Haruki Murakami - Dance Dance Dance

«That's not for me to say. Besides, she's in Kathmandu on this job, and she said she'd be busy for another week. She's very famous and she's a regular guest at the hotel, so who am I to contradict her? She said that if I got her daughter to the airport, she'd be fine by herself the rest of the way. Maybe so, but really, the girl's a child, and if anything were to happen to her, it'd be our responsibility.»

«Great,» I said. Then the thought occurred to me. «It wouldn't happen to be a kid with long hair and rock 'n' roll sweatshirts and a Walkman, would it?»

«The very same. How did you know?»

«Fun for the whole family.»

My friend snapped into action immediately. She phoned ANA and reserved a seat for the girl on my flight. She buzzed the girl and told her that someone—someone she knew—was going to take her back to Tokyo and that she should gather her things together right away. She called the bellboy and sent him up to the girl's room for the bags. She summoned the hotel limousine service. I couldn't help expressing my admiration.

«I told you I liked my job. I'm cut out for it.» «But if someone gives you a hard time, you'd rather cut out.»

She tapped her pen. «That's different. I don't like being

the butt of jokes.»

«I didn't mean it that way. Please believe me,» I said. «I was only trying to be funny. No offense intended, honest. I only joke around because I need to relax.»

She pursed her lips slightly and looked me in the face. With the look of someone surveying the lowlands from a hill after the floodwaters have subsided. Then she spoke in a voice that was almost a sigh, almost a snort. «By the way, could I ask you for your business card, please? As a professional measure, of course, seeing as how I'm entrusting a young girl to your care.»

«As a professional measure,» I muttered and pulled out a card for her. For what it's worth, I do carry business cards. For what it's worth, at least a dozen people have told me how necessary for business they are. She eyed my card as if it were a dust rag.

«And could I ask what your name is?» I had to try.

«Next time, maybe,» she said, pushing up her glasses with her middle finger. « If we meet again.»

«Of course we will,» I said.

Soft and silent as a new moon, a smile drifted across her face.

Ten minutes later the bellboy and the girl appeared in the lobby. The bellboy was lugging two huge Samsonite suit­cases. Each could have held a full-grown German shepherd, standing. A bit much for a thirteen-year-old girl to haul to the airport all by herself, to be sure. She was wearing tight jeans and boots, and her sweatshirt of the day read talking heads. Over which she wore an expensive-looking fur stole. There was the same transparent sense about her as before. A beauty that was so vulnerable, so high-strung. A balance too delicate to last.

Talking Heads. Not bad, for a band name. Like some­thing out of Kerouac.

The girl looked me over, blase. She didn't smile. But she did raise an eyebrow, then turned to my receptionist friend with glasses.

«Don't worry, he's all right,» my friend said.

«I'm not as bad as I look,» I declared.

The girl looked at me again. Then she made an oh-well-I-suppose sort of nod.

«Really, you'll be fine,» my friend went on. «The old man tells funny jokes—»

« Old man !» I gasped.

«He throws in a nice word from time to time,» she con­tinued, paying me no attention, «he's a real gentleman to us ladies. Besides, he's a friend of mine. So you'll be just fine.»

The two of them proceeded to the limousine at the entrance of the hotel. I followed, dignity deflated, quietly behind.

The weather was terrible. The road to the airport all ice and snow. Antarctica.

«What's your name?» I asked the girl.

The girl stared at me, then shook her head briefly. Gimme a break . Then she slowly looked around as if searching for something, but all there was to see was the blizzard outside. « Yuki ,» she said. Snow .

«You can say that again.»

«It's my name !» she hissed.

Then she pulled her Walkman out of her pocket and plugged in to her own private pop music microcosm. The rest of the way to the airport she never gave me so much as a glance.

Snow, eh? Such a charming character, so full of social grace. You'd think she'd at least offer me a stick of gum every time she helped herself to some. Not that I wanted any, but hadn't she heard of polite? It would have made me feel like I was riding in the same car with her. I sank into my seat, aging by the minute, and shut my eyes.

Only later did I learn that «Yuki» actually was her name.

I thought about when I was her age. I used to collect pop records myself. Singles. Ray Charles' «Hit the Road, Jack,» Ricky Nelson's «Travelin' Man,» Brenda Lee's «All Alone Am I.» I owned maybe a hundred 45s. I used to listen to them day in and day out. I knew all the lyrics by heart. The things kids can memorize. Always the most meaningless, idi­otic lines. Stuff about a China doll down in old Hong Kong, waiting for my return. . . .

Not quite Talking Heads. But okay, the times they are a-changin'.

I stationed Yuki in the waiting room and went to pur­chase our tickets. The flight was running an hour late, but the ticket agent warned that the chances were it'd be delayed even longer. «Please listen for the announcement,» she said. «At the moment, visibility is extremely bad.»

«Do you think the weather will improve?» I asked.

«That's what the forecast says, but it may take some time,» she said grimly. She probably had to say the same thing two hundred times. Enough to depress anyone.

I returned to Yuki with the news. She glanced up at me with a hmmph sort of look, but didn't say a word.

«Who knows when we'll get on, so let's not check in yet. It might be a disaster trying to get our luggage back,» I said.

A whatever-you-say look. Again, not a word.

«I guess there's nothing we can do but wait. No fun get­ting stuck at an airport for hours, though.» No one could accuse me of not keeping up my end of the non-conversa­tion. «Have you eaten?»

She nodded.

«What do you say we go to the coffee shop anyway? We could get something to drink. Whatever you want.»

An I-don't-know-about-this look. She had a whole reper­toire of expressions.

«Okay, let's go,» I said, rising to my feet. And off we went, rolling her Samsonites along.

The coffee shop was crowded. All flights out of Sapporo were delayed, and everyone looked uniformly on edge. We waded through waves of irritability. I ordered a sandwich and coffee. Yuki asked for hot chocolate.

«How long were you staying at the hotel?» Well, some­body had to try to be civil.

After a moment's thought, a real live answer: «Ten days.»

«And when did your mother leave?»

She looked out the window at the snow a bit, then: «Three days ago.»

I felt like we were practicing a Beginning English language drill.

«So your school's been on vacation all this time?»

That did the trick. «No, my school hasn't been on vaca­tion all this time. Don't bug me,» she snapped. She retrieved her Walkman from her pocket and plugged her ears in.

I finished my coffee and read the paper. Was every female in the world out to give me a hard time? Was it just my luck or a fundamental flaw in me?

If I had a choice, I'd rather it be just my luck, I decided, folding up my newspaper and pulling out a paperback of The Sound and the Fury . Faulkner, and Philip K. Dick too. When besieged by groundless fatigue, there's something about them you can always relate to. That's why I always pack a novel—for times like these.