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

“Bald vultures eat up art and tomorrows, then?”

“Right”

“A nice combination.”

“And for dessert they take a bite out of Books in Print.”

Shimamoto laughed. “Anyhow, until tomorrow,” she said.

And tomorrow came. When I woke up, I was alone. The rain had stopped, and bright, transparent morning light shone in through the bedroom window. The clock showed it was past nine. Shimamoto wasn’t in bed, though a slight depression in the pillow beside me hinted at where she had lain. She was nowhere to be seen. I got out of bed and went to the living room to look for her. I looked in the kitchen, the children’s room, and the bathroom. Nothing. Her clothes were gone, her shoes as well. I took a deep breath, trying to pull myself back to reality. But that reality was like nothing I’d ever seen before: a reality that didn’t seem to fit.

I dressed and went outside. The BMW was parked where I left it the night before. Maybe she’d wakened early and gone out for a walk. I searched for her all around the house, then got in the car and drove as far as the nearest town. But no Shimamoto. I went back to the cottage, but she was not there. Thinking maybe she’d left a note, I scoured the house. But there was nothing. Not a trace that she had ever been there.

Without her, the house was empty and stifling. The air was filled with a gritty layer of dust, which stuck in my throat with each breath. I remembered the record, the old Nat King Cole record she gave me. But search as I might it was nowhere to be found. She must have taken it with her.

Once again Shimamoto had disappeared from my life. This time, though, leaving nothing to pin my hopes on. No more probablys . No more for a whiles .

I got back to Tokyo a little before four. Hoping against hope that Shimamoto would return, I had stayed at the cottage in Hakone until past noon. Waiting was torture, so I killed time by cleaning the kitchen and rearranging all the clothes in the house. The silence was oppressive; the occasional sounds of birds and cars struck me as unnatural, out of sync. Every sound was twisted and crushed beneath the weight of some unstoppable force. And in the midst of this, I waited for something to happen. Something’s got to happen, I felt sure. It can’t end like this.

But nothing happened. Once she made up her mind, Shimamoto wasn’t the type of woman to change it I had to get back to Tokyo. It seemed farfetched, but if she did try to get in touch with me, she’d do it through the club. At any rate, staying in the cottage any longer made no sense.

Driving back, I had to force myself to concentrate. I missed curves, nearly ran red lights, and swerved into the wrong lane. When I arrived at the club parking lot, I called home from a phone booth. I told Yukiko I was back and that I was going straight to work.

“You had me worried. At least you could have called.” Her voice sounded hard and dry.

“I’m fine. Not to worry,” I said. I had no idea how my voice sounded to her. “I don’t have much time, so I’m going to the office to check over accounts, then directly on to the club.”

At the office, I sat at my desk and somehow managed to pass the time until evening. I went over the previous night’s events. Shimamoto must have gotten up while I was asleep and, without sleeping a wink herself, left before dawn. How she got back to the city I had no idea. The main road was far off, and at that hour of the morning it would have been next to impossible to get a bus or taxi in the hills around Hakone. And besides, she had on high heels.

Why did Shimamoto have to leave me like that? The entire time I drove back to Tokyo, the question had tormented me. I told her I would be hers, and she said she’d be mine. And dropping all defenses, we made love. Still, she left me alone, without so much as a word of explanation. She’d even taken the record she’d said was a present. There had to be some rhyme or reason to her actions, but logical thinking was beyond me. All trains of thought were sidetracked. Forcing myself to think, I ended up with a dully throbbing head. I realized how worn out I was. I sat down on the bed in my office, leaned against the wall, and closed my eyes. Once they were closed, I couldn’t pry them open. All I could do was remember. Like an endless tape loop, memories of the night before replayed themselves, over and over. Shimamoto’s body. Her naked body as she lay by the stove with eyes closed, and every detail–her neck, her breasts, her sides, her pubic hair, her genitals, her back, her waist, her legs. They were all too close, too clear. Clearer and closer than if they were real.

Alone in that tiny room, I was soon driven to distraction by these graphic illusions. I fled the building and wandered aimlessly. Finally I went over to the club and shaved in the men’s room. I hadn’t washed my face the entire day. And I still wore the same clothes as the day before. My employees said nothing, though I could feel them glancing at me strangely. If I went home now and stood before Yukiko, I knew I would confess it all. How I loved Shimamoto, had spent the night with her, and was about to throw away everything–my home, my daughters, my work.

I know I should have told Yukiko everything. But I couldn’t. Not then. I no longer had the power to distinguish right from wrong, or even grasp what had happened to me. So I didn’t go home. I went to the club and waited for Shimamoto, knowing full well my wait would be in vain. First I checked at the other bar to see if she was there, then I waited at the counter of the Robin’s Nest until the place closed. I talked with a few of the regulars, but it was just so much background static. I made the appropriate listening noises, my head filled all the while with Shimamoto’s body. How her vagina welcomed me ever so gently. And how she called out my name. Every time the phone rang, my heart pounded.

After the bar closed and everyone had headed home, I stayed there at the counter, drinking. No matter how much I drank, I couldn’t get drunk. In fact, the more I drank, the clearer my head became. It was two a.m. when I arrived home, and Yukiko was up and waiting for me. Unable to sleep, I sat drinking whiskey alone at the kitchen table. She came in with her glass to join me.

“Put on some music,” she said. I picked up a nearby cassette, flipped it into the deck, and turned down the volume so as not to wake the kids. We sat in silence for a while across the table from each other, drinking whiskey.

“You have somebody else you like, right?” Yukiko asked, staring straight at me.

I nodded. Her words had a decided outline and gravity. How many times had she gone over these words in her mind in preparation for this moment?

“And you really like that person. You’re not just playing around.”

“That’s right,” I said. “It’s not just some fling. But it’s not exactly what you’re imagining.”

“How do you know what I’m thinking?” she asked. “You actually believe you know what I’m thinking?”

I couldn’t say a thing. Yukiko was silent too. The music played on softly. Vivaldi or Telemann. One of those. I couldn’t recall the melody.

“I think it’s likely you have no idea what I’m thinking,” she said. She spoke slowly, enunciating each word distinctly, as if explaining something to the children. “I don’t think you have any idea.”

Seeing I wasn’t going to respond, she lifted her glass and drank. And very slowly, she shook her head. “I’m not that stupid, I hope you know. I live with you, sleep with you. I’ve known for some time you like someone else.”

I looked at her in silence.

“I’m not blaming you,” she continued. “If you love someone else, there’s not much anyone can do about it. You love who you love. I’m not enough for you. I know that We’ve gotten along well, and you’ve taken good care of me. I’ve been very happy living with you. I think you still love me, but we can’t escape the fact that I’m not enough for you. I knew this was going to happen. So I’m not blaming you for falling in love with another woman. I’m not angry, either. I should be, but I’m not. I just feel pain. A lot of pain. I thought I could imagine how much this would hurt, but I was wrong.”