.

“If you’ve got a heart problem, why didn’t you tell me about it before we got married?” She stood up in turn and glared at me. “That’s it! You tricked me, didn’t you?!”

“What do you mean, tricked you?! I didn’t have the illness then! It’s come on since we’ve been married! What could I do about it?”

“So now you’re saying it’s my fault! And I suppose they’re all saying that at your work, too! Bloody hell!” She was shrieking now.

“Hold on, hold on. Hold on.” I quickly tried to return to the original discussion. “Let’s not have another row! We’re just going over the same old argument as always. I haven’t told you where I’m going yet.”

“What do I care where you’re going?!” She stopped short and peered at my face. “Of course, you are going on your own, aren’t you.”

I was flabbergasted. “How could you be so heartless? You want to pack me off to a remote island on my own, in my state, with no doctor?!”

She laughed coldly. “Well, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to go.”

“I’ll be promoted to Section Chief when I get back. Aren’t you pleased for me?”

Now her hair virtually stood on end. “PLEASED? NO! I’m not pleased at all! Maybe if you said ‘Department Manager’, yes! After all this time, you’re the last to be promoted. Why the hell should I be pleased about that?!”

“Don’t be ridiculous! How could I jump straight to Department Manager without being Section Chief first?! And I won’t even get that if I don’t go to the island!”

“God, you’re so stupid!”

“What do you mean, stupid?” I kicked the chair over.

Our son is so accustomed to our rowing that he doesn’t cry any more. He started playing on his own.

“Anyway, we’re all going to the island together. Understand?” I said, breathing hard through my nose.

She looked at me aghast. “Do you want to turn our child into a barbarian?!” she said, performing her customary leap of logic.

“What’s that supposed to mean?!”

“You don’t stop to think of your family, do you. He’s just started at private nursery school, hasn’t he?! Do you know how hard I worked to get him in there?!”

“That was just for your vanity!”

“All right. So you think it’s better for your son to have no friends, and to turn into an imbecile like some fisherman’s boy, on some God-forsaken shit-hole of an island in the middle of nowhere, do you?! Just when he’s started learning to read?” She burst into tears and ran over to hug the boy. “I’m sorry, poppet! It’s only because your father is such a rotten good-for-nothing!”

“What’s more important, then? His nursery school or my work?!” I bawled at her. “The only reason you don’t want to go is because you won’t be able to buy flashy clothes and go parading in front of everybody!”

“Oh, you hate that, don’t you,” she said, staring at me. “That’s why you’re going to drag me there with you. You just want to give me a hard time!” She stamped her foot on the floor. “No. I am not going with you! I’d go stark raving mad, stuck there on a lonely island with no one to talk to, with only an invalid like you for company! I’m definitely not going, all right? You can bugger off on your own. Go and have your bloody spasms. Serves you right. You can stew in your own juice for all I care!”

“Wha… wha… wha…” I wanted to shout back, but was suddenly unable to breathe. My eyes bulged as I gasped for air.

A sharp pain pierced my heart. I screwed up my face and crouched on the floor clutching my chest. My heart was clearly palpitating. I moaned helplessly and felt a cold sweat coming over me.

“Oh look, he’s having another one.” She stood over me with a twisted smile on her mouth. “Funny how it always happens when he’s losing an argument. What a very convenient heart problem.”

Still wheezing for breath, I stretched out my hand towards her. “M-my pills, w-would you get m-my pills.”

“Get them yourself,” she said, and started clearing away the dinner things.

I rolled sideways along the carpeted floor. “In my, in my j-jacket pocket. W-would you get them for me.”

Our son got up and looked down at me. “Daddy not well!”

“Oh, leave him. He only wants attention.” She stomped off loudly into the kitchen.

Terrified by the sharp pain and the fear of death, I crawled along the floor and managed to reach the coat pegs as wheezing sounds still issued from my throat.

“All right, all right. Well done.” Sighing, my wife came back out of the kitchen, took the bottle of pills from my jacket, and threw it down in front of my nose. “Good performance. I nearly believed you.”

“And so, you see, I need eight months’ medication,” I told Dr Kawashita the next day, having taken the morning off to go to his clinic.

“Well, yes.” Dr Kawashita pulled a wry face. “I could give them to you, but…”

“You’ve got to!” I pleaded. “They’ll be my only hope on a remote island without a doctor!”

“But you’ll take them all at once, won’t you.” He scratched his head vigorously. “The problem is that you make no effort to remove the cause, but just keep taking the medicine. That’s no good at all.”

“No, it’s not true. I am making an effort. I’ve stopped smoking and drinking coffee, as you advised. I avoid strenuous exercise and work of a highly urgent and responsible nature as far as possible,” I said with a bow of the head. “And of course, I’ve stopped having sexual relations with my wife.”

“What?” He lifted his face and stared at me. “Altogether?!”

“Yes, altogether. Well, that comes under strenuous exercise, doesn’t it?”

“As I’ve said many times before, no visible symptoms can be observed in your case,” the doctor said with a long sigh. “It’s not good to dwell on your condition too much. The worst thing for you is marital discord. If you’ve stopped having intercourse with your wife altogether, that could be another cause of marital discord.”

“Surely you’re not going to say I’m imagining it too?!”

“I’m not saying that. You are definitely sick. But anxiety will only make your condition worse. And then you’ll merely grow more anxious. It’s a vicious circle. I don’t want to frighten you, but if that happens, even a regime of complete rest and a change of air won’t work. You need to relax, and try not to get angry. That’s the best cure.”

“But my wife makes me angry. I can’t help it.”

“Will your wife accompany you to the island?”

“Of course.”

“You see, this is your perfect chance for a complete convalescence.” He screwed up his face. “Is there no way you could go alone?”

“You’re joking! I couldn’t leave a skittish woman like that on her own. Who knows what she’d get up to.”

“Distrust between partners, suspicions of infidelity, these are things that can directly aggravate your condition, you see.”

That hit a raw nerve. “Are you saying I’m jealous?” I said loudly. “How can I help it? She’s a wanton woman, I’m telling you!”

“All right, all right. Calm down.” The doctor hurriedly tried to pacify me. “That’s exactly what I mean. You mustn’t allow yourself to become so agitated!”

“Can I have the medicine?”

“Well, if you promise not to waste it, I’ll let you have eight months’ supply. But don’t come to me saying you’ve used it up and could I give you some more. This is all you’re getting. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“Serpentina alkaloid,” he said to the nurse before turning back to me. “Whatever you do, don’t take too many. Your blood pressure isn’t very high, so if you exceed the dose it could be life-threatening.”

“Yes, I understand.”

Huh, he’s only trying to frighten me, I thought. Once I’d got the pills I could do what I liked with them!

The rule in my company, Marine Chemical Resources Development, is that, once a decision has been made to send an employee to an island or coastal observation point, the work has to start within a week. But this only applies to single employees. I was given special dispensation of two weeks in which to prepare, as I’m a family man. And on the final afternoon of those two weeks, I boarded a small steam ferry to Pomegranate Island from Cape Ichizen with my wife and child. The ferry crossed to the island and back once a day.

“What? WHAT?! What sort of island is that?!” my wife shouted at the top of her voice as we approached Pomegranate Island. We could now see the whole of the island before us. “What kind of shape do you call that?!”

In the middle of the island was a mountain shaped like an upturned helmet. The top of the mountain was split wide open like a pomegranate exposing its obscene red insides.

“You’ve got to be joking! I can’t live on an island that looks like that!!” my wife shrieked at me in a state of shock. “Why of all places do we have to live on an island that’s got its top split open?”

“How could I have known?!” I shouted back. “I’ve only seen it on the map. Nobody told me Pomegranate Island was an island with its top split open!”

“Aha, ahaha, ahahahaha!” Our son pointed at the island and laughed merrily.

“It’s a volcano, that’s what it is! What are we going to do if it explodes? The whole island will be wiped out!”

“Are volcanoes shaped like that?!”

“It’s a bloody volcano, I tell you! Of course it is!” She started to sob. “What am I going to do? I wish I’d never married you. I had another proposal after we were engaged, I’ll have you know. Now he’s been posted to Europe with his family. What a mistake it was to choose you!!”

“It’s because you say things like that and make me angry that my condition gets worse,” I said slowly, deliberately, breathing deeply to control my rage. “Dr Kawashita has said it many times. Marital discord, and particularly quarrelling, is very bad for my heart. Some of his patients have even died of heart failure during rows with their wives.”

“Well, if you’re so scared of dying, hurry up and divorce me, then! All you ever say is Dr Kawashita this, Dr Kawashita that. He’s nothing but a ruddy quack!”

“He is not a quack!” I screamed. “Do you want me to get angry and die?”

“Are you dying then? ARE YOU?” she screamed back. “Go on then, die! Then I might believe you!”

“H-how… h-h-how-” Her logic was so absurd that I could find no words in reply. “How could you say-” I could hardly breathe. A prickling pain pierced my heart.

“It’s the company that’s trying to kill you by sending you to this island! They want you to die. They’ve no intention of promoting you. Of course they haven’t.” She stamped her heels noisily on the deck.

“Stop… please st-stop.” I clutched my chest and sat on a bench. “My p-pills, please, my p-pills. In the c-cabin. In my bag. In my b-bag.”

She tutted, and peered down at me with a look of disgust on her face.

“Daddy not well again,” said my son.

“Come on, let’s leave him. Let’s go,” she said icily, without expression. She took our son’s hand and hurried off to the after-deck.

I was beside myself with rage. The palpitations started and I stopped breathing altogether.

“Uhhh… uhhh… uhhh…”

Moaning, clawing at the air with fingers bent rigid, I twisted and contorted my body until, at last, I reached the cabin. I opened my bag with fitful hands, took out the medicine bottle and swallowed three tablets without water. The doctor had instructed only two at a time, but two were no longer enough.

Once I’d regained my composure I peered at the bottom of the bottle. There were only four or five tablets left.

Suddenly struck by a feeling of unease, I rummaged around inside the bag. I wanted to make sure the package containing the eight months’ supply was still there.

It wasn’t.

I hastily tossed aside the suitcase and emptied the contents of my wife’s bag all over the cabin. But there was no sign of my medicine.

“Where’s my medicine?” My heart was starting to beat like a drum.

“What’s the matter with you?” my wife asked, looking at me coldly. I’d raced out of the cabin with my hair all over the place.

“My medicine!” I yelled. “The big package with my medicine in it. What have you done with it?”

“How should I know?” She gazed out across the sea. “It’s in your bag, isn’t it?”

“It’s not in my bag. It’s not in yours either. What have you done with it?” I screamed. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH IT?”

Frightened by my unusually savage appearance, my son clung tightly to his mother.

“Would you keep your voice down? Look, you’re scaring him. And you’re upsetting the other passengers.” Actually, a solitary old woman on the after-deck was the only other passenger.

“Never mind that. You were shouting yourself just now, weren’t you? Answer my question. Where have you put the package with my medicine in it? If I don’t have that medicine, it could hinder my chances of staying alive!”

“It could hin-der his chan-ces of staying a-live, he says,” she repeated to the boy with a snigger. “What grand expressions he uses. Answer his question, he says.” She turned to look at me with spiteful eyes. “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?”

“I’m sorry. I apologize,” I said more calmly, trying not to accept the provocation. “Could you please tell me what you did with the package?”

“What package.”

“It was about this big, wrapped in brown paper. It had eight months’ supply of medicine in it. I’ve only got four or five tablets left in my bottle. I need to refill it, you see.”

“There. Why couldn’t you have said it like that before,” she said like a schoolteacher. “That package. Yes. I put it in a trunk with our winter clothes and sent it by Daitsu.”

As Daitsu were the most reliable carriers in the country, I was somewhat relieved. But would the trunk arrive before my medicine ran out?

“You shouldn’t have done that without asking me,” I said in a plaintive voice. “I’ve only got four or five tablets left.”

“If they’re so important to you, why didn’t you look after them yourself?!”

“And when will Daitsu deliver the trunk to the island?”

“They said it would take four to five days. That was four days ago, so it should be there by tomorrow.”

I’d have to make sure I didn’t have an attack before the next day.

As we arrived on the island, an old man came to meet us on the ferry landing stage. He said he was the village headman, and took us to the observation point, where I would live and work for the next eight months. Near the coast about a mile out of the village, it stood on sandy ground below a cliff. It was made of wood, measured about thirty by thirty feet, and was of course newly built. It would probably be destroyed at the end of the observation period. Though crudely fashioned, it had a large carpeted room at the back, and looked much more comfortable than I’d expected.

“Well, we should be able to make do with this,” I said.

Standing in front of the village headman, my wife said nothing.

The observation equipment had already arrived. I started unpacking and assembling it as soon as the headman had left and my wife had started cleaning. It was well into the night by the time I was finished.

My wife came on to me that night.

With the uncertainty of a new environment, she probably need ed to immerse herself in an activity that involved monotonous repetition, something that felt familiar. I shared that feeling, but of course I didn’t make love to her. I might have suffered a spasm if I had. I reminded her that I only had four or five tablets left. But she just repeated the same old complaint as always.

The next day, I carried the observation instruments to the rocky beach and set them up at six points. It took a whole day.

There was no Daitsu delivery that day.

“It hasn’t arrived!” I complained to my wife.

“It’ll probably come tomor row,” she answered with her customary indifference.

“You’ve got the receipt from Daitsu, haven’t you.”

“I wonder. Did I bring it? Look in my handbag. If it’s not there, I’ll have left it at home.” As irresponsible as ever.

I hurriedly emptied the contents of her handbag onto the table, and hunted for the receipt. I was relieved to find it there, crumpled into a ball.

But there was no Daitsu delivery the following day either. After completing my observations I went down to the ferry landing stage to check. The ferry had already left, and there was no sign that it had brought any kind of baggage. This was driving me mad. I hurried back to the observation point and picked up the telephone.

“Hello?”

“Hello, yes? What can I do for you?” said an old woman’s voice at the other end.

I’d been told that the village headman’s wife operated the telephone exchange. The village headman himself was at least seventy. So the woman on the other end must have been his wife.

I took care to speak politely. “I’m sorry to trouble you, but may I make a call to the mainland?”

“The mainland, you say? Oh! Yes, the mainland.” For some reason, she sounded quite thrilled. “Yes, of course. What number?”

Reading from the receipt slip, I repeated the number of the Daitsu City Branch to the stupid woman several times.

“Oh yes, yes, I’ve got it now,” she said in great excitement. “Please replace your receiver and wait for me to call.”

I waited in a state of mounting irritation for about fifteen minutes, until the phone finally rang.

“Hello? Yes. Well, at last we have a connection,” the old woman said cheerfully.

“Daitsu.” The girl’s voice sounded awfully distant.

“Yes, hello? My name’s Suda. I gave you a trunk to ship on the 6th, but it hasn’t arrived yet.”

“One moment. I’ll put you through to the Dispatch Office.”

Next, a young man spoke. He sounded even more distant. “Hello?”

“Hello?”

“Er, hello? We have a bad line here. Hello?”

“Hello? Yes, my name’s Suda. I gave you a trunk to ship on the 6th, but it hasn’t arrived yet.”

“Ah. Hold the line. I’ll put you through to the Duty Clerk.”

Next, a middle-aged man spoke. I repeated the same thing to him.

“Really. Well, I’ll look into it,” said the man, as if it were too much for him. He obviously had no desire to look into it at all.

“Will you look into it now, please?”

“What, now?” the man said in a sullen tone, followed by silence.

“It contains something important that’s urgently needed. Actually, it’s medicine. Without the medicine, someone could die.”

“Really. Just a minute.” He seemed to be looking, albeit reluctantly. “Er, what was the name again?”

“Suda.”

“Shudder?”

“No, Suda.”

“No shudder?”

“Er, Suda.”

“Er shudder?”

“S for Sparrow. U for Unicorn. D for Donkey. A for Ant.”

“…Eh?”

“S for Sparrow-”

“Mr Sparrow?”

“S for Sparrow. U for Unicorn-”

“Mr Uniform?”

“SUDA. The name is Suda. Suda.”

“Mr Suda?”

“Yeeessss. That’s right.”

“Oh yeah. Here it is. Item received on the 6th. One trunk, was it.”

“That’s the one. That’s the one!”

“Sent to… how do you read that?”

“Pomegranate Island.”

“Yeah, Pomegranate Island. Well, yeah, it’s already been sent.”

“…What?”

“We’ve already sent it out.”

“Hello? Hello?”

“Yeah. Hello.”

“I’m actually calling from Pomegranate Island now.”

“Really.” He wasn’t even slightly impressed.

“And it hasn’t arrived yet.”

“That’s funny. It should have done.”

“Yes.”

“It should be there by tomorrow.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking for the last two days.”

“But it’ll arrive by tomorrow. No problem.”

“And what will you do if it doesn’t?”

“What do you want me to do?” He was laughing.

“Couldn’t you trace it for me?”

“Trace what?”

I was beginning to lose my patience. “I would like you to trace the whereabouts of my trunk.”

“Well, once we’ve sent it out, it can’t be traced.”

“Surely it can. You must know the shipment route. Could you please telephone and check.”

“Could who please telephone and check?”

I snapped, momentarily. “You, of course! No, not necessarily you. It doesn’t matter who. Could someone please look into it?”

“Well, no, actually. We’re very busy with other shipments here.”

“I’m busy too! That trunk is important to me!”

He laughed again. “And our shipments are important to us.”

“It’s a matter of life and death!”

“Really.” He thought I was exaggerating, of course.

“Hello?”

“Yeah.”

“Would you mind telling me your name.”

“Murai,” he answered grudgingly.

“Well, Mr Murai,” I said in a tone of authority, “could you please check out all the points along the route. I’ll call you back later.”

“All right then. Yeah, OK, I’ll check them out. It must be serious if it’s a matter of life and death, eh?” He suppressed a laugh.

I slammed down the receiver in great annoyance. “Jesus. How rude can they get.”

“What’s the matter?” asked my wife next to me.

“The Daitsu people. Their attitude is abysmal. As if it’s more than their job’s worth! Who the hell do they think they are?!”

“What do you expect? They are the best in the country. And I hear the recruitment exams are really hard. They only hire people from top universities, you know.” She cast me a sharp sideways glance. “They’re the élite.”

Her sarcastic tone made me all the more annoyed. “And that gives them the right to be arrogant, does it?”

“Well, yes. They’re not bothered about a piffling little trunk. They specialize in hauling heavy machinery, construction equipment, that kind of thing. Their main business is delivering steel girders in the right order when a railway bridge is being built. Mobility, that’s what they’re all about. So it’s no wonder they pooh-pooh our insignificant household effects.”

“If you knew that, why the hell did you use them?”

“Oh come on. Who else is going to transport a paltry trunk to the middle of nowhere?” she asked with a derisive smile.

“They’ve got a monopoly?”

“Correct.”

“Damn them!” I brought my fist down on the table. And my heart started to palpitate immediately. I quickly took out the medicine bottle and swallowed two tablets. Only three left now.

For a few minutes, my wife seemed lost in thought. Then she looked up at me. “Maybe they’ve deliberately delayed the trunk, out of spite.”

“W-why?” I stared at her. “Do you know something I don’t?”

She answered with a serious expression, as if to stoke my anxiety. “Well, I had a bit of a set-to with the Daitsu driver. He came on his own to pick up the trunk, and asked me to help him carry it. I said why didn’t you bring someone with you, carry it on your own, that’s your job. Then he gave me a really nasty look.”

“What was his name?”

“It should be on the receipt,” she said with a smirk.

There was no Daitsu delivery the next day either. I went to the ferry landing stage with my wife. The only thing to come off the boat was a group of five students who’d come to the island on holiday. They were all male. My wife immediately started chatting to them as if she’d known them all her life.

She said she wanted to buy something at the local Co-op, so I went back to the observation point on my own. Our son, who’d been having his midday nap, woke up and started howling. I managed to get him back to sleep, then phoned Daitsu. It took half an hour for Murai, the one I’d spoken to the previous day, to come to the phone.

“Yep.”

“It’s Mr Suda on Pomegranate Island. We spoke yesterday?”

“Right.”

“The trunk still hasn’t arrived.”

“That’s funny. It should have done.”

“Of course, you did look into it, didn’t you.”

“Well, yes. Your trunk should eventually arrive at the Shimizu Branch. You could phone to see if it’s there yet.”

“For goodness’ sake! That’s what I wanted you to do! Never mind. I don’t know why I should do it, but I’ll call them. I haven’t got time to mess about. Would you let me have the number.” I wrote down the number he gave me. “By the way, Mr Murai. I understand my wife had a little misunderstanding with the driver who came to pick up the trunk. It’s possible he might have deliberately held the trunk back, out of spite.”

“No, no, that’s not possible!” He laughed.

“I assure you, it is possible. Would you please check it out. And I’ll contact the Shimizu Branch.”

Murai replied with exaggerated courtesy. “Yes, sir. I’ll be sure to check it out.” Of course he would do no such thing.

I replaced the receiver, and had just asked the village headman’s wife to connect me to the Shimizu Branch when my wife came home.

“Still on the phone? That’ll cost a packet.”

“Who cares? I’ll charge it to the company.” That gave me an idea. “How did you settle the bill with Daitsu? Payment on arrival?”

“Uh-uh. In advance.”

“You should have made it payment on arrival. I could have used that as a bargaining tool.”

“Don’t be childish. They don’t give two hoots about the payment, do they?!”

“Do you have to keep saying things like that?”

She seemed to have a spring in her step.

I was put through to the Shimizu Branch.

“Yes, hello, this is Mr Suda speaking from Pomegranate Island. Has a trunk arrived for me yet?”

The voice on the other end was gravelly, like a fisherman’s. “Hold on a sec. I’ll have a look.” Five minutes later, he returned to the telephone and continued in his gravelly voice: “No, nothing’s arrived.” At least the provincial employees were a little more polite.

“I had it sent from the City Branch, you see. They say it should be there by now.”

“Well, if it hasn’t arrived, it hasn’t arrived. We have to deliver everything as soon as it comes in, otherwise we’d be overrun with parcels. We deliver ’em as soon as they come in. So we aren’t going to keep anything back, are we.”

“No, I suppose not.”

The man with the gravelly voice hung up abruptly. There was little doubt that the trunk hadn’t arrived.

I was waiting to be connected to the City Branch for the third time, when my wife emerged from the back room in skimpy swimwear.

“Why are you dressed like that, at your age?” I asked. “Are you going swimming on your own?”

“Uh-uh. Those students who arrived today are camping down by the beach. They invited me over, so I said I’d go.”

“No way!” I shouted. “You’re not cavorting around half-naked with a group of young men when your husband’s facing a life-or-death crisis!”

“Oh dear. I do believe you’re jealous.”

“I’m not jealous! It’s simply that distrust between partners or suspicions of infidelity are the very worst things for my condition. You’re not to go!”

“As I thought. You’re jealous,” she laughed. “You drag me to this hellish island, then have the nerve to tell me what to do and what not to do? Take a running jump!”

“If you must go, take the child.”

“Certainly not! He’d show me up,” she said on her way out.

My whole body was shaking with rage, when my call came through.

Murai came to the phone, so I let rip at him. “The Shimizu Branch say the trunk hasn’t arrived. Where the hell is it?!”

“Really. That is worrying,” he said in a wholly unworried voice. “Of course, it might be better if we knew whether it went by rail or road. If it went by rail, it would arrive at the Yabuki Branch. If by road, it would go to the Itagaki Branch. I know! Why don’t you try calling the arrivals desk at Itagaki? If they haven’t got it, it must have gone by rail, so it could be at Yabuki. Er, the phone number of the Itagaki Branch is-”

“Isn’t that your job?!” I roared. “Take some responsibility, for Christ’s sake!”

“No need to shout. Hahaha!”

“It’s not funny! If you don’t search for my trunk, I’ll ask the police to investigate it!”

“Really. But it’s bound to be somewhere on the way, isn’t it.”

“And I’m asking you to find out where!”

“Hello?” Suddenly, the coarse voice of the village headman’s wife interrupted our call. “I’m sorry, but are you going to be on the line much longer? I’ve quite a few other people wanting to make calls.”

“Shut up! I’m still talking!” I yelled.

“I wonder, could you please be brief?”

I could hear Murai laughing.

“Shut up! SHUT UP!” I screamed at the top of my voice. “I’m still talking, I said! I’m still talking! I’m still toh-toh-toh-toh-” I suddenly found it hard to breathe, and clutched my chest.

“Is something the matter?” the old woman asked nervously. “Hello? Is something the matter?”

I replaced the receiver and hurriedly looked for my medicine bottle. I had stopped breathing altogether. My eyes were bulging, my body was twisted and bent backwards. I opened the medicine bottle with shaking hands and swallowed down the last three tablets without water.

“My medicine’s run out,” I complained to my wife in a tearful voice that night. “What am I to do? I told the man at Daitsu that I’d get the police to investigate it, but he didn’t seem to care!”

“Well, he wouldn’t, would he,” she replied, sniggering. “After all, they’re corrupt from the top down in that company.”

“Yes…” I remembered an incident from some years back.

She wanted it again that night. In fact, she seemed more aroused than usual. Probably because she’d been flirting with those young students.

“No, no, no,” I cried. “I’ve no medicine left. What would happen if I had an attack? I would surely die.”

“All right then!” she shrieked hysterically. “Because tomorrow, I’m going to be unfaithful with one of those sweet boys!”

“Why do you torment me by saying things like that?” I pleaded in falsetto. “Don’t say such things, please! You should know that sexual activity is bad for people with heart disease. Are you trying to kill me?!”

“I’m saying you don’t have to do it!”

“But then you’ll go and do it with someone else!”

“Huh. Not much of a man, are you.”

“All right. If that’s what you’re saying, I’ll do it for you.” I put my hand on her.

She pushed my hand away. “You don’t have to feel obliged.”

“I don’t feel obliged. I really want to make love to you. Honestly.” More or less ready to die, I forced myself to embrace her.

Perhaps because it had been such a long time, I was finished in no time at all.

“What?! Is that it?!” my wife said in obvious dissatisfaction. “You deliberately finished quickly to protect your heart. I can’t stand this any longer. I’m going to be unfaithful tomorrow. I’ll have it off with all five of them, that’ll show you!”

“Please don’t! Please don’t!” I pulled the sheets over my head and sobbed in sheer misery. My heart was already starting to palpitate after all that strenuous exercise and aggravation. I couldn’t even shout at my wife as I would usually have done. “I think I’m going to die. I’m dying. I think I’m dying. Yes, I’m dying.”

The trunk still hadn’t arrived by the next day. Work was out of the question.

I telephoned Murai at the City Branch again. “It’s Mr Suda from Pomegranate Island.”

“Well, hello! Hahaha. Has your trunk arrived, then?”

“Of course not. That’s why I’m calling you.”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

“My medicine has at last run out.”

“Medicine? What medicine?”

“The medicine for my heart problem.”

“Really.”

“The next time I have an attack, there won’t be any medicine.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Do you know where my trunk is?”

“No. I don’t.”

“Did you try to find out?”

“Really.”

“Did you try to find out?”

“Find out what?”

“Where the trunk has gone.”

“Who?”

I gave a great sigh. “All right, I’ll do it. Please give me the numbers of the Yabuki and Itagaki Branches.”

I wrote the numbers down and phoned both branches. Neither of them had my trunk.

I asked for another long-distance call, this time to the Kawashita Clinic.

A nurse answered. “Kawashita Clinic?”

“Hello, my name’s Suda. I’m one of your patients.”

“Sorry? We have a bad line here.”

“May I speak to Dr Kawashita?”

“I’m afraid he’s not here.”

“Oh dear. Could you tell me where he is?”

“He’s away at a conference.”

“Oh. A conference. Do you know where it is?”

“Sapporo.”

“Sapporo?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, actually, you see, Dr Kawashita gave me some medicine, but it’s been lost, you see, and I wonder if perhaps you could urgently send me some more, please?”

“You’re breaking up. I can’t hear you. Hello? Hello?”

“Hello? Yes. I would like you to send me some serpentina alkaloid urgently, please.”

“Celluloid?”

“No, no. Serpentina alkaloid. That’s the name of the medicine.”

“Medicine? What about medicine?”

“I want you to send it urgently, you see.”

“I can’t issue medicine without the doctor’s instructions.”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Pardon? What did you say?”

“Er, hello? I wonder if you could tell me where Dr Kawashita is staying in Sapporo?”

“Wear what?”

“What hotel is he staying in?”

“What to tell?”

“No, what hotel?”

“This isn’t a hotel. This is the Kawashita Clinic. A hospital.”

“Yes, yes. I know that. But Dr Kawashita, where is Dr Kawashita staying in Sapporo?”

“Ah, I see. Yes. Just a minute. Er, it’s the Queen Hotel.”

“Do you know the telephone number?”

I wrote down the number, then asked for another long-distance call to Sapporo. I’d been talking so loud that I was out of breath and sweating profusely.

I was connected to the Queen Hotel in Sapporo. The line sounded even more distant, so I had to shout at the top of my voice. At last, I was put through to reception.

“Oh, you mean that Dr Kawashita?” answered the faint voice of a man at the other end, when he’d at last understood what I was saying. “Dr Kawashita the doctor? Yes, he’s with the police right now.”

“The police? Why’s he with the police?”

“Haven’t you seen the papers? A woman was horribly murdered here last night. Three doctors who were attending the conference, including Dr Kawashita, are helping the police as key witnesses. So I can’t really say when they’ll be coming back, I’m afraid.”

Without access to television or newspapers, I was completely unaware that such an incident had happened. If the doctor was being questioned by the police, this would be no time to discuss medicines, even if I did make contact. I abandoned the idea and replaced the receiver.

There was no sign of my trunk the following day either. Or the day after that. Ten days had passed since the trunk was sent. That day, the village headman’s wife called to inform me, in a roundabout way, that the whole village was starting to notice my wife’s immodest behaviour with the students.

Another five days passed. I was completely neglecting my work, spending whole days making long-distance phone calls here and there. Having finally lost patience with me and my complaining, whining and moaning, my wife took our child and returned to the mainland. Together with the five students. On the ferry.

Each time I argued violently with this person or that on the telephone, I thought I was going to die. I had palpitations eight times and stopped breathing four times. On three occasions, I was attacked by an intense heart pain that nearly made me lose consciousness. Each time, I fell and writhed on the floor in fear of imminent death.

At last, on the seventeenth day, there was a call from the Shimizu Branch to say the trunk had arrived. I’d asked them to call me as soon as it turned up.

“So, will it be here today?”

“Today’s ferry has already left, hasn’t it. So it’ll be on tomorrow’s,” said the gravelly voice.

“Why has it taken so long?”

“Because it came by road.”

“Why wasn’t it sent by rail?”

“How should I know,” he said, hanging up abruptly again.

The next day, I was waiting at the ferry landing stage a good hour before the ferry was due to arrive. A typhoon had passed from Kyushu to the Korean Peninsula, and the seas were rough. It wasn’t raining, but the wind continued to gather force as I waited.

At last, some thirty minutes behind schedule, the ferry came into view.

“It’s here!” I danced for joy at the end of the jetty. “That’s the one! That’s the boat that’s carrying my medicine!”

“But he can’t possibly berth here!” said the village headman, who’d come to stand behind me with several other villagers in their concern over the stormy weather.

“W-why’s that?” I asked in surprise.

“Because of the typhoon,” one of the villagers replied.

“That’s right. With the waves this high, if he tries to berth he could be smashed against the jetty and capsize,” the village headman explained.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” I screamed. “I’m at the end of my tether, I tell you! I can’t wait any longer! All right – if the boat can’t berth, I’ll swim out to it!” I took off my jacket.

“Impossible!” The village headman and the other villagers hastily tried to hold me back. “Don’t do it! You’ll drown! No, before you drown, you’ll be smashed against the jetty and die of heart failure!”

“What do I care?! My heart can do what it likes! I need that medicine!” I shook myself free of their grasp and plunged deep down into the angrily billowing waves.

And that was when my crazy adventure started. I abandoned my family, packed in my job, crossed seven seas and traversed five continents in pursuit of a single package of medicine. I swam the English Channel naked, ran the Sahara Desert barefoot, fought off natives blowing poisoned darts in dense tropical jungle, grappled with a polar bear on the Arctic ice, and was caught in a gunfight between international agents trying to snatch my medicine on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Because that, you see, was my only way of staying alive.

I still haven’t found my medicine.