Kafka on the Shore

by Haruki Murakami

  The leeches rained down hard for a time, then tapered off and stopped. Nakata folded up his umbrella, brushed off the leeches, and went over to see how the injured man was doing. A mound of the slimy creatures squirmed all around, so he couldn't get very close, and the man on the ground was buried in them. Looking closely, Nakata could see that he was bleeding from cut eyelids, and some of his teeth looked broken.

  Nakata knew this was too much for him to handle by himself, so he hurried back to the restaurant and told one of the employees that a man was lying in the parking lot, hurt.

  "You'd better call the police, or else he might die," he said.

  Not long after this Nakata found a truck driver willing to give him a ride as far as Kobe. A sleepy-looking man in his mid-twenties, not very tall, with a ponytail, a pierced ear, and a Chunichi Dragons baseball team cap, he sat there in the restaurant, smoking and flipping through a comic book. A gaudy aloha shirt and oversize Nikes completed his wardrobe. He tapped his cigarette ashes into the leftover broth in his bowl of ramen, stared hard at Nakata, then gave a reluctant nod. "Yeah, okay. You can ride with me. You kind of remind me of my grandpa. The way you look, or maybe how you talk, kind of off the point.... At the end my grandpa got senile and died. A few years ago."

  He went on to explain that they should get to Kobe by morning. He was delivering furniture to a department store warehouse there. As he pulled his truck out of the parking lot, they passed a car accident. A couple of patrol cars were already at the scene, red lights flashing, and a policeman with a signal light was directing traffic. It didn't appear to be much of an accident. A few cars had collided, the side of a minivan was dented, a car's taillight broken.

  The truck driver stuck his head out the window and exchanged a few words with a patrolman, then rolled up his window. "He said a pile of leeches fell from the sky," he said, unmoved. "They got crushed by cars, the road got all slippery, and some drivers lost control. So go slow and take it easy, he told me. On top of that some local gang of bikers beat up somebody. Leeches and bikers—what a weird combination. Keeps the cops busy, at least."

  He drove carefully toward the exit. Even going slow the truck slipped a couple of times, and the driver straightened it out with a subtle twist of the wheel. "Man, it really looks like a whole bunch fell down, and it's damn slippery. But, boy—leeches, that's pretty gross. Ever had a leech stick to you?"

  "No, as far as Nakata can remember, I don't think so," Nakata responded.

  "I was brought up in the mountains of Gifu, and it happened to me lots of times. I'd be walking in the woods and they'd fall down from the trees. Go wading in the streams and they'd stick to your legs. I know a thing or two about leeches, believe me. Once they get stuck on you they're hard to pull off. If you pull off a big sucker your skin comes off and you'll have a scar. So the best thing is to burn 'em off. Awful things, the way they suck your blood. And once they're filled up they get all soft and mushy. Pretty gross, huh?"

  "Yes, it certainly is," Nakata agreed.

  "But leeches aren't supposed to fall down from the sky into some rest area parking lot. I never heard of anything so stupid! The guys around here don't know the first thing about leeches. Leeches don't fall from the sky, now do they?"

  Nakata was silent and didn't respond.

  "A few years back a huge number of millipedes appeared all at once in Yamanashi Prefecture, and cars were slipping everywhere. Just like this, the road got all slippery and there were a lot of accidents. They got all over the tracks and the trains couldn't run either. But even millipedes aren't going to rain down from the sky. They crawl out from somewhere. Anybody can see that."

  "A long time ago I lived in Yamanashi. During the war."

  "No kidding," the driver said. "Which war was that?"

  Chapter 21

  SCULPTOR KOICHI TAMURA STABBED TO DEATH

  Found in Study, Floor a Sea of Blood

  The world-renowned sculptor Koichi Tamura was found dead on the afternoon of the 30th in the study in his home in Nogata, Nakano Ward. The body was discovered by a female housekeeper. Mr. Tamura was found facedown, nude, covered in blood. There were signs of a struggle and the death is being treated as a homicide. The weapon used was a knife from the kitchen discovered beside the body.

  The police estimate the time of death as the evening of the 28th, and since Mr. Tamura lived alone the body was only discovered two days later. Mr. Tamura suffered several deep stab wounds to the chest from the sharp steak knife, and it is believed he died almost instantly from massive loss of blood from injuries to the heart and lungs.

  Several ribs were also broken from what appears to be massive blunt force. The police have not announced having found any fingerprints or anything left behind at the scene.

  It also appears that there were no witnesses to the crime.

  Since the house was undisturbed, and valuables and a wallet near the scene were not taken, police view the crime as a personal vendetta. Mr. Tamura's home is in a quiet residential neighborhood, but no one heard anything at the time of the murder, and neighbors were shocked at the news. Mr. Tamura had little to do with his neighbors and lived quietly, and no one noticed anything out of the ordinary around the time of the incident.

  Mr. Tamura lived with his son (15), but according to the housekeeper the son hasn't been seen in some ten days. The son has also been absent from his junior high and police are tracing his whereabouts.

  In addition to his residence, Mr. Tamura had an office and studio in Musashino City, and according to his secretary, until the day before the murder he was working on a new piece of sculpture as usual. On the day of the incident, there was a matter she had to contact him about, but every time she phoned his residence she got his message machine.

  Mr. Tamura was born in Kokubunji, Tokyo. He entered the Dept. of Sculpture at Tokyo Arts Institute, and while still a student completed many innovative pieces that became the talk of the art world. His chief theme was the human subconscious, and his sculptures, which were in a unique style that challenged the conventional, were internationally acclaimed. His best known work was his major "Labyrinth" series, which explored, through an uninhibited expression of the imagination, the beauty and inspiration found in the meandering contours of labyrinths. He was at present a visiting professor at an art institute, and two years ago, at the exhibition of his work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York....

  I stop reading at this point. There's a photo of our front gate, and one of my father in younger days, and they give the newspaper an ominous feeling. I fold it twice and put it on top of the table. Still sitting on the bed, I don't say anything, just press my fingertips against my eyes. A dull sound, at a constant frequency, pounds in my ears. I try shaking my head to get rid of it, but it won't go away.

  I'm in my room in the library. It's seven p. m. Oshima and I have just shut the place up for the night, and a while ago Miss Saeki drove off in her Volkswagen Golf. It's just me and Oshima in the library now. And that irritating pounding in my ears.

  "This paper's from two days ago. The article came out while you were up in the mountains. When I saw it I thought maybe this Koichi Tamura might be your father. A lot of the details fit. I should've shown it to you yesterday, but I wanted to wait until you got settled in."

  I nod, still pressing my eyes. Oshima doesn't say anything more.

  "I didn't kill him, you know."

  "I know that," Oshima says. "On the day of the murder you were here at the library, reading until evening. You wouldn't have had enough time to go back to Tokyo, murder your father, and then get back to Takamatsu. It's impossible."

  But I wasn't so sure. I did the math and figured out he was murdered the same night I woke up with my shirt covered in blood.

  "But the paper does say the police are trying to locate you. As an important witness."

  I nod.

  "If you go to the police and prove to them you have a firm alibi, it'd make things a lot easier than trying to run aroun
d avoiding them. Of course I'll back you up."

  "But if I do that, they'll take me back to Tokyo."

  "I would think so. I mean, you still have to finish junior high—that's the law. You can't just go anywhere you want to at your age. The law says you still need a guardian."

  I shake my head. "I don't want to explain anything to anybody. And I don't want to go back home to Tokyo, or back to school."

  Quiet for a time, Oshima looks at me intently. "That's something you'll have to decide for yourself," he finally says in a calm tone. "I think you have a right to live however you want. Whether you're fifteen or fifty-one, what does it matter? But unfortunately society doesn't agree. So let's say you don't explain anything to anybody. You'll be constantly on the run from the police and society. Your life will be pretty harsh. You're only fifteen, with your whole life ahead of you. You're okay with that?"

  I don't say anything.

  Oshima picks up the paper and scans the article again. "According to this you're your father's only relative."

  "I have a mother and an older sister," I explain, "but they left a long time ago, and I don't know where they are. Even if I did, I seriously doubt they'd come to the funeral."

  "Well, if you're not there, I wonder who's going to take care of everything. The funeral, his business affairs."

  "Like it said in the paper, he has a secretary at his office who's in charge of everything. She knows about his business, so I'm sure she can handle it. I don't want anything of his handed down to me. The house, his estate, whatever—they can get rid of it however they want." The only thing he's handed down to me, I think, are my genes.

  "Correct me if I'm wrong," Oshima says, "but you don't seem too sad your father was murdered."

  "No, I do feel sad. He's my father, after all. But what I really regret is that he didn't die sooner. I know that's a terrible thing to say...."

  Oshima shakes his head. "No problem. Now more than ever you have the right to be honest."

  "Well, I think..." My voice seems weak, lacking in authority. Unsure of where they're headed, my words are sucked into the void. Oshima comes over and sits down next to me.

  "All kinds of things are happening to me," I begin. "Some I chose, some I didn't. I don't know how to tell one from the other anymore. What I mean is, it feels like everything's been decided in advance—that I'm following a path somebody else has already mapped out for me. It doesn't matter how much I think things over, how much effort I put into it. In fact, the harder I try, the more I lose my sense of who I am. It's like my identity's an orbit that I've strayed far away from, and that really hurts. But more than that, it scares me. Just thinking about it makes me flinch."

  Oshima reaches out to touch my shoulder. I can feel the warmth of his hand. "For the sake of argument, let's say all your choices and all your effort are destined to be a waste. You're still very much yourself and nobody else. And you're forging ahead, as yourself. So relax."

  I raise my head and look at him. He sounds so convincing. "Why do you think that?"

  "Because there's irony involved."

  "Irony?"

  Oshima gazes deep into my eyes. "Listen, Kafka. What you're experiencing now is the motif of many Greek tragedies. Man doesn't choose fate. Fate chooses man. That's the basic worldview of Greek drama. And the sense of tragedy—according to Aristotle—comes, ironically enough, not from the protagonist's weak points but from his good qualities. Do you know what I'm getting at? People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues. Sophocles' Oedipus Rex being a great example.

  Oedipus is drawn into tragedy not because of laziness or stupidity, but because of his courage and honesty. So an inevitable irony results."

  "But it's a hopeless situation."

  "That depends," Oshima says. "Sometimes it is. But irony deepens a person, helps them mature. It's the entrance to salvation on a higher plane, to a place where you can find a more universal kind of hope. That's why people enjoy reading Greek tragedies even now, why they're considered prototypical classics. I'm repeating myself, but everything in life is metaphor. People don't usually kill their father and sleep with their mother, right? In other words, we accept irony through a device called metaphor. And through that we grow and become deeper human beings."

  I don't say anything. I'm too involved in thinking about my own situation.

  "How many people know you're in Takamatsu?" Oshima asks.

  I shake my head. "Coming here was my own idea, so I don't think anybody else knows."

  "Then you'd better lay low in the library for a while. Don't go out to work at the reception area. I don't think the police will be able to track you down, but if things get sticky you can always hide out at the cabin."

  I look at Oshima. "If I hadn't met you, I don't think I would've made it. There's nobody else who can help me."

  Oshima smiles. He takes his hand away from my shoulder and stares at his hand.

  "That's not true. If you hadn't met me, I'm sure you would've found another path to take.

  I don't know why, but I'm certain of it. I just get that feeling about you." He stands up and brings over another newspaper from the desk. "By the way, this article was in the paper the day before the other one. I remember it because it was so unusual. Maybe it's just coincidence, but it took place near your house."

  FISH RAIN FROM THE SKY!

  2,000 Sardines and Mackerel in Nakano Ward

  Shopping District

  At around 6 p.m. on the evening of the 29th, residents of the *-chome district of Nakano Ward were startled when some 2,000 sardines and mackerel rained down from the sky. Two housewives shopping in the neighborhood market received slight facial injuries when struck by the falling fish, but no other injuries were reported. At the time of the incident it was sunny, with no clouds or wind. Many of the fish were still alive and jumped about on the pavement....

  I finish reading the article and pass the paper back to Oshima. The reporter speculated about several possible causes of the incident, though none of them are very convincing. The police are investigating the possibility it involved theft and someone playing a kind of practical joke. The Weather Service reported that there weren't any atmospheric conditions present that might have led to fish raining from the sky. And from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries spokesman, still no comment.

  "Do you have any idea why this happened?" Oshima asks me.

  I shake my head. I don't have a clue.

  "The day after your father was murdered, close to where it happened, two thousand sardines and mackerel fall from the sky. Just coincidence?"

  "I suppose so."

  "The newspaper also says that at the Fujigawa rest area on the Tomei Highway, late at night on the very same day, a mess of leeches fell from the sky in one small spot.

  Several fender benders resulted, they say. Apparently the leeches were quite large. No one can explain why leeches would rain from the sky. It was a clear night, not a cloud in the sky. No idea why this happened, either?"

  Again I shake my head.

  Oshima folds up the newspaper and says, "Which leaves us with the fact that strange, inexplicable events are happening one after the other. Maybe it's just a series of coincidences, but it still bothers me. There's something about it I can't shake."

  "Maybe it's a metaphor?" I venture.

  "Maybe... But sardines and mackerel and leeches raining down from the sky?

  What kind of metaphor is that?"

  In the silence I try putting into words something I haven't been able to say for a long time. "You know something? A few years back my father had a prophecy about me."

  "A prophecy?"

  "I've never told anybody this before. I figured nobody'd believe me."

  Oshima doesn't say a word. His silence, though, encourages me.

  "More like a curse than a prophecy, I guess. My father told me this over and over.

  Like he was chiseling each word into my brain." I take
a deep breath and check once more what it is I have to say. Not that I really need to check it—it's always there, banging about in my head, whether I examine it or not. But I have to weigh the words one more time. And this is what I say: "Someday you will murder your father and be with your mother, he said."

  Once I've spoken this, put this thought into concrete words, a hollow feeling grabs hold of me. And inside that hollow, my heart pounds out a vacant, metallic rhythm.

  Expression unchanged, Oshima gazes at me for a long time.

  "So he said that someday you would kill your father with your own hands, that you would sleep with your mother."

  I nod a few more times.

  "The same prophecy made about Oedipus. Though of course you knew that."

  I nod. "But that's not all. There's an extra ingredient he threw into the mix. I have a sister six years older than me, and my father said I would sleep with her, too."

  "Your father actually said this to you?"

  "Yeah. I was still in elementary school then, and didn't know what he meant by 'be with.' It was only a few years later that I caught on."

  Oshima doesn't say anything.

  "My father told me there was nothing I could do to escape this fate. That prophecy is like a timing device buried inside my genes, and nothing can ever change it. I will kill my father and be with my mother and sister."

  Oshima stays silent for quite some time, like he's inspecting each word I'd spoken, one by one, examining them for clues to what this is all about. "Why in the world would your father tell you such an awful thing?" he finally asks.

  "I have no idea. He didn't explain it beyond that," I say, shaking my head.

  "Maybe he wanted revenge on his wife and daughter who left him. Wanted to punish them, perhaps. Through me."

  "Even if it meant hurting you?"

  I nod. "To my father I'm probably nothing more than one of his sculptures. Something he could make or break as he sees fit."