Vintage Murakami Read Online Free PDF Page B

even register.”
    “It just doesn’t make sense.”
    He adjusted his tie, then glanced at his watch. “So very, very close,” he underscored. “But if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to be going. Let’s talk about it next time, shall we? Can’t keep a person waiting. Sorry.”
    I had no plausible reason to detain the guy any further.
    He stood up, pocketed his cigarettes and lighter, and then remarked, “Oh, by the way, have you seen her lately?”
    “No, not at all. Haven’t you?”
    “Me, neither. I’ve been trying to get in touch, but she’s never in her apartment and she doesn’t answer the phone and she hasn’t been to her pantomime class the whole while.”
    “She must have taken off somewhere. She’s been known to do that.”
    The guy stared down at the table, hands buried in his pockets. “With no money, for a month and a half? As far as making her own way, she hardly has a clue.”
    He was snapping his fingers in his coat pocket.
    “I think I know that girl pretty well, and she absolutely hasn’t got yen one. No real friends to speak of. An address book full of names, but that’s all they are. She hasn’t got anyone she can depend on. No, I take that back, she did trust you. And I’m not saying this out of courtesy. I do believe you’re someone special to her. Really, it’s enough to make me kind of jealous. And I’m someone who’s never ever been jealous at all.” He gave a little sigh, then eyed his watch again. “But I really must go. Be seeing you.”
    Right, I nodded, but no words came. The same as always, whenever I was thrown together with this guy, I became altogether inarticulate.
    I tried calling her any number of times after that, but her line had apparently been disconnected. Which somehow bothered me, so I went to her apartment and encountered a locked door, her mailbox stuffed with fliers. The superintendent was nowhere to be found, so I had no way to know if she was even living there anymore. I ripped a page from my appointment book, jotted down “Please contact,” wrote my name, and shoved it into the mailbox.
    Not a word.
    The next time I passed by, the apartment bore the nameplate of another resident. I actually knocked, but no one was in. And like before, no superintendent in sight.
    At that, I gave up. This was one year ago.
    She’d disappeared.
    EVERY morning, I still run past those five barns. Not one of them has yet burned down. Nor do I hear of any barn fires. Come December, the birds strafe overhead. And I keep getting older.
    Although just now and then, in the depths of the night, I’ll think about barns burning to the ground.
    —Translated by Alfred Birnbaum

SHIZUKO AKASHI
    Ii-yu-nii-an [Disneyland]
    I talked to Shizuko Akashi’s elder brother, Tatsuo, on
December 2, 1996, and the plan was to visit her at a hospital in a Tokyo suburb the following evening.
    I was uncertain whether or not Tatsuo would allow me
to visit her until the very last moment. Finally he consented, though only after what must have been a considerable amount of anguished deliberation—not that he ever
admitted as much. It’s not hard to imagine how indelicate it
must have seemed for him to allow a total stranger to see his
sister’s cruel disability. Or even if it was permissible for me
as an individual to see her, the very idea of reporting her
condition in a book for all the world to read would surely
not go down well with the rest of the family. In this sense, I
felt a great responsibility as a writer, not only toward the
family but to Shizuko herself.
    Yet whatever the consequences, I knew I had to meet
Shizuko in order to include her story. Even though I had
gotten most of the details from her brother, I felt it only fair
that I meet her personally. Then, even if she responded to
my questions with complete silence, at least I would have
tried to interview her . . .
    In all honesty, though, I wasn’t at all certain that I
would be able to write about her without hurting