Haruki Murakami - A Wild Sheep Chase

“Probablycaughtcold.Winterinthesepartscangettoyou

ifyou’re notusedtoit.Air’sdamptoo.Youshouldgettobedearlytoday.”

“Nope,” I said. “Today I’m not going to sleep. I’m going to wait up for my friend here.”

“Youknowhe’scomingtoday?”

“I know,” I said. “He’ll be here tonight at ten o’clock.”

The Sheep Man looked up at me. The eyes peering through his mask had literally no expression.

“Tonight I’ll pack, tomorrow I’ll be gone. If you see him, tell him that. I don’t think it’ll be necessary, though.”

The Sheep Man nodded comprehendingly. “Surewillbelonely whenyougo.Can’tbehelpedthoughIguess.

BythewaycanIhavethat cheesesandwich?”

“Sure.”

The Sheep Man wrapped the sandwich in a paper napkin, slipped it into his pocket, then put on his gloves.

“Hopewemeetagain,” said the Sheep Man as he was leaving.

“We will,” I said.

The Sheep Man left across the pasture to the east. Eventually, the veil of snow took him in. Afterward all was silent.

I poured an inch of brandy into the Sheep Man’s snifter and downed it in one swallow. My throat burned, and gradually my stomach burned, but after thirty seconds my body stopped trembling. Only the ticking of the grandfather clock pounding inside my head.

Probably I did need to get some sleep.

I fetched a blanket from upstairs and slept on the sofa. I felt totally exhausted, like a child who’d been wandering around in the woods for three days. I closed my eyes and the next instant I was asleep.

I had a terrifying dream. A dream too terrifying to recall.

Darkness crept in through my ear like oil. Someone was trying to break up the frozen globe of the earth with a massive hammer. The hammer struck the earth precisely eight times. But the earth failed to break up. It only cracked a little.

Eight o’clock, eight at night.

I woke with a shake of the head. My body was numb, my head ached. Had someone put me in a cocktail shaker with cracked ice and like a madman shaken me up?

There’s nothing worse than waking up in total darkness. It’s like having to go back and live life all over from the beginning. When I first opened my eyes, it was as if I were living someone else’s life. After an extremely long time, this began to match up with my own life. A curious overlap this, my own life as someone else’s. It was improbable that such a person as myself could even be living.

I went to the kitchen sink and splashed water on my face, then drank down a couple of glasses quickly. The water was as cold as ice, but still my face was burning hot. I sat back down on the sofa amid the darkness and silence and began gradually to gather up the pieces of my life. I couldn’t manage to grasp too much, but at least it was my life. Slowly I returned to myself. It’s hard to explain what it is to get there, and it’d undoubtedly try your interest.

I had the feeling that someone was watching me, but I didn’t pay it any mind. It’s a feeling you get when you’re all alone in a big room.

I thought about cells. Like my ex-wife had said, ultimately every last cell of you is lost. Lost even to yourself. I pressed the palm of my hand against my cheek. The face my hand felt in the dark wasn’t my own, I didn’t think. It was the face of another that had taken the shape of my face. But I couldn’t remember the details. Everything—names, sensations, places—dissolved and was swallowed into the darkness.

In the dark the clock struck eight-thirty. The snow had stopped, but thick clouds still covered the sky. No light anywhere. For a long time, I lay buried in the sofa, fingers in my mouth. I couldn’t see my hand. The heater was off, so the room was cold. Curled up under the blanket, I stared blankly out. I was crouching in the bottom of a deep well.

Time. Particles of darkness configured mysterious patterns on my retina. Patterns that degenerated without a sound, only to be replaced by new patterns. Darkness but darkness alone was shifting, like mercury in motionless space.

I put a stop to my thoughts and let time pass. Let time carry me along. Carry me to where a new darkness was configuring yet newer patterns.

The clock struck nine. As the ninth chime faded away, silence slipped in to fill its place.

“May I say my piece?” said the Rat.

“Fine by me,” said I.

“Fine by me,” said I.

“I came an hour earlier than the appointed time,” said the Rat apologetically.

“That’s okay. As you can see, I wasn’t doing anything.”

The Rat laughed quietly. He was behind me. Almost as if we were back-to-back.

“Seems like the old days,” said the Rat.

“I guess we can never get down to a good honest talk unless we’ve got time on our hands,” I said.

“It sure seems that way.” The Rat smiled.

Even in absolute lacquer-black darkness, seated back-to-back, I could tell he was smiling. You can tell a lot just by the tiniest change in the air. We used to be friends. So long ago, though I could hardly remember when.

“Didn’t someone once say, ‘A friend to kill time is a friend sublime’?”

“That was you who said that, no?”

“Sixth sense, sharp as ever. Right you are.”

I sighed. “But this time around, with all this happening, my sixth sense has been way off. So far off it’s embarrassing. And despite the number of hints you all have been giving me.”

“Can’t be helped. You did better than most.”

We fell silent. The Rat seemed to be looking at his hand.

“I really made you go through a lot, didn’t I?” said the Rat. “I was a real pain. But it was the only way. There wasn’t another soul I could depend on. Like I wrote in those letters.”

“That’s what I want to ask you about. Because I can’t accept everything just like that.”

“Of course not,” said the Rat, “not without my setting the record straight. But before that, let’s have a beer.”

The Rat stopped me before I could stand up.

“I’ll get it,” said the Rat. “This is my house, after all.”

I heard the Rat walk his regular path to the kitchen in total darkness and take an armful of beer out of the refrigerator, me opening and closing my eyes the whole while. The darkness of the room was only a bit different in hue from the darkness of my eyes shut.

The Rat returned with his beer, which he set on the table. I felt around for a can, removed the pull ring, and drank half.

“It hardly seems like beer if you can’t see it,” I said.

“You have to forgive me, but it has to be dark.”

We said nothing while we drank.

“Well then,” said the Rat, clearing his throat. I set my empty back on the table and kept still, wrapped in my blanket. I waited for him to start talking, but no words followed. All I could hear was the Rat shaking his can to check how much was left. Old habit of his.

“Well then,” said the Rat a second time. Then downing the last of his beer in one chug, he set the can back on the table with a dry clank. “First of all, let’s begin with why I came here. Is that all right?”

I didn’t answer. The Rat continued to speak.

“My father bought this place when I was five. Just why he went out of his way to buy property up here I don’t know. Probably he got a good deal through some American military route. As you can see, the place is terribly inconvenient to get to and, aside from summer, the road is useless once the snow sets in. The Occupation Forces had planned on improving the road and using the place for a radar station or something, but the time and expense involved apparently changed their mind. And with the town being so poor, they can’t afford to do anything about the road. It wouldn’t help them to upgrade the road either. Which all makes this property a losing proposition, long since forgotten.”