Haruki Murakami - Kafka on the Shore

I go back into the cabin and bolt the door shut from the inside. Like it was lying in wait for me, silence wraps itself around me tightly once I'm alone. The night air's so cold it's hard to believe it's early summer, but it's too late to light the stove. All I can do is crawl inside my sleeping bag and get some sleep. My mind's a little spacey from lack of sleep and my muscles ache from bouncing around in the car so long. I turn down the light on the lamp. The room dims as the shadows that fill the corners grow more intense. It's too much trouble to change clothes, so I crawl into my sleeping bag with my jeans and yacht jacket on.

I close my eyes but can't fall asleep, my body dying for rest while my mind's wide awake. A bird occasionally breaks the silence of the night. Other sounds filter in too, things I can't identify. Something trampling on fallen leaves. Something heavy rustling the branches. The sound of a deep breath. The occasional ominous creak of floorboards on the porch. They sound like they're right near the cabin, an army of invisible creatures that populates the darkness and has me surrounded.

And I feel like somebody's watching me. My skin smarts with the sense of eyes boring in on me. My heart beats out a hollow thump. Several times from inside the sleeping bag I open my eyes a slit and peer around the dimly lit room just to be sure no one else is there. The front door's bolted with that heavy bolt, and the thick curtains at the windows are shut tight. So I'm okay, I tell myself. I'm alone in this room and no one's gazing in at me through the windows.

But still I can't shake the feeling that I'm being watched. My throat's parched and I'm having trouble breathing. I need to drink some water, but if I do I'll need to take a leak and that means going outside. I have to hold on till morning. Curled up in my sleeping bag, I give a small shake of my head.

Are you kidding me? You're like some scared little kid, afraid of the silence and the dark. You're not going to wimp out on me now, are you? You always thought you were tough, but when it hits the fan, you look like you're about to burst into tears. Look at you-I bet you're going to wet your bed!

Ignoring him, I close my eyes tight, zip the bag up to just below my nose, and clear my head. I don't open my eyes for anything-not when I hear an owl hooting, not when something lands with a thud on the ground outside. Not even when I sense something moving inside the cabin. I'm being tested, I tell myself. Oshima spent a few days alone here too, when he was about my age. He must have been scared out of his wits, same as me. That's what he meant by solitude comes in different varieties. Oshima knows exactly how I feel being here alone at night, because he's gone through the same thing, and felt the same emotions. This thought helps me relax a little. I feel like I can trace the shadows of the past that linger here and imagine myself as a part of it. I take a deep breath, and I fall asleep before I know it.

It's after six a. m. when I wake up. The air is filled with a shower of bird calls. The birds busily flit from branch to branch, calling out to each other in piercing chirps. Their message has none of the deep echo and hidden implications of those the night before. When I pull back the curtains, every bit of last night's darkness has disappeared from around the cabin. Everything sparkles in a newborn golden glow. I light the stove, boil some mineral water, and make a cup of chamomile tea, then open a box of crackers and have a few with cheese. After that I brush my teeth at the sink and wash my face.

I pull on a windbreaker over my yacht jacket and go outside. The morning light pours down through the tall trees onto the open space in front of the cabin, sunbeams everywhere and mist floating like freshly minted souls. The pure clean air pierces my lungs with each breath. I sit down on a porch step and watch the birds scudding from tree to tree, listening to their calls. Most of them move about in pairs, constantly checking to see where their partner is, screeching out to keep in touch.

I follow the sound of the water and find the stream right away, close by. Rocks form a kind of pool where the water flows in, swirling around in a maze of eddies before rushing back out to rejoin the stream. The water is clear and beautiful. I scoop some up to drink-it's cold and delicious-and then hold my hands in the current.

Back at the cabin I cook ham and eggs in the frying pan, make some toast using a metal net, and heat milk in a small pan to wash down my meal. After eating I haul a chair out to the porch, prop my legs up on the railing, and spend the morning reading. Oshima's bookshelf is crammed full of hundreds of books. Only a few are novels, chiefly classics. Mostly they're books on philosophy, sociology, history, geography, natural sciences, economics-a huge number of subjects, a random selection of fields. Oshima said he'd hardly attended school at all, so this must have been how he got his education.

I pick out a book on the trial of Adolf Eichmann. I have a vague notion of him as a Nazi war criminal, but no special interest in the guy. The book just happens to catch my eye, is all. I start to read and learn how this totally practical lieutenant colonel in the SS, with his metal-frame glasses and thinning hair, was, soon after the war started, assigned by Nazi headquarters to design a "final solution" for the Jews-extermination, that is-and how he investigated the best ways of actually carrying this out. Apparently it barely crossed his mind to question the morality of what he was doing. All he cared about was how best, in the shortest period of time and for the lowest possible cost, to dispose of the Jews. And we're talking about eleven million Jews he figured needed to be eliminated in Europe.

Eichmann studied how many Jews could be packed into each railroad car, what percentage would die of "natural" causes while being transported, the minimal number of people needed to keep this operation going. The cheapest method of disposing of the dead bodies-burning, or burying, or dissolving them. Seated at his desk Eichmann pored over all these numbers. Once he put it into operation, everything went pretty much according to plan. By the end of the war some six million Jews had been disposed of. Strangely, the guy never felt any remorse. Sitting in court in Tel Aviv, behind bulletproof glass, Eichmann looked like he couldn't for the life of him figure out why he was being tried, or why the eyes of the world were upon him. He was just a technician, he insisted, who'd found the most efficient solution to the problem assigned him. Wasn't he doing just what any good bureaucrat would do? So why was he being singled out and accused?

Sitting in the quiet woods with birds chirping all around me, I read the story of this practical guy. In the back of the book there's a penciled note Oshima had written. His handwriting's pretty easy to spot: It's all a question of imagination. Our responsibility begins with the power to imagine. It's just like Yeats said: In dreams begin responsibilities. Flip this around and you could say that where there's no power to imagine, no responsibility can arise. Just like we see with Eichmann.

I try to picture Oshima sitting in this chair, his usual nicely sharpened pencil in hand, looking back over this book and writing down his impressions. In dreams begin responsibilities. The words hit home.

I shut the book, lay it on my lap, and think about my own responsibility. I can't help it. My white T-shirt was soaked in fresh blood. I washed the blood away with these hands, so much blood the sink turned red. I imagine I'll be held responsible for all that blood. I try to picture myself being tried in a court, my accusers doggedly trying to pin the blame on me, angrily pointing fingers and glaring at me. I insist that you can't be held responsible for something you can't remember. I don't have any idea what really took place, I tell them. But they counter with this: "It doesn't matter whose dream it started out as, you have the same dream. So you're responsible for whatever happens in the dream. That dream crept inside you, right down the dark corridor of your soul."