Norwegian Wood

by Haruki Murakami

  “Well, what are you going to do after you graduate?” I asked him.

  Munching on a mouthful of smelt, he shook his head. “What can I do? I’m in oil painting! Start worrying about stuff like that, and nobody’s going to major in oil painting! You don’t do it to feed yourself. So she’s like, why don’t I come back to Nagasaki and become an art teacher? She’s planning to be an English teacher.”

  “You’re not so crazy about her anymore, are you?”

  “That about sums it up,” Itoh admitted. “And who the hell wants to be an art teacher? I’m not gonna spend my whole fuckin’ life teaching middle-school monkeys how to draw!”

  “That’s beside the point,” I said. “Don’t you think you ought to break up with her? For both your sakes.”

  “Sure I do. But I don’t know how to say it to her. She’s planning to spend her life with me. How the hell can I say, ‘Hey, we ought to split up. I don’t like you anymore’?”

  We drank our Chivas straight, without ice, and when we ran out of smelts we cut up some cucumbers and celery and dipped them in miso. When my teeth crunched down on my cucumber slices, I thought of Midori’s father, which reminded me how flat and tasteless my life had become without Midori and put me into a foul mood. Without my being aware of it, she had become a huge presence inside me.

  “Got a girlfriend?” Itoh asked me.

  “I do,” I said, then, after a pause, added, “but I can’t be with her right now.”

  “But you understand each other’s feelings, right?”

  “I like to think so. Otherwise, what’s the point?” I said with a chuckle.

  Itoh talked in hushed tones about the greatness of Mozart. He knew Mozart inside out, the way a country boy knows his mountain trails. His father loved the music and had had him listening to it ever since he was tiny. I didn’t know so much about classical music, but listening to this Mozart concerto with Itoh’s smart and heartfelt commentary (“There—that part,” “How about that?”), I felt myself calming down for the first time in ages. We stared at the crescent moon hanging over Inokashira Park and drank our Chivas Regal to the last drop. Fantastic whiskey.

  Itoh said I could spend the night there, but I told him I had something to do, thanked him for the whiskey, and left his apartment before nine. On the way back to my place I called Midori from a public phone. She actually answered, much to my surprise.

  “Sorry,” she said, “but I don’t want to talk to you right now.”

  “I know, I know. But I don’t want our relationship to end like this. You’re one of the very few friends I have, and it hurts not being able to see you. When am I going to be able to talk to you? I want you to tell me that much, at least.”

  “When I feel like talking to you,” she said.

  “How are you?” I asked.

  “Fine,” she said, and hung up.

  A LETTER CAME from Reiko in the middle of May.

  Thanks for writing so often. Naoko enjoys your letters. And so do I. You don’t mind if I read them, do you?

  Sorry I haven’t been able to answer for such a long time. To tell you the truth, I’ve been feeling kind of exhausted, and there hasn’t been much good news to report. Naoko’s not doing well. Her mother came from Kobe the other day. The four of us—she and Naoko and the doctor and I—had a good long talk and we reached the conclusion that Naoko should move to a real hospital for a while for some intensive treatment and then maybe come back here depending on the results. Naoko says she’d like to stay here if possible and make herself well, and I know I am going to miss her and worry about her, but the fact is that it’s getting harder and harder to keep her under control here. She’s fine most of the time, but sometimes her emotions become tremendously unstable, and when that happens we can’t take our eyes off her. There’s no telling what she would do. When she has those intense episodes of hearing voices, she shuts down completely and burrows inside herself.

  Which is why I myself agree that the best thing for Naoko would be for her to receive therapy at a proper institution for a while. I hate to say it, but it’s all we can do. As I told you once before, patience is the most important thing. We have to go on unraveling the jumbled threads one at a time, without losing hope. No matter how hopeless her condition may appear to be, we are bound to find that one loose thread sooner or later. If you’re in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark.

  Naoko should have moved to that other hospital by the time you receive this. I’m sorry I waited to tell you until the decision had been made, but it happened very quickly. The new hospital is a really good one, with good doctors. I’ll write the address below: please write to Naoko there. They will be keeping me informed of her progress, too, so I will let you know what I hear. I hope it will be good news. I know this is going to be hard for you, but keep your hopes up. And even though Naoko is not here anymore, please write to me once in a while.

  Good-bye.

  I wrote a huge number of letters that spring: one a week to Naoko, several to Reiko, and several more to Midori. I wrote letters in the classroom, I wrote letters at my desk at home with Seagull in my lap, I wrote letters at empty tables during my breaks at the Italian restaurant. It was as if I were writing letters to hold together the pieces of my crumbling life.

  To Midori I wrote, “April and May were painful, lonely months for me because I couldn’t talk to you. I never knew that spring could be so painful and lonely. Better to have three Februaries than a spring like this. I know it’s too late to be saying this to you, but your new hairstyle looks great on you. Really cute. I’m working in an Italian restaurant now, and the cook taught me a great way to make spaghetti. I’d like to make it for you soon.”

  I WENT TO SCHOOL every day, worked in the restaurant two or three times a week, talked with Itoh about books and music, read a few Boris Vian novels he lent me, wrote letters, played with Seagull, made spaghetti, worked in the garden, masturbated thinking of Naoko, and went to lots of movies.

  By the time Midori started talking to me, it was almost the middle of June. We hadn’t said a word to each other for two months. After the end of one lecture, she sat down in the seat next to mine, propped her chin in her hand, and sat there, saying nothing. Beyond the window, it was raining—a real rainy-season rain, pouring straight down without any wind, soaking every single thing beneath. Long after the other students had filed out of the classroom, Midori went on sitting next to me without a word. Then she took a Marlboro from the pocket of her jeans jacket, put it between her lips, and handed me her matches. I struck a match and lit her cigarette. Midori pursed her lips and blew a gentle cloud of tobacco in my face.

  “Like my hairstyle?” she asked.

  “It’s great.”

  “How great?”

  “Great enough to knock down all the trees in all the forests of the world.”

  “You really think so?”

  “I really think so.”

  She kept her eyes on mine for a while, then held her right hand out to me. I took it. She looked even more relieved than I felt. She tapped her ashes onto the floor and rose to her feet.

  “Let’s go eat. I’m starved,” she said.

  “Where do you want to go?” I asked.

  “To the Takashimaya department store restaurant in Nihonbashi.”

  “Why there of all places?”

  “I like to go there sometimes, that’s all.”

  And so we took the subway to Nihonbashi. Maybe because it had been raining all morning, the place was practically empty. The smell of rain filled the big, cavernous department store, and all the employees had that what-do-we-do-now? kind of look. Midori and I went to the basement restaurant and, after a close inspection of the plastic food in the window, both decided to have an old-fashioned cold lunch assortment with rice and pickles and grilled fish and tempura and teriyaki chicken. Inside, it was far from crowded despite the noon hour.

  “Man, how long has it been since the las
t time I had lunch in a department-store restaurant?” I wondered aloud, drinking green tea from one of those slick white cups you can only find in a department-store restaurant.

  “I like to do stuff like this,” said Midori. “I don’t know, it makes me feel like I’m doing something special. Probably reminds me of when I was a kid. My parents almost never took me to department stores.”

  “And I get the sneaking suspicion that’s all mine ever did. My mother was crazy about department stores.”

  “Luckee!”

  “What are you talking about? I don’t particularly like going to department stores.”

  “No, I mean, you were lucky they cared enough about you to take you places.”

  “Well, I was an only child,” I said.

  “When I was little I used to dream about going to a department-store restaurant all by myself when I grew up and eating anything I liked. But what an empty dream! What’s the fun of cramming your mouth full of rice all alone in a place like this? The food’s not all that great, and it’s just big and crowded and stuffy and noisy. Still, every once in a while I think about coming here.”

  “I’ve been really lonely these past two months,” I said.

  “Yeah, I know. You told me in your letters,” Midori said, her voice flat. “Anyhow, let’s eat. That’s all I can think about now.”

  We finished all the little fried and broiled and pickled items in the separate compartments of our fancy lacquered half-moon lunch boxes, drank our clear soup from lacquered bowls, and our green tea from those white cups. Midori followed lunch with a cigarette. When she was done smoking, she stood up without a word and took her umbrella. I also stood up and took my umbrella.

  “Where do you want to go now?” I asked.

  “The roof, of course. That’s the next stop when you’ve had lunch in a department-store restaurant.”

  There was no one on the roof in the rain, no clerk in the pet supplies department, and the shutters were closed in the kiosks and the kids’ rides’ ticket booth. We put up our umbrellas and wandered among the soaking wet wooden horses and garden chairs and stalls. It seemed incredible to me that there could be anyplace so devoid of people in the middle of Tokyo. Midori said she wanted to look through a telescope, so I put in a coin and held her umbrella over her while she squinted through the eyepiece.

  In one corner of the roof was the covered games area with a row of kids’ rides. Midori and I sat next to each other on some kind of platform and looked at the rain.

  “So talk,” Midori said. “You’ve got something you want to say to me, I know.”

  “I’m not trying to make excuses,” I said, “but I was really depressed that time. My brain was all fogged over. Nothing was registering with me. But one thing became crystal clear to me when I couldn’t see you anymore. I realized that the only way I had been able to survive until then was having you in my life. When I lost you, the pain and loneliness really got to me.”

  “Don’t you have any idea how painful and lonely it’s been for me without you these past two months?”

  This took me completely off guard. “No,” I said. “It never occurred to me. I thought you were mad at me and didn’t want to see me.”

  “How can you be such an idiot? Of course I wanted to see you! I told you how much I like you! When I like somebody I really like them. It doesn’t turn on and off for me just like that. Don’t you realize at least that much about me?”

  “Well, sure, but—”

  “That’s why I was so mad at you! I wanted to give you a good kick in the pants. I mean, we hadn’t seen each other that whole time, and you were so spaced out thinking about this other girl you didn’t even look at me! How could I not get mad at you? But aside from all that, I had been feeling for a long time that it would be better for me if I kept away from you for a while. To get things clear in my head.”

  “What kinds of things?”

  “Our relationship, of course. It was getting to the point where I enjoyed being with you way better than being with him. I mean, don’t you think there’s something weird about that? And difficult? Of course I still like him. He’s a little self-centered and narrow-minded and kind of a fascist, but he’s got a lot of good points, and he’s the first guy I ever got serious about. But you, well, you’re special to me. When I’m with you I feel something is just right. I believe in you. I like you. I don’t want to let you go. I was getting more and more confused, so I went to him and asked him what I should do. He told me to stop seeing you. He said if I was going to see you, I should break up with him.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I broke up with him. Just like that.” Midori put a Marlboro in her mouth, shielded it with her hand as she lit up, and inhaled.

  “Why?”

  “‘Why?’!” she screamed. “Are you crazy? You know the English subjunctive, you understand trigonometry, you can read Marx, and you don’t know the answer to something as simple as that? Why do you even have to ask? Why do you have to make a girl say something like this? I like you more than I like him, that’s all. I wish I had fallen in love with somebody a little more handsome, of course. But I didn’t. I fell in love with you!”

  I tried to speak, but I felt the words catching in my throat.

  Midori threw her cigarette into a puddle. “Will you please get that look off your face? You’re gonna make me cry. Don’t worry, I know you’re in love with somebody else. I’m not expecting anything from you. But the least you can do is give me a hug. These have been two tough months for me.”

  I put my umbrella up, and we went behind the games area and held each other close. Our bodies strained against each other, and our lips met. The smell of the rain clung to her hair and her jeans jacket. girls’ bodies were so soft and warm! I could feel her breasts pressing against my chest through our clothing. How long had it been since my last physical contact with another human being?

  “The day I last saw you, that night I talked to him, and we broke up,” Midori said.

  “I love you,” I said to her. “From the bottom of my heart. I don’t ever want to let you go again. But there’s nothing I can do. I can’t make a move.”

  “Because of her?”

  I nodded.

  “Tell me, have you slept with her?”

  “Once. A year ago.”

  “And you haven’t seen her since then?”

  “I have seen her: twice. But we didn’t do anything.”

  “Why not? Doesn’t she love you?”

  “That’s hard to say,” I said. “It’s really complicated. And mixed up. And it’s been going on for such a long time, I don’t know what’s what anymore. And neither does she. All I know is, I have a kind of responsibility in all this as a human being, and I can’t just turn my back on it. At least, that’s how I feel about it now. Even if she isn’t in love with me.”

  “Let me just tell you this, Watanabe,” said Midori, pressing her cheek against my neck. “I’m a real, live girl, with real, live blood gushing through my veins. You’re holding me in your arms and I’m telling you that I love you. I’m ready to do anything you tell me to do. I may be a little crazy, but I’m a good kid, and honest, and I work hard, I’m kinda cute, I’ve got nice boobs, I’m a good cook, and my father left me a trust fund. I mean, I’m a real bargain, don’t you think? If you don’t take me, I’m gonna end up going somewhere else.”

  “I need time,” I said. “I need time to think and sort things out, and make some decisions. I’m sorry, but that’s all I can say at this point.”

  “Yeah, but you do love me from the bottom of your heart, right? And you never want to let me go again, right?”

  “I said it and I meant it.”

  Midori pulled away from me with a smile on her face. “O.K., I’ll wait! I believe in you,” she said. “But when you take me, you take only me. And when you hold me in your arms, you think only about me. Is that clear?”

  “I know exactly what you mean.”

  “I d
on’t care what you do to me, but I don’t want you to hurt me. I’ve had enough hurt already in my life. More than enough. Now I want to be happy.”

  I drew her close and kissed her on the mouth.

  “Drop the damn umbrella and wrap both your arms around me—hard!” she said.

  “But we’ll get soaking wet!”

  “So what? I want you to stop thinking and hold me tight! I’ve been waiting two whole months for this!”

  I set the umbrella down and held her close in the rain. The dull rush of tires on the highway enveloped us like a fog. The rain fell without a break, without a sound, soaking her hair and mine, running like tears down our cheeks, down to her jeans jacket and my yellow nylon windbreaker, spreading in dark stains.

  “What do you say we go back under the roof?” I said.

  “Come to my place. There’s nobody home now. We’ll both catch colds like this.”

  “It’s true.”

  “It’s kinda like we just swam across a river,” Midori said, smiling. “What a great feeling!”

  We bought a good-size towel in the linen department and took turns going into the bathroom to dry our hair. Then we rode the subway, with the necessary transfers, to her apartment in Myogadani. She let me shower first and then she showered. Lending me a bathrobe to wear while my clothes dried, Midori changed into a polo shirt and skirt. We sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee.

  “Tell me about yourself,” Midori said.

  “What about me?”

  “Hmm, I don’t know, what do you hate?”

  “Chicken and VD and barbers who talk too much.”

  “What else?”

  “Lonely April nights and lacy telephone covers.”

  “What else?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t think of anything else.”