Haruki Murakami - South of the Border, West of the Sun

I stood beside her, watching, without a word.

Inside the urn were white ashes. Very carefully, so that none would spill out she poured the ashes onto her left palm. There was barely enough to cover her hand. Ash left after a cremation, I figured. It was a quiet windless afternoon, and the ash didn’t stir. Shimamoto returned the empty urn to her bag, stuck her index finger into the ash, put the finger to her mouth, and licked it. She looked at me and tried to smile. But she couldn’t. Her finger remained near her lips.

As she crouched by the river and scattered the ashes, I stood next to her, watching. In an instant the small amount of ash was carried away. She and I stood on the shore, gazing at the water. She stared at her palm, then finally brushed off the remaining ash and put on her gloves.

“Will it really reach the sea?” she asked.

“I think so,” I said. But I wasn’t sure. The ocean was a fair distance away. Perhaps the ash would settle somewhere. But even so, some of it would, eventually, reach the sea.

She took a piece of board that lay nearby and began digging in a soft spot of ground. I helped her. When we’d dug a small hole, she buried the urn wrapped in cloth. Crows cawed in the distance, observing our actions from beginning to end. No matter; look if you want to, I thought. We’re not doing anything bad. All we did was scatter some burned ash in the river.

“Do you think it will turn to rain?” Shimamoto asked, tapping the tip of her boot on the ground.

I looked at the sky. “I think it’ll hold out for a while,” I said.

“No, that’s not what I mean. What I mean is, will the child’s ashes flow to the sea, mix with the seawater, evaporate, form into clouds, and fall as rain?”

I looked up at the sky one more time. And then at the river flowing.

“You never know,” I replied.

We headed in our rental car back to the airport. The weather was deteriorating fast. The sky was covered with heavy clouds, no blue visible. It looked like it would snow at any minute.

“Those were my baby’s ashes. The only baby I ever had,” Shimamoto said, as if talking to herself.

I looked at her, then looked ahead. Trucks sprayed up muddy melted snow, and I had to turn on the wipers every once in a while.

“My baby died the day after it was born,” she said. “It lived just one day. I held it only a couple of times. It was a beautiful baby. So very soft … They didn’t know the cause, but it couldn’t breathe well. When it died it was already a different color.”

I couldn’t say a thing. I reached out my hand and placed it on hers.

“It was a baby girl. Without a name.”

“When was that?”

“This time last year. In February.”

“Poor thing,” I said.

“I didn’t want to bury it anywhere. I couldn’t stand the thought of it in some dark place. I wanted to keep it beside me for a while, then let it flow into the sea and turn into rain.”

She was silent for a long, long time. I kept on driving, not saying a word. She probably didn’t feel like talking, so I thought it might be best to leave her alone. But soon I noticed that something was wrong—her breathing sounded strange, a mechanical rasping. At first I thought it was the car engine, but then I realized the sound was coming from beside me. It was as if she had a hole in her windpipe and air was leaking out each time she took a breath.

Waiting for a signal to change, I looked at her. She was white as a sheet and strangely stiff. She rested her head against the headrest and stared straight ahead. She didn’t move a muscle, only from time to time would blink, as if forced to. I drove on for a little while and found a place to pull over—the parking lot of a boarded-up bowling alley. On top of the building, which looked like an airplane hangar, stood a billboard with a gigantic bowling pin on it. Alone in the huge parking lot, we seemed to be in some wilderness at the edge of civilization.

“Shimamoto-san.” I turned to her. “Are you all right?”

She didn’t answer. She just sat back against the seat, making that unearthly sound. I put my hand to her cheek. It was as cold as the scenery that surrounded us. Not a trace of warmth. I touched her forehead, but it showed no signs of fever. I felt like I was choking. Was she dying, right here and now? Her eyes were listless as I looked deep into them. I could see nothing; they were as cold and dark as death.

“Shimamoto-san!” I yelled out, but got no response. Her eyes were unfocused. She might not even be conscious. I had to get her to an emergency room, and fast. We’d definitely miss our plane, but there was no time to worry about that. Shimamoto might die, and there was no way I was going to let that happen.

When I started the car again, though, she was trying to say something. I cut the engine, put my ear to her lips, but couldn’t make out her words. They were less like words than wind whistling through a crack in a wall. Straining as hard as she could, she repeated her words again and again. Finally a single word came through. “Medicine.”

“You want to take some medicine?” I asked.

She gave a tiny nod. So slight a nod I might not have caught it. But it was all she could manage. I rummaged around in her coat pocket. Purse, handkerchief, key holder with a lot of keys, but no medicine. I opened her shoulder bag. Inside was a small packet of medicine, with four capsules. I showed her the capsules. “Is this it?”

Without moving her eyes, she nodded.

I pushed her seat back, opened her mouth, and placed one capsule inside. But her mouth was bone dry, and nothing would go down. I searched madly for a vending machine, but there was none. And we didn’t have time to go looking. The only source of water around was the snow. Thank God there was enough of that. I leaped out of the car, scooped up some clean snow under the eaves of the building, and put it in Shimamoto’s wool cap. Bit by bit I placed the snow in my mouth and melted it. It took a while to melt enough, and the tip of my tongue turned numb. I opened her mouth and let the water flow from mine into hers. Then I held her nose closed and forced her to swallow. She choked a little, but after I did this a couple of times, she was at last able to swallow the capsule.

I looked at the packet. Nothing was written on it not the name of the medicine, her name, directions. Strange, I thought considering that such information is usually provided so you won’t take a medicine by mistake, or so others will know what to do. I replaced the packet inside her bag and watched her for a while. I had no idea what kind of medicine it was, or what her symptoms were, but since apparently she carried the medicine around all the time, it must work. For her, at least this was not a totally unexpected attack.

Ten minutes later, some color began to return to her cheeks. I gently put my cheek to hers; warmth was flowing back. I sighed in relief and had her sit back in her seat. She wasn’t going to die, after all. I put my arms around her shoulders and rubbed my cheek against hers. Slowly, ever so slowly, she was returning to the land of the living.

“Hajime,” she whispered in a dry voice.

“Shouldn’t we go to a hospital? Maybe we should find the nearest emergency room,” I asked.

“No, we don’t need to,” she replied. “I’m fine. If I take my medicine, I’m okay. I’ll be back to normal in a few minutes. What we should worry about is whether we’re going to make that plane.”

“Don’t worry about that, for God’s sake. We’ll stay here until you feel better.”

I wiped her mouth with a handkerchief. She took the handkerchief in her hand and looked at it. “Are you always this kind to everybody?”

“Not to everybody,” I said. “To you I am. I can’t be kind to everyone. There are limits to my kindness; even to how kind I can be to you. I wish there weren’t; then I could do so much more for you. But I can’t.”