Haruki Murakami - Sputnik Sweetheart

At first light I boarded the Chuo Line to Shinjuku, hopped aboard the Narita Express, and arrived at the airport. At nine I made the rounds of airline ticket counters, only to learn that there weren’t any direct flights between Narita and Athens. After a bit of trial and error I booked a business-class seat on the KLM flight to Amsterdam. I’d be able to change there onto a flight to Athens. Then at Athens I’d take an Olympic Airways domestic flight to Rhodes. The KLM people made all the arrangements. As long as no problems arose, I should be able to make the two connections okay. It was the fastest way to get there. I had an open ticket for the return flight, and I could come back any time in the next three months. I paid by credit card. Any bags to check in? they asked me. No, I replied. I had time before my flight, so I ate breakfast at the airport restaurant. I withdrew some cash from an ATM and bought dollar traveller’s cheques. Next I bought a guidebook to Greece in the bookshop. The name of the island Miu told me wasn’t in the little book, but I did need to get some information about the country—the currency, the climate, the basics. Other than the history of ancient Greece and classical drama, there wasn’t much I knew about the place. About as much as I knew of the geography of Jupiter or the inner workings of a Ferrari’s cooling system. Not once in my life had I considered the possibility of going to Greece. At least not until 2 a.m. on that particular day.

Just before noon I phoned one of my fellow teachers. Something unfortunate happened to a relative of mine, I told her, I’ll be away from Tokyo for about a week, so I wonder if you’d take care of things at school until I get back. No problem, she replied. We’d helped each other out like this a number of times, it was no big deal. “Where are you going?” she asked me. “Shikoku,” I answered. I just couldn’t very well tell her I was heading off to Greece.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. “Anyway, make sure you get back in time for the start of the new term. And pick up a souvenir for me if you can, okay?”

“Of course,” I said. I’d work that one out later.

I went to the business-class lounge, lay back in a sofa, and dozed for a bit, an unsettled sleep. The world had lost all sense of reality. Colours were unnatural, details crude. The background was papier mache, the stars made out of aluminium foil. You could see the glue and the heads of the nails holding it all together. Airport announcements flitted in and out of my consciousness. “All passengers on Air France flight 275, bound for Paris.” In the midst of this illogical dream—or uncertain wakefulness—I thought about Sumire. Like some documentary of ages past, fragments sprang to mind of the times and places we’d shared. In the bustle of the airport, passengers dashing here and there, the world I shared with Sumire seemed shabby, helpless, uncertain. Neither of us knew anything that really mattered, nor did we have the ability to rectify that. There was nothing solid we could depend on. We were almost boundless zeros, just pitiful little beings swept from one kind of oblivion to another.

I woke in an unpleasant sweat, my shirt plastered to my chest. My body was listless, my legs swollen. I felt as if I’d swallowed an overcast sky. I must have looked pale. One of the lounge staff asked me, worriedly, if I was okay. “I’m all right,”

I replied, “the heat’s just getting to me.” Would you like something cold to drink? she asked. I thought for a moment and asked for a beer. She brought me a chilled facecloth, a Heineken, and a bag of salted peanuts. After wiping my sweaty face and drinking half the beer, I felt better. And I could sleep a little.

The flight left Narita just about on time, taking the polar route to Amsterdam. I wanted to sleep some more, so I had a couple of whiskys and when I woke up, had a little dinner. I didn’t have much of an appetite and skipped breakfast. I wanted to keep my mind a blank, so when I was awake I concentrated on reading Conrad.

In Amsterdam I changed planes, arrived in Athens, went to the domestic flight terminal, and, with barely a moment to spare, boarded the 727 bound for Rhodes. The plane was packed with an animated bunch of young people from every imaginable country. They were all tanned, dressed in T-shirts or tank tops and cut-off jeans. Most of the young men were growing beards (or maybe had forgotten to shave) and had dishevelled hair pulled back in ponytails. Dressed in beige slacks, a white short-sleeve polo shirt and dark-blue cotton jacket, I looked out of place. I’d even forgotten to bring any sunglasses. But who could blame me? Not too many hours before I had been in my apartment in Kunitachi, worrying about what I should do with my rubbish.

At Rhodes airport I asked at the information desk where I could catch the ferry to the island. It was at a harbour nearby. If I hurried, I might be able to make the evening ferry. “Isn’t it sold out sometimes?” I asked, just to be sure. The pointy-nosed woman of indeterminate age at the information counter frowned and waved her hand dismissively. “They can always make room for one more,” she replied. “It’s not an elevator.”

I hailed a taxi and headed to the harbour. “I’m in a hurry,” I told the driver, but he didn’t seem to catch my meaning. The cab didn’t have any air-conditioning, and a hot, dusty wind blew in the open window. All the while the taxi driver, in rough, sweaty English, ran on and on with some gloomy diatribe about the Euro. I made polite noises to show I was following, but I wasn’t really listening. Instead, I squinted at the bright Rhodes scenery passing by outside. The sky was cloudless, not a hint of rain. The sun baked the stone walls of the houses. A layer of dust covered the gnarled trees beside the road, and people sat in the shade of the trees or under open tents and gazed, almost silently, at the world. I began to wonder if I was in the right place. The gaudy signs in Greek letters, however, advertising cigarettes and ouzo and overflowing the road from the airport into town, told me that—sure enough—this was Greece.

The evening ferry was still in the port. It was bigger than I’d imagined. In the stern was a space for transporting cars, and two medium-sized lorries full of food and sundries and an old Peugeot sedan were already aboard, waiting for the ship to pull out of the port. I bought a ticket and got on, and I’d barely taken a seat on a deckchair when the line to the dock was untied and the engines roared into life. I sighed and looked up at the sky. All I could do now was wait for the ship to take me where I was going.

I removed my sweaty, dusty cotton jacket, folded it and stuffed it in my bag. It was 5 p.m., but the sun was still in the middle of the sky, the sunlight overpowering. The breeze blowing from the bow under the canvas awning wafted over me, and ever so slowly I began to feel calmer. The gloomy emotions that had swept through me in the lounge at Narita airport had disappeared. Though there was still a bitter aftertaste.

There were only a few tourists on board, so I guessed that the island I was heading for was not such a popular holiday spot. The vast majority of passengers were locals, mainly old people who’d taken care of business on Rhodes and were heading home. Their purchases lay carefully at their feet, like fragile animals. The old people’s faces were all deeply etched with wrinkles and deadpan, as if the overpowering sun and a lifetime of hard work had robbed them of all expression. There were also a few young soldiers on board. And two hippie travellers, heavy-looking backpacks in hand, sitting on the deck. Both with skinny legs and grim faces.