Харуки Мураками: First Person Singular: Stories

After I finished telling this story, there was a pause, then my younger friend said, “I don’t really get it. What actually happened, then? Was there some intention or principle at work?”

Those very odd circumstances I experienced on top of that mountain in Kobe on a Sunday afternoon in late autumn—following the directions on the invitation to where the recital was supposed to take place, only to discover that the building was deserted—what did it all mean? And why did it happen? That was what my friend was asking. Perfectly natural questions, especially because the story I was telling him didn’t reach any conclusion.

“I don’t understand it myself, even now,” I admitted.

It was permanently unsolved, like some ancient riddle. What took place that day was incomprehensible, inexplicable, and at eighteen it left me bewildered and mystified. So much so that, for a moment, I nearly lost my way.

“But I get the feeling,” I said, “that principle or intention wasn’t really the issue.”

My friend looked confused. “Are you telling me that there’s no need to know what it was all about?”

I nodded.

“But if it were me,” he said, “I’d be bothered no end. I’d want to know the truth, why something like that happened. If I’d been in your shoes, that is.”

“Yeah, of course. Back then, it bothered me, too. A lot. It hurt me, too. But thinking about it later, from a distance, after time had passed, it came to feel insignificant, not worth getting upset about. I felt as though it had nothing at all to do with the cream of life.”

“The cream of life,” he repeated.

“Things like this happen sometimes in our lives,” I told him. “Inexplicable, illogical events that nevertheless are deeply disturbing. I guess we need to not think about them, just close our eyes and get through them. As if we were passing under a huge wave.”

My younger friend was quiet for a time, considering that huge wave. He was an experienced surfer, and there were lots of things, serious things, that he had to consider when it came to waves. Finally, he spoke. “But not thinking about anything might also be pretty hard.”

“You’re right. It might be hard indeed.”

There’s nothing worth getting in this world that you can get easily , the old man had said, with unshakable conviction, like Pythagoras explaining his theorem.

“About that circle with many centers but no circumference,” my friend asked. “Did you ever find an answer?”

“Good question,” I said. I slowly shook my head. Had I?

In my life, whenever an inexplicable, illogical, disturbing event takes place (I’m not saying that it happens often, but it has a few times), I always come back to that circle—the circle with many centers but no circumference. And, as I did when I was eighteen, on that arbor bench, I close my eyes and listen to the beating of my heart.

Sometimes I feel that I can sort of grasp what that circle is, but a deeper understanding eludes me. This happens again and again. This circle is, most likely, not a circle with a concrete, actual form but, rather, one that exists only within our minds. That’s what I think. When we truly love somebody with all our heart, or feel deep compassion, or have an idealistic sense of how the world should be, or when we discover faith (or something close to faith)—that’s when we understand the circle as a given and accept it in our hearts. Admittedly, though, this is nothing more than my own vague attempt to reason it out.

Your brain is made to think about difficult things. To help you get to a point where you understand something that you didn’t understand at first. And that becomes the cream of your life. The rest is boring and worthless. That was what the gray-haired old man told me. On a cloudy Sunday afternoon in late autumn, on top of a mountain in Kobe, as I clutched a small bouquet of red flowers. And even now, whenever something disturbing happens to me, I ponder again that special circle, and the boring and the worthless . And the unique cream that must be there, deep inside me.

I’D LIKE TO TELL a story about a woman. The thing is, I know next to nothing about her. I can’t even remember her name, or her face. And I’m willing to bet she doesn’t remember me, either.

When I met her, I was a sophomore in college, and I’m guessing she was in her mid-twenties. We both had part-time jobs at the same place, at the same time. It was totally unplanned, but we ended up spending a night together. And never saw each other again.

At nineteen, I knew nothing about the inner workings of my own heart, let alone the hearts of others. Still, I thought I had a pretty good grasp of how happiness and sadness worked. What I couldn’t yet grasp were all the myriad phenomenon that lay in the space between happiness and sadness, how they related to each other. As a result, I often felt anxious and helpless.

That said, I still want to talk about her.

What I do know about her is that she wrote tanka poems and had published a book of poetry. I say published, but the book was actually a pamphlet-like volume that barely rose to the level of a self-published book, composed of printed pages bound with string, and a simple cover attached. But several of the poems in her collection were strangely unforgettable. Most of her poems were about love between men and women, or about death. Almost as if to show that love and death were concepts that could not be separated or divided.

“I might yell another man’s name when I come. Are you okay with that?” she asked me. We were naked, under the covers.

“I’m okay with that, I guess,” I said. I wasn’t totally sure, but I thought it probably wouldn’t bother me. I mean, it’s just a name. Nothing’s going to change because of a name.

“I might yell pretty loud.”

“Well, that could be a problem,” I said hurriedly. The ancient wooden apartment I lived in had walls as thin and flimsy as one of those wafers I used to eat as a kid. It was pretty late at night, and if she really screamed, the people next door would hear it all.

“I’ll bite down on a towel, then,” she said.

I picked out the cleanest, thickest towel in the bathroom, brought it back, and laid it next to the pillow.

“Is this one okay?”

She bit down on the towel, like a horse testing a new bit. She nodded. The towel passed muster, apparently.

It was totally a chance hookup. I hadn’t particularly been hoping we’d get together, and I don’t think she had been, either. We’d worked at the same place for a couple of weeks, but since the work we did was a little different, we hardly ever had any chance for a decent conversation. That winter I was washing dishes and helping out in the kitchen of a down-market Italian restaurant near Yotsuya station, and she worked there as a waitress. All the part-timers were college students, except her. Maybe that’s why she seemed a bit aloof.

She decided to quit that job in the middle of December, and one day after work, some of the employees went to a nearby izakaya for some drinks. I was invited to join them. It wasn’t exactly a full-blown farewell party, just us drinking draft beer, having some snacks, chatting about various things. I learned that before she waitressed she’d worked at a small real estate agency and at a bookstore. In all the places she worked, she explained, she never got along with the managers or owners. At the restaurant, she didn’t have any arguments with anyone, she explained, but the pay was too low for her to get by for long, so she had to look for another job. Not that she wanted to.