Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood

When the programme ended, he turned off the TV and took another beer from his small refrigerator.

"Are you sure I'm not in the way?" I asked.

"No way. I was bored out of my mind. Sure you don't want a beer?"

"No, I really don't," I said.

"Oh, yeah, they posted the exam results the other day. I passed!"

"The Foreign Ministry exam?"

"That's it. Officially, it's called the "Foreign Affairs Public Service Personnel First Class Service Examination'. What a joke!"

"Congratulations!" I said and gave him my left hand to shake.

"Thanks."

"Of course, I'm not surprised you passed."

"No, neither am I," laughed Nagasawa. "But it's nice to have it official."

"Think you'll go abroad once you get in?"

"Nah, first they give you a year of training. Then they send you overseas for a while."

I sipped my tea, and he drank his beer with obvious satisfaction.

"I'll give you this fridge if you'd like it when I get out of here," said Nagasawa. "You'd like to have it, wouldn't you? It's great for beer."

"Yeah, I'd like to have it, but won't you need it? You'll be living in a flat or something."

"Don't be stupid! When I get out of this place, I'm buying myself a big fridge. I'm gonna live the high life! Four years in a shithole like this is long enough. I don't want to have to look at anything I used in this place. You name it, I'll give it to you - the TV, the thermos flask, the radio..."

"I'll take anything you want to give me," I said. I picked up the Spanish textbook on his desk and stared at it. "You're starting Spanish?"

"Yeah. The more languages you know the better. And I've got a knack for them. I taught myself French and it's practically perfect.

Languages are like games. You learn the rules for one, and they all work the same way. Like women."

"Ah, the reflective life!" I said with a sarcastic edge.

"Anyway, let's eat out soon."

"You mean cruising for women?"

"No, a real dinner. You, me and Hatsumi at a good restaurant. To celebrate my new job. My old man's paying, so we'll go somewhere really expensive."

"Shouldn't it just be you and Hatsumi?"

"No, it'd be better with you there. I'd be more comfortable, and so would Hatsumi."

Oh no, it was Kizuki, Naoko and me all over again.

"I'll spend the night at Hatsumi's afterwards, so join us just for the meal."

"OK, if you both really want me to," I said. "But, anyway, what are you planning to do about Hatsumi? You'll be assigned overseas when you finish your training, and you probably won't come back for years.

What's going to happen to her?"

"That's her problem."

"I don't get it," I said.

Feet on his desk, Nagasawa took a swig of beer and yawned.

"Look, I'm not planning to get married. I've made that perfectly clear to Hatsumi. If she wants to marry someone, she should go ahead and do it. I won't stop her. If she wants to wait for me, let her wait. That's what I mean."

"I have to hand it to you," I said.

"You think I'm a shit, don't you?"

"I do."

"Look, the world is an inherently unfair place. I didn't write the rules.

It's always been that way. I have never once deceived Hatsumi. She knows I'm a shit and that she can leave me whenever she decides she can't take it. I told her that straight from the start."

Nagasawa finished his beer and lit a cigarette.

"Isn't there anything about life that frightens you?" I asked.

"Hey, I'm not a total idiot," said Nagasawa. "Of course life frightens me sometimes. I don't happen to take that as the premise for everything else, though. I'm going to give it 100 per cent and go as far as I can. I'll take what I want and leave what I don't want. That's how I intend to live my life, and if things go bad, I'll stop and reconsider at that point. If you think about it, an unfair society is a society that makes it possible for you to exploit your abilities to the limit."

"Sounds like a pretty self-centred way to live," I said. "Perhaps, but I'm not just looking up at the sky and waiting for the fruit to drop. In my own way, I'm working hard. I'm working ten times harder than you are."

"That's probably true," I said.

"I look around me sometimes and I get sick to my stomach. Why the hell don't these bastards do something? I wonder. They don't do a fucking thing, and then they moan about it."

Amazed at the harshness of his tone, I looked at Nagasawa. "The way I see it, people are working hard. They're working their fingers to the bone. Or am I looking at things wrong?"

"That's not hard work. It's just manual labour," Nagasawa said with finality. "The "hard work' I'm talking about is more self-directed and purposeful."

"You mean, like studying Spanish while everyone else is taking it easy?"

"That's it. I'm going to have Spanish mastered by next spring. I've got English and German and French down pat, and I'm almost there with Italian. You think things like that happen without hard work?"

Nagasawa puffed on his cigarette while I thought about Midori's father. There was one man who had probably never even thought about starting Spanish lessons on TV He had probably never thought about the difference between hard work and manual labour, either. He was probably too busy to think about such things - busy with work, and busy bringing home a daughter who had run away to Fukushima.

"So, about that dinner of ours," said Nagasawa. "Would this Saturday be OK for you?"

"Fine," I said.

Nagasawa picked a fancy French restaurant in a quiet backstreet of Azabu. He gave his name at the door and the two of us were shown to a secluded private room. Some 15 prints hung on the walls of the small chamber. While we waited for Hatsumi to arrive, Nagasawa and I sipped a delicious wine and chatted about the novels of Joseph Conrad. He wore an expensive-looking grey suit. I had on an ordinary blue blazer.

Hatsumi arrived 15 minutes later. She was carefully made up and wore gold earrings, a beautiful deep blue dress, and tasteful red court shoes. When I complimented her on the colour of her dress, she told me it was called midnight blue.

"What an elegant restaurant!" she said.

"My old man always eats here when he comes to Tokyo," said Nagasawa. "I came here with him once. I'm not crazy about these snooty places."

"It doesn't hurt to eat in a place like this once in a while," said Hatsumi. Turning to me, she asked, "Don't you agree?"

"I guess so. As long as I'm not paying."

"My old man usually brings his mistress here," said Nagasawa. "He's got one in Tokyo, you know."

"Really?" asked Hatsumi. I took a sip of wine, as if I had heard nothing.

Eventually a waiter came and took our orders. After choosing hors d'oeuvres and soup, N agasawa ordered duck, and Hatsumi and I ordered sea bass. The food arrived at a leisurely pace, which allowed us to enjoy the wine and conversation. Nagasawa spoke first of the Foreign Ministry exam. Most of the examinees were scum who might just as well b e thrown into a bottomless pit, he said, though he supposed there were a few decent ones in the bunch. I asked if he thought the ratio of good ones to scum was higher or lower than in society at large.

"It's the same," he said. "Of course." It was the same everywhere, he added: an immutable law.

Nagasawa ordered a second bottle of wine and a double Scotch for himself.