Харуки Мураками - First Person Singular - Stories

“Yes, thanks,” I replied. It wasn’t like I was sitting there, hoping someone would come and scrub my back, but I was afraid if I turned him down, he might think I was dead set against having a monkey ever scrub me down. It was a kind gesture on his part, I figured, and I certainly didn’t want to hurt his feelings. So I slowly rose up out of the tub, plunked myself down on a little wooden platform, and turned my back to the monkey.

The monkey didn’t have any clothes on. Which of course was usually the case for a monkey, so it didn’t strike me as odd. The monkey seemed to be fairly old, and had a lot of white mixed in with his hair. He brought over a small towel, rubbed soap in it, and with a practiced hand gave my back a good scrubbing.

“It’s gotten very cold these days, hasn’t it,” the monkey commented.

“That it has.”

“Before long this place will be covered in snow. And then they’ll have to shovel snow from the roofs, no easy task, believe you me.”

There was a brief pause, and I jumped in. “So you can speak human language?”

“I can indeed,” the monkey briskly replied. He was probably asked that a lot. “I was raised by humans, and before I knew it, I was able to speak. I lived for quite a long time in Tokyo, in Shinagawa.”

“What part of Shinagawa?”

“Around Gotenyama.”

“That’s a nice area.”

“Yes, as you’re aware, it’s a very pleasant place to live in. Nearby is the Gotenyama Gardens, and I enjoyed the natural scenery there.”

Our conversation took a time out at this point. The monkey continued briskly scrubbing my back (which felt great), and all the while I tried to puzzle all this out rationally. A monkey raised in Shinagawa? The Gotenyama Gardens? Fluent in human speech? How was that possible? This was a monkey , for goodness’ sake. A monkey, and nothing else.

“I live in Minato-ku,” I said, which was basically a meaningless statement.

“We were almost neighbors, then,” the monkey said in a friendly tone.

“What kind of person raised you in Shinagawa?” I asked.

“My master was a college professor. He specialized in physics, and held a chair at Tokyo Gakugei University.”

“Quite an intellectual, then.”

“He certainly was. He loved music more than anything, particularly the music of Bruckner and Richard Strauss. Thanks to which I developed a fondness for that music myself. I heard it all the time since I was little. Picked up a knowledge of it without even realizing it, you could say.”

“You enjoy Bruckner?”

“Yes. His Seventh Symphony. I always find the third movement particularly uplifting.”

“I often listen to his Ninth Symphony,” I chimed in. Another pretty meaningless statement.

“Yes, that’s truly lovely music,” the monkey said.

“So that professor taught you language?”

“He did. He didn’t have any children, and perhaps to compensate for that, he trained me fairly strictly whenever he had time. He was very patient, a person who valued order and regularity above all. He was a serious person whose favorite saying was that the repetition of accurate facts was the true road to wisdom. His wife was a quiet, sweet person, and was always kind to me. They got along well, and I hesitate to mention this to an outsider, but believe me, their nighttime activities could be quite intense.”

“Really,” I said.

The monkey finally finished scrubbing my back. “Thanks for your patience,” he said, and bowed his head.

“Thank you ,” I said. “It really felt good. So, do you work here at this inn?”

“I do. They’ve been kind enough to let me work here. The larger, more upscale inns wouldn’t ever hire a monkey. But they’re always shorthanded around here, and if you can make yourself useful, they don’t care whether you’re a monkey or whatever. Being a monkey, the pay is minimal, and they only let me work where I mostly stay out of sight. Straightening up the bath, cleaning, things of this sort. Since most guests would be shocked if a monkey served them tea and so on. Working in the kitchen’s out, too, since you’d run into issues with the Food Sanitation Law.”

“Have you worked here a long time?” I asked.

“It’s been about three years.”

“But you must have gone through all sorts of things before you settled down here?”

The monkey gave a brisk nod. “Very true.”

I hesitated, but then asked him, “If you don’t mind, could you tell me more about your background?”

The monkey considered this, and then said, “Yes, that would be fine. It might not be as interesting as you expect, but I’m off work at ten and I could stop by your room after. Would that be convenient?”

“Certainly,” I replied. “I’d be grateful if you could bring some beer then.”

“Understood. Some cold beers it is. Would Sapporo be all right?”

“That would be fine. So, you drink beer?”

“A little bit, yes.”

“Then please bring two large bottles.”

“Certainly. If I understand correctly, you are staying in the Araiso suite on the second floor?”

That’s right, I said.

“It’s a little strange, though, don’t you think?” the monkey said. “An inn in the mountains with a room named Araiso—‘Rugged Shore.’ ” He chuckled. I’d never in my life seen a monkey laugh before. But I guess monkeys do laugh, and even cry, at times. I shouldn’t have been surprised, since he talked, too.

“By the way, do you have a name?” I asked.

“No, no name, per se. But everyone calls me the ‘Shinagawa monkey.’ ”

The monkey slid open the glass door to the bath, turned, and gave a polite bow, then slowly slid the door shut.

IT WAS A LITTLE PAST TEN when the monkey came to the Araiso suite, bearing a tray with two large bottles of beer. (Like he said, I had no clue why they’d name the room “Rugged Shore”—Japanese inns did tend to give names to each of their rooms, but still, it was a seedy-looking room, more like a storage closet, with nothing whatsoever to conjure up any element of that name.) Besides the beer, the tray had a bottle opener, two glasses, plus some snacks—dried, seasoned squid and a bag of Kakipi crunchy snacks—small pieces of rice crackers with peanuts. Typical bar snacks. This was one attentive monkey.

THE MONKEY WAS DRESSED NOW, in a thick, long-sleeved shirt with I♥NY printed on it, and gray sweatpants, probably some hand-me-down kid’s clothes.

There wasn’t a table in the room, so we sat down, side by side, on thin zabuton cushions, and leaned back against the wall. The monkey used the opener to pop the cap on one of the beers and poured out two glasses. Silently we clinked our glasses together in a little toast.

“Thanks for the drinks,” the monkey said, and happily gulped back the cold beer. I drank some as well. Honestly, it felt odd to be seated next to a monkey, sharing a beer, but I guess you get used to it.

“A beer after work can’t be beat,” the monkey said, wiping his mouth with the hairy back of his hand. “But being a monkey, the opportunities to have a beer like this are few and far between.”

“Do you live here, at your workplace?”

“Yes, there’s a room, sort of an attic, where they let me sleep. There are mice from time to time, so it’s hard to relax there, but I’m a monkey so I have to be thankful to have a bed to sleep in and three square meals a day… Not that it’s paradise or anything.”

The monkey had finished his first glass, so I poured him another.

“Much obliged,” he said politely.

“Have you lived, not just with humans, but with your own kind? With other monkeys, I mean?” I asked. There were so many things I wanted to ask him.