Haruki Murakami - Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

You can hide memories, but you can’t erase the history that produced them . Tsukuru recalled Sara’s words, and said them aloud.

Aka nodded several times. “Exactly. You can hide memories, but you can’t erase history. That’s precisely what I want to say.”

“Anyway, back then, the four of you cut me off. Totally, and mercilessly,” Tsukuru said.

“It’s true, we did. That’s a historical fact. I’m not trying to justify it, but at the time we had no other choice. Shiro’s story was so real. She wasn’t acting. She was really hurt. An actual wound, with real pain, and real blood. There was no room for us to doubt her at the time. But after we cut you off, and the more that time passed, the more confused we got about the whole thing.”

“How do you mean?”

Aka brought his hands together on his lap and thought for five seconds.

“In the beginning, it was small things. A few details that didn’t fit. Parts of her story that didn’t make sense. But it didn’t bother us much. They didn’t really matter at first. But these started to become more frequent, and we noticed them more and more. And then we thought, something’s not right here.”

Tsukuru was silent, waiting for him to continue.

“Shiro might have had some mental issues.” Aka fiddled with the gold lighter, carefully choosing his words. “Whether it was temporary, or more of a long-term condition, I don’t know. But something was definitely wrong with her then. She had a lot of musical talent. The kind of beautiful music she played blew us away, but unfortunately she demanded more from herself. She had enough talent to make her way through the limited world where she lived, but not enough to go out into the wider world. And no matter how much she practiced, she couldn’t reach the level she desired. You remember how serious and introverted she was. Once she entered the music conservatory, the pressure only mounted. And little by little, she started acting strangely.”

Tsukuru nodded but didn’t say anything.

“It’s not so unusual,” Aka said. “It’s a sad story, but in the art world it happens all the time. Talent is like a container. You can work as hard as you want, but the size will never change. It’ll only hold so much water and no more.”

“I’m sure that kind of thing does happen a lot,” Tsukuru said. “But saying that I drugged her in Tokyo and raped her—where did that come from? Granted, she might have had mental issues, but didn’t that story just come out of nowhere?”

Aka nodded. “Absolutely. It came out of nowhere. Which actually made us believe her at first. We couldn’t conceive of Shiro making up something like that.”

Tsukuru pictured an ancient city, buried in sand. And himself, seated on top of a dune, gazing down at the desiccated ruins.

“But why was the other person in that story me, of all people? Why did it have to be me?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” Aka said. “Maybe Shiro secretly liked you. So she was disappointed and angry with you for going off to Tokyo by yourself. Or maybe she was jealous of you. Maybe she wanted to break free of this town. Anyway, there’s no way now to understand what motivated her. Assuming there even was a motivation.”

Aka continued toying with the lighter.

“There’s one thing I want you to know,” he said. “You went to Tokyo, and the four of us stayed behind in Nagoya. I’m not trying to criticize you for that. But you had a new life in a new city. Back in Nagoya, the four of us had to draw closer together as a result. Do you know what I’m trying to say?”

“It was more realistic to cut off me, as the outsider, than to cut off Shiro. Right?”

Aka didn’t reply, but let out a long, shallow sigh. “Of the five of us maybe you were the toughest one, at least emotionally. Unexpectedly so, considering how placid you seemed. The four of us who stayed behind weren’t brave enough to venture out like you did. We were afraid of leaving the town we were brought up in, and saying goodbye to such close friends. We couldn’t leave that warm comfort zone. It’s like how hard it is to climb out of a warm bed on a cold winter morning. We came up with all kinds of plausible excuses at the time, but now I see how true this was.”

“But you don’t regret staying here, do you?”

“No, I don’t think so. There were lots of good, practical reasons for staying put, and I was able to use these to my advantage. Nagoya’s a place where local connections really pay off. Take the president of the consumer finance company who invested in me. Years ago, he read about our volunteer efforts in high school in the paper, and that’s why he trusted me. I didn’t want to profit personally from our volunteer program, but it worked out that way. And many of our clients are people my father taught at the university. There’s a tight social network like that in business circles in Nagoya, and a Nagoya University professor is like a respected brand name. But none of that would make any difference if I went to Tokyo. I’d be completely ignored. Don’t you agree?”

Tsukuru was silent.

“Those practical reasons played a part, too, I think, in why the four of us never left town. We chose to keep soaking in the warm bath. But now it’s only Ao and me who are still here. Shiro died, and Kuro got married and moved to Finland. And Ao and I are literally down the street from each other but never meet up. Why? Because even if we got together, we’d have nothing to talk about.”

“You could buy a Lexus. Then you’d have something to talk about.”

Aka winked. “I’m driving a Porsche Carrera 4. Targa top. Six-gear manual transmission. The way it feels when you shift gears is amazing. The feeling when you downshift is especially great. Have you ever driven one?”

Tsukuru shook his head.

“I love it, and would never buy anything else,” Aka said.

“But you could buy a Lexus as a company car. Write it off.”

“I have clients whose companies are affiliated with Nissan and Mitsubishi, so that’s not an option.”

A short silence followed.

“Did you go to Shiro’s funeral?” Tsukuru asked.

“Yeah, I did. I’m telling you, I’ve never seen such a sad funeral, before or after. It’s painful to think about, even now. Ao was there, too. Kuro couldn’t come. She was already in Finland, about to have a baby.”

“Why didn’t you let me know that Shiro had died?”

Aka didn’t say anything for a while, gazing vacantly at him, his eyes unfocused. “I really don’t know,” he finally said. “I was sure someone would tell you. Probably Ao would—”

“No, nobody ever told me. Until a week ago, I had no idea she’d died.”

Aka shook his head, and turned, as if averting his gaze, and gazed out the window. “I guess we did something terrible. I’m not trying to excuse our actions, but you have to understand how confused we were. We didn’t know what we were doing. We were positive you would hear about Shiro’s murder. And when you didn’t show up at the funeral, we figured you found it too hard to come.”

Tsukuru didn’t say anything for a moment, and then spoke. “I heard that at the time Shiro was murdered, she was living in Hamamatsu?”

“She was there for almost two years. She lived alone and taught piano to children. She worked for a Yamaha piano school. I don’t know the details of why she moved all the way to Hamamatsu, though. She should have been able to find work in Nagoya.”

“What kind of life did she lead?”

Aka took a cigarette out of the box, put it between his lips, and, after a short pause, lit it.

“About half a year before she was murdered, I had to go to Hamamatsu on business. I called her and invited her to dinner. By this time the four of us had really gone our separate ways and hardly ever saw each other. We’d get in touch every once in a while, but that was it. My work in Hamamatsu was over sooner than I expected, and I had some free time, so I wanted to see Shiro for the first time in a while. She was more collected and calm than I’d imagined. She seemed to be enjoying having left Nagoya behind and living in a new place. We had dinner together and reminisced. We went to a famous unagi eel restaurant in Hamamatsu, had a few beers, and really relaxed. It surprised me that she was able to drink. Still, there was a bit of tension in the air. What I mean is, we had to avoid a particular topic….”