Haruki Murakami - Kafka on the Shore

Miss Saeki returns her coffee cup to the saucer with a hard, neutral sound. She looks straight at me, but she's not really seeing me. She's gazing at some void, some blank space somewhere else. "Do I know your father?"

I shake my head. "As I told you, it's just a theory."

She rests her hands on the desk, one on top of the other. Faint traces of a smile remain. "In your theory, then, I'm your mother."

"That's right," I say. "You lived with my father, had me, and then went away, leaving me behind. In the summer when I'd just turned four."

"So that's your theory."

I nod.

"Which explains why you asked me yesterday whether I have any children?"

Again I nod.

"I told you I couldn't answer that. Couldn't give you a yes or a no."

"I know."

"So your theory remains speculative."

I nod again. "That's right."

"So tell me, how did your father die?"

"He was murdered."

"You didn't murder him, did you?"

"No, I didn't. I have an alibi."

"But you're not entirely sure?"

I shake my head. "I'm not sure at all."

She lifts the coffee cup again and takes a tiny sip, as if it has no taste. "Why did your father put you under that curse?"

"He must've wanted me to take over his will," I say.

"To desire me, you mean."

"That's right," I say.

Miss Saeki stares into the cup in her hand, then looks up again.

"So do you-desire me?"

I give one clear nod.

She closes her eyes. I gaze at her closed eyelids for a long time, and through them I can see the darkness that she's seeing. Odd shapes loom up in it, floating up only to disappear.

Finally she opens her eyes. "You mean in theory you desire me."

"No, apart from the theory. I want you, and that goes way beyond any theory."

"You want to have sex with me?"

I nod.

She narrows her eyes like something's shining in them. "Have you ever had sex with a girl before?"

I nod again. Last night-with you, I think. But I can't say it out loud. She doesn't remember a thing.

Something close to a sigh escapes her lips. "Kafka, I know you realize this, but you're fifteen and I'm over fifty."

"It's not that simple. We're not talking about that sort of time here. I know you when you were fifteen. And I'm in love with you at that age. Very much in love. And through her, I'm in love with you. That young girl's still inside you, asleep inside you. Once you go to sleep, though, she comes to life. I've seen it."

She closes her eyes once more, her eyelids trembling slightly.

"I'm in love with you, and that's what's important. I think you understand that."

Like someone rising to the surface of the sea from deep below, she takes a deep breath. She searches for the words to say, but they lie beyond her grasp. "I'm sorry, Kafka, but would you mind leaving? I'd like to be alone for a while," she says. "And close the door on your way out."

I nod, stand up, and start to go, but something pulls me back. I stop at the door, turn around, and walk across the room to where she is. I reach out and touch her hair. Through the strands my hand brushes her small ear. I just can't help it.

Miss Saeki looks up, surprised, and after a moment's hesitation lays her hand on mine. "At any rate, you-and your theory-are throwing a stone at a target that's very far away. Do you understand that?"

I nod. "I know. But metaphors can reduce the distance."

"We're not metaphors."

"I know," I say. "But metaphors help eliminate what separates you and me."

A faint smile comes to her as she looks up at me. "That's the oddest pickup line I've ever heard."

"There're a lot of odd things going on-but I feel like I'm slowly getting closer to the truth."

"Actually getting closer to a metaphorical truth? Or metaphorically getting closer to an actual truth? Or maybe they supplement each other?"

"Either way, I don't think I can stand the sadness I feel right now," I tell her.

"I feel the same way."

"So you did come back to this town to die."

She shakes her head. "To be honest about it, I'm not trying to die. I'm just waiting for death to come. Like sitting on a bench at the station, waiting for the train."

"And do you know when the train's going to arrive?"

She takes her hand away from mine and touches her eyelids with the tips of her fingers. "Kafka, I've worn away so much of my own life, worn myself away. At a certain point I should have stopped living, but didn't. I knew life was pointless, but I couldn't give up on it. So I ended up just marking time, wasting my life in pointless pursuits. I wound up hurting myself, and that made me hurt others around me. That's why I'm being punished now, why I'm under a kind of curse. I had something too complete, too perfect, once, and afterward all I could do was despise myself. That's the curse I can never escape. So I'm not afraid of death. And to answer your question-yes, I have a pretty good idea of when the time is coming."

Once more I take her hand in mine. The scales are shaking, and just a tiny weight would send them tipping to one side or the other. I have to think. I have to decide. I have to take a step forward. "Miss Saeki, would you sleep with me?" I ask.

"You mean even if I were your mother in that theory of yours?"

"It's like everything around me's in flux-like it all has a doubled meaning."

She ponders this. "That might not be true for me, though. For me, things might not be so nuanced. It might be more like all or nothing."

"And you know which it is."

She nods.

"Do you mind if I ask you a question?"

"About what?"

"Where did you come up with those two chords?"

"Chords?"

"The ones in the bridge in 'Kafka on the Shore.'"

She looks at me. "You like them?"

I nod.

"I found those chords in an old room, very far away. The door to the room was open then," she says quietly. "A room that was far, far away." She closes her eyes and sinks back into memories. "Kafka, close the door when you leave," she says.

And that's exactly what I do.

After we close up the library for the night, Oshima drives me to a seafood restaurant a little way away. Through a large window in the restaurant we can see the night sea, and I think about all the creatures living under the water.

"Sometimes you've got to get out and eat some decent food," he tells me. "Relax. I don't think the cops have staked the place out. We both needed a change of scenery."

We eat a huge salad, and split an order of paella.

"I'd love to go to Spain someday," Oshima says.

"Why Spain?"

"To fight in the Spanish Civil War."

"But that ended a long time ago."

"I know that. Lorca died, and Hemingway survived," Oshima says. "But I still have the right to go to Spain and be a part of the Spanish Civil War."

"Metaphorically."

"Exactly," he says, giving me a wry look. "A hemophiliac of undetermined sex who's hardly ever set foot outside Shikoku isn't about to actually go off to fight in Spain, I would think."

We attack the mound of paella, washing it down with Perrier.

"Have there been any developments in my father's case?" I ask.

"Nothing to report, really. Except for a typical smug memorial piece in the arts section, there hasn't been much in the papers. The investigation must be stuck. The sad fact is the arrest rate's been going down steadily these days-just like the stock market. I mean, the police can't even track down the son who's disappeared."

"The fifteen-year-old youth."

"Fifteen, with a history of violent behavior," Oshima adds. "The obsessed young runaway."

"How about that incident with things falling from the sky?"

Oshima shakes his head. "They're taking a break on that one. Nothing else weird has fallen from the sky-unless you count that award-winning lightning we had two days ago."