Haruki Murakami - Sputnik Sweetheart

“There we were, sitting quietly on the edge of the world, and no one could see us. That’s the way it felt—like Sumire and I were the only ones here. There was nothing else we had to think about. I didn’t want to move, didn’t want to go anywhere. I just wanted to stay this way for ever. I knew that was impossible—our life here was just a momentary illusion, and someday reality would yank us back to the world we came from. But until that time came I wanted to enjoy each day to the fullest, without worrying about anything. We loved our life here. Until four days ago.”

On their fourth morning there they went as usual to the beach, skinny-dipped, returned home, and left again for the harbour. The waiter at the cafe remembered them—the generous tips Miu always left didn’t hurt—and greeted them warmly. He made some polite comment about how beautiful they looked. Sumire went to the kiosk and bought a copy of the English newspaper published in Athens. That was their only link with the outside world. Sumire’s job was reading the paper. She’d check the exchange rate and translate and read aloud to Miu any major news item or interesting article she happened to come across.

The article Sumire picked to read aloud that particular day was a report of a 70-year-old lady who was eaten by her cats. It happened in a small suburb of Athens. The dead woman had lost her husband, a businessman, eleven years before and ever since had lived a quiet life in a two-room apartment with several cats as her only friends. One day the woman collapsed face down on her sofa from a heart attack and expired. It wasn’t known how much time had elapsed between her attack and her death. At any rate, the woman’s soul passed through all the set stages to bid farewell to its old companion, the body it had inhabited for 70 years. She didn’t have any relatives or friends who visited her regularly, and her body wasn’t discovered until a week later. The doors were shut, the windows shuttered, and the cats couldn’t get out after the death of their owner. There wasn’t any food in the apartment. There must have been something in the refrigerator, but cats don’t possess the necessary skill to open fridge doors. Starving, they devoured the flesh of their owner.

Taking an occasional sip from her coffee cup, Sumire translated the article in stages. Some bees buzzed around the table, licking the jam a previous patron had spilled. Miu gazed at the sea through her sunglasses, listening intently to Sumire.

“And then what happened?” Miu asked.

“That’s it,” said Sumire, folding the tabloid in half and laying it on the table. “That’s all the newspaper says.”

“What could have happened to the cats?”

“I don’t know…” Sumire said, pursing her lips to one side and giving it some thought. “Newspapers are all the same. They never tell you what you really want to know.”

The bees, as if sensing something, flew up in the air and with a ceremonious buzz circled for a while, then settled again on the table. They returned to their jam licking.

“And what was the fate of the cats, one wonders,” Sumire said, tugging at the collar of her oversize T-shirt and smoothing out the wrinkles. She had on a T-shirt and shorts and—Miu happened to know—no underwear underneath. “Cats that develop a taste for human flesh might turn into man-eating cats, so maybe they destroyed them. Or maybe the police said, ‘Hey, you guys have suffered enough,’ and they were acquitted.”

“If you were the mayor or chief of police in that town, what would you do?”

Sumire thought about it. “How about placing them in an institution and reforming them? Turn them into vegetarians.”

“Not a bad idea.” Miu laughed. She took off her sunglasses and turned to face Sumire. “That story reminds me of the first lecture I heard when I entered a Catholic junior high school. Did I ever tell you I went to a very strict Catholic girls’ school for six years? I attended an ordinary elementary school, but I went into that school in junior high. Right after the entrance ceremony a decrepit old nun took all of us new students into the auditorium and gave a talk on Catholic ethics. She was a French nun, but her Japanese was fluent. She talked about all kinds of things, but what I recall is the story of cats and the deserted island.”

“That’s sounds interesting,” Sumire said.

“You’re shipwrecked, washed up on a deserted island. Only you and a cat made it to the lifeboat. You drift for a while and end up on this island, just a rocky island with nothing you can eat. No water, either. In your lifeboat you have ten days’ worth of biscuits and water for one person, and that’s it. That’s how the story went.

“The nun looked all around the auditorium and she said this in a strong, clear voice. ‘Close your eyes and imagine this scene. You’re washed up on a deserted island with a cat. This is a solitary island in the middle of nowhere. It’s almost impossible that someone would rescue you within ten days. When your food and water run out, you may very well die. Well, what would you do? Since the cat is suffering as you are, should you divide your meagre food with it?’ The sister was silent again and looked at all our faces. ‘No. That would be a mistake,’ she continued. ‘I want you to understand that dividing your food with the cat would be wrong. The reason being that you are precious beings, chosen by God, and the cat is not. That’s why you should eat all the food yourself.’ The nun had this terribly serious look on her face.

“At first I thought it was some kind of joke. I was waiting for the punchline. But there wasn’t one. She turned her talk to the subject of human dignity and worth, and it all went over my head. I mean, really, what was the point of telling that kind of story to kids who’d just entered the school? I couldn’t figure it out—and I still can’t.”

Sumire thought it over. “Do you mean whether it would be okay in the end, to eat the cat?”

“Well, I don’t know. She didn’t take it that far.”

“Are you a Catholic?”

Miu shook her head. “That school just happened to be near my house, so I went. I liked their uniforms, too. I was the only non-Japanese citizen in the school.”

“Did you have any bad experiences?”

“Because I was Korean?”

“Yes.”

Again Miu shook her head. “The school was quite liberal. The rules were pretty strict, and some of the sisters were eccentrics, but the atmosphere was generally progressive, and no, I never experienced any prejudice. I made some good friends, and overall I’d say I enjoyed school. I’ve had a few unpleasant experiences, but that was after I went out into the real world. But that’s nothing unusual—it happens to most people.”

“I heard they eat cats in Korea. Is it true?”

“I’ve heard the same thing. But nobody I know does.”

It had been the hottest time of day, and the early afternoon town square was nearly deserted. Almost everyone in town was shut up in a cool house, taking a nap. Only curious foreigners ventured out at that time of day.

There was a statue of a hero in the square. He’d led a rebellion in mainland Greece and fought the Turks who controlled the island, but was captured and put to death by skewering. The Turks set up a sharpened stake in the square and lowered the pitiful hero onto it, naked. Ever so slowly, the stake went through his anus, and finally all the way to his mouth, taking him hours to die. The statue was supposedly erected on the spot where this happened. When it was erected, the valiant bronze statue must have been quite a sight, but over the intervening years, what with the sea wind, dust, and seagull droppings, you could barely make out the man’s features. Island folk hardly gave the shabby statue a passing glance, and the statue itself looked like it had turned its back on the world.