Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Come to think of it, I have never once in my life said unambiguously to anybody, I want to do this. In fact, I have never thought to myself, I want to do this. From the moment of my birth, I lived with pain at the center of my life. My only purpose in life was to find a way to coexist with intense pain. And after I turned twenty and the pain disappeared when I attempted to kill myself, a deep, deep numbness came to replace the pain. I was like a walking corpse. A thick veil of unfeeling was draped over me. I had nothing-not a sliver-of what could be called my own will. And then, when I had my flesh violated and my mind pried open by Noboru Wataya, I obtained my third self. Even so, I was still not myself. All I had managed to do was get a grasp on the minimum necessary container for a self-a mere container. And as a container, under the guidance of Malta Kano, I passed many egos through myself.

This, then, is how I have spent the twenty-six years of my life. Just imagine if you will: for twenty-six years, I was nothing. This is the thought that struck me with such force when I was alone in the well, thinking. During all this long time, the person called me was in fact nothing at all, I realized. I was nothing but a prostitute. A prostitute of the flesh. A prostitute of the mind.

Now, however, I am trying to get a grasp on my new self. I am neither a container nor a medium of passage. I am trying to establish myself here on the face of the earth.

I do understand what you are saying to me, but still, why do you want to go to Crete with me?

Because it would probably be a good thing for both of us: for you, Mr. Okada, and for me, said Creta Kano. For the time being, there is no need for either of us to be here. And if that is the case, I feel, it would be better for us not to be here. Tell me, Mr. Okada, do you have some course of action you must follow-some plan for what you are going to do from this point on?

The one thing I need to do is talk to Kumiko. Until we meet face-to-face and she tells me that our life together is finished, I cant do anything else. How I'm going to go about finding her, though, I have no idea.

But if you do find her and your marriage is, as you say, finished, would you consider coming to Crete with me? Both of us would have to begin something new at some point, said Creta Kano, looking into my eyes. It seems to me that going to the island of Crete would not be a bad beginning.

Not bad at all, I said. Kind of sudden, maybe, but not a bad beginning.

Creta Kano smiled at me. When I thought about it, I realized this was the first time she had ever done so. It made me feel that, to some extent, history was beginning to head in the right direction. We still have time, she said. Even if I hurry, it will take me at least two weeks to get ready. Please use the time to think it over, Mr. Okada. I don't know if there is anything I can give you. It seems to me that I don't have anything to give at this point in time.

I am quite literally empty. I am just getting started, putting some contents into this empty container little by little. I can give you myself, Mr. Okada, if you say that is good enough for you. I believe we can help each other.

I nodded. I'll think about it, I said. I'm very pleased that you made me this offer, and I think it would be great if we could go together. I really do. But I've got a lot of things I have to think about and a lot of things I have to straighten out.

And if, in the end, you say you don't want to go to Crete, don't worry. I wont be hurt. I will be sorry, but I want your honest answer.

Creta Kano stayed in my house again that night. As the sun was going down, she invited me out for a stroll in the neighborhood park. I decided to forget about my bruise and leave the house. What was the point of worrying about such things? We walked for an hour in the pleasant summer evening, then came home and ate.

After our supper, Creta Kano said she wanted to sleep with me. She wanted to have physical sex with me, she said. This was so sudden, I didn't know what to do, which is exactly what I said to her: This is so sudden. I don't know what to do.

Looking directly at me, Creta Kano said, Whether or not you go with me to Crete, Mr. Okada, entirely separately from that, I want you to take me one time-just one time-as a prostitute. I want you to buy my flesh. Here. Tonight. It will be my last time. I will cease to be a prostitute, whether of the flesh or of the mind. I will abandon the name of Creta Kano as well. In order to do that, however, I want to have a clearly visible point of demarcation, something that says, It ends here.

I understand your wanting a point of demarcation, but why do you have to sleep with me?

Don't you see, Mr. Okada? By sleeping with the real you, by joining my body with yours in reality, I want to pass through you, this person called Mr. Okada. By doing that, I want to be liberated from this defilement-like something inside me. That will be the point of demarcation. Well, I'm sorry, but I don't buy peoples flesh. Creta Kano bit her lip. How about this, then? Instead of money, give me some of your wifes clothing. And shoes. We'll make that the pro forma price of my flesh. That should be all right, don't you think? Then I will be saved.

Saved. By which you mean that you will be liberated from the defilement that Noboru Wataya left inside you?

Yes, that is exactly what I mean, said Creta Kano. I stared at her. Without false eyelashes, Creta Kano's face had a much more childish look. Tell me, I said, who is this Noboru Wataya guy, really? Hes my wifes brother, but I hardly know him. What is he thinking? What does he want? All I know for sure is that he and I hate each other.

Noboru Wataya is a person who belongs to a world that is the exact opposite of yours, said Creta Kano. Then she seemed to be searching for the words she needed to continue. In a world where you are losing everything, Mr. Okada, Noboru Wataya is gaining everything. In a world where you are rejected, he is accepted. And the opposite is just as true. Which is why he hates you so intensely.

I don't get it. Why would he even notice that I'm alive? Hes famous, he's powerful. Compared to him, I'm an absolute zero. Why does he have to take the time and trouble to bother hating me?

Creta Kano shook her head. Hatred is like a long, dark shadow. Not even the person it falls upon knows where it comes from, in most cases. It is like a two-edged sword. When you cut the other person, you cut yourself. The more violently you hack at the other person, the more violently you hack at yourself. It can often be fatal. But it is not easy to dispose of.

Please be careful, Mr. Okada. It is very dangerous. Once it has taken root in your heart, hatred is the most difficult thing in the world to shake off.

And you were able to feel it, weren't you?-the root of the hatred that was in Noboru Wataya's heart.

Yes, I was. I am, said Creta Kano. That is the thing that split my flesh in two, that defiled me, Mr. Okada. Which is why I do not want him to be my last customer as a prostitute. Do you understand?

That night I went to bed with Creta Kano. I took off what she was wearing of Kumiko's and joined my body with hers. Quietly and gently. It felt like an extension of my dream, as if I were re-creating exactly, in reality, the very acts I had performed with Creta Kano in my dream. Her body was real and alive. But there was something missing: the clear sense that this was actually happening. Several times the illusion overtook me that I was doing this with Kumiko, not Creta Kano. I was sure I would wake up the moment I came. But I did not wake up. I came inside her. It was reality. True reality. But each time I recognized that fact, reality felt a little less real. Reality was coming undone and moving away from reality, one small step at a time. But still, it was reality.