Haruki Murakami - Kafka on the Shore

A sharp bluff appears on our left side. It looks like there's a mountain stream down below. The curves get sharper, the road more slippery, and a couple of times the rear end of the car spins, but I decide not to worry about it. As far as Oshima is concerned, having an accident here most likely isn't an option.

My watch shows a little before nine. I crack open my window and let the cold air rush in. Everything sounds different here. We're in the mountains, heading in deeper. I breathe a sigh of relief when the road finally cuts away from the bluffs and turns into a forest. Trees magically soar above us. Our headlights lick at the trunks, illuminating one after another. We've left the paved road behind, the tires squirting out pebbles that ricochet against the bottom of the car. The suspension dances up and down over the rough road. There's no moon out, no stars. A fine rain occasionally splashes against the windshield.

"Do you come here a lot?" I ask.

"I used to. Now, with the job and all I can't come so often. My older brother's a surfer and lives on the shore in Kochi. He runs a surf shop there and makes surfboards. He comes here sometimes. Do you surf?"

"Never tried it," I tell him.

"If you have the chance, you should have my brother teach you. He's very good," Oshima says. "If you meet him you'll see he's not at all like me. He's big, tan, kind of quiet, not so sociable, and likes beer. And wouldn't know Schubert from Wagner. But we get along really well."

We continue down the road through thick woods, and finally turn off. Oshima stops the car and, leaving the engine running, climbs out and unlocks a kind of wire fence and pushes it open. We drive inside and proceed down another windy, bumpy road into a clearing where the road ends. Oshima stops the car, sighs heavily, and brushes his hair back with both hands, then kills the engine and sets the parking brake.

The fan still hums, cooling off the overheated engine as steam rises from the hood, but with the engine off a heavy stillness falls over us. I hear a small stream nearby, the faint sound of water. High above us the wind rustles symbolically. I open the door and step outside. Patches of chill hang in the air. I have on a yacht jacket over my T-shirt and zip it up to my neck.

There's a small building in front of us, a log cabin by the look of it, though it's too dark to see much. Just a dark outline floating against the background of the forest. The headlights still on, Oshima slowly approaches the cabin, flashlight in hand, walks up the porch steps, takes out a key, and unlocks the door. He goes inside, strikes a match, and lights a lamp. He then steps out onto the porch, holding the lamp, and announces, "Welcome to my house." It all looks like a drawing in an old storybook.

I walk up the steps and go inside. Oshima lights a larger lamp suspended from the ceiling. The cabin consists of a single big, boxy room. There's a small bed in the corner, a dining table and two wooden chairs, an old sofa, a hopelessly faded rug-a bunch of old furniture nobody wanted, it looks like, just thrown together. There's a cinder block and board shelf crammed full of books, their covers worn like they've been read a lot. There's also an old chest for storing clothes. And a simple kitchen with a counter, a small gas stove, and a sink but no running water. Instead, an aluminum pail I guess is for water. A pan and kettle on a shelf, plus a frying pan hanging from the wall. And in the middle of the room there's a black wood-burning stove.

"My brother built this cabin almost all by himself. He took the original rough lumberjack hut and remodeled it completely. He's good with his hands. I was still pretty little then and helped out a bit, making sure I didn't get cut or anything. It's pretty primitive. No electricity. No running water. No toilet. The only modern convenience is the propane gas." Oshima pours some mineral water into the kettle and sets it to boil.

"My grandfather originally owned this mountain. He was a pretty wealthy man in Kochi, with a lot of property. He passed away ten years ago, and my brother and I inherited almost the entire mountain. No other relatives wanted it. It's too far off the beaten track, and not worth much. If you were going to maintain it for harvesting trees, you'd have to hire people and it'd cost too much."

I open the curtain at the window. All I can see is a wall of total darkness.

"When I was just about your age," Oshima says, dipping chamomile tea bags into a pot, "I used to come here a lot and live on my own. Not see anybody else, not talk to anybody. My brother almost forced me to. Usually, with somebody who has a disease like mine, you wouldn't do that-too dangerous for them to be alone in some isolated spot. But my brother didn't mind." He leans back against the counter, waiting for the water to boil. "He wasn't trying to discipline me or anything, it's just what he believed I needed. Looking back on it, I can see it was a good experience, something I did need. I could read a lot, think things over. To tell the truth, after a certain period I hardly went to school. School and I had sort of a mutual hate relationship going. I was different from everybody else. Out of the kindness of their hearts they let me graduate from junior high, but after that I was on my own, basically. Just like you. Did I already tell you all this?"

I shake my head. "Is that why you're being so nice to me?"

"That's part of it," he says, then pauses. "But that's not the whole reason."

Oshima passes me a cup of tea and sips at his own. My nerves are tense after the long drive, and the chamomile is just what I need to calm down.

Oshima glances at his watch. "I'd better be going, so let me explain everything. There's a nice stream nearby you can use for water. It's spring fed so you can drink it as is. Much better than these bottles of mineral water. There's firewood stacked up in back so use the stove if you get cold. It gets pretty chilly here. I've even used it a few times in August. You can use the stove for simple cooking. If you need any other tools or anything, check the toolshed out back. And feel free to wear any old clothes of my brother's you find in the dresser. He doesn't care if somebody wears his things."

Oshima rests his hands on his hips and gives the cabin a once-over. "It's not some romantic getaway, that's for sure. But for simple living, it'll do. One thing I've got to warn you about-don't go very far into the woods. The forest is really dense, and there's not a good path through it. Always keep the cabin in sight. It's easy to get lost if you go any farther, and it's hard to find your way back. I had a terrible experience there once. I was only a couple hundred yards from here but spent half the day going in circles. You might think Japan's a small country, that there's no chance you could get lost in a forest. But once you get lost in these woods, believe me, you stay lost."

I file that away for future reference.

"And except for an emergency, I wouldn't come down off the mountain. It's too far to any other houses. Just wait here, and I'll be back in a couple of days to pick you up. You have enough food to see you through. By the way, do you have a cell phone?"

"I do," I tell him, pointing at my backpack.

He grins at me. "Keep it in your pack. It won't work here-you're out of range. And of course a radio won't work either. You're cut off from the world. You should be able to get a lot of reading done."

I suddenly think of a very practical question. "If there's no toilet, where should I go to the bathroom?"

Oshima spreads both hands wide. "The forest is all yours. It's up to you."

Nakata visited the vacant lot for several days. One morning it rained heavily, so he spent the day doing simple woodworking in his room, but apart from that he spent his time seated in the weeds waiting for the missing tortoiseshell cat to show up, or the man in the strange hat. But no luck.