Haruki Murakami - A Wild Sheep Chase

Attention: Rat

Get in touch. Urgent!

Dolphin Hotel, Room 406

I put the clipping back in the book and sank into the sofa.

So the Rat knew I was looking for him. Question: how had he found the item? By accident, when he’d come down off the mountain? Or maybe he’d been searching for something through several weeks’ worth of papers?

And why didn’t he contact me? Had I already checked out of the Dolphin Hotel by the time he came across it? Had his telephone line already gone dead?

No. The Rat could have gotten in touch if he wanted to, he just didn’t want to. Because I was at the Dolphin Hotel, he figured I’d find my way up here, so that if he wanted to see me, he had only to wait, or at least leave me a note.

What it boiled down to was this: for some reason the Rat didn’t want to face me. Even so, he wasn’t rejecting me. If he didn’t want me here, he could have shut me out any number of ways. It was his house, after all.

Grappling with these two propositions, I watched the second hand sweep slowly around the face of the clock. After one full circumgyration, my reasoning had made no progress. I couldn’t figure out what lay at the center of all this.

The Sheep Man knew something. That much was certain. Someone who had monitored my arrival on the scene was sure to know about the Rat’s living here for six months.

The more I thought about it, the more difficult I found it to escape the feeling that the Sheep Man’s actions reflected the Rat’s will. The Sheep Man had driven my girlfriend from the mountain and left me here alone. His showing up here was undoubtedly a harbinger of something. Something was progressing all around me. The area was being swept clean and purified. Something was about to happen.

I turned out the lights and went upstairs, climbed into bed, and looked out at the moon and pasture. Stars peeked through a tear in the clouds. I opened the window and smelled the night air. Among the rustling leaves I could hear a call in the distance. A strange cry, neither bird nor beast.

I woke and went for my run in the pasture, showered, and ate breakfast. A morning like the others. The sky was overcast like the day before, but the temperature had risen a bit. Not much chance of snow.

Into jeans and a sweater and a jacket over that, then tennis shoes, and I was off across the pasture. Heading for the woods to the east where I’d seen the Sheep Man disappear, I made my way into the thicket. There was no real path to speak of, no sign of human life. Occasionally, there’d be an old birch toppled over.

The forest floor was flat, except for a long, yard-wide trough, like a dried-up streambed or an abandoned trench. The trough wound its way through the woods for miles. Sometimes sunken deep, sometimes shallow, ankle-deep in dead leaves.

The ditch gave on to a ridge trail, both sides of which sloped down to dry hollows. Plump birds shuffled across the path through the leaves, losing themselves in the undergrowth. Here and there, brush azaleas blazed bright red.

I walked around for an hour and lost all sense of direction. At this rate, I was hardly going to find the Sheep Man. I roamed the bottom of one dry hollow until I heard the sound of water. I sought out the river, then followed it downstream. If my memory served me correctly, there had to be a waterfall and near it, the road we’d walked up.

After another ten minutes, I came across the waterfall. Splashing as it struck the rocks in the gorge below, lapping into frozen pools. There was no sign of fish, though a few fallen leaves traced slow circles on the surface of the pools. I crossed from rock to rock, made my way down below the falls, then crawled up the slippery opposite bank. I had reached the road.

Seated on the edge of a bridge, watching me, was the Sheep Man. A big sailcloth bag of firewood was slung over his shoulder.

“Wanderaroundtoomuchyou’llbebearbait,” said the Sheep Man. “There’sboundtobeoneaboutinthesepartsyouknow.

Yesterdayafter noonIfoundtraces.

Ifyouhavetowalkaroundyououghttoputabellon yourhiplikeus.”

The Sheep Man shook a little bell fastened to his hip with a safety pin.

“I’ve been looking for you,” I said after catching my breath.

“Iknow,” said the Sheep Man. “I’veseenyousearching.”

“Well then, why didn’t you call out?”

“You’retheonewhowantedtosearchmeout. So I held back.”

The Sheep Man took a cigarette out of his pocket and smoked it with great pleasure. I sat down next to him.

“You live around here?”

“Hmm,” said the Sheep Man. “Butdon’ttellanybody.Nobody knows.”

“But my friend knows all about you.”

Silence.

“You know, it’s a very important matter.”

Silence.

“And if you’re friends with my friend, that makes us friends, no?”

“Iguessso,” said the Sheep Man cautiously. “Iguessitprobably does.”

“And if you’re my friend, you wouldn’t lie to me, would you? Think about it.”

“Errno,” answered one perplexed Sheep Man. He licked his parched lips. “Ican’ttellyouI’mrealsorryIcan’ttellyouIcan’t.I’mnot supposedto.”

“Someone’s put it to you to keep quiet?”

The Sheep Man clammed up. The wind whistled through the barren trees.

“Nobody’s around to hear,” I whispered.

The Sheep Man looked me in the eye. “Youdon’tknowathing aboutourwaysheredoyou?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Welllistenthisisnoordinaryplacewegothere.

Thatmuchyoushould keepinmind.”

“But just the other day you told me this was such nice country.”

“Forusyes,” said the Sheep Man. “Forusthisistheonlyplacetolive. Ifwewerechasedoutofherewe’dhavenoplacetogo.”

At that, the Sheep Man shut up. He would not say another word on the subject. I looked at his sailcloth bag filled with firewood.

“That your heating for the winter?”

The Sheep Man nodded silently.

“But I didn’t see any smoke.”

“Nofireyet.Nottillthesnowsetsin.Butevenafteritsnows

youwouldn’t beabletoseethesmokefromourfire.

Wegotaspecialwayofbuildingfires.” He grinned, self-satisfied.

“So when will the snow begin to pile up around here?”

The Sheep Man looked up at the sky, then looked at me. “The snow’llcomeearlythisyear.Maybeanothertendays.”

“In another ten days the road will freeze over?”

“Probably.Nobodycomingupandnobodygoingdown.

Wonderful timeofyear.”

“And you’ve been living here how long?”

“Longtime,” said the Sheep Man. “Reallongtime.”

“What do you eat?”

“Tubersshootsnutsbirdswhateverlittlefishandcrabs

Icancatch.”

“Don’t you get cold?”

“Winter’ssupposedtobecold.”

“If you need something, I’d be glad to share whatever I’ve got.”

“ThanksbutI’mfinejustnow.”

The Sheep Man suddenly stood up and started walking off in the direction of the pasture. So I got up to follow him.

“Why’d you take to hiding out up here?”

“You’dlaughifItoldyou,” said the Sheep Man.

“No, I wouldn’t laugh, I swear,” I said. I couldn’t imagine what there’d be to laugh about.

“Youwon’ttellanyone?”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

“Ididn’twanttogoofftowar.”

For the next few minutes, we walked on without a word between us.

“War with whom?” I asked.

“Dunno,” coughed out the Sheep Man. “ButIdidn’twanttogo. Anywaythat’swhyI’masheep.

Asheepwhostayswherehebelongsup here.”

“You from Junitaki-cho?”

“Uhhuhbutdon’ttellanyone.”

“I won’t,” I said. “You don’t like the town?”