South of the Border, West of the Sun Page 0,73
in a while, a car’s headlights would shine on it I had no more illusions. The feel of Shimamoto’s breasts, her voice, the scent of her skin-all had faded. Izumi’s expressionless face floated across my mind. And the feel of the taxi’s window separating us. I closed my eyes and thought of Yukiko. Again and again I thought over what she had said. Eyes closed, I listened to the movements within my body. I might very well be changing. And I had to change.
I don’t know if I have the strength to care for Yukiko and the children, I thought. No more visions can help me, weaving special dreams just for me. As far as the eye can see, the void is simply that–a void. I’ve been in that void before and forced myself to adjust And now, finally, I end up where I began, and I’d better get used to it No one will weave dreams for me–it is my turn to weave dreams for others. That’s what I have to do. Such dreams may have no power, but if my own life is to have any meaning at all, that is what I have to do.
Probably.
As the dawn approached, I gave up trying to sleep. I threw a cardigan over my pajamas, padded out to the kitchen, and made some coffee. I sat at the kitchen table and watched the sky grow lighter by the minute. It had been a long time since I’d seen the dawn. At one end of the sky a line of blue appeared, and like blue ink on a piece of paper, it spread slowly across the horizon. If you gathered together all the shades of blue in the world and picked the bluest, the epitome of blue, this was the color you would choose. I rested my elbows on the table and looked at that scene, my mind blank. When the sun showed itself over the horizon, that blue was swallowed up by ordinary sunlight A single cloud floated above the cemetery, a pure white cloud, its edges distinct A cloud so sharply etched you could write on it A new day had begun. But what this day would bring, I had no idea.
I would take my daughters to nursery school and go swimming. The same as always. I remembered the pool I used to swim in during junior high. The smell of the place, the way voices echoed off the ceiling. I was in the midst of becoming something new. Standing in front of the mirror, I could see the changes in my body. At night, in the stillness, I swore I could hear the sound of my flesh growing. I was about to be clothed in a new self, about to step into a place where I’d never been.
Sitting at the kitchen table, I watched the single cloud over the cemetery. The cloud didn’t move an inch. It was stationary, nailed to the spot. Time to wake my daughters. It was well past dawn, and they had to get up. They were the ones who needed this new day, much more than I ever would. I’d go to their bedroom, pull back the covers, rest my hand on their warm bodies, and announce the beginning of a new day. That’s what I had to do. But somehow I couldn’t stand up from the kitchen table. All strength was drained from my body, as if someone had snuck up behind me and silently pulled the plug. Both elbows on the table, I covered my face with my palms.
Inside that darkness, I saw rain falling on the sea. Rain softly falling on a vast sea, with no one there to see it The rain strikes the surface of the sea, yet even the fish don’t know it is raining.
Until someone came and lightly rested a hand on my shoulder, my thoughts were of the sea.
Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into more than forty languages. The most recent of his many honors is the Franz Kafka Prize.
Books by Haruki Murakami
Fiction
After Dark
After the Quake
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Dance Dance Dance
The Elephant Vanishes
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Kafka on the Shore
Norwegian Wood
South of the Border, West of the Sun
Sputnik Sweetheart
A Wild Sheep Chase
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Nonfiction
Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
ALSO BY HARUKI MURAKAMI
AFTER DARK
Murakami’s trademark humor and psychological insight