Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood

"Where you going?" she asked.

"Lit. library," I said.

"Why don't you forget it and come have lunch with me?"

"I've already eaten."

"So what? Eat again."

We ended up going to a nearby café where she had a plate of curry and I had a cup of coffee. She wore a white, longsleeved shirt under a yellow woollen vest with a fish knitted into the design, a narrow gold necklace, and a Disney watch. She seemed to enjoy the curry and drank three glasses of water with it.

"Where've you been?" Midori asked. "I don't know how many times I called."

"Was there something you wanted to talk about?"

"Nothing special. I just called."

"I see."

"You see what?"

"Nothing. Just "I see'," I said. "Any fires lately?"

"That was fun, wasn't it? It didn't do much damage, but that smoke made it feel real. Great stuff." Midori gulped another glass of water, took a breath and studied my face for a while. "Hey, what's wrong with you?" she asked. "You've got this spaced-out face. Your eyes aren't focused."

"I'm OK," I said. "I just came back from a trip and I'm tired."

"You look like you've just seen a ghost."

"I see."

"Hey, do you have "German and R. E. "Can you skip 'en: "Not German. I've "When's it over?"

"Two."

"OK. How about going into the city with me after that some drinks?"

"At two in the afternoon?!"

"For a change, why not? You look so spaced. Come on, come drinking with me and get a little life into you. That's what I want to do - drink with you and get some life into myself.

What do you say?"

"OK, let's go," I said with a sigh. "I'll look for you in the Lit. quad at two."

After German we caught a bus to Shinjuku and went to an underground bar called DUG behind the Kinokuniya bookshop. We each started with two vodka and tonics.

"I come here once in a while," she said. "They don't make you feel embarrassed to be drinking in the afternoon."

"Do you drink in the afternoon a lot?"

"Sometimes," she said, rattling the ice in her glass. "Sometimes, when the world gets too hard to live in, I come here for a vodka and tonic."

"Does the world get hard to live in?"

"Sometimes," said Midori. "I've got my own special little problems."

"Like what?"

"Like family, like boyfriends, like irregular periods. Stuff."

"So have another drink."

"I will."

I beckoned to the waiter and ordered two more vodka and tonics.

"Remember how, when you came over that Sunday, you kissed me?"

Midori asked. "I've been thinking about it. It was nice. Really nice."

"That's nice."

"That's nice'," she mimicked. "The way you talk is so weird!"

"It is?"

"Anyway, I was thinking, that time. I was thinking how great it would be if that had been the first time in my life a boy had kissed me. If I could switch around the order of my life, I would absolutely, absolutely make that my first kiss. And then I would live the rest of my life thinking stuff like: Hey, I wonder whatever happened to that boy named Watanabe I gave my first kiss to on the laundry deck, now that he's 58? Wouldn't that be great?"

"Yeah, really," I said, cracking a pistachio nut.

"Hey, what is it with you? Why are you so spaced out? You still haven't answered me."

I probably still haven't completely adapted to the world.' I said after giving it some thought. "I don't know, I feel like this isn't the real world. The people, the scene: they just don't seem real to me."

Midori rested an elbow on the bar and looked at me. "There was something like that in a Jim Morrison song, I'm pretty sure."

"People are strange when you're a stranger."

"Peace," said Midori.

Peace," I said.

"You really ought to go to Uruguay with me," Midori said, still leaning on the bar. "Girlfriend, family, university - just dump 'em all."

"Not a bad idea," I said, laughing.

"Don't you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go somewhere where you don't know a soul?

Sometimes I feel like doing that. I really, really want to do it sometimes. Like, suppose you whisked me somewhere far, far away, I'd make lots of babies for you as tough as little bulls. And we'd all live happily ever after, rolling on the floor."

I laughed and drank my third vodka and tonic.

"I guess you don't really want lots of babies as tough as little bulls yet," said Midori.

"I'm intrigued," I said. "I'd like to see what they look like."

"That's OK, you don't have to want them," said Midori, eating a pistachio. "Here I am, drinking in the afternoon, saying whatever pops into my head: "I wanna dump everything and run off somewhere.'

What's the point of going to Uruguay? All they've got there is donkey shit."

"You may be right."

"Donkey shit everywhere. Here a shit, there a shit, the whole world is donkey shit. Hey, I can't open this. You take it." Midori handed me a pistachio nut. I struggled with it until I cracked it open. "But oh, what a relief it was last Sunday! Going up to the laundry deck with you, watching the fire, drinking beer, singing songs. I don't know how long it's been since I had such a total sense of relief.

People are always trying to force stuff on me. The minute they see me they start telling me what to do. At least you don't try to force stuff on me."

"I don't know you well enough to force stuff on you."

"You mean, if you knew me better, you'd force stuff on me like everyone else?"

"It's possible," I said. "That's how people live in the real world: forcing stuff on each other."

"You wouldn't do that. I can tell. I'm an expert when it comes to forcing stuff and having stuff forced on you. You're not the type.

That's why I can relax with you. Do you have any idea how many people there are in the world who like to force stuff on people and have stuff forced on them?

Tons!

And then they make a big fuss, like "I forced her', "You forced me!' That's what they like. But I don't like it. I just do it because I have to."

"What kind of stuff do you force on people or they force on you?"

Midori put an ice-cube in her mouth and sucked on it for a while.

"Do you want to get to know me better?" she asked. "Yeah, kind of."

"Hey, look, I just asked you, "Do you want to get to know me better?'

What sort of answer is that?"

"Yes, Midori, I would like to get to know you better," I said. "Really?"

"Yes, really."

"Even if you had to turn your eyes away from what you saw?

'Are you that bad?"

"Well, in a way," Midori said with a frown. "I want another drink."

I called the waiter and ordered a fourth round of drinks. Until they came, Midori cupped her chin in her hand with her elbow on the bar. I kept quiet and listened to Thelonious Monk playing "Honeysuckle Rose". There were five or six other customers in the place, but we were the only ones drinking alcohol. The rich smell of coffee gave the gloomy interior an intimate atmosphere.

"Are you free this Sunday?" Midori asked.

"I think I told you before, I'm always free on Sunday. Until I go to work at six."

"OK, then, this Sunday, will you hang out with me?"

"Sure," I said.

"I'll pick you up at your dorm Sunday morning. I'm not sure exactly what time, though. Is that OK?"

"Fine," I said. "No problem."

"Now, let me ask you: do you have any idea what I would like to do right now?"

"I can't imagine."

"Well, first of all, I want to lie down in a big, wide, fluffy bed. I want to get all comfy and drunk and not have any donkey shit anywhere nearby, and I want to have you lying down next to me. And then, little by little, you take off my clothes.

Sooo tenderly. The way a mother undresses a little child.

Sooo softly."

"Hmm..."