Haruki Murakami - A Wild Sheep Chase

True to the photographer’s warning, the girl was nothing special. Plain clothes, plain looks. She seemed like a member of the chorus of a second-rate women’s college. But that was beside the point as far as I was concerned. What disappointed me was that she hid her ears under a straight fall of hair.

“You’re hiding your ears,” said I, nonchalantly.

“Yes,” said she, nonchalantly.

We had arrived ahead of schedule and were the first dinner customers at the restaurant. The lights were dimmed, a waiter came around with a long match to light the red taper on our table, and the maître d’hôtel cast fishy eyes over the napkins and dinnerware to be sure all was in place. The herringbone lay of the oak floorboards gleamed to a high polish, and the waiter walked about with a click of his heels. His shoes looked loads more expensive than mine. Fresh bud roses in vases, and modern oils, originals, on white walls.

I glanced over the wine list and chose a crisp white wine, and for hors d’oeuvres pâté de canard, terrine de dorade , and foie de baudroie à crème fraîche . After an intensive study of the menu she ordered potage tortue, salade verte , and mousse de sole , while I ordered potage d’oursin, rôti de veau avec garnie persil , and a salade de tomate . There went half a month’s salary.

“What a lovely place,” she said. “Do you come here often?”

“Only occasionally on business,” I answered. “The truth of the matter is, I don’t usually go to restaurants when I’m alone. Mostly I go to bars where I eat and drink whatever they’ve got. Easier that way. No unnecessary decisions.”

“And what do you usually eat at a bar?”

“All sorts of things. Omelettes and sandwiches often enough.”

“Omelettes and sandwiches,” she repeated. “You eat omelettes and sandwiches every day at bars?”

“Not every day. I cook for myself every three days or so.”

“So you eat omelettes and sandwiches two days out of three.”

“I guess so,” I said.

“Why omelettes and sandwiches?”

“A halfway decent bar can make a pretty good omelette and sandwich.”

“Hmm,” she said. “Pretty strange.”

“Not at all.”

I couldn’t figure how to get out of that, so I sat there quietly admiring the ashes in the ashtray.

She turned on the juice. “Let’s talk business.”

“As I told you yesterday, the job is finished. No problems. So I have nothing to say.”

She fished a slender clove cigarette out of her handbag, lit up with the restaurant matches, and gave me a look that said “So?”

I was about to speak when the maître d’hôtel advanced on our table. He showed me the wine label, all smiles as if showing me a photo of his only son. I nodded. He unscrewed the cork with a pleasant pop, then poured out a small mouthful in my glass. It tasted like the price of the entire dinner.

The maître d’hôtel withdrew and in his place appeared a waiter who set out the three hors d’oeuvres and a small plate before each of us. When the waiter departed, leaving us alone again, I blurted out, “I had to see your ears.”

Speaking not a word, she proceeded to help herself to the pâté and foie de baudroie . She took a sip of wine.

“Sorry to have imposed,” I hedged.

She smiled ever so slightly. “Fine French cuisine is no imposition at all.”

“Does it bother you to have your ears discussed?”

“Not really. It depends on the angle of discussion.” She shook her head as she lifted her fork to her mouth. “Tell me straight, because that’s my favorite angle.”

We silently sipped our wine and continued our meal.

“I turn a corner,” I offered, “just as someone ahead of me turns the next corner. I can’t see what that person looks like. All I can make out is a flash of white coattails. But the whiteness of the coattails is indelibly etched in my consciousness. Ever get that feeling?”

“I suppose so.”

“Well, that’s the feeling I get from your ears.”

Again, we ate in silence. I poured wine for her, then for myself.

“It’s not the scene that comes into your head,” she asked, “but the feeling, right?”

“Right.”

“Ever have that feeling before?”

I gave it some thought, then shook my head. “No, I guess not.”

“Which means it’s all on account of my ears.”

“I couldn’t swear to it. There’s no way I could be that sure. I’ve never heard of the shape of someone’s ears arousing anyone this way.”

“I know someone who sneezed every time he saw Farrah Fawcett’s nose. There’s a big psychological element to sneezing, you know. Once cause and effect link up, there’s no escape.”

“I’m no expert on Farrah Fawcett’s nose,” I said, taking a sip of wine. Then I forgot what I was about to say.

“That’s not quite what you meant, is it?” she said.

“No, not quite,” I said. “The feeling I get is terribly unfocused, yet very solid.” I demonstrated, holding my hands a yard apart, then compressing the span to two inches. “I’m not explaining this well, I’m afraid.”

“A concentrated phenomenon based on vague motives.”

“Exactly,” I said. “You’re seven times smarter than I am.”

“I take correspondence courses.”

“Correspondence courses?”

“That’s right, psychology by mail.”

We split the last of the pâté . Now I was completely lost.

“You still haven’t gotten it? The relationship between my ears and your feelings?”

“In a word, no,” said I. “That is, I have no firm grasp on whether your ears appeal to me directly, or whether something else in you appeals to me through your ears.”

She placed both her hands on the table and shook her head gently. “Is this feeling of yours of the good variety or the bad variety?”

“Neither. Or both. I can’t tell.”

She pinioned her wineglass between her palms and looked me straight in the face. “It seems you need more study in the means of expressing emotions.”

“Can’t say I’m too good at describing them either,” I said.

At that she smiled. “Never mind. I think I have a good idea of what you mean.”

“Well then, what should I do?”

She said nothing for the longest while. She seemed to be thinking of something else entirely. Five dishes lay empty on the table, a constellation of five extinct planets.

“Listen,” she ended the silence. “I think we ought to become friends. That is, of course, if it’s all right with you.”

“Of course it’s all right with me,” I said.

“And I mean very close friends,” she said.

I nodded.

So it was we became very close friends. Not thirty minutes after we’d first met.

“As a close friend, there’re a couple things I want to ask you,” I said.

“Go right ahead.”

“First of all, why is it you don’t show your ears? Second, have your ears ever exerted any special power over anyone besides me?”

Without a word, she trained her eyes on her hands resting on the table.

“Some, yes,” she said quietly.

“Some?”

“Sure. But to put it another way, I’m more accustomed to the self who doesn’t show her ears.”

“Which is to say that the you when you show your ears is different from the you when you don’t show your ears.”

“Right enough.”

Two waiters cleared away our dishes and brought the soup.

“Would you mind telling me about the you who shows her ears.”

“That’s so long ago I doubt I can tell it very well. The truth is, I haven’t shown my ears once since I was twelve.”

“But when you did that modeling job, you showed your ears, didn’t you?”