Salmonella men on Planet Porno: stories - By Yasutaka Tsutsui Page 0,18

firewood over there. Why not light a fire and dry yourselves out.”

“Where are you from?” asked the red-nosed man as we made up a fire.

Hatayama and I took turns to tell our tale – that we were a writer and a photographer from an unfashionable monthly magazine for men, that we’d come to the island for a story but had orders to return to our office the next day, that we’d been held up by the typhoon and didn’t know what to do, and so on and so forth. Meanwhile, we dried our sodden clothes by the fire.

“It looks as if another typhoon’s coming soon. How will you get back to Shiokawa?” I asked. “There’s not much chance of a boat coming out for you.”

“Ah. You came in Jimbei’s boat too, did you?” said the sticky-eyed man. “That’s how we usually get across. But sometimes, when the sea’s rough like today, the boat don’t come and we can’t get back. We came over yesterday afternoon, once the typhoon had died down. We’re picking beans, see, and stayed the night here. We saw you coming over, when we was in the fields. We’ve only just finished working, in fact.” With his chin, he indicated four big baskets full of beans in a corner of the earthen floor. “And while we wait, we have a drop of this liquor we brought over with us.”

So he wouldn’t answer my question. That irritated me. “But surely, you don’t mean to wait until the typhoon’s passed over, do you? Who knows when that’ll be?”

“True. Jimbei won’t bring his boat out if there’s any height to the waves, for safety’s sake,” mumbled Sticky Eye.

“Are there any other boats?” Hatayama asked expectantly.

Sticky Eye lifted his face and looked at us both in turn. “Do you really want to get back so soon? Are you really in that much trouble?”

“Yes. Of course!” I replied firmly.

Red Nose pulled a face as if to stop him. But he didn’t notice and just carried on. “Well, there is the aeroplane.”

“Aeroplane?!” In his surprise, Hatayama projected a missile of nasal matter onto the earthen floor. “An aeroplane from here to the mainland?”

Sticky Eye gazed at Hatayama’s nasal missile with intense interest. “Sheesh!” he cried. “What a trick! This one can blow his nose without using his hands.” He turned to Hatayama and laughed. “How do you do that?”

“I don’t remember seeing anything about an aeroplane on the timetable,” I said. “What airline is it?”

“The company’s called Air Shiokawa,” answered Red Nose, looking over at me. “They’re not on the timetable because they don’t do regular flights. They only fly when the weather’s bad and boats can’t get across, or when people are stuck on the island and want to get back to Shiokawa.”

“What? You mean there’s a flight just from here to Shiokawa?” exclaimed Hatayama. He bowed his head low. “Thank you very much! When and where will it arrive?”

Red Nose looked at his watch. “Well, if it’s coming at all, it’ll be any time now. You must have seen the runway outside. That’s where it lands.”

A bit short for a runway, I thought.

“Yes, but we can’t be sure it’ll come today,” said Sticky Eye. He shook his head with a smile, as if to tease us. “I hear Gorohachi was bitten by a viper yesterday.”

“Is Gorohachi the pilot, then?” I asked, overcome by a sense of foreboding. “Doesn’t he have a co-pilot?”

Red Nose and Sticky Eye looked at each other.

“Well, I suppose that would be Yoné.”

“No, she can’t be the co-pilot. You only ever see Goro flying the plane.”

“How much does it cost?” asked Hatayama guardedly. He was nothing if not stingy.

“Well, now,” answered Sticky Eye, thinking hard. “Us folk from Shiokawa have season tickets, so it’s cheaper for us. But when tourists absolutely insist on flying, I think they charge about three thousand yen for the round trip, yes.”

“Fifteen hundred yen each way? That’s a bit steep.” Hatayama wasn’t happy. “It must only take about ten minutes from here to Shiokawa.”

I poked him in the ribs and intervened quickly. “No, no. If we can get across for fifteen hundred yen it’ll be well worth it. But anyway, are you saying this Air Shiokawa only has one aeroplane, and that people who aren’t from Shiokawa and don’t have season tickets aren’t allowed to use it, unless they really insist?”

Sticky Eye was again unforthcoming. “Well. Yes. I suppose so.”

In my anxiety, I inadvertently raised my voice. “And does this airline company have