Haruki Murakami - Kafka on the Shore

"So things have settled down?"

"It seems like it. Or maybe we're just in the eye of the storm."

I nod, pick up a clam, yank out the meat with a fork, then put the shell on a plate full of empty shells.

"Are you still in love?" Oshima asks me.

I nod. "How about you?"

"Am I in love, do you mean?"

I nod again.

"In other words, you're daring to get personal and ask about the antisocial romance that colors my warped, homosexual, Gender-Identity-Disordered life?"

I nod, and he follows suit.

"I have a partner, yes," he admits. He makes a serious face and eats a clam. "It's not the kind of passionate, stormy love you find in a Puccini opera or anything. We keep a careful distance from each other. We don't get together that often, but we do understand each other at a deep, basic level."

"Understand each other?"

"Whenever Haydn composed, he always made sure to dress formally, even to wearing a powdered wig."

I look at him in surprise. "What's Haydn got to do with anything?"

"He couldn't compose well unless he did that."

"How come?"

"I have no idea. That's between Haydn and his wig. Nobody else would understand. Inexplicable, I imagine."

I nod. "Tell me, when you're alone do you sometimes think about your partner and feel sad?"

"Of course," he says. "It happens sometimes. When the moon turns blue, when birds fly south, when-"

"Why of course?" I ask.

"Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves. So anyone who's in love gets sad when they think of their lover. It's like stepping back inside a room you have fond memories of, one you haven't seen in a long time. It's just a natural feeling. You're not the person who discovered that feeling, so don't go trying to patent it, okay?"

I lay my fork down and look up.

"A fond, old, faraway room?"

"Exactly," Oshima says. He holds his fork straight up for emphasis. "Just a metaphor, of course."

Miss Saeki comes to my room after nine that night. I'm sitting at the desk reading a book when I hear her Golf pull into the parking lot. The door slams shut. Rubber-soled shoes slowly crunch across the parking lot. And finally there's a knock at my door. I open the door, and there she is. This time she's wide awake. She has on a pinstriped silk blouse, thin blue jeans, white deck shoes. I've never seen her in pants before.

"I haven't seen this room in a long time," she says. She stands by the wall and looks at the painting. "Or this picture, either."

"Is the place in the painting around here?" I ask.

"Do you like it?"

I nod. "Who painted it?"

"A young artist who boarded that summer with the Komuras," she says. "He wasn't very famous, at least at the time. I've forgotten his name. He was a very friendly person, though, and I think he did a good job with the painting. There's something, I don't know-powerful about it. I sat beside him the whole time and watched him work. I made all kinds of half-joking suggestions as he painted. We got along well. It was a summer a long time ago. I was twelve then. The boy in the painting was twelve, too."

"It looks like the sea around here."

"Let's go for a walk," she says. "I'll take you there."

I walk with her to the shore. We cut through a pine forest and walk down the sandy beach. The clouds are breaking up and a half moon shines down on the waves. Small waves that barely reach the shore, barely break. She sits down at a spot on the sand, and I sit down next to her. The sand's still faintly warm.

Like she's checking the angle, she points to a spot on the shoreline. "It was right over there," she says. "He painted that spot from here. He put the deck chair over there, had the boy pose in it, and set up his easel right around here. I remember it well. Do you notice how the position of the island is the same as in the painting?"

I follow where she's pointing, and sure enough it's the same. No matter how long I gaze at it, though, it doesn't look like the place in the painting. I tell her that.

"It's changed completely," Miss Saeki replies. "That was forty years ago, after all. Things change. A lot of things affect the shoreline-waves, wind, typhoons. Sand gets washed away, they truck more in. But this is definitely the spot. I remember what occurred there very well. That was the summer I had my first period, too."

We sit there looking at the scenery. The clouds shift and the moonlight dapples the sea. Wind blows through the pine forest, sounding like a crowd of people sweeping the ground at the same time. I scoop up some sand and let it slowly spill out between my fingers. It falls to the beach and, like lost time, becomes part of what's already there. I do this over and over.

"What are you thinking about?" Miss Saeki asks me.

"About going to Spain," I reply.

"What are you going to do there?"

"Eat some delicious paella."

"That's all?"

"And fight in the Spanish Civil War."

"That ended over sixty years ago."

"I know," I tell her. "Lorca died, and Hemingway survived."

"But you want to be a part of it."

I nod. "Yup. Blow up bridges and stuff."

"And fall in love with Ingrid Bergman."

"But in reality I'm here in Takamatsu. And I'm love with you."

"Tough luck."

I put my arm around her.

You put your arm around her.

She leans against you. And a long spell of time passes.

"Did you know that I did this exact same thing a long time ago? Right in this same spot?"

"I know," you tell her.

"How do you know that?' Miss Saeki asks, and looks you in the eyes.

"I was there then."

"Blowing up bridges?"

"Yes, I was there, blowing up bridges."

"Metaphorically."

"Of course."

You hold her in your arms, draw her close, kiss her. You can feel the strength deserting her body.

"We're all dreaming, aren't we?" she says.

All of us are dreaming.

"Why did you have to die?"

"I couldn't help it," you reply.

Together you walk along the beach back to the library. You turn off the light in your room, draw the curtains, and without another word climb into bed and make love. Pretty much the same sort of lovemaking as the night before. But with two differences. After sex, she starts to cry. That's one. She buries her face in the pillow and silently weeps. You don't know what to do. You gently lay a hand on her bare shoulder. You know you should say something, but don't have any idea what. Words have all died in the hollow of time, piling up soundlessly at the dark bottom of a volcanic lake. And this time as she leaves you can hear the engine of her car. That's number two. She starts the engine, turns it off for a time, like she's thinking about something, then turns the key again and drives out of the parking lot. That blank, silent interval between leaves you sad, so terribly sad. Like fog from the sea, that blankness wends its way into your heart and remains there for a long, long time. Finally it's a part of you.

She leaves behind a damp pillow, wet with her tears. You touch the warmth with your hand and watch the sky outside gradually lighten. Far away a crow caws. The Earth slowly keeps on turning. But beyond any of those details of the real, there are dreams. And everyone's living in them.

When Nakata woke up at five a. m. he saw the big stone right next to his pillow. Hoshino was still sound asleep on the futon next to his, mouth half open, hair sticking every which way, Chunichi Dragons cap tossed beside him. His sleeping face had a determined no-matter-what-don't-dare-wake-me-up look to it.

Nakata wasn't particularly surprised to find the stone there. His mind adapted immediately to the new reality, accepted it, didn't question why it happened to be there. Figuring out cause and effect was never his strong suit.