Haruki Murakami - Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

She laughed and shook her head. “Modesty is a wonderful virtue, but it doesn’t suit me. It’s true, I didn’t stand out at all. I don’t think I meshed well with the whole education system. I never was a teacher’s pet, or had any underclassmen who thought I was cool. There was no sign of any boyfriends, and I had a bad case of acne. I owned every Wham! CD imaginable, and always wore the boring white underwear my mother bought for me. But I did have a few good friends. Two of them. We were never as close a group as you five, but we were good friends and could tell each other anything. They helped me get through those dull teenage years.”

“Do you still see them?”

She nodded. “Yes, we’re still good friends. They’re both married, with children, so we can’t meet that often, but we do get together for dinner every once in a while, and talk nonstop for three hours. We tell each other everything.”

The waiter brought over the lemon soufflé and espresso. Sara dug right in. Lemon soufflé seemed to have been the right choice after all. Tsukuru looked back and forth between Sara, as she ate, and the steam that rose from her espresso.

“Do you have any friends now?” Sara asked.

“No, nobody I would call a friend.”

Only the four people back in his Nagoya days were what he could have called friends. After that, although for just a short time, Haida was something close to it. But there was nobody else.

“Aren’t you lonely without friends?”

“I don’t know,” Tsukuru said. “Even if I had some, I don’t think I’d be able to open up and share secrets.”

Sara laughed. “Women find that necessary. Though sharing secrets is only one function of a friend.”

“Of course.”

“Would you like a bite of this soufflé? It’s delicious.”

“No, you go ahead and finish it.”

Sara carefully ate the last bite of the soufflé, then put her fork down, dabbed at her mouth with her napkin, and seemed lost in thought. Finally she raised her head and looked across the table, straight at Tsukuru.

“After this, can we go to your place?”

“Of course,” Tsukuru said. He motioned to the waiter to bring the check.

“The handball team?” Tsukuru asked.

“Don’t ask,” Sara said.

Back at his apartment, they held each other. Tsukuru was overjoyed to make love to her again, that she’d given him the chance to do so. On the sofa they caressed each other, then got into bed. Under her mint-green dress she had on tiny black lace underwear.

“Did your mom buy these for you too?” Tsukuru asked.

“You dummy,” Sara laughed. “I bought them myself. Like you need to ask.”

“I don’t see any more acne, either.”

“What did you expect?”

She reached out and gently took his hard penis in her hand.

But a little later, as he was entering her, his penis went limp. It was the first time in his life that this had happened to him, and it left him baffled and mystified. Everything around him became strangely quiet. Total silence in his ears, only the sound of his heart beating.

“Don’t let it bother you,” Sara said, stroking his back. “Just keep holding me. That’s enough. Don’t worry about anything.”

“I don’t get it,” Tsukuru said. “All I’ve been thinking about these days is making love to you.”

“Maybe you were looking forward to it too much. Though I am happy you were thinking about me like that.”

They lay in bed, naked, leisurely stroking each other, but Tsukuru still wasn’t able to get a decent erection. Finally, it was time for her to go home. They silently dressed, and Tsukuru walked her to the station. As they went, he apologized that things hadn’t worked out.

“It doesn’t matter at all, really. So there’s nothing to worry about,” Sara told him, tenderly. And she took hold of his hand. Her hand was small, and warm.

Tsukuru felt he should say something, but nothing came out. He just continued to feel her hand in his.

“I think there’s something still bothering you,” Sara said. “Going back to Nagoya and seeing your old friends for the first time in years, talking with them, learning all kinds of things at once—it must have shaken you up. More than you realize.”

He did feel confused, that much was true. A door that had been shut for so long had swung open, and a reality he had turned his eyes away from until now—a reality he never could have anticipated—had come rushing back inside. And these facts were still jumbled in his mind, unable to settle.

“There’s still something stuck inside you,” Sara said. “Something you can’t accept. And the natural flow of emotions you should have is obstructed. I just get that feeling about you.”

Tsukuru thought about what she had said. “Not all the questions I had were cleared up by this trip to Nagoya. Is that what you mean?”

“Yes. It seems like it. I’m just saying,” Sara said. Her expression turned serious, and then she added, “Now that certain things have become clear to you, it may have had the opposite effect—making the missing pieces even more significant.”

Tsukuru sighed. “I wonder if I’ve pried opened a lid that I never should have touched.”

“ Temporarily you might have,” she said. “There may be some pushback for a while. But at least you’ve moved closer to solving it. That’s what’s important. Keep going a little further, and I’m sure you’ll discover the right pieces that fill in the gaps.”

“But it might take a long time.”

Sara held on tightly to his hand, her grip surprisingly strong.

“There’s no need to hurry. Just take your time. What I want to know most of all is whether or not you’re hoping for a long-term relationship with me.”

“Of course I am. I want to be with you for a long time.”

“Really?”

“It’s true,” Tsukuru said firmly.

“Then I have no problem. We still have time, and I’ll wait. In the meantime, there are a couple of things I need to take care of.”

“Take care of?”

Sara didn’t respond, instead flashing him a cryptic smile.

“As soon as you can, I want you to go to Finland to see Kuro,” she said. “And tell her exactly what’s in your heart. I’m sure she’ll tell you something important. Something very important. I have a hunch.”

As he walked back alone from the station to his apartment, Tsukuru was seized by random thoughts. He had a strange sensation, as if time had, at a certain point, forked off into two branches. He thought of Shiro, of Haida, and of Sara. The past and present, memory and emotions, ran together as equals, side by side.

Maybe there really is something about me as a person, something deep down , he thought, that is crooked and warped. Maybe Shiro was right, that I have something unhinged and detached inside of me . Like the far side of the moon, forever cloaked in darkness. Maybe without realizing it, in a different place and different temporality, he really had raped Shiro and ripped her heart to shreds. Crudely, brutally. And maybe that dark, hidden side will one day outstrip the outer side and completely consume it. Tsukuru nearly crossed the street against the light and a taxi slammed on his brakes, the driver yelling an obscenity.

Back in his apartment he changed into pajamas and got into bed just before midnight. And right then, as if finally remembering to do so, he had an erection. A heroic, perfect, rock-hard erection. So massively hard he could barely believe it. He sighed deeply in the darkness at the irony of it. He got out of bed, switched on the light, took a bottle of Cutty Sark down from the shelf, and poured some into a small glass. He opened a book. After 1 a.m. it suddenly began to rain and gusts of wind began to blow. It was almost a storm, with plump raindrops pelting sideways against the window.