Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

I am of average build, so neither suit had to be altered other than to adjust the sleeves and pant legs. The woman picked out three dress shirts and three ties to match each shirt, then two belts and a half-dozen pairs of socks. She paid with a credit card and ordered them to deliver everything to my place. She seemed to have some kind of clear image in her mind of how I should look. It took her no time to pick out what she bought me. I would have spent more time at a stationers, picking out a new eraser. But I had to admit that her good taste in clothes was nothing short of astounding. The color and style of every shirt and tie she chose seemingly at random were perfectly coordinated, as if she had selected them after long, careful consideration. Nor were the combinations she came up with the least bit ordinary.

Next, she took me to a shoe store and bought me two pairs of shoes to go with the suits. This took no time, either. Again she paid with a credit card and asked for the items to be delivered to my house. Delivery seemed hardly necessary in the case of a couple of pairs of shoes, but this was apparently her way of doing things: pick things out fast, pay with a credit card, and have the stuff delivered.

Next, we went to a watchmakers and repeated the process. She bought me a stylish, elegant watch with an alligator band to go with the suits, and again she took almost no time picking it out. The price was somewhere up around fifty to sixty thousand yen. I had a cheap plastic watch, but this was apparently not good enough for her. The watch, at least, she did not have delivered. Instead, she had them wrap it and handed it to me without a word.

Next, she took me to a unisex hair salon. The place was like a dance studio, with shiny wooden floors, and mirrors covering the walls. There were fifteen chairs, and everywhere technicians were coming and going with shears and hairbrushes and whatnot in their hands. Potted plants stood at various points on the floor, and from two black Bose speakers on the ceiling came the faint sounds of one of those wandering Keith Jarrett piano solos. I was shown to a chair immediately. The woman must have set up an appointment for me from one of the stores we had visited. She gave detailed instructions to the thin man who would be cutting my hair. They obviously knew each other. As he responded to each of her instructions, he kept his eyes on my face in the mirror with an expression he might have worn studying a bowlful of celery fibers he was expected to eat. He had a face like the young Solzhenitsyn. The woman said to him, I'll be back when you're through, and left the salon with quick steps.

The man said very little as he cut my hair-This way, please, when it was time for my shampoo, Excuse me, when he brushed off clippings. At times when he moved away, I would reach out from under the barber cloth and touch the mark on my right cheek. This was the first time I had ever seen it in mirrors other than my own at home. The wall-sized mirrors reflected the images of many people, my image among them. And on my face shone this bright blue mark. It didn't seem ugly or unclean to me. It was simply part of me, something I would have to accept. I could feel people looking at it now and then-looking at its reflection in the mirror. But there were too many images in the mirror for me to be able to tell who. I just felt their eyes trained on the mark. My haircut ended in half an hour. My hair, which had been growing longer and longer since I left my job, was short once again. I moved to one of the chairs along the wall and sat there listening to music and reading a magazine in which I had no interest until the woman came back. She seemed pleased with my new hairstyle. She took a ten-thousand-yen note from her purse, paid the bill, and led me outside. There she came to a stop and studied me from head to toe, exactly the same way I always examined the cat, as if to see whether there was something she had forgotten to do. Apparently, there was not. Then she glanced at her gold watch and released a kind of sigh. It was nearly seven o'clock.

Lets have dinner, she said. Can you eat? I had had one slice of toast for breakfast and one doughnut for lunch. Probably, I said. She took me to a nearby Italian restaurant. They seemed to know her there. Without a word, we were shown to a quiet table in the back. As soon as I sat down across from her, she ordered me to put the entire contents of my pants pockets on the table. I did as I was told, saying nothing. My reality seemed to have left me and was now wandering around nearby. I hope it can find me, I thought. There was nothing special in my pockets: keys, handkerchief, wallet. She observed them with no show of interest, then picked up the wallet and looked inside. It contained about fifty-five hundred yen in cash, a telephone card, an ATM card, and my ward pool ID, nothing else. Nothing unusual. Nothing to prompt anyone to smell it or measure it or shake it or dip it in water or hold it up to the light. She handed it back to me with no change of expression.

I want you to go out tomorrow and buy a dozen handkerchiefs, a new wallet and key holder, she said. That much you can pick out yourself, I'm sure. And when was the last time you bought yourself new underwear?

I thought about it for a moment but couldn't remember. I cant remember, I said. Its been a while, I think, but I'm a little clean-crazy, and for a man living alone, I'm good about doing my laund- Never mind. I want you to buy a dozen tops and bottoms. I nodded without speaking. Just bring me a receipt. I'll pay for them. And make sure you buy the best they have. I'll pay your cleaning bills too. Don't wear a shirt more than once without sending it to the cleaners. All right?

I nodded again. The cleaner by the station would be happy to hear this. But, I thought to myself, proceeding to extend this one, concise conjunction, clinging to the window by surface tension, into a proper, full-length sentence: But why are you doing all this-buying me a whole new wardrobe, paying for my haircuts and cleaning?

She did not answer me. Instead, she took a Virginia Slim from her pocketbook and put it in her mouth. A tall waiter with regular features appeared from nowhere and, with practiced movements, lit her cigarette with a match. He struck the match with a clean, dry sound-the kind of sound that could stimulate a persons appetite. When he was through, he presented us with menus. She did not bother to look, however, and she told the waiter not to bother with the days specials. Bring me a salad and a dinner roll, and some kind of fish with white meat. Just a few drops of dressing on the salad, and a dash of pepper. And a glass of sparkling water, no ice.

I didn't want to bother looking at the menu. I'll have the same, I said. The waiter bowed and withdrew. My reality was still having trouble locating me, it seemed.

I'm asking purely out of curiosity, I said, trying once more to elicit an explanation from her. I'm not turning critical after you've bought me all these things, but is it really worth all the time and trouble and money?

Still she would not answer. I'm just curious, I said again.

Again no answer. She was too busy looking at the oil painting on the wall to answer my question. It was a picture of what I assumed was an Italian landscape, with a well-pruned pine tree, and several reddish farmhouses lining the hills. The houses were all somewhat small but pleasant. I wondered what kind of people might live in such houses: probably normal people living normal lives. None of them had inscrutable women coming out of nowhere to buy them suits and shoes and watches. None of them had to calculate the huge funds they would need to get possession of some dried-up well. I felt a stab of envy for people living in such a normal world. Envy is not an emotion I feel very often, but the scene in the painting aroused that sense in me to an almost amazing degree. If only I could have entered the picture right then and there! If only I could have walked into one of those farmhouses, enjoyed a glass of wine, then crawled under the covers and gone to sleep without a thought in my head!