Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

I understand completely.

I don't want to watch you going under, and I don't want to sweat any more for you than I already have. That's why I've decided to go back to a world thats a little more normal. But if I hadn't met you here-here, in front of this vacant house- I don't think things would have turned out this way. I never would have thought about going back to school. Id still be hanging around in some not-so-normal world. So in that sense, its all because of you, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. You're not totally useless.

I nodded. It was the first time in a long time anyone had said anything nice about me. Cmere, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, said May Kasahara. She raised herself on her deck chair. I got out of my chair and went to hers. Sit down right here, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, said May Kasahara. I did as I was told and sat down next to her. Show me your face, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. She stared directly at me for a time. Then, placing one hand on my knee, she pressed the palm of the other against the mark on my cheek. Poor Mr. Wind-Up Bird, said May Kasahara, in a near whisper. I know you're going to take on all kinds of things. Even before you know it. And you wont have any choice in the matter. The way rain falls in a field. And now close your eyes, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. Really tight. Like they're glued shut.

I closed my eyes tightly.

May Kasahara touched her lips to my mark-her lips small and thin, like an extremely well- made imitation. Then she parted those lips and ran her tongue across my mark-very slowly, covering every bit of it. The hand she had placed on my knee remained there the whole time.

Its warm, moist touch came to me from far away, from a place still farther than if it had passed through all the fields in the world. Then she took my hand and touched it to the wound beside her eye. I caressed the half-inch scar As I did so, the waves of her consciousness pulsed through my fingertips and into me-a delicate resonance of longing. Probably someone should take this girl in his arms and hold her tight, I thought. Probably someone other than me. Someone qualified to give her something. Goodbye, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. See you again sometime.

The next day I called my uncle and told him I might be moving out of the house sometime in the next few weeks. I apologized for springing it on him so suddenly but explained that it was because Kumiko had left me, with just as little warning. There was no point in covering up anymore. I told him that she had written to say she would not be coming back, and that I wanted to get away from this place, though exactly for how long I could not be sure. My summary explanation was followed by a thoughtful silence at my uncles end of the line. He seemed to be mulling something over. Then he said, Mind if I come over there for a visit sometime soon? Id kind of like to see with my own eyes whats going on. And I haven't been to the house for quite a while now.

My uncle came to the house two evenings later. He looked at my mark but had nothing to say about it. He probably didn't know what to say about it. He just gave it one funny look, with his eyes narrowed. He had brought me a good bottle of scotch and a package of fish- paste cakes that he had bought in Odawara. We sat on the veranda, eating the cakes and drinking the whiskey.

What a pleasure it is to be sitting on a veranda again, my uncle said, nodding several times. Our condo doesn't have one, of course. Sometimes I really miss this place. Theres a special feeling you get on a veranda that you just cant get anywhere else.

For a while, he sat there gazing at the moon, a slim white crescent of a moon that looked as if someone had just finished sharpening it. That such a thing could actually go on floating in the sky seemed almost miraculous to me.

Then, in an utterly offhand manner, my uncle asked, How'd you get that mark?

I really don't know, I said, and took a gulp of whiskey. All of a sudden, it was there.

Maybe a week ago? I wish I could explain it better, but I just don't know how.

Did you go to the doctor with it?

I shook my head.

I don't want to stick my nose in where I'm not wanted, but just let me say this: you really ought to sit down and think hard about what it is thats most important to you. I nodded. I have been thinking about that, I said. But things are so complicated and tangled together. I cant seem to separate them out and do one thing at a time. I don't know how to untangle things.

My uncle smiled. You know what I think? I think what you ought to do is start by thinking about the simplest things and go from there. For example, you could stand on a street corner somewhere day after day and look at the people who come by there. You're not in any hurry to decide anything. It may be tough, but sometimes you've got to just stop and take time. You ought to train yourself to look at things with your own eyes until something comes clear. And don't be afraid of putting some time into it. Spending plenty of time on something can be the most sophisticated form of revenge.

Revenge?! What do you mean, revenge? Revenge against whom? You'll understand soon enough, said my uncle, with a smile.

All told, we sat on the veranda, drinking together, for something over an hour. Then, announcing that he had stayed too long, my uncle stood up and left. Alone again, I sat on the veranda, leaning against a pillar and staring out at the garden under the moon. For a time, I was able to breathe deeply of the air of realism or whatever it was that my uncle left behind, and to feel, for the first time in a very long time, a sense of genuine relief. Within a few hours, though, that air began to dissipate, and a kind of cloak of pale sorrow came to envelop me once again. In the end, I was in my world again, and my uncle was in his.

My uncle had said that I should think about the truly simple things first, but I found it impossible to distinguish between what was simple and what was difficult. And so the next morning, after the rush hour had ended, I took the train to Shinjuku. I decided just to stand there and really look at peoples faces. I didn't know if it would do any good, but it was probably better than doing nothing. If looking at peoples faces until you got sick of them was an example of a simple thing, then it couldn't hurt to give it a try. If it went well, it just might give me some indication of what constituted the simple things for me.

The first day, I spent two full hours sitting on the low brick wall that ran along the edge of the raised flower bed outside Shinjuku Station, watching the faces of the people who passed by. But the sheer numbers of people were too great, and they walked too quickly. I couldn't manage a good look at any one persons face. To make matters worse, some homeless guy came over to me after I had been there for a while and started haranguing me about something. A policeman came by several times, glaring at me. So I gave up on the busy area outside the station and decided to look for a place better suited to the leisurely study of passersby.

I took the passageway under the tracks to the west side of the station, and after I had spent some time walking around that neighborhood, I found a small, tiled plaza outside a glass high-rise. It had a little sculpture and some handsome benches where I could sit and look at people as much as I liked. The numbers were nowhere near as great as directly outside the main entrance of the station, and there weren't any homeless guys here with bottles of whiskey stuck in their pockets. I spent the day there, making do for lunch with some doughnuts and coffee from Dunkin Donuts, and going home before the evening rush.

At first the only ones who caught my eye were the men with thinning hair, thanks to the training I had received doing surveys with May Kasahara for the toupee maker. Before I knew it, my gaze would lock onto a bald head and Id have the man classified as A, B, or C. At this rate, I might just as well have called May Kasahara and volunteered to join her for work again.