Haruki Murakami - Sputnik Sweetheart

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they’ll say, or “I’m thin-skinned and not the type who gets along easily in the world,” or “I’m very good at sensing others’

true feelings.” But any number of times I’ve seen people who say they’re easily hurt or hurt other people for no apparent reason. Self-styled honest and open people, without realizing what they’re doing, blithely use some self-serving excuse to get what they want. And those who are “good at sensing others’

true feelings” are taken in by the most transparent flattery. It’s enough to make me ask the question: how well do we really know ourselves?

The more I think about it, the more I’d like to take a rain check on the topic of me. What I’d like to know more about is the objective reality of things outside myself. How important the world outside is to me, how I maintain a sense of equilibrium by coming to terms with it. That’s how I’d grasp a dearer sense of who I am.

These are the kinds of ideas I had running through my head when I was a teenager. Like a master builder stretches taut his string and lays one brick after another, I constructed this viewpoint—or philosophy of life, to put a bigger spin on it. Logic and speculation played a part in formulating this viewpoint, but for the most part it was based on my own experiences. And speaking of experience, a number of painful episodes taught me that getting this viewpoint of mine across to other people wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. The upshot of all this is that when I was young I began to draw an invisible boundary between myself and other people. No matter who I was dealing with. I maintained a set distance, carefully monitoring the person’s attitude so that they wouldn’t get any closer. I didn’t easily swallow what other people told me. My only passions were books and music. As you might guess, I led a lonely life.

My family isn’t anything special. So blandly normal, in fact, I don’t know where to begin. My father graduated from a local university with a degree in science and worked in the research lab of a large food manufacturer. He loved golf, and every Sunday he was out on the course. My mother was crazy about tanka poetry and often attended poetry recitals. Whenever her name was in the poetry section of the newspaper, she’d be happy as a lark for days. She liked cleaning, but hated cooking. My sister, five years older than me, detested both cleaning and cooking. Those are things other people did, she decided, not her. Which meant that ever since I was old enough to be in the kitchen, I made all my own meals. I bought some cookbooks and learned how to make almost everything. I was the only child I knew who lived like that.

I was born in Suginami, but we moved to Tsudanuma in Chiba Prefecture when I was small, and I grew up there. The neighbourhood was full of white-collar families just like ours. My sister was always top of her class; she couldn’t stand not being the best and didn’t step one inch outside her sphere of interest. She never—not even once—took our dog for a walk. She graduated from Tokyo University law school and passed the bar exam the following year, no mean feat. Her husband is a go-getter management consultant. They live in a four-room condo they purchased in an elegant building near Yoyogi Park. Inside, though, the place is a pigsty.

I was the opposite of my sister, not caring much about studying or my grades. I didn’t want any grief from my parents, so I went through the motions of going to school, doing the minimum amount of study and homework to get by.

The rest of the time I played football and sprawled on my bed when I got home, reading one novel after another. None of your typical after-hours cram school, no tutor. Even so, my grades weren’t half bad. At this rate, I reckoned I could get into a decent college without killing myself studying for the entrance exams. And that’s exactly what happened.

I started college and lived by myself in a small apartment. Even when I was living at home in Tsudanuma I hardly ever had a heart-to-heart conversation with my family. We lived together under one roof, but my parents and sister were like strangers to me, and I had no idea what they wanted from life. And the same held true for them—they didn’t have any idea what kind of person I was or what I aspired to. Not that I knew what I wanted in life—I didn’t. I loved reading novels to distraction, but didn’t write well enough to be a novelist; being an editor or a critic was out, too, since my tastes ran to extremes. Novels should be for pure personal enjoyment, I decided, not part of your work or study. That’s why I didn’t study literature, but history. I didn’t have any special interest in history, but once I began studying it I found it an engrossing subject. I didn’t plan to go to grad school and devote my life to history or anything, though my adviser did suggest that. I enjoyed reading and thinking, but I was hardly the academic type. As Pushkin put it:

All of which didn’t mean I was about to find a job in a normal company, claw my way through the cut-throat competition, and advance step by step up the slippery slopes of the capitalist pyramid.

So, by a process of elimination, I ended up a teacher. The school is only a few stations away by train. My uncle happened to be on the board of education in that town and asked me whether I might want to be a teacher. I hadn’t taken all the required teacher-training classes, so I was hired as an assistant teacher, but after a short period of screening I qualified as a proper teacher. I hadn’t planned on being a teacher, but after I actually became one I discovered a deeper respect and affection for the profession than I ever imagined I’d have. More accurately, really, I should say that I happened to discover myself.

I’d stand at the front of the classroom, teaching my primaryschool charges basic facts about language, life, the world, and I’d find that at the same time I was teaching myself these basic facts all over again—filtered through the eyes and minds of these children. Done the right way, this was a refreshing experience. Profound, even. I got along well with my pupils, their mothers, and my fellow teachers.

Still the basic questions tugged at me: Who am I? What am I searching for? Where am I going?

The closest I came to answering these questions was when I talked to Sumire. More than talking about myself, though, I listened attentively to her, to what she said. She threw all sorts of questions my way, and if I couldn’t come up with an answer, or if my response didn’t make sense, you’d better believe she let me know. Unlike other people she honestly, sincerely wanted to hear what I had to say. I did my best to answer her, and our conversations helped me open up more about myself to her—and, at the same time, to myself.

We used to spend hours talking. We never got tired of talking, never ran out of topics—novels, the world, scenery, language. Our conversations were more open and intimate than any lovers’.

I imagined how wonderful it would be if indeed we could be lovers. I longed for the warmth of her skin on mine. I pictured us married, living together. But I had to face the fact that Sumire had no such romantic feelings for me, let alone sexual interest. Occasionally she’d stay over at my apartment after we’d talked into the small hours, but there was never even the slightest hint of romance. Come 2 or 3 a.m. and she’d yawn, crawl into bed, sink her face into my pillow, and fall fast asleep. I’d spread out some bedding on the floor and lie down, but I couldn’t sleep, my mind full of fantasies, confused thoughts, self-loathing. Sometimes the inevitable physical reactions would cause me grief, and I’d lie awake in misery until dawn. It was hard to accept that she had almost no feelings, maybe none at all, for me as a man. This hurt so bad at times it felt like someone was gouging out my guts with a knife. Still, the time I spent with her was more precious than anything. She helped me forget the undertone of loneliness in my life. She expanded the outer edges of my world, helped me draw a deep, soothing breath. Only Sumire could do that for me.