Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

May Kasahara paid her second visit a little after three. Three in the afternoon. When she opened half the well, light flooded in overhead-the blinding glare of a summer day. To protect my eyes, so accustomed now to total darkness, I closed them and kept my head down for a while. The mere thought of light up there caused a thin film of tears to ooze.

Hi there, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, said May Kasahara. Are you still alive? Mr. Wind-Up Bird? Answer if you're still alive.

I'm alive, I said. You must be hungry. I think so. Still just I think so? It'll be a while before you starve to death, then. Starving people don't die so easily, as long as they've got water. That's probably true, I said, the uncertainty in my voice echoing in the well. The echo probably amplified any hint of anything contained in the voice. I know its true, said May Kasahara. I did a little research in the library this morning.

All about hunger and thirst. Did you know, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, somebody once lived underground for twenty-one days? During the Russian Revolution.

No kidding, I said. He must have suffered a lot. Yeah, really. He survived, but he lost all his hair and teeth. Everything. Even if he lived, it must have been terrible. Yeah, really. Even if you lose your teeth and hair, though, I suppose you can live a pretty normal life if you've got a decent wig and false teeth. Yeah, and wigs and dentures have made great strides since the time of the Russian Revolution, too. That might make things a little easier. You know, Mr. Wind-Up Bird ..., said May Kasahara, clearing her throat. What? If people lived forever-if they never got any older-if they could just go on living in this world, never dying, always healthy-do you think they'd bother to think hard about things, the way were doing now? I mean, we think about just about everything, more or less-philosophy, psychology, logic. Religion. Literature. I kinda think, if there were no such thing as death, that complicated thoughts and ideas like that would never come into the world. I mean- May Kasahara cut herself short and remained silent for a while, during which her I mean hung in the darkness of the well like a hacked-off fragment of thought. Maybe she had lost the will to say any more. Or maybe she needed time to think of what came next. I just waited in silence for her to continue, my head lowered as from the beginning. The thought crossed my mind that if May Kasahara wanted to kill me right away, it would be no trouble for her at all. She could just drop a big rock down the well. If she tried a few times, one was bound to hit me in the head.

I mean ... this is what I think, but... people have to think seriously about what it means for them to be alive here and now because they know they're going to die sometime. Right? Who would think about what it means to be alive if they were just going to go on living forever? Why would they have to bother? Or even if they should bother, they'd probably just figure, Oh, well, I've got plenty of time for that. I'll think about it later. But we cant wait till later. We've got to think about it right this second. I might get run over by a truck tomorrow afternoon. And you, Mr. Wind-Up Bird: you might starve to death. One morning three days from now, you could be dead in the bottom of a well. See? Nobody knows whats going to happen. So we need death to make us evolve. That's what I think. Death is this huge, bright thing, and the bigger and brighter it is, the more we have to drive ourselves crazy thinking about things.

May Kasahara paused. Tell me, Mr. Wind-Up Bird ... What? Down there in the darkness, have you been thinking about your own death? About how you would die down there? I took a moment to think about her question. Nope, I said. That's one thing I haven't been thinking about. Why not? May Kasahara asked, with a note of disgust, as if she were speaking to a deformed animal. Why haven't you been thinking about it? You're literally facing death right now. I'm not kidding around. I told you before, its up to me whether you live or die.

You could drop a rock, I said. A rock? What are you talking about? You could go find a big rock and drop it on me. Well, sure, I could do that. But she didn't seem to like the idea. Anyhow, Mr. Wind- Up Bird, you must be starving. Its just gonna get worse and worse. And you'll run out of water. So how can you not think about death? Don't you think its weird?

Yeah, I suppose its kind of weird, I said. But I've been thinking about other things the whole time. I'll probably think about death, too, when I start to get really hungry. I've still got three weeks before I die, right?

That's if you have water, said May Kasahara. That's what happened with that Russian guy. He was some big landowner or something. The revolutionary guard threw him down an old mine shaft, but there was water seeping through the wall, so he licked it and kept himself alive. He was in total darkness, just like you. But you don't have much water, do you?

No, I said honestly. Just a little left.

Then you'd better be careful with it, said May Kasahara. Take little sips. And take your time thinking. About death. About how you're dying. You've still got plenty of time.

Why are you so determined to make me think about death? Whats in it for you?

Nothings in it for me, May Kasahara shot back. What makes you think theres anything in it for me for you to think about your own death? Its your life. Its got nothing to do with me. I'm just... interested.

Out of curiosity? Yeah. Curiosity. About how people die. About how it feels to die. Curiosity. May Kasahara fell silent. When the conversation broke off, a deep stillness filled in the space around me, as if it had been waiting for this opportunity. I wanted to raise my face and look up. To see whether May Kasahara was visible from down here. But the light was too strong. I was sure it would burn my eyes out.

Theres something I want to tell you, I said. OK. Tell me.

My wife had a lover, I said. At least I'm pretty sure she did. I never realized it, but for months, while she was still living with me, she was sleeping with this guy. I couldn't believe it at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced. Now, looking back, I can see there were all kinds of little clues. Shed come home at crazy hours, or shed flinch when I touched her. But I couldn't read the signals. I trusted her. I never thought shed have an affair. It just never occurred to me.

Wow, said May Kasahara.

So then one day she just left the house and never came back. We had breakfast together that morning. She went off to work in her usual outfit. All she had with her was her handbag, and she picked up a blouse and skirt at the cleaners. And that was it. No goodbye. No note. Nothing. Kumiko was gone. Left all her things-clothes and everything. And shell probably never come back here-back to me. Not of her own accord, at least. That much I know.

Is Kumiko with the other guy now, do you think?

I don't know, I said, shaking my head. As my head moved slowly through it, the surrounding air felt like some kind of heavy water, without the watery feel. They probably are together.

And so now you're crushed, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, and thats why you went down in the well.

Of course I was crushed when I realized what was happening. But thats not why I'm in here. I'm not hiding from reality. Like I said before, I needed a place where I could be alone and concentrate on my thinking. Where and how did my relationship with Kumiko go wrong? That's what I cant understand. Not that I'm saying everything was perfect until that point. A man and a woman in their twenties, with two distinct personalities, just happen to meet somewhere and start living together. Theres not a married couple anywhere without their problems. But I thought we were doing OK, basically, that any little problems would solve themselves over time. But I was wrong. I was missing something big, making some kind of mistake on a really basic level, I suppose. That's what I came in here to think about.