Haruki Murakami - Sputnik Sweetheart

Miu took off her hat and laid her bag down on the kitchen worktop. “Would you like something to drink?” she asked. “Or would you like a shower first?”

“Think I’ll take a shower first,” I said.

I washed my hair and shaved. Blow-dried my hair and changed into a fresh T-shirt and shorts. Made me feel halfway back to normal. Below the mirror in the bathroom there were two toothbrushes, one blue, the other red. I wondered which was Sumire’s.

I went back into the living room and found Miu in an easy chair, brandy glass in hand. She invited me to join her, but what I really wanted was a cold beer. I got an Amstel beer from the fridge and poured it into a tall glass. Sunk deep in her chair, Miu was quiet for a long time. It didn’t look like she was trying to find the right words she wanted to say, rather that she was immersed in some personal memory, one without beginning and without end.

“How long have you been here?” I ventured.

“Today is the eighth day,” Miu said after thinking about it.

“And Sumire disappeared from here?”

“That’s right. Like I said before, just like smoke.”

“When did this happen?”

“At night, four days ago,” she said, looking around the room as if seeking a clue. “I don’t know where to begin.”

“Sumire told me in her letters about going to Paris from Milan,” I said. “Then about taking the train to Burgundy. You stayed at your friend’s large estate house in a Burgundy village.”

“Well, then, I’ll pick up the story from there,” she said.

“I’ve known the wine producers around that village for ages, and I know their wines like I know the layout of my own house. What kind of wine the grapes on a certain slope in a certain field will produce. How that year’s weather affects the flavour, which producers are working hardest, whose son is trying his best to help his father. How much in loans certain producers have taken out, who’s bought a new Citroen. Those kinds of things. Wine is like breeding thoroughbreds—you have to know the lineage and the latest information. You can’t do business based just on what tastes good and what doesn’t.”

Miu stopped for a moment to catch her breath. She seemed unable to decide whether to go on or not. She continued.

“There are a couple of places in Europe I buy from, but that village in Burgundy is my main supplier. So I try to spend a fair amount of time there at least once a year, to renew old friendships and gather the latest news. I always go alone, but this time we were visiting Italy first, and I decided to take Sumire with me. It’s more convenient sometimes to have another person with you on trips like this, and besides, I’d had her study Italian. In the end I decided I would rather go alone and planned to make up some excuse to have her go back home before I set out for France. I’ve been used to travelling alone ever since I was young, and no matter how close you are to them it’s not easy to be with someone else day after day.

“Sumire was surprisingly capable and took care of lots of details for me. Buying tickets, making hotel reservations, negotiating prices, keeping expense records, searching out good local restaurants. Those kinds of things. Her Italian was much improved, and I liked her healthy curiosity, which helped me experience things I never would have if I’d been alone. I was surprised at how easy it is to be with someone else. I felt that way, I think, because of something special that brought us together.”

“I remember very well the first time we met and we talked about Sputniks. She was talking about Beatnik writers, and I mistook the word and said ‘Sputnik’. We laughed about it, and that broke the ice. Do you know what ‘Sputnik’ means in Russian? ‘Travelling companion’. I looked it up in a dictionary not long ago. Kind of a strange coincidence if you think about it. I wonder why the Russians gave their satellite that strange name. It’s just a poor little lump of metal, spinning around the Earth.”

Miu was silent for just a moment, then continued.

“Anyway, I ended up taking Sumire with me to Burgundy. While I was seeing old acquaintances and taking care of business, Sumire, whose French was nonexistent, borrowed the car and drove around the area. In one town she happened to meet a wealthy old Spanish lady, and they chatted in Spanish and got to be friends. The lady introduced Sumire to an Englishman who was staying in their hotel. He was more than 50, a writer of some sort, very refined and handsome. I’m positive he was gay. He had a secretary with him who seemed to be his boyfriend.

“They invited us for dinner. They were very nice people, and as we talked we realized we had some mutual acquaintances, and I felt like I’d found some kindred spirits.

“The Englishman told us he had a small cottage on an island in Greece and would be happy if we used it. He always used the cottage for a month in the summer, but this summer he had some work that kept him from going. Houses are best occupied, otherwise the caretakers will get lazy, he told us. So if it isn’t any bother, please feel free to use it. This cottage, in other words.”

Miu gazed around the room.

“When I was in college I visited Greece. It was one of those whirlwind tours where you leap from port to port, but still I fell in love with the country. That’s why it was such an enticing offer to have a free house on a Greek island to use for as long as we wanted. Sumire jumped at the chance, too. I offered to pay a fair price to rent the cottage, but the Englishman refused, saying he wasn’t in the rental business. We batted some ideas around for a while, and ended up agreeing that I would send a case of red wine to his home in London to thank him.

“Life on the island was like a dream. For the first time in I don’t know how long I could enjoy a real holiday, without any schedule to worry about. Communications are a bit backward here—you know about the awful phone service—and there aren’t any faxes or the Internet. Getting back to Tokyo later than originally planned would cause a bit of a problem for other people, but once I got here it didn’t seem to matter any more.

“Sumire and I got up early every morning, packed a bag with towels, water, sunscreen, and walked to the beach on the other side of the mountains. The shore is so beautiful it takes your breath away. The sand is pure white, and there are hardly any waves. It’s a little out of the way, though, and very few people go there, particularly in the morning. Everyone, men and women, swims nude. We did, too. It feels fantastic to swim in the pure blue sea in the morning, as bare as the day you were born. You feel like you’re in another world.

“When we tired of swimming, Sumire and I would lie on the beach and get a tan. At first we were a little embarrassed to be nude in front of each other, but once we got used to it, it was no big deal. The energy of the place was working on us, I suppose. We’d spread sunscreen on each other’s backs, loll in the sun, reading, dozing, just chatting. It made me feel truly free.

“We’d walk back home over the mountains, take showers and have a simple meal, then set off down the stairs to town. We’d have tea in a harbour cafe, read the English paper, buy some food in a shop, go home, then spend our time as we pleased until evening—reading out on the veranda or listening to music. Sometimes Sumire was in her room, writing apparently. I could hear her opening up her PowerBook and clattering away on the keys. In the evening we’d go out to the harbour to watch the ferryboat come in. We’d have a cool drink and watch the people getting off the ship.