Haruki Murakami - after the quake

“Have you ever been to Hokkaido?” he asked.

“Never.”

“Would you like to go?”

“Why do you ask?”

Sasaki narrowed his eyes and cleared his throat. “To tell you the truth, I’ve got a small package I’d like to send to Kushiro, and I’m hoping you’ll take it there for me. You’d be doing me a big favor, and I’d be glad to pay for a round-trip ticket. I could cover your hotel in Kushiro, too.”

“A small package?”

“Like this,” Sasaki said, shaping a four-inch cube with his hands. “Nothing heavy.”

“Something to do with work?”

Sasaki shook his head. “Not at all,” he said. “Strictly personal. I just don’t want it to get knocked around, which is why I can’t mail it. I’d like you to deliver it by hand, if possible. I really ought to do it myself, but I haven’t got time to fly all the way to Hokkaido.”

“Is it something important?”

His closed lips curling slightly, Sasaki nodded. “It’s nothing fragile, and there are no ‘hazardous materials.’ There’s no need to worry about it. They’re not going to stop you when they X-ray it at the airport. I promise I’m not going to get you in trouble. And it weighs practically nothing. All I’m asking is that you take it along the way you’d take anything else. The only reason I’m not mailing it is I just don’t feel like mailing it.”

Hokkaido in February would be freezing cold, Komura knew, but cold or hot it was all the same to him.

“So who do I give the package to?”

“My sister. My younger sister. She lives up there.”

Komura decided to accept Sasaki’s offer. He hadn’t thought about how to spend his week off, and making plans now would have been too much trouble. Besides, he had no reason for not wanting to go to Hokkaido. Sasaki called the airline then and there, reserving a ticket to Kushiro. The flight would leave two days later, in the afternoon.

At work the next day, Sasaki handed Komura a box like the ones used for human ashes, only smaller, wrapped in manila paper. Judging from the feel, it was made of wood. As Sasaki had said, it weighed practically nothing. Broad strips of transparent tape went all around the package over the paper. Komura held it in his hands and studied it a few seconds. He gave it a little shake but he couldn’t feel or hear anything moving inside.

“My sister will pick you up at the airport. And she’ll be arranging a room for you,” Sasaki said. “All you have to do is stand outside the gate with the package in your hands where she can see it. Don’t worry, the airport’s not very big.”

Komura left home with the box in his suitcase, wrapped in a thick undershirt. The plane was far more crowded than he had expected. Why were all these people going from Tokyo to Kushiro in the middle of winter? he wondered.

The morning paper was full of earthquake reports. He read it from beginning to end on the plane. The number of dead was rising. Many areas were still without water or electricity, and countless people had lost their homes. Each article reported some new tragedy, but to Komura the details seemed oddly lacking in depth. All sounds reached him as far-off, monotonous echos. The only thing he could give any serious thought to was his wife as she retreated ever farther into the distance.

Mechanically he ran his eyes over the earthquake reports, stopped now and then to think about his wife, then went back to the paper. When he grew tired of this, he closed his eyes and napped. And when he woke, he thought about his wife again. Why had she followed the TV earthquake reports with such intensity, from morning to night, without eating or sleeping? What could she have seen in them?

Two young women wearing overcoats of similar design and color approached Komura at the airport. One was fair-skinned and maybe five feet six, with short hair. The area from her nose to her full upper lip was oddly extended in a way that made Komura think of shorthaired ungulates. Her companion was more like five feet one and would have been quite pretty if her nose hadn’t been so small. Her long hair fell straight to her shoulders. Her ears were exposed, and there were two moles on her right earlobe which were emphasized by the earrings she wore. Both women looked to be in their mid-twenties. They took Komura to a café in the airport.

“I’m Keiko Sasaki,” the taller woman said. “My brother told me how helpful you’ve been to him. This is my friend Shimao.”

“Nice to meet you,” Komura said.

“Hi,” Shimao said.

“My brother tells me your wife recently passed away,” Keiko Sasaki said with a respectful expression.

Komura waited a moment before answering, “No, she didn’t die.”

“I just talked to my brother the day before yesterday. I’m sure he said quite clearly that you’d lost your wife.”

“I did. She divorced me. But as far as I know she’s alive and well.”

“That’s odd. I couldn’t possibly have misheard something so important.” She gave him an injured look. Komura put a small amount of sugar in his coffee and gave it a gentle stir before taking a sip. The liquid was thin, with no taste to speak of, more sign than substance. What the hell am I doing here? he wondered.

“Well, I guess I did mishear it. I can’t imagine how else to explain the mistake,” Keiko Sasaki said, apparently satisfied now. She drew in a deep breath and chewed her lower lip. “Please forgive me. I was very rude.”

“Don’t worry about it. Either way, she’s gone.”

Shimao said nothing while Komura and Keiko spoke, but she smiled and kept her eyes on Komura. She seemed to like him. He could tell from her expression and her subtle body language. A brief silence fell over the three of them.

“Anyway, let me give you the important package I brought,” Komura said. He unzipped his suitcase and pulled the box out of the folds of the thick ski undershirt he had wrapped it in. The thought struck him then: I was supposed to be holding this when I got off the plane. That’s how they were going to recognize me. How did they know who I was?

Keiko Sasaki stretched her hands across the table, her expressionless eyes fixed on the package. After testing its weight, she did as Komura had done and gave it a few shakes by her ear. She flashed him a smile as if to signal that everything was fine, and slipped the box into her oversize shoulder bag.

“I have to make a call,” she said. “Do you mind if I excuse myself for a moment?”

“Not at all,” Komura said. “Feel free.”

Keiko slung the bag over her shoulder and walked off toward a distant phone booth. Komura studied the way she walked. The upper half of her body was still, while everything from the hips down made large, smooth, mechanical movements. He had the strange impression that he was witnessing some moment from the past, shoved with random suddenness into the present.

“Have you been to Hokkaido before?” Shimao asked.

Komura shook his head.

“Yeah, I know. It’s a long way to come.”

Komura nodded, then turned to survey his surroundings. “Funny,” he said, “sitting here like this, it doesn’t feel as if I’ve come all that far.”

“Because you flew. Those planes are too damn fast. Your mind can’t keep up with your body.”

“You may be right.”

“Did you want to make such a long trip?”

“I guess so,” Komura said.

“Because your wife left?”

He nodded.

“No matter how far you travel, you can never get away from yourself,” Shimao said.

Komura was staring at the sugar bowl on the table as she spoke, but then he raised his eyes to hers.

“It’s true,” he said. “No matter how far you travel, you can never get away from yourself. It’s like your shadow. It follows you everywhere.”