Haruki Murakami - Sputnik Sweetheart

Her stepmother’s love for her never wavered during her long, difficult years of adolescence, and when Sumire declared she was going to quit college and write novels, her stepmother—though she had her own opinions on the matter—respected Sumire’s desire. She’d always been pleased that Sumire loved to read so much, and she encouraged her literary pursuits.

Her stepmother eventually won over her father, and they decided that, until Sumire turned 28, they would provide her with a small stipend. If she wasn’t able to make a living by writing then, she’d be on her own. If her stepmother hadn’t spoken up in her defence, Sumire might very well have been thrown out—penniless, without the necessary social skills—into the wilderness of a somewhat humourless reality. The Earth, after all, doesn’t creak and groan its way around the sun just so human beings can have a good time and a bit of a laugh.

Sumire met her Sputnik Sweetheart a little more than two years after she’d dropped out of college.

She was living in a one-room apartment in Kichijoji where she made do with the minimum amount of furniture and the maximum number of books. She’d get up at noon, and take a walk around Inogashira Park in the afternoon, with all the enthusiasm of a pilgrim making her way through sacred hills. On sunny days she’d sit on a park bench, chewing on bread, puffing one cigarette after another, reading. On rainy or cold days she’d go into an old-fashioned coffee house where classical music played at full volume, sink down into a wornout sofa, and read her books, a serious look on her face as she listened to Schubert’s symphonies, Bach’s cantatas. In the evening she’d have one beer and buy some ready-to-eat food at the supermarket for dinner.

By 11 p.m. she’d settle down at her desk. There’d always be a thermos of hot coffee, a coffee mug (one I gave her on her birthday, with a picture of Snafkin on it), a pack of Marlboro and a glass ashtray. Of course she had a word processor as well. Each key with its very own letter.

A deep silence ensued. Her mind was as clear as the winter night sky, the Big Dipper and North Star in place, twinkling brightly. She had so many things she had to write, so many stories to tell. If she could only find the right outlet, heated thoughts and ideas would gush out like lava, congealing into a steady stream of inventive works the likes of which the world had never seen. People’s eyes would pop wide open at the sudden debut of this Promising Young Writer with a Rare Talent. A photo of her, smiling coolly, would appear in the arts section of the newspaper, and editors would beat a path to her door. But it never happened that way. Sumire wrote some works that had a beginning. And some that had an end. But never one that had both a beginning and an end.

Not that she suffered from writer’s block—far from it. She wrote endlessly, everything that came into her head. The problem was that she wrote too much. You’d think that all she’d have to do was cut out the extra parts and she’d be fine, but things weren’t that easy. She could never decide on the big picture—what was necessary and what wasn’t. The following day when she re-read what she’d printed out, every line looked absolutely essential. Or else she’d Tippex out the whole thing. Sometimes, in despair, she’d rip up her entire manuscript and consign it to the bin. If this had been a winter night and the room had had a fireplace, there would have been a certain warmth to it—imagine a scene from La Bohème— but Sumire’s apartment not only lacked a fireplace, it didn’t even have a phone. Not to mention a decent mirror.

On weekends, Sumire would come over to my apartment, drafts of her novels spilling out of her arms—the lucky manuscripts that had escaped the massacre. Still, they made quite a pile. Sumire would show her manuscripts to only one person in the whole world. Me.

In college I’d been two years ahead of her, and our subjects were different, so there wasn’t much chance we’d meet. We met by pure chance. It was a Monday in May, the day after a string of holidays, and I was at the bus stop in front of the main gate of the college, standing there reading a Paul Nizan novel I’d found in a second-hand bookshop. A short girl beside me leaned over, took a look at the book, and asked me, Why Nizan, of all people? She sounded like she was trying to pick a fight. Like she wanted to kick something and send it flying, but lacking a suitable target had attacked my choice of reading matter.

Sumire and I were very alike. Devouring books came as naturally to us as breathing. Every spare moment we’d settle down in some quiet corner, endlessly turning page after page. Japanese novels, foreign novels, new works, classics, avantgarde to bestseller—as long as there was something intellectually stimulating in a book, we’d read it. We’d hang out in libraries, spend whole days browsing in Kanda, the second-hand bookshop Mecca in Tokyo. I’d never come across anyone else who read so avidly—so deeply, so widely, as Sumire, and I’m sure she felt the same.

I graduated around the time Sumire dropped out of college, and after that she’d hang out at my place two or three times a month. Occasionally I’d go over to her apartment, but you could barely squeeze two people in there, and most of the time she’d end up at mine. We’d talk about the novels we’d read and exchange books. I cooked a lot of dinners. I didn’t mind cooking, and Sumire was the kind of person who’d rather go hungry than cook herself. She’d bring me presents from her part-time jobs to thank me. Once she had a job in a warehouse in a drug company and brought me six dozen condoms. They’re probably still at the back of a drawer somewhere.

The novels—or fragments of novels, really—Sumire wrote weren’t as terrible as she thought. True, at times her style resembled a patchwork quilt sewn by a group of stubborn old ladies, each with her own tastes and complaints, working in grim silence. Add to this her sometimes manic-depressive personality, and things occasionally got out of control. As if this weren’t enough, Sumire was dead set on creating a massive nineteenth-century-style Total Novel, a kind of portmanteau packed with every possible phenomenon in order to capture the soul and human destiny.

Having said that, Sumire’s writing had a remarkable freshness about it, her attempt to honestly portray what was important to her. On the plus side she didn’t try to imitate anyone else’s style, and she didn’t attempt to distil everything into some precious, clever little pieces. That’s what I liked most about her writing. It wouldn’t have been right to pare down the direct power in her writing just so it could take on some pleasant, cosy form. There was no need to rush things. She still had plenty of time for detours. As the saying goes, “What’s nurtured slowly grows well.”

“My head is like some ridiculous barn packed full of stuff I want to write about,” she said. “Images, scenes, snatches of words… in my mind they’re all glowing, all alive. Write! they shout at me. A great new story is about to be born I can feel it. It’ll transport me to some brand-new place. Problem is, once I sit at my desk and put them all down on paper, I realize something vital is missing. It doesn’t crystallize—no crystals, just pebbles. And I’m not transported anywhere.”

With a frown, Sumire picked up her 250th stone and tossed it into the pond.

“Maybe I’m lacking something. Something you absolutely must have to be a novelist.”

A deep silence ensued. It seemed she was seeking my run-ofthe-mill opinion. After a while I started to speak. “A long time ago in China there were cities with high walls around them, with huge, magnificent gates. The gates weren’t just doors for letting people in or out, they had greater significance. People believed the city’s soul resided in the gates. Or at least that it should reside there. It’s like in Europe in the Middle Ages when people felt a city’s heart lay in its cathedral and central square. Which is why even today in China there are lots of wonderful gates still standing. Do you know how the Chinese built these gates?”