Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

These images of the news coming over the air were at the same time very real and very unreal to me. I felt sorry for the thirty-seven-year-old truck driver who had died in the accident. No one wants to die in agony of ruptured internal organs in a blizzard in Asahikawa. But I was not acquainted with the truck driver, and he did not know me. And so my sympathy for him had nothing personal about it. I could feel only a generalized kind of sympathy for a fellow human being who had met with a sudden, violent death. That generalized emotion might be very real for me and at the same time not real at all. I turned my eyes from the television screen and surveyed the big, empty lobby once more. I found nothing there to focus on. There were no hotel staff members present, and the small bar was not yet open. The only thing on the wall was a large oil painting of a mountain.

When I turned back to the television screen, there was a large close-up of a familiar face- Noboru Wataya's face. I sat up straight and turned my attention to the reporters words.

Something had happened to Noboru Wataya, but I had missed the beginning of the story. Soon the photo disappeared and the reporter came on-screen. He wore a tie and an overcoat, and he was standing at the entrance to a large building, with a mike in his hand.

... rushed to Tokyo Womens Medical University Hospital, where he is now in intensive care, but all we know is that he has not regained consciousness since his skull was fractured by an unknown assailant. Hospital authorities have refused to comment on whether or not his wounds are life-threatening. A detailed report on his condition is to be released sometime later. Reporting from the main entrance of Tokyo Womens Medical University...

And the broadcast returned to the studio, where the anchorman began to read a text that had just been handed to him. According to reports just in, Representative Noboru Wataya has sustained severe injuries to the head in what appears to have been an attack on his life. The young assailant burst into his office in Tokyo's Minato Ward at eleven-thirty this morning and, in the presence of the persons with whom Representative Wataya was meeting at the time, delivered several strong blows to the head with a baseball bat, inflicting severe injuries.

The screen showed a picture of the building that housed Noboru Wataya's office.

The man had posed as a caller to Representative Wataya's office, bringing the bat in inside a long cardboard mailing tube. Witnesses say the man pulled the bat out of the tube and attacked without a word of warning.

The screen showed the office where the crime had occurred. Chairs were scattered on the floor, and a black pool of blood could be seen nearby.

The attack came so suddenly that neither Representative Wataya nor the others with him had a chance to resist. After checking to be certain that Representative Wataya was unconscious, the assailant left the scene, still holding the baseball bat. Witnesses say the man, approximately thirty years of age, was wearing a navy-blue pea coat, a woolen ski hat, also navy, and dark glasses. He stood some five feet nine inches in height and had a bruiselike mark on his right cheek. Police are looking for the man, who seems to have managed to lose himself without a trace in the neighborhood crowds.

The screen showed police at the scene of the crime and then a lively Akasaka street scene. Baseball bat? Mark on the face? I bit my lip. Noboru Wataya was a rising star among economists and political commentators when, this spring, he inherited the mantle of his uncle, longtime Diet member Yoshitaka Wataya, and was elected to the House of Representatives. Widely hailed since then as an influential young politician and polemicist, Noboru Wataya was a freshman Diet member of whom much was expected. Police are launching a two-pronged investigation into the crime, assuming that it could have been either politically motivated or some kind of personal vendetta. To repeat this late-breaking story: Noboru Wataya, prominent freshman member of the House of Representatives, has been rushed to the hospital with severe head injuries after an attack late this morning by an unknown assailant. Details on his condition are not known at this time. And now, in other news- Someone appeared to have switched off the television at that point. The announcers voice was cut short, and silence enveloped the lobby. People began to relax their tensed postures. It was obvious that they had gathered in front of the television for the express purpose of hearing news about Noboru Wataya. No one moved after the set was switched off. No one made a sound.

Who could have hit Noboru Wataya with a bat? The description of the assailant sounded exactly like me-the navy pea coat and hat, the sunglasses, the mark on the cheek, height, age- and the baseball bat. I had kept my own bat in the bottom of the well for months, but it had disappeared. If that same bat was the one used to crush Noboru Wataya's skull, then someone must have taken it for that purpose.

Just then the eyes of one of the women in the group focused on me- a skinny, fishlike woman with prominent cheekbones. She wore white earrings in the very center of her long earlobes. She had twisted around in her chair and sat in that position for a long time, watching me, never averting her gaze or changing her expression. Next the bald man sitting beside her, letting his eyes follow her line of vision, turned and looked at me. In height and build, he resembled the owner of the cleaning store by the station. One by one, the other people turned in my direction, as if becoming aware for the first time that I was there with them. Subjected to their unwavering stares, I could not help but be aware of my navy-blue pea jacket and hat, my five-foot-nine-inch height, my age, and the mark on my right cheek. These people all seemed to know, too, that I was Noboru Wataya's brother-in-law and that I not only disliked but actively hated him. I could see it in their eyes. My grip tightened on the arm of my chair as I wondered what to do. I had not beaten Noboru Wataya with a baseball bat. I was not that kind of person, and besides, I no longer owned the bat. But they would never believe me, I was sure. They believed only what they saw on television.

I eased out of my chair and started for the corridor by which I had entered the lobby. I had to leave that place as soon as possible. I was not welcome there. I had taken only a few steps when I turned to see that several of the people had left their chairs and were coming after me. I sped up and cut straight across the lobby for the corridor. I had to find my way back to Room 208. The inside of my mouth was dry.

I had finally made it across the lobby and taken my first step into the corridor when, without a sound, all the lights in the hotel went out. A heavy curtain of blackness fell with the speed of an ax blow. Someone cried out behind me, the voice much closer to me than I would have expected, a stony hatred at its core.

I continued on in the darkness, edging forward cautiously with my hands against the wall. I had to get away from them. But then I bumped into a small table and knocked something over in the darkness, probably some kind of vase. It rolled, clattering, across the floor. The collision sent me down on all fours on the carpet. I scrambled to my feet and continued feeling my way along the corridor. Just then, the edge of my coat received a sharp yank, as if it had caught on a nail. It took me a moment to realize what was happening. Someone was pulling on my coat. Without hesitation, I slipped out of it and lunged ahead in the darkness. I felt my way around a corner, tripped up a stairway, and turned another corner, my head and shoulders bumping into things all the while. At one point, I missed my footing on a step and smashed my face against the wall. I felt no pain, though: only an occasional dull twinge behind the eyes. I couldn't let them catch me here.