Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

So this was Kano. I showed her in, had her sit on the sofa, warmed the coffee, and served her a cup. Had she eaten lunch yet? I asked. She looked hungry to me. No, she said, she had not eaten.

But don't bother about me, she hastened to add, I don't eat much of anything for lunch.

Are you sure? I asked. Its nothing for me to fix a sandwich. Don't stand on ceremony. I make snacks and things all the time. Its no trouble at all.

She responded with little shakes of the head. Its very kind of you to offer, but I'm fine, really. Don't bother. A cup of coffee is more than enough.

Still, I brought out a plate of cookies just in case. Kano ate four of them with obvious pleasure. I ate two and drank my coffee.

She seemed somewhat more relaxed after the cookies and coffee. I am here today as the representative of my elder sister, Malta Kano, she said. is not my real name, of course. My real name is Setsuko. I took the name when I began working as my sisters assistant. For professional purposes. is the ancient name for the island of Crete, but I have no connection with Crete. I have never been there. My sister Malta chose the name to go with her own. Have you been to the island of Crete, by any chance, Mr. Okada?

Unfortunately not, I said. I had never been to Crete and had no plans to visit it in the near future.

I would like to go there sometime, said Kano, nodding, with a deadly serious look on her face. Crete is the Greek island closest to Africa. Its a large island, and a great civilization flourished there long ago. My sister Malta has been to Crete as well. She says its a wonderful place. The wind is strong, and the honey is delicious. I love honey. I nodded. I'm not that crazy about honey.

I came today to ask you a favor, said Kano. Id like to take a sample of the water in your house.

The water? I asked. You mean the water from the faucet?

That would be fine, she said. And if there happens to be a well nearby, I would like a sample of that water also.

I don't think so. I mean, there is a well in the neighborhood, but its on somebody else's property, and its dry. It doesn't produce water anymore.

Kano gave me a complicated look. Are you sure? she asked. Are you sure it doesn't have any water?

I recalled the dry thud that the chunk of brick had made when the girl threw it down the well at the vacant house. Yes, its dry, all right. I'm very sure.

I see, said Kano. That's fine. I'll just take a sample of the water from the faucet, then, if you don't mind.

I showed her to the kitchen. From her white patent-leather bag she removed two small bottles of the type that might be used for medicine. She filled one with water and tightened the cap with great care. Then she said she wanted to take a sample from the line supplying the bathtub. I showed her to the bathroom. Undistracted by all the underwear and stockings that Kumiko had left drying in there, Kano turned on the faucet and filled the other bottle. After capping it, she turned it upside down to make certain it didn't leak. The bottle caps were color coded: blue for the bath water, and green for the kitchen water.

Back on the living room sofa, she put the two vials into a small plastic freezer bag and sealed the zip lock. She placed the bag carefully in her white patent-leather bag, the metal clasp of which closed with a dry click. Her hands moved with practiced efficiency. She had obviously done this many times before.

Thank you very much, said Kano. Is that all? I asked. Yes, for today, she said. She smoothed her skirt, slipped her bag under her arm, and made as if to stand up. Wait a minute, I said, with some confusion. I hadn't been expecting her to leave so suddenly. Wait just a minute, will you, please? My wife wants to know whats happened with the cat. Its been gone for almost two weeks now. If you know anything at all, Id like you to share it with me.

Still clutching the white bag under her arm, Kano looked at me for a moment, then she gave a few quick nods. When she moved her head, the curled-up ends of her hair bobbed with an early-sixties lightness. Whenever she blinked, her long fake eyelashes moved slowly up and down, like the long-handled fans operated by slaves in movies set in ancient Egypt.

To tell you the truth, my sister says that this will be a longer story than it seemed at first.

A longer story than it seemed?

The phrase a longer story brought to mind a tall stake set in the desert, where nothing else stood as far as the eye could see. As the sun began to sink, the shadow of the stake grew longer and longer, until its tip was too far away to be seen by the naked eye.

That's what she says, Kano continued. This story will be about more than the disappearance of a cat.

I'm confused, I said. All were asking you to do is help us find the cat. Nothing more. If the cats dead, we want to know that for sure. Why does it have to be a longer story? I don't understand.

Neither do I, she said. She brought her hand up to the shiny barrette on her head and pushed it back a little. But please put your faith in my sister. I'm not saying that she knows everything. But if she says there will be a longer story, you can be sure there will be a longer story.

I nodded without saying anything. There was nothing more I could say.

Looking directly into my eyes and speaking with a new formality, Creta Kano asked, Are you busy, Mr. Okada? Do you have any plans for the rest of the afternoon? No, I said, I had no plans.

Would you mind, then, if I told you a few things about myself? Creta Kano asked. She put the white patent-leather bag she was holding down on the sofa and rested her hands, one atop the other, on her tight green skirt, at the knees. Her nails had been done in a lovely pink color. She wore no rings.

Please, I said. Tell me anything you'd like. And so the flow of my life-as had been foretold from the moment Creta Kano rang my doorbell-was being led in ever stranger directions.

I was born on May twenty-ninth, Kano began her story, and the night of my twentieth birthday, I resolved to take my own life.

I put a fresh cup of coffee in front of her. She added cream and gave it a languid stir. No sugar. I drank my coffee black, as always. The clock on the shelf continued its dry rapping on the walls of time.

Kano looked hard at me and said, I wonder if I should begin at the beginning-where I was born, family life, that kind of thing.

Whatever you like. Its up to you. Whatever you find most comfortable, I said.

I was the third of three children, she said. Malta and I have an older brother. My father ran his own clinic in Kanagawa Prefecture. The family had nothing you could call domestic problems. I grew up in an ordinary home, the kind you can find anywhere. My parents were very serious people who believed strongly in the value of hard work. They were rather strict with us, but it seems to me they also gave us a fair amount of autonomy where little things were concerned. We were well off, but my parents did not believe in giving their children extra money for frills. I suppose I had a rather frugal upbringing.

Malta was five years older than I. There had been something different about her from the beginning. She was able to guess things. Shed know that the patient in room so-and-so had just died, or exactly where they could find a lost wallet, or whatever. Everybody enjoyed this, at first, and often found it useful, but soon it began to bother my parents. They ordered her never to talk about things that did not have a clear basis in fact in the presence of other people. My father had his position as head of the hospital to think about. He didn't want people hearing that his daughter had supernatural powers. Malta put a lock on her mouth after that. Not only did she stop talking about things that did not have a clear basis in fact, but she rarely joined in even the most ordinary conversations.