Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Do you think the price will continue to fall? The old man gave a sharp nod. Of course its going to fall. To nine hundred thousand per tsubo easy. That's what they bought it for. They're really getting worried now. They'd be thrilled if they could break even. I don't know if they'd go any lower. They might take a loss if they're hurting for cash. Otherwise, they could afford to wait. I just don't know whats going on inside the company. What I do know is that they're sorry they bought the place. Getting mixed up with that piece of land is not going to do anybody any good. He tapped his ashes into the ashtray.

The yard has a well, doesn't it? I asked. Do you know anything about the well?

Hmm, it does have a well, doesn't it, said Mr. Ichikawa. A deep well. But I think they filled it in. It was dry, after all. Useless.

Do you have any idea when it dried up?

The old man glared at the ceiling for a while, with his arms folded. That was a long time ago. I cant remember, really, but I'm sure I heard it had water sometime before the war. It must have dried up after the war. I don't know when, exactly. But I know it was dry when the actress moved in. There was a lot of talk then about whether or not to fill in the well. But nobody ever did anything about it. I guess it was too much bother.

The well in the Kasahara place across the alley still has plenty of water- good water, I'm told.

Maybe so, maybe so. The wells in that area always produced good-tasting water. Its got something to do with the soil. You know, water veins are delicate things. Its not unusual to get water in one place and nothing at all right close by. Is there something about that well that interests you?

To tell you the truth, Id like to buy that piece of land.

The old man raised his eyes and focused them on mine. Then he lifted his teacup and took a silent sip. You want to buy that piece of land?

My only reply was a nod.

The old man took another cigarette from his pack and tapped it against the tabletop. But then, instead of lighting it, he held it between his fingers. His tongue flicked across his lips.

Let me say one more time that thats a place with a lot of problems. No one-and I mean no one- has ever done well there. You do realize that? I don't care how cheap it gets, that place can never be a good buy. But you want it just the same?

Yes, I still want it, knowing what I know. But let me point out one thing: I don't have enough money on hand to buy the place, no matter how far the price falls below market value.

But I intend to raise the money, even if it takes me a while. So I would like to be kept informed of any new developments. Can I count on you to let me know if the price changes or if a buyer shows up?

For a time, the old man just stared at his unlit cigarette, lost in thought. Then, clearing his throat with a little cough, he said, Don't worry, you've got time; that place is not going to sell for a while, I guarantee you. Its not going to move until they're practically giving it away, and that wont happen for a while. So take all the time you need to raise the money. If you really want it.

I told him my phone number. The old man wrote it down in a little sweat-stained black notebook. After returning the notebook to his jacket pocket, he looked me in the eye for a while and then looked at the mark on my cheek.

February came to an end, and March was half gone when the freezing cold began to relent somewhat. Warm winds blew up from the south. Buds appeared on the trees, and new birds showed up in the garden. On warm days I began to spend time sitting on the veranda, looking at the garden. One evening I got a call from Mr. Ichikawa. The Miyawaki land was still unsold, he said, and the price had dropped somewhat.

I told you it wouldn't move for a while, he added, with a touch of pride. Don't worry, from now on its just going to creep down. Meanwhile, how are you doing? Funds coming together?

I was washing my face at eight o'clock that night when I noticed that my mark was beginning to run a slight fever. When I laid my finger against it, I could feel a touch of warmth that had not been there before. The color, too, seemed more intense than usual, almost purplish. Barely breathing, I stared into the mirror for a long time-long enough for me to begin to see my own face as something other than mine. The mark was trying to tell me something: it wanted something from me. I went on staring at my self beyond the mirror, and that self went on staring back at me from beyond the mirror without a word.

I have to have that well. Whatever happens, I have to have that well.

This was the conclusion I had reached.

Just wanting the land was not going to make it mine, of course. The amount of money I could realistically raise was close to zero. I still had a little of what my mother had left me, but that would evaporate soon in the course of living. I had no job, nothing I could offer as collateral. And there was no bank in the world that would lend money to someone like me out of sheer kindness. I would have to use magic to produce the money from thin air. And soon.

One morning I walked to the station and bought ten fifty-million-yen lottery tickets, with continuous numbers. Using tacks, I covered a section of the kitchen wall with them and looked at them every day. Sometimes I would spend a whole hour in a chair staring hard at them, as if waiting for a secret code to rise out of them that only I could see. After several days of this, the thought struck me from nowhere: I'm never going to win the lottery.

Before long, I knew this without a doubt. Things were absolutely not going to be solved so easily-by just buying a few lottery tickets and waiting for the results. I would have to get the money through my own efforts. I tore up the lottery tickets and threw them away. Then I stood in front of the washbasin mirror and peered into its depths. There has to be a way, I said to myself in the mirror, but of course there was no reply.

Tired of always being shut up in the house with my thoughts, I began to walk around the neighborhood. I continued these aimless walks for three or four days, and when I tired of the neighborhood, I took the train to Shinjuku. The impulse to go downtown came to me when I happened by the station. Sometimes, I thought, it helps to think about things in a different setting. It occurred to me, too, that I hadn't been on a train for a very long time. Indeed while putting my money in the ticket machine, I experienced the nervousness one feels when doing something unfamiliar. When had I last been to the streets of the city? Probably not since I fol- lowed the man with the guitar case from the Shinjuku west entrance- more than six months earlier.

The sight of the crowds in Shinjuku Station I found overwhelming. The flow of people took my breath away and even made my heart pound to some extent-and this wasn't even rush hour! I had trouble making my way through the crush of bodies at first. This was not so much a crowd as a raging torrent-the kind of flood that tears whole houses apart and sweeps them away. I had been walking only a few minutes when I felt the need to calm my nerves. I entered a cafe that faced the avenue and took a seat by one of its large glass windows. Late in the morning, the cafe was not crowded. I ordered a cup of cocoa and half-consciously watched the people walking by outside.

I was all but unaware of the passage of time. Perhaps fifteen minutes had gone by, perhaps twenty, when I realized that my eyes had been following each polished Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, and Porsche that crept along the jam-packed avenue. In the fresh morning sunlight after a night of rain, these cars sparkled with almost painful intensity, like some kind of symbols. They were absolutely spotless. Those guys have money. Such a thought had never crossed my mind before. I looked at my reflection in the glass and shook my head. This was the first time in my life I had a desperate need for money.