Haruki Murakami - Sputnik Sweetheart

“I think so.”

“Then come and get me.”

Suddenly the phone cuts off. Still clutching the receiver, I stare at it for a long time. Like the phone itself is some vital message, its very shape and colour containing hidden meaning. Reconsidering, I hang up. I sit up in bed and wait for the phone to ring again. I lean back against the wall, my focus fixed on a single point in the space before me, and I breathe slowly, soundlessly. Making sure of the joints bridging one moment of time and the next. The phone doesn’t ring. An unconditional silence hangs in the air. But I’m in no hurry. There’s no need to rush. I’m ready. I can go anywhere.

Right?

Right you are!

I get up out of bed. I pull back the old, faded curtain and open the window. I stick my head out and look up at the sky. Sure enough, a mouldy-coloured half-moon hangs in the sky. Good. We’re both looking at the same moon, in the same world. We’re connected to reality by the same line. All I have to do is quietly draw it towards me.

I spread my fingers apart and stare at the palms of both hands, looking for bloodstains. There aren’t any. No scent of blood, no stiffness. The blood must have already, in its own silent way, seeped inside.

Published by Vintage 2002

8 10 9 7

Copyright © Haruki Murakami 1999

English translation © Haruki Murakami 2001

Haruki Murakami has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

First published by Kodansha Ltd in 1999 with the title Sputoniku no koibito

First published in Great Britain in 2001 by The Harvill Press Vintage Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA

Random House Australia (Pty) Limited 20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, Sydney New South Wales 2061, Australia

Random House New Zealand Limited 18 Poland Road, Glenfield, Auckland 10, New Zealand

Random House (Pty) Limited Isle of Houghton, Corner of Boundary Road & Carse O’Gowrie, Houghton 2198, South Africa

The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

www.randomhouse.co.uk/vintage

The quote from Pushkin on page 62 is from Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse , translated by Babette Deutsch (Mineola, NY: Dover publications, 1999)

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9780099448471 (from Jan 2007)

ISBN 0099448475

Papers used by Random House are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin Printed and bound in Great Britain by Bookmarque Ltd, Croydon, Surrey

Scanner’s note: the book has been proofed and formatted as a Word doc to match UK paperback edition as closely as possible, including the use of similar fonts, headings, and paragraph spacing. Jan. 2010.