Харуки Мураками - First Person Singular - Stories

“Yes, several times,” the monkey answered, his face clouding over a little. The wrinkles beside his eyes formed deep folds. “For various reasons I was driven out, forcibly, from Shinagawa and released in Takasakiyama, the area down south famous for its monkey park. I thought at first I could live peaceably there, but things didn’t work out that way. The other monkeys are my dear compatriots, don’t get me wrong, but having been raised in a human household, by the professor and his wife, I just couldn’t express my feelings well to them. We had little in common, and communication wasn’t easy. ‘You talk funny,’ they told me, and sort of made fun of me and bullied me. The female monkeys would giggle when they looked at me. Monkeys are extremely sensitive to the most minute differences. They found the way I acted comical, and it annoyed them, even made them irritated sometimes. It got harder for me to stay with them, so eventually I went off on my own. Turned into a rogue monkey , in other words.”

“It must have been lonely for you.”

“Indeed it was. Nobody protected me, and I had to scrounge for food on my own and somehow survive. But the worst thing was not having anyone to communicate with. I couldn’t talk with monkeys, or with humans. Isolation like that is heartrending. Takasakiyama is full of human visitors, but that didn’t mean I could just start up a conversation with whomever I happened to run across. Do that and there’d be hell to pay. The upshot was I wound up sort of neither here nor there, an isolated monkey, not part of human society, not part of the monkeys’ world. It was a harrowing existence.”

“And you couldn’t listen to Bruckner, either.”

“True. That’s not part of my world anymore,” the Shinagawa monkey said, and drank some more beer. I studied his face, but since it was red to begin with, I didn’t notice it turning any redder. I figured this monkey could hold his liquor. Or maybe with monkeys you can’t tell from their faces when they’re drunk.

“The other thing that really tormented me was relations with females.”

“I see,” I said. “And by relations with females you mean—”

“To be brief, I didn’t feel a speck of sexual desire for female monkeys. I had a lot of opportunities to be with them, but never really felt like it.”

“So female monkeys didn’t turn you on, even though you’re a monkey yourself?”

“Yes. That’s exactly right. It’s embarrassing, but honestly, before I knew it, I could only love human females.”

I was silent and drained my glass of beer. I opened the bag of crunchy snacks and grabbed a handful. “That could lead to some real problems, I would think.”

“Yes, some real problems indeed. Me being a monkey, after all, there’s no way I could expect human females to respond to my desires. Plus it runs counter to genetics.”

I waited for him to go on. The monkey rubbed hard behind his ear and finally continued.

“So because of all this I had to find another method of ridding myself of these unfulfilled desires.”

“What do you mean by ‘another method’?”

The monkey frowned deeply. His red face turned a bit darker.

“You may not believe me,” the monkey said. “You probably won’t believe me, I should say. But I started stealing the names of women I fell for.”

“Stealing names?”

“Correct. I’m not sure why, but I seem to have been born with a special talent for it. If I feel like it, I can steal somebody’s name and make it my own.”

A wave of confusion hit me again.

“I’m not sure I get it,” I said. “When you say you steal a person’s name, you mean that person completely loses their name?”

“No. They don’t totally lose their name. What I steal is part of their name, a fragment. But when I do, the name becomes insubstantial, that much lighter than before. Like when the sun clouds over and your shadow on the ground gets that much paler. And depending on the person, they might not be aware of the loss. They just have a sense that something’s a little off.”

“But some do clearly realize it, right? That a part of their name’s been stolen?”

“Yes, of course. Sometimes they find that they can’t remember their name. Quite inconvenient, a real bother, as you might imagine. And they don’t even recognize their name for what it is. In some cases, they suffer through something close to an identity crisis. And it’s all my fault, since I stole that person’s name. I feel very sorry about that. I often feel the weight of a guilty conscience bearing down on me. I know it’s wrong, yet I can’t stop myself. I’m not trying to excuse my actions, but my dopamine levels force me to do that. Like there’s a voice telling me, Hey, go ahead, steal the name. It’s not like it’s illegal or anything .”

I folded my arms and studied the monkey. Dopamine? Finally, I spoke up. “And the names you steal are only those of the women you love or sexually desire. Do I have that right?”

“Exactly. I don’t randomly steal just anybody’s name.”

“How many people’s names have you stolen?”

With a serious expression the monkey totaled it up on his fingers. As he counted, he was muttering something. He looked up. “Seven in all. I stole seven women’s names.”

Was this a lot, or not so many? Who could say?

“So how do you go about stealing names?” I asked. “If you don’t mind telling me?”

“It’s mostly by willpower. Power of concentration, psychic energy. But that’s not enough. I need something with the person’s name actually written on it. An ID is ideal. A driver’s license, student ID, insurance card, or passport. Things of this sort. A name tag will work, too. Anyway, I need to get hold of an actual object like that. Mostly I steal them. Stealing is the only way. As a monkey I’m pretty skilled at sneaking into people’s rooms when they’re out. I scout around for something with their name on it and take it back with me.”

“So you use that object with the woman’s name on it, along with your willpower, and steal their name.”

“Precisely. I stare at the name written there for a long time, focusing my emotions, absorbing the name of the person I love. It takes a lot of time, and is mentally and physically exhausting. I get completely engrossed in it, and somehow am able to pull it off—a part of the woman becomes a part of me. And my affection and desire, which up until then had no outlet, are safely satisfied.”

“So there’s nothing physical involved?”

The monkey nodded sharply. “I know I’m just a monkey, but I never do anything unseemly. I make the name of the woman I love a part of me—that’s enough for me. I agree it’s a bit perverted, but it’s also a completely pure, platonic act. I simply possess a great love for that name inside me, secretly. Like a gentle breeze wafting over a meadow.”

“Hmm,” I said, impressed. “I guess you could even call that the ultimate form of romantic love.”

“Agreed. It may well be the ultimate form of romantic love. But it’s also the ultimate form of loneliness. Like two sides of a coin. The two extremes are stuck together, and can never be separated.”

Our conversation came to a halt here, and the monkey and I silently drank our beer, snacking on the Kakipi and dried squid.

“Have you stolen anyone’s name recently?” I asked.

The monkey shook his head. He grabbed some of the stiff hair on his arm, as if making sure he was, indeed, an actual monkey. “No, I haven’t stolen anyone’s name recently. After I came to this town, I made up my mind to stop that kind of misconduct. Thanks to which, the soul of this wee little monkey has found a measure of peace. I treasure the names of the seven women in my heart, and live a quiet, tranquil life.”