Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood

The other girls stuffed theirs with cod roe and salmon, and they included nice, thick slices of fried egg. I got so furious I couldn't talk!

Who the hell do these, revolution'-mongers think they are making a fuss over rice balls? They should be grateful for umeboshi and nori.

Think of the children starving in India!"

I laughed. "So then what happened with your club?"

"I left in June, I was so furious," Midori said. "Most of these student types are total frauds. They're scared to death somebody's gonna find out they don't know something. They all read the same books and they all spout the same slogans, and they love listening to John Coltrane and seeing Pasolini movies. You call that "revolution?"'

"Hey, don't ask me, I've never actually seen a revolution."

"Well, if that's revolution, you can stick it. They'd probably shoot me for putting umeboshi in my rice balls. They'd shoot you, too, for understanding the subjunctive."

"It could happen."

"Believe me, I know what I'm talking about. I'm working class.

Revolution or not, the working class will just keep on scraping a living in the same old shitholes. And what is a revolution? It sure as hell isn't just changing the name on city hall. But those guys don't know that - those guys with their big words. Tell me, Watanabe, have you ever seen a taxman?"

"Never."

"Well I have. Lots of times. They come barging in and acting big.

"What's this ledger for?' "Hey, you keep pretty sloppy records.' "You call this a business expense?' "I want to see all your receipts right now.'

Meanwhile, we're crouching in the corner, and when suppertime comes we have to treat them to sushi deluxe - home delivered. Let me tell you, though, my father never once cheated on his taxes. That's just how he is, a real old-fashioned straight arrow. But tell that to the taxman. All he can do is dig and dig and dig and dig. "Income's a little low here, don't you think?' Well, of course the income's low when you're not making any money! I wanted to scream: "Go do this where they've got some money!' Do you think the taxman's attitude would change if there was a revolution?"

"Highly doubtful, highly doubtful."

"That does it, then. I'm not going to believe in any damned revolution.

Love is all I'm going to believe in."

"Peace," I said.

"Peace," said Midori.

"Hey, where are we going?" I asked.

"The hospital," she said. "My father's there. It's my turn to stay with him all day."

"Your father?! I thought he was in Uruguay!"

"That was a lie," said Midori in a matter-of-fact tone. "He's been screaming about going to Uruguay forever, but he could never do that.

He can hardly get himself out of Tokyo."

"How bad is he?" I asked.

"It's just a matter of time," she said.

We walked on in silence.

"I know what I'm talking about. It's the same thing my mother had. A brain tumour. Can you believe it? It's hardly been two years since she died of a brain tumour, and now he's got one."

The University Hospital corridors were noisy and crowded with weekend visitors and patients who had less serious symptoms, and everywhere hung that special hospital smell, a cloud of disinfectant and visitors' bouquets, and urine and mattresses, while nurses surged back and forth with a dry clattering of heels.

Midori's father was in a semi-private room in the bed nearest the door.

Stretched out, he looked like some tiny creature with a fatal wound.

He lay on his side, limp, the drooping left arm inert, jabbed with an intravenous needle. He was a small, skinny man who gave the impression that he would only get smaller and thinner. A white bandage encircled his head, and his pasty white arms were dotted with the holes left by injections or intravenous drips. His half-open eyes stared at a fixed point in space, bloodshot spheres that twitched in our direction when we entered the room. For some ten seconds they stayed focused on us, then drifted back to that fixed point in space.

You knew when you saw those eyes he was going to die soon. There was no sign of life in his flesh, just the barest trace of what had once been a life. His body was like a dilapidated old house from which all the fixtures and fittings have been removed, awaiting its final demolition. Around the dry lips clumps of whiskers sprouted like weeds. So, I thought, even after so much of a man's life force has been lost, his beard continues to grow.

Midori said hello to a fat man in the bed by the window. He nodded and smiled, apparently unable to talk. He coughed a few times and, after sipping some water from a glass by his pillow, he shifted his weight and rolled on his side, turning to gaze out of the window.

Beyond the window could be seen only a pole and some power lines, nothing more, not even a cloud in the sky.

"How are you feeling, Daddy?" said Midori, speaking into her father's ear as if testing a microphone. "How are you today?"

Her father moved his lips. he said, not so much speaking the words as forming them from dried air at the back of his throat.

"You have a headache?" Midori asked.

he said, apparently unable to pronounce more than a syllable or two at a time.

"Well, no wonder," she said, "you've just had your head cut open. Of course it hurts. Too bad, but try to be brave. This is my friend, Watanabe."

"Glad to meet you," I said. Midori's father opened his lips halfway, then closed them again.

Midori gestured towards a plastic stool near the foot of the bed and suggested I sit down. I did as I was told. Midori gave her father a drink of water and asked if he'd like a piece of fruit or some jellied fruit dessert. he said, and when Midori insisted that he had to eat something, he said

A water bottle, a glass, a dish and a small clock stood on a night table near the head of the bed. From a large paper bag under the table, Midori took some fresh pyjamas, underwear, and other things, straightened them out and put them into the locker by the door. There was food for the patient at the bottom of the bag: two grapefruits, fruit jelly and three cucumbers.

"Cucumbers?! What are these doing in here?" Midori asked. "I can't imagine what my sister was thinking. I told her on the phone exactly what I wanted her to buy, and I'm sure I never mentioned cucumbers!

She was supposed to bring kiwi fruit."

"Maybe she misunderstood you," I suggested.

"Yeah, maybe, but if she had thought about it she would have realized that cucumbers couldn't be right. I mean, what's a patient supposed to do? Sit in b ed chewing on raw cucumbers? Hey, Daddy, want a cucumber?"

said Midori's father.

Midori sat by the head of the bed, telling her father snippets of news from home. The TV picture had gone fuzzy and she had called the repairman; their aunt from Takaido would visit in a few days; the chemist, Mr Miyawaki, had fallen off his bike: stuff like that. Her father responded with grunts.

"Are you sure you don't want anything to eat?"

her father answered.

"How about you, Watanabe? Some grapefruit?"

"No," I answered.

A few minutes later, Midori took me to the TV room and smoked a cigarette on the sofa. Three patients in pyjamas were also smoking there and watching some kind of political discussion programme.

"Hey," whispered Midori with a twinkle in her eye. "That old guy with the crutches has been looking at my legs ever since we came in. The one with glasses in the blue pyjamas."

"What do you expect, wearing a skirt like that?"

"It's nice, though. I bet they're all bored. It probably does them good.

Maybe the excitement helps them get better faster."

"As long as it doesn't have the opposite effect."