Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

>The reason I am here, like it or not, is because this is the proper place for me. This is where I have to be. I have no right to choose otherwise. Even if I wanted to see you, I couldn't do it. Do you think I DON'T want to see you?

There is a blank moment in which she seems to be holding her breath. Then her fingers start to move again.

So please, don't torture me about this any longer. If there is any one thing that you can do for me, it would be to forget about my existence as quickly as possible. Take those years that we Lived together and push them outside your memory as if they never existed. That, finally, is the best thing you can do for both of us. This is what I truly believe.< To this I reply: >You say you want me to forget everything. You say you want me to leave you alone. But still, at the same time, from somewhere in this world, you are begging for my help. That voice is faint and distant, but I can hear it distinctly on quiet nights. It IS your voice: I'm sure of that. I can accept the fact that one Kumiko is trying hard to get away from me, and she probably has her reasons for doing so. But there is another Kumiko, who is trying just as hard to get close to me. That is what I truly believe. No matter what you may say to me here, I have to believe in the Kumiko who wants my help and is trying to get close to me. No matter what you tell me, no matter how legitimate your reasons, I can never just forget about you, I can never push the years we spent together out of my mind. I cant do it because they really happened, they are part of my life, and there is no way I can just erase them. That would be the same as erasing my own self. I have to know what legitimate reason there could be for doing such a thing.< Another blank period goes by. I can feel her silence through the monitor. Like heavy smoke, it creeps in through a corner of the screen and drifts across the floor. I know about these silences of Kumiko's. I've seen them, experienced them any number of times in our life together. Shes holding her breath now, sitting in front of the computer screen with brows knit in total concentration. I reach out for my cup and take a sip of cold coffee. Then, with the empty cup between my hands, I hold my breath and stare at the screen the way Kumiko is doing. The two of us are linked together by the heavy bonds of silence that pass through the wall separating our two worlds. We need each other more than anything, I feel without a doubt.

>I don't know .< >Well, I DO know. I set my coffee cup down and type as quickly as I can, as if to catch the fleeting tail of time.

I know this. I know that I want to find my way to where you are - you, the Kumiko who wants me to rescue her. What I do not know yet, unfortunately, is how to get there and what it is thats waiting for me there. In this whole long time since you left, I've lived with a feeling as if I had been thrown into absolute darkness. Slowly but surely, though, I am get- ting closer to the core, to that place where the core of things is located. I wanted to let you know that. I'm getting closer to where you are, and I intend to get closer still.< I rest my hands on the keyboard and wait for her answer.

>I don't understand any of this.

Kumiko types this and ends our conversation: Goodbye.<<< The screen informs me that the other party has left the circuit. Our conversation is finished. Still, I go on staring at the screen, waiting for something to happen. Maybe Kumiko will change her mind and come back on-line. Maybe shell think of something she forgot to say. But she does not come back. I give up after twenty minutes. I save the file, then go to the kitchen for a drink of cold water. I empty my mind out for a while, breathing steadily by the refrigerator. A terrible quiet seems to have descended on everything. I feel as if the world is listening for my next thought. But I cant think of anything. Sorry, but I just cant think of anything.

I go back to the computer and sit there, carefully rereading our entire exchange on the glowing tube from beginning to end: what I said, what she said, what I said to that, what she said to that. The whole thing is still there on the screen, with a certain graphic intensity. As my eyes follow the rows of characters she has made, I can hear her voice. I can recognize the rise and fall of her voice, the subtle tones and pauses. The cursor on the last line keeps up its blinking with all the regularity of a heartbeat, waiting with bated breath for the next word to be sent. But there is no next word.

After engraving the entire conversation in my mind (having decided I had better not print it out), I click on the box to exit communications mode. I direct the program to leave no record in the operations file, and after checking to be sure that this has been done, I cut the switch. The computer beeps, and the monitor screen goes dead white. The monotonous mechanical drone is swallowed up in the silence of the room, like a vivid dream ripped out by the hand of nothingness.

I don't know how much time has gone by since then. But when I realize where I am, I find myself staring at my hands lying on the table. They bear the marks of having had eyes sharply focused on them for a long time.

Going bad is something that happens over a Longer period of time.

How long a period of time is that?

A few days after Ushikawa's first visit, I asked Cinnamon to bring me a newspaper whenever he came to the Residence. It was time for me to begin getting in touch with the reality of the outside world. Try as you might to avoid it, when it was time, they came for you.

Cinnamon nodded, and every day after that he would arrive with three newspapers.

I would look through the papers in the morning after breakfast. I had not bothered with newspapers for such a long time that they now struck me as strange-cold and empty. The stimulating smell of the ink gave me a headache, and the intensely black little gangs of type seemed to stab at my eyes. The layout and the headlines type style and the tone of the writing seemed unreal to me. I often had to put the paper down, close my eyes, and release a sigh. It couldn't have been like this in the old days. Reading a newspaper must have been a far more ordinary experience for me than this. What had changed so much about them? Or rather, what had changed so much about me?

After I had been reading the papers for a while, I was able to achieve a clear understanding of one fact concerning Noboru Wataya: namely, that he was constructing an ever more solid position for himself in society. At the same time that he was conducting an ambitious program of political activity as one of the up-and-coming new members of the House of Representatives, he was constantly making public pronouncements as a magazine columnist and a regular commentator on TV. I would see his name everywhere. For some reason I could not fathom, people were actually listening to his opinions-and with ever increasing enthusiasm. He was brand-new on the political stage, but he was already being celebrated as one of the young politicians from whom great things could be expected. He was named the country's most popular politician in a poll conducted by a womens magazine. He was hailed as an activist intellectual, a new type of intelligent politician that had not been seen before.

When I had read as much as I could stand about current events and Noboru Wataya's prominent place in them, I turned to my growing collection of books on Manchukuo. Cinnamon had been bringing me everything he could find on the subject. Even here, though, I could not escape the shadow of Noboru Wataya. That day it emerged from the pages of a book on logistical problems. Published in 1978, the library copy had been borrowed only once before, when the book was new, and returned almost immediately. Perhaps only acquaintances of Lieutenant Mamiya were interested in logistical problems in Manchukuo.