Haruki Murakami - Sputnik Sweetheart

I imagined being held by that lithe, slim body. All sorts of obscene images came to mind of us as I lay in bed in the same room with her, and I felt these thoughts gradually pushing me to some other place. I think I got a little too worked up—my period started that same night, way ahead of schedule. What a pain that was. Hmm. I know telling you this isn’t going to get me anywhere. But I’ll go ahead anyway—just to get the facts down on paper.

Last night we attended a concert in Rome. I wasn’t expecting much, it being the off-season, but we managed to enjoy an incredible performance. Martha Argerich playing Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1. I adore that piece. The conductor was Giuseppe Sinopoli. What a performance! Can’t get bored when you listen to that kind of music—it was absolutely the most expansive, fantastic music I’ve ever heard. Come to think of it, maybe it was a bit too perfect for my taste. Liszt needs to be a bit slippery, and furtive—like music at a village festival. Take out the difficult parts and let me feel the thrill—that’s what I like. Miu and I agreed on this point. There’s a Vivaldi festival in Venice, and we’re talking about going. Like when you and I talk about literature, Miu and I can talk about music till the cows come home.

This letter’s getting pretty long, isn’t it? It’s like once I take hold of a pen and start to write I can’t stop halfway. I’ve always been like that. They say well brought up girls don’t overstay their welcome, but when it comes to writing (maybe not just writing?) my manners are hopeless. The waiter, with his white jacket, sometimes looks over at me with this disgusted look on his face. But even my hand gets tired, I’ll admit. Besides, I’ve run out of paper.

Miu is out visiting an old friend in Rome, and I wandered the streets near the hotel, then decided to take a break in this cafe I came across, and here I am busily writing away to you. Like I’m on a desert island and I’m sending out a message in a bottle. Strange thing is, when I’m not with Miu I don’t feel like going anywhere. I’ve come all this way to Rome (and most likely won’t come back again), but I just can’t rouse myself to get up and see those ruins—what do they call those?—or those famous fountains. Or even to go shopping.

It’s enough just to sit here in a cafe, sniff the smell of the city, like a dog might, listen to voices and sounds, and gaze at the faces of the people passing by.

And suddenly I just got the feeling, while writing this letter to you, that what I described in the beginning—the strange sense of being disassembled—is starting to fade. It doesn’t bother me so much now. It’s like the way I feel when I’ve called you up in the middle of the night and just finished the call and stepped out of the phone box. Maybe you have that kind of effect on me?

What do you think? At any rate, please pray for my happiness and good fortune. I need your prayers.

Bye for now.

P.S. I’ll probably be back home around the 15th of August. Then we can have dinner together—I promise!—before the summer’s over.

Five days later a second letter came, posted from some obscure French village. A shorter letter than the first one. Miu and Sumire had left their rental car in Rome and taken a train to Venice. There they listened to two full days of Vivaldi. Most of the concerts were held at the church where Vivaldi had served as a priest. “If I don’t hear any more Vivaldi for six months that’s fine by me,” wrote Sumire. Her descriptions of how delicious the paper-wrapped grilled seafood was in Venice were so realistic it made me want to dash off to Venice to try some for myself.

After Venice they returned to Milan, then flew to Paris. They took a break there, shopping some more, then boarded a train to Burgundy. One of Miu’s good friends owned a huge house, a manor really, where they stayed. As in Italy, Miu made the rounds of several small vineyards on business. On free afternoons they took a picnic-basket lunch and went walking in the woods nearby. With a couple of bottles of wine to complement the meal, of course. “The wine here is simply out of this world,” Sumire wrote.

Somehow, though, it looks like our original plan of returning to Japan on the 15th of August is going to change. After our work is done in France we may be taking a short holiday on a Greek island. This English gentleman we happened to meet here—a real gentleman, mind you—owns a villa on the island and invited us to use it for as long as we like. Great news! Miu likes the idea, too. We need a break from work, some time to just kick back and relax. The two of us lying on the pure white beaches of the Aegean, two beautiful sets of breasts pointed towards the sun, sipping wine with a scent of pine resin in it, just watching the clouds drift by. Doesn’t that sound wonderful? It certainly does, I thought.

That afternoon I went to the public pool and paddled around, stopped in a nicely air-conditioned coffee shop on the way home, and read for an hour. When I got back to my place I listened to both sides of an old Ten Years After LP while ironing three shirts. Ironing done, I drank some cheap wine I’d got on sale, mixed with Perrier, and watched a football match I’d videotaped. Every time I saw a pass I thought I wouldn’t have made myself, I shook my head and sighed. Judging the mistakes of strangers is an easy thing to do—and it feels pretty good.

After the football match I sank back in my chair, stared at the ceiling, and imagined Sumire in her village in France. By now she was already on that Greek island. Lying on the beach, gazing at the passing clouds. Either way, she was a long way from me. Rome, Greece, Timbuktu, Aruanda—it didn’t matter.

She was far, far away. And most likely that was the future in a nutshell, Sumire growing ever more distant. It made me sad. I felt like I was some meaningless bug clinging for no special reason to a high stone wall on a windy night, with no plans, no beliefs. Sumire said she missed me. But she had Miu beside her. I had no one. All I had was—me. Same as always.

Sumire didn’t come back on 15 August. Her phone still just had a curt I’m-away-on-a-trip recording on it. One of her first purchases after she moved was a phone with an answering machine, so she wouldn’t have to go out on rainy nights, umbrella in hand, to a phone box. An excellent idea all round. I didn’t leave a message.

I called her again on the 18th but got the same recording. After the lifeless beep I left my name and a simple message for her to call me when she got back. Most likely she and Miu found their Greek island too much fun to want to leave.

In the interval between my two calls I coached one football practice at my school and slept once with my girlfriend. She was well tanned, having just returned from a holiday in Bali with her husband and two children. As I held her I thought of Sumire on her Greek island. Inside her, I couldn’t help but imagine Sumire’s body.

If I hadn’t known Sumire I could have easily fallen for this woman, seven years my senior (and whose son was one of my students). She was a beautiful, energetic, kind woman. She wore a bit too much make-up for my liking, but dressed nicely. She worried about being a little overweight, but shouldn’t have. I certainly wasn’t about to complain about her sexy figure. She knew all my desires, everything I wanted and didn’t want. She knew just how far to go and when to stop—in bed and out. Made me feel like I was flying first class.

“I haven’t slept with my husband for almost a year,” she revealed to me as she lay in my arms. “You’re the only one.”