Haruki Murakami - Dance Dance Dance

«I guess so,» I agreed.

Yuki hummed along with a hangover-heavy Phil Collins song for a moment, then picked up the sunglasses again and played with them. «Do you remember what you said after we got back from Hokkaido? That I was the prettiest girl you ever dated?»

«Uh-huh.»

«Did you mean that? Or were you just trying to make me like you? Tell me honestly.»

«Honestly, it's the truth,» I said.

«How many girls have you dated, up to now?»

«I haven't counted.»

«Two hundred?»

«Oh, come on,» I laughed. «I'm not that kind of a guy. I may play the field, but my field's not that big. I'd say fifteen, max.»

«That few?»

I nodded. This gave her something to puzzle over.

«Fifteen, huh?»

«Around there,» I said. «Twenty on the outside.» «Twenty, huh?» sighed a disappointed Yuki. «But out of all of them, I'm the prettiest?»

«Yes, you are the prettiest,» I said.

«You never liked the beautiful type?» she asked, lighting up her second Virginia Slim. I spotted a policeman at the intersection ahead, grabbed the cigarette out of her hand, and flung it out the window.

«I dated some pretty girls,» I went on. «But none of them was as pretty as you. I mean that. You probably will take this wrong, but you're pretty in a different way. Nothing like most girls. But please, no smoking in the car, okay? You'll stink it up. And I don't want cops poking their nose in.

Besides, don't you know that girls who smoke too much when they're young get irregular periods?»

«Gimme a break,» she cried.

«Now tell me about the guy in the sheepskin,» I said.

«The Sheep Man?»

«How do you know that was his name?»

«You said it over the phone. The Sheep Man .»

«Did I?»

«Uh-huh.»

We were stopped at an intersection, waiting for the light to change. Traffic, as we neared Tsujido, had picked up, and the light had to change twice before we could move on.

«So about the Sheep Man. Where did you see him?»

Yuki shrugged. «I never saw him. He just came into my head, when I saw you,» she said, winding a strand of her fine straight hair around her finger. «I just had this feeling. About a guy dressed in a sheepskin. Like a hunch. Whenever I ran into you at the hotel, I had this . . . feeling. So I brought it up. That was it.»

I tried to make sense of that. I had to think, had to wrack my brains.

«What do you mean by like a hunch ?» I pressed her. «You mean you didn't really see him? Or you only caught a glimpse of him?»

«I don't know how to put it,» she said. «It wasn't like I saw him with my own eyes. It was more this feeling that someone had seen him, even though he was invisible. I couldn't see anything, but inside, the feeling I had had a kind of shape. Not a definite shape. Something like a shape. If I had to show it to someone, they probably wouldn't know what it was. It could only make sense to me. I'm not explaining this very well. Am I coming through at all?»

«Vaguely.»

Yuki raised her eyebrows and nibbled at the frame of my sunglasses.

«Let me go over this again,» I tried. «You sensed some­thing in me, some kind of feeling, or ideation—»

«Ideation?»

«A very strong thought. And it was attached to me and you visualized it, like you do in a dream. You mean some­thing like that?»

«Yeah, something kind of like that. A strong thought, but not only that. There was some thing behind it. Something powerful. Like energy that was creating the thinking. I could just feel that it was out there. They were like vibes that I could see. But not like a dream. Like an empty dream . That's it, an empty dream. Nobody's there, so you don't see any­body. You know, like when you turn the contrast on the TV real low and the brightness way up. You can't see a thing. But there's an image in the picture, and if you squint real hard, you can feel what the image is. You know what I mean?»

«Uh-huh.»

«Anyway, I could sort of see this man in a sheepskin. He didn't seem evil or anything like that. Maybe he wasn't even a man. But the thing is, he wasn't bad. I don't know how to put it. You can't see it, but it's like a heat rubbing, you know it's something, like a form without a shape.» She clicked her tongue. «Sorry, awful explanation.»

«You're explaining just fine.»

«Really?»

«Really,» I said.

We continued our drive along the sea. Beside a pine grove, I pulled the car over and suggested we go for a short walk. The afternoon was pleasant, hardly any wind, the surf gentle. Just a rippling sheet of tiny waves drawing in toward shore. Perfect peaceful periodicity. The surfers had all given up and were sitting around on the beach in their wet suits, smoking. The white smoke trail from burning trash rose nearly straight up into the blue, and off to the left drifted the island of Enoshima, faint and miragelike. A large black dog trotted across the breakers from right to left. In the distance fishing boats dotted the deeper waters, while noiseless white clouds of sea gulls swirled above them. Spring had come even to the sea.

Yuki and I strolled the path along the shore, passing jog­gers and high school girls on bicycles going the other way. We ambled in the direction of Fujisawa, then we sat down on the sand and looked out to sea.

«Do you often have experiences like that?» I asked.

«Sometimes,» said Yuki. «Rarely, actually. I get these feel­ings from very few people. And I try to avoid them if I can. If I get a feeling, I try not to think about it, I try to close it off. That way I don't have to feel it so deep. It's like if you close your eyes, you don't have to see what's in front of you. You know something's there, like with a scary part in the movies, but you don't have to see it if you shut your eyes and keep them shut until the scary part is over.»

«But why should you close yourself up?»

«Because it's horrible to see it,» she said. «When I was small, I didn't close up. At school, if I felt something, I just came right out and told everybody about it. But then, it made everyone sick. If someone was going to get hurt, I'd say, so-and-so is going to get hurt, and sure enough, she would. That happened over and over again, until everyone started treating me like a weird spook. That's what they called me. 'Spook.' That was the kind of reputation I had. It was terrible. So ever since then, I decided not to say any­thing. And now if I feel like I'm going to feel anything, I just close myself up.»

«But with me you didn't close up.»

She shrugged. «It was an accident. There wasn't any warning. Really, suddenly, the image just popped up. The very first time I saw you. I was listening to music . . . Duran Duran or David Bowie or somebody . . . and I wasn't on guard. I was relaxed. That's why I like music.»

«Then you're kind of clairvoyant?» I asked. «Like when, say, you knew beforehand that a classmate was going to get hurt.»

«Maybe. But kind of different. When something's going to happen, there's this atmosphere that gives me the feeling it's going to happen. I know it sounds funny, for instance, with someone who's going to get injured on the high bar, there's this carelessness or this overconfidence that's in the air, almost like waves. People who are sensitive can pick up these waves. They're like pockets in the air, maybe even solid pockets in the air. You can tell that there's danger. That's when those empty dreams pop up. And when they do ... Well, that's what they are. They aren't like premonitions. They're more unfocused. But they appear and I can see them but I'm not talking about them anymore. I don't want peo­ple calling me a spook. I just keep my mouth shut. I might see that that person over there is maybe going to get burned. And maybe he does get burned. But he can't blame me. Isn't that horrible? I hate myself for it. That's why I close up. If I close myself, I don't hate myself.»