Харуки Мураками: First Person Singular: Stories

As we said goodbye she gave me the phone number to her dorm. She wrote the number down on a blank page in her notebook, neatly tore it out, and handed it to me. But I never called her.

A few days later I ran across my friend who’d invited me on the double date, and he apologized.

“I’m sorry for hooking you up with that—how should I put it?—unattractive girl the other day,” he said. “I was planning on introducing you to someone really cute, but at the last minute something came up and she had to bail, so we asked the other girl to fill in. There was no one else in the dorm at the time. My girlfriend wanted to tell you she’s sorry, too. I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”

After my friend said this, I felt like I should call the girl. Certainly she was no beauty, but she was more than just some “unattractive girl.” There was a slight difference between the two, and I didn’t want to leave it at that. I don’t know how to put it, but it seemed important to me. I couldn’t let it go. Most likely I’d never want her as my girlfriend. But I wouldn’t mind seeing her and talking again. I didn’t know what we’d talk about, but I was sure we’d find something. I couldn’t just file her away under “Ugly Girl” and walk away.

But I couldn’t find the paper with her number. I remembered putting it in my coat pocket, but it was nowhere to be found. I might have accidentally tossed it away with some receipt I didn’t need. That’s probably what happened. The upshot was, I couldn’t phone her. If I’d asked my friend, he could have given me the dorm’s number, but I wasn’t wild about the idea of his reaction when I did, and I couldn’t bring myself to ask.

I forgot that whole incident for a long time, and never tried to replay it in my mind. But here, as I write about F* and the way she looked, the whole thing has suddenly come back to me. In every detail.

In the end of autumn when I was twenty, I had a one-time-only date with a not-so-attractive girl, and we walked around a park as the day drew to an end. As we had a cup of coffee I explained the finer points of Art Pepper’s alto sax, how he’d make this amazing screeching sound with it sometimes. Which wasn’t just some musical breakdown, I went on, but an important expression of his state of mind (yes, I actually did use that expression, believe it or not). And then I lost, forever, her phone number. Forever , needless to say, is a very long time.

THESE WERE BOTH nothing more than a pair of minor incidents that happened in my trivial little life. Short side trips along the way. Even if they hadn’t happened, I doubt my life would have wound up much different from what it is now. But still, these memories return to me sometimes, traveling down a very long passageway to arrive. And when they do, their unexpected power shakes me to the core. Like an autumn wind that gusts at night, swirling fallen leaves in a forest, flattening the pampas grass in fields, and pounding hard on the doors to people’s homes, over and over again.

I’D LIKE TO MAKE THIS CLEAR from the start: I love baseball. And what I really love is actually going to a stadium and watching a live game played out right in front of me. I slap on my baseball cap and take along my glove in case I happen to catch a foul ball from the infield seats, or a home-run ball if I’m sitting in the outfield seats. Watching broadcasts of games on TV doesn’t do it for me. I always get the feeling I’m missing something vital. Like with sex, when you… hold on, let’s not go there. In any event, watching baseball on TV robs me of that heart-pounding excitement of a live game. At least that’s how I feel. Though if I were asked to list the reasons why and explain them all, I doubt I could.

To be clear, I’m a fan of the Yakult Swallows. I wouldn’t say I’m a wildly enthusiastic, devout fan, but I do consider myself a pretty loyal supporter. At least, I’ve cheered on the team for a long time. I’ve been frequenting Jingu Stadium from back when the team was called the Sankei Atoms. That’s why I lived near the stadium. Actually, that still holds true. When it comes to finding places to live in Tokyo, that’s my main condition—that the condo be within walking distance of Jingu Stadium. And, unsurprisingly, I also own several team jerseys and baseball caps.

JINGU STADIUM has long been a peaceful, humble ballpark, not the sort of stadium setting any attendance records. What I mean to say is that the place is almost always a bit deserted. Except for rare occasions, it’s never been sold out and I can always get a ticket. By “rare occasions” I mean like when you’re out for a walk at night and encounter a lunar eclipse, or run across a friendly male calico cat at the neighborhood park—I mean it’s about as likely as those occurrences. But truthfully I kind of enjoy how sparsely populated it is. I’ve always disliked crowds, even as a child.

I don’t mean to imply that the reason I became a Yakult Swallows fan is the half-deserted stadium. I’d feel sorry for the team if I said something like that. The poor Yakult Swallows. And poor Jingu Stadium. I mean, the section where the visiting team’s fans sit always seems to fill up faster than the Yakult Swallows fans’ section. You could search the entire world and I doubt you’d find another baseball stadium where that’s the case.

So why did I become a fan of that team, anyway? What long and winding path led me to become a longtime supporter of the Swallows? What sort of galaxy did I cross to make that fleeting, dim star—the one that’s the hardest to locate in the night sky—my own lucky star? It’s kind of a long story, but under the circumstances maybe I should touch on it. Who knows, but it might end up being a kind of concise autobiography.

I WAS BORN IN KYOTO, but we soon moved to the Kansai-Kobe area, where I lived till I was eighteen, first in Shukugawa, and then in Ashiya. When I was free, I’d ride my bike, or sometimes take the Hanshin railway line, to see a game at Koshien Stadium, the home of the Hanshin Tigers. I was, as an elementary school student, naturally a member of the Hanshin Tigers Fan Club. (You got bullied at school if you weren’t.) I don’t care what anyone says, Koshien is the most beautiful stadium in all of Japan. Back when I was a boy, I’d rush to the stadium with my ticket in hand, pass through the ivy-covered entrance, and hurry up the dimly lit concrete stairs. And when the natural grass of the outfield leapt into view, and that brilliant ocean of green spread out before me, my little heart beat loudly with excitement, for all the world as if a group of lively dwarves were bungee-jumping inside my tiny ribs.

On the field, there is a story line about to be played out, amid the full array of cheers and signs and cries of anger ready and waiting: the players warming up, their uniforms still sparkling clean, the happy reverberation of the pure-white ball striking the sweet spot of the bat as the players field fungoes, the determined shouts of the hawkers selling beer, the fresh new scoreboard before the game begins. Yes, that’s how—without any room for doubt whatsoever—that’s how baseball, and going to the stadium, has become an integral part of me.

So at eighteen when I left the Kansai-Kobe area to go to college in Tokyo I decided, like it was the most natural thing, to go to Jingu Stadium and root for the Sankei Atoms. This was the closest stadium to where I was living, so I could root for the home team—which to me was the very best way of enjoying watching baseball. Though strictly speaking, Korakuen Stadium, the home of the Tokyo Giants back then, was a bit closer to my apartment… but there was no way I was going there. I mean, there are certain ethical standards you have to maintain.