Haruki Murakami - Kafka on the Shore

The rainstorm continues to batter us for another hour. The thunder is so incredibly loud that I'm afraid the windows in the library will shatter. Every time a bolt of lightning streaks across the sky, the stained-glass window on the landing flashes an image like some ancient ghost on the white wall across from it. By two o'clock, the storm lets up, and yellowish light begins to spill out between the clouds like a reconciliation has finally been reached. Water continues to drip down in the gentle sunlight.

When evening rolls around, I start closing up the place for the night. Miss Saeki says good-bye to me and Oshima and heads home. I hear the engine of her Golf and picture her seated at the wheel, turning the key. I tell Oshima I'll finish locking up. Whistling some aria, he goes off to wash up in the restroom, then leaves. I listen as the Mazda Miata roars off, the sound fading off in the distance. Now the library's all mine. It's much quieter than ever before.

I go to my room and study the sheet music for "Kafka on the Shore." Like I suspected, most of the chords are simple. The refrain, though, has a couple tricky ones. I go over to the reading room and try playing it on the upright piano. The fingering's really tough, so I practice it over and over, trying to get my hands around it, and somehow wind up getting it to sound right. At first the chords sound all wrong. I'm sure it's a misprint, or that the piano's out of tune. But the longer I listen to how those two chords sound one after the other, the more I'm convinced the whole song hangs on them. These two chords are what keep "Kafka on the Shore" from degrading into some silly pop song, give it a special depth and substance. But how in the world did Miss Saeki come up with them?

I go back to my room, boil water in the electric kettle, and make some tea. I take out the old records we found in the storage room and put them on the turntable one after another. Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde, the Beatles' "White Album," Otis Redding's Dock of the Bay, Stan Getz's Getz/Gilberto-all hit albums from the late sixties. That young boy-with Miss Saeki right beside him-must've done what I was doing, putting the records on the turntable, lowering the needle, listening to the music coming out of these speakers. The music felt like it was taking me and the whole room off to some different time, a world before I was even born. As I enjoy the music, I review the conversation we'd had that afternoon, trying to capture our exact words.

"When I was fifteen, I thought there had to be a place like that in the world. I was sure that somewhere I'd run across the entrance that would take me to that other world."

I can hear her voice right beside me. Inside my head something knocks at a door, a heavy, persistent knock.

An entrance?

I lift the needle off the Stan Getz album, pull out the single of "Kafka on the Shore," place it on the turntable, and lower the needle. And listen to her sing.

The drowning girl's fingers

Search for the entrance stone, and more.

Lifting the hem of her azure dress,

She gazes- at Kafka on the shore.

The girl who comes to this room most likely located that entrance stone. She's in another world, just as she was at fifteen, and at night she comes to visit this room. In her light blue dress, she comes to gaze at Kafka on the shore.

Suddenly, completely out of nowhere, I remember my father talking about how he'd once been struck by lightning. He didn't tell me himself-I'd read about it in an interview in a magazine. When he was a student in art college, he had a part-time job as a caddy at a golf course. One day he was following his golfer around the course when the sky suddenly changed color and a huge thunderstorm crashed down on them. They took refuge under a tree when it was hit by a bolt of lightning. This huge tree was split right in two. The golfer he was caddying for was killed, but my father, sensing something, leaped away from the tree in time. He got some light burns, his hair was singed, and the shock of the lightning threw him against a rock. He struck his head and lost consciousness, but survived the ordeal with only a small scar on his forehead. That's what I was trying to remember this afternoon, standing there in Miss Saeki's doorway listening to the roar of the thunder. It was after he recovered from his injuries that my father got serious about his career as a sculptor.

As Miss Saeki went around interviewing people for her book, maybe she met my father. It's entirely possible. There can't be that many people around who've been struck by lightning and lived, can there?

I breathe very quietly, waiting for the dawn. A cloud parts, and moonlight shines down on the trees in the garden. There are just too many coincidences. Everything seems to be speeding up, rushing toward one destination.

It was already pretty late in the afternoon, and they had to find a place to stay for the night. Hoshino went to the tourist information booth at Takamatsu Station and had them make a reservation at an inn. It was within walking distance of the station, which was nice, but otherwise was typical and somewhat dumpy. Neither Hoshino nor Nakata minded much, though. As long as there were futons to sleep on, they were fine. As before, breakfast was provided but they were on their own for dinner. This particularly suited Nakata, who was likely to drop off to sleep any time.

Once they were in their room, Nakata had Hoshino lie facedown on the futon, got on top of him again, and pressed down with both thumbs up and down his lower back, carefully checking out the condition of his joints and muscles. This time he was much more gentle, just tracing the spine and checking out how tense the muscles were.

"Something wrong?" Hoshino asked anxiously.

"No, everything's fine. Nakata doesn't find anything wrong with you now. Your spine's in good shape."

"That's a relief," Hoshino said. "I wasn't looking forward to another torture session."

"I know. Nakata's really sorry. But you did tell me you didn't mind pain, so I went ahead and did it as hard as I could."

"Yeah, I know that's what I said. But listen, Gramps, there are limits. Sometimes you've gotta use common sense. But I guess I shouldn't be complaining-you did fix my back. But man alive, I never felt anything like that in my life. The pain was unimaginable! It felt like you were ripping me apart. Like I died and came back to life or something."

"Nakata was dead for three weeks once."

"No kidding," Hoshino said. Still facedown, he took a gulp of tea and munched on some crunchy snacks he'd picked up at a convenience store. "So you really were dead?"

"I was."

"Where were you all that time?"

"Nakata doesn't remember. It felt like I was somewhere far away, doing something else. But my head was floating and I can't remember anything. Then I came back to this world and found out I was dumb. I couldn't read or write anymore."

"You must've left your ability to read and write over on the other side."

"Maybe so."

The two of them were silent for a time. Hoshino decided it was best to believe whatever the old man told him, no matter how eccentric it sounded. At the same time he felt uneasy, as if pursuing this dead-for-three-weeks idea any further would lead him into some chaotic, out-of-control situation. Better to turn the conversation back to more practical matters. "So, now that we're in Takamatsu, Mr. Nakata, where are you planning to go?"

"I have no idea," Nakata replied. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

"What about that entrance stone?"

"That's right! Nakata completely forgot about it. We have to find the stone. But I don't have a clue where to look. My mind's floating and won't clear up. I wasn't too bright to begin with, and this kind of thing only makes it worse."