Haruki Murakami - Dance Dance Dance

I wasn't even sure if it was her own voice. My memories of her weren't very clear, nor were the movie theater speak­ers too sharp on audio fidelity. I could remember her body, though. The shape of her back, the feel of her neck, her silky breasts—yes, it was she all right. I sat there riveted to my seat, staring at the screen. The scene couldn't have lasted more than a couple of minutes. Kiki's in Gotanda's embrace, she flows to his caresses, she closes her eyes in a state of bliss, her lips tremble slightly. She lets out a little sigh. I can't tell whether she's acting or not—but let's suppose it's acting. This is a movie, after all. Not that I believe for a moment that Kiki could act. Which poses definite phenomenological problems.

Suppose Kiki wasn't acting, then that meant she really was coming on to Gotanda's lovemaking. But if she was act­ing, then that meant she wasn't the woman I knew. She didn't believe in acting. She wasn't meant to act. Either way, though, I was burning with jealousy.

First a swim club, now a stupid movie. Was I capable of getting jealous of anything? Was this a good sign? Now the girl lead opens the door. She catches sight of the two naked bodies embracing. She swallows her breath. She shuts her eyes. She turns and runs.

Gotanda is stunned. Kiki says: «What was that all about?» Close-up of Gotanda's dazed face. fade out.

Aside from that cameo, Kiki appeared in no other scene. Forget the dumb plot, I was all eyes at the screen, and I know she wasn't anywhere. She was destined to be a one-night stand, witness to one fleeting scene in Gotanda's life, before vanishing forever. That was her role. The same as with me. Suddenly she's there, she sees what there is to see, then she's gone.

The movie ended. The lights came up. Music played. I remained in my seat, transfixed by the blank white screen. Was this reality? The film was over, but I didn't get it. What was Kiki doing in a movie? And together with Gotanda, no less. Absurd. I must have been mistaken. Got the wrong cir­cuit. Got my wires crossed somewhere. How else could I explain it?

I walked around again for a while after leaving the the­ater. Thinking about Kiki the whole time. «What was that all about?» she whispered into my ears.

What was that all about?

It had to have been her. It couldn't be a mistake. She'd made the same face when I made love to her, her lips trem­bled like that, she'd sighed like that. That wasn't acting. No way. But this was a movie.

It didn't make sense.

The more I walked, the less I trusted my memory. Maybe the movie was a hallucination.

An hour and a half later, I went back to the same movie theater. And I watched Unrequited Love again from the beginning. Sunday morning, Gotanda is making love to a woman. The woman's back is to the camera. The camera dollies around. The woman's face comes into view. It's Kiki! Plain as day. Enter the girl lead. Who swallows her breath. Shuts her eyes. Runs. Gotanda, dazed and confused. kiki: «What was that all about?» fade out.

Exactly the same, down to the last detail.

I'd seen it a second time and I still didn't believe it. Not at all. There had to be something wrong here. Why would Kiki be sleeping with Gotanda?

The following day, I went to the movies again. I sat stiffly through Unrequited Love another time, waiting for that one scene. Antsy and impatient. At last the scene came up. Sun­day morning, Gotanda is making love to a woman. The woman's back is to the camera. The camera dollies around. The woman's face comes into view. It's Kiki! Plain as day. Enter the girl lead. Who swallows her breath. Shuts her eyes. Runs. Gotanda, dazed and confused. KIKI: «What was that all about?» FADE OUT.

There in the dark, I let out a deep sigh.

Okay, okay. You win. This is real. There's no mistake. We are connected .

I sank back into my seat, folded my hands in front of my nose, and asked the old familiar: What to do? The same question. But now I knew I really needed to think things over calm and collected. Needed to put things in order. Needed to sort through the confused connections.

Something was confused here, that was for sure. Some­thing was amiss. Kiki and Gotanda and I were all connected, in a tangle, but why? I had to untangle us. I had to recover my own sense of reality. But maybe the connections weren't confused, maybe this was a totally unrelated, new connec­tion. Still, I had to untangle the entangled threads. In order not to break any.

Here was a clue. I had to get moving. I couldn't stand still. I had to dance. So light on my feet that it all keeps spin­ning.

You gotta dance, the Sheep Man said.

Gotta dance, echoed my mind.

Time to return to Tokyo. Nothing more for me here. The Dolphin Hotel had fulfilled its purpose. Once I got back to Tokyo, I'd have a lot of knots to untie.

I bundled myself up and left the theater. Snow was falling thicker than ever, nearly obscuring my way. The entire city was as icy as a corpse, and every bit as depressing.

Back at the hotel, I rang up All Nippon Airways and booked a flight to Tokyo that evening.

«Because of the snow, there's a good chance of delay or even cancellation,» the reservation lady informed me. I didn't care. I'd made up my mind and the sooner I got back to Tokyo the better. Then I packed and went down to settle my bill. My friend with the glasses was on duty at the front desk. I asked to speak to her at the car-rental desk.

«Urgent business came up and I have to go back to Tokyo,» I explained.

«Thank you very much. Please come again,» she said with a professional smile. Could she have been hurt that I was giving her so little notice?

«I plan to be back soon,» I said. «When I do get back, we'll go to dinner and talk things over. There's a lot I want to tell you. First I have things to straighten out in Tokyo. But when I'm done, I'm coming back. I don't know how many months it'll take, but I'm coming back. There's something—I don't know how to put it—special about this place. So sooner or later I know I'll be here again.» «Hmm,» she said, rather dubiously. «Hmm,» I countered, rather positively. «I'm sure what I'm saying sounds phony.»

«Not at all,» she said, expressionless. «One can't be sure about things so many months down the road.»

«It won't be so many months. We'll meet again. I really feel that we share something special too,» I said, as sincerely as I meant it. «Don't you have that feeling?»

She tapped her pen on the countertop in lieu of a response. «And I suppose you're going to tell me you're tak­ing the next flight out?»

«Well, uh, yes, I planned to. If they're flying, that is. But with this weather, we may not get off the ground.»

«Well, if you do leave by the next plane, I have a request.»

«Of course.»

«There's a thirteen-year-old girl who has to get back to Tokyo. Her mother had to leave suddenly on business, and the girl's been left here in the hotel. I realize it's a terrible imposition, but could the girl possibly accompany you down to Tokyo? She's got a lot of luggage, and I'm afraid to send her off on a plane by herself.»

«I don't really understand,» I said. «Isn't it kind of off-the-wall for a mother to run off somewhere and leave her child behind?»

My friend shrugged. «I suppose, but she is off-the-wall. She's an artist, a famous photographer, and she can be quite eccentric. An idea popped into her head, and she was off and running. She completely forgot about the child. Later on, we got this call from her, about her daughter being somewhere around the hotel, and could we please put her on a flight back to Tokyo. That was it.»

«Shouldn't she come and get the girl herself?»