The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
2
No Good News in This Chapter
I left the coffeehouse and wandered through the streets. The intense
heat of the afternoon
began to make me feel sick, even chilled. But the one place I didn't
want to go was home. The
thought of waiting alone in that silent house for a phone call that
would probably never come
I found suffocating.
All I could think to do was go see May Kasahara. I went home,
climbed the wall, and
made my way down the alley to the back of her house. Leaning against
the fence of the vacant
house on the other side of the alley, I stared at the garden with
its bird sculpture. May would
notice me if I stood here like this. Aside from those few times when
she was out working for
the wig company, she was always at home, keeping watch over the
alley from her room or
while sunbathing in the yard.
But I saw no sign of May Kasahara. There was not a cloud in the sky.
The summer
sunlight was roasting the back of my neck. The heavy smell of grass
rose from the ground,
invading my lungs. I stared at the bird statue and tried to think
about the stories my uncle had
recently told me of the fates of those who had lived in this house.
But all I could think of was
the sea, cold and blue. I took several long, deep breaths. I looked
at my watch. I was ready to
give up for the day, when May Kasahara finally came out. She ambled
slowly through her
yard to where I stood. She wore denim shorts, a blue aloha shirt,
and red thongs. Standing
before me, she smiled through her sunglasses.
"Hello there, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. Find your cat- Noboru Wataya?" "Not
yet," I said.
"What took you so long to come out today?" She thrust her hands into
her hip pockets and
looked all around, amused. "Look, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, I may have a lot
of free time, but I
don't live to stand guard over this alley from morning to night. I
have some things to keep me
busy. But anyhow, I'm sorry. Were you waiting long?"
"Not so long. I got hot standing out here."
May Kasahara stared hard at my face, then wrinkled her eyebrows
slightly. "What's
wrong, Mr. Wind-Up Bird? You look terrible- like somebody who's just
been dug up out of
the ground. Better come over here and rest in the shade for a
while."
She took me by the hand and led me into her yard. There she moved a
canvas deck chair
into the shade of the oak tree and sat me down on it. The thick
green branches cast cool
shadows that had the fragrance of life. "Don't worry, there's nobody
here, as usual," she said.
"You don't have to be the least bit concerned. Take your time. Stop
thinking and relax."
"I do have one favor to ask you," I said.
"Try me," she said.
"I want you to make a call for me. Instead of me." Taking out a
notepad and pen, I wrote
down the number of Kumiko's office. Then I tore off the page and
handed it to her. The little
vinyl-covered notepad was warm and damp with sweat. "All I want you
to do is call this place
and ask if Kumiko Okada is there, and if she's not, ask if she came
to work yesterday."
May Kasahara took the paper and looked at it, with pursed lips. Then
she looked at me.
"Fine, I'll take care of it. You just empty your head out and get
horizontal. You are not
allowed to move. I'll be right back."
Once she was gone, I stretched out and closed my eyes as ordered. I
was soaked with
sweat from heat to foot. Trying to think, I felt a throbbing deep in
my head, and I seemed to
have a lump of string in the pit of my stomach. Every once in a
while, a hint of nausea came
over me. The neighborhood was absolutely silent. It suddenly
occurred to me that I had not
heard the wind-up bird for quite some time. When had I last heard
it? Probably four or five
days earlier. But my memory was uncertain. By the time I noticed,
its cry had been missing
too long to tell. Maybe it was a bird that migrated seasonally. Come
to think of it, we had
started hearing it about a month before. And for a time, the wind-up
bird had continued each
day to wind the spring of our little world. That had been the
wind-up bird's season.
After ten minutes, May Kasahara came back. She handed me a large
glass. Ice clinked
inside when I took it. The sound seemed to reach me from a distant
world. There were several
gates connecting that world with the place where I was, and I could
hear the sound because
they all just happened to be open at the moment. But this was
strictly temporary. If even one
of them closed, the sound would no longer reach my ears. "Drink it,"
she said. "Lemon juice
in water. It'll clear your head."
I managed to drink half and returned the glass to her. The cold
water passed my throat and
made its way down slowly into my body, after which a violent wave of
nausea overtook me.
The decomposing lump of string in my stomach began to unravel and
make its way up to the
base of my throat. I closed my eyes and tried to let it pass. With
my eyes closed, I saw
Kumiko boarding the train, with her blouse and skirt in hand. I
thought it might be better to
vomit. But I did not vomit. I took several deep breaths until the
feeling diminished and
disappeared altogether. "Are you OK?" asked May Kasahara.
"Yeah, I'm OK," I said.
"I made the call," she said. "Told them I was a relative. That's OK,
isn't it?" "Uh-huh."
"This person, Kumiko Okada, that's Mrs. Wind-Up Bird, isn't it?"
"Uh-huh."
"They said she didn't come to work-today or yesterday. Just took off
without a word. It's
a real problem for them. She's not the type to do this kind of
thing, they said."
"It's true. She's not the type." "She's been gone since yesterday?"
I nodded.
"Poor Mr. Wind-Up Bird," she said. She sounded as if she really did
feel sorry for me.
She put her hand on my forehead. "Is there anything I can do?"
"Not now," I said. "But thanks."
"Do you mind if I ask more? Or would you rather I didn't?"
"Go ahead," I said. "I'm not sure I can answer, though."
"Did your wife run away with a man?"
"I'm not sure," I said. "Maybe so. It's possible."
"But you've been living together all this time. How can you not be
sure?"
She was right. How could I not be sure?
"Poor Mr. Wind-Up Bird," she said again. "I wish I had something to
say to help you, but
I don't know anything about married life."
I got out of my chair. The effort required to stand was far greater
than I would have
imagined. "Thanks for everything. You've been a big help. I've got
to go now. I should be at
home in case word comes. Somebody might call."
"As soon as you get home, take a shower. First thing. OK? Then put
on clean clothes. And
shave."
"Shave?" I stroked my jaw. It was true: I had forgotten to shave.
The thought hadn't
crossed my mind all morning.
"The little things are important, Mr. Wind-Up Bird," May Kasahara
said, looking into my
eyes. "Go home and take a good look in the mirror."
"I will," I said.
"Mind if I come over later?"
"Fine," I said. Then I added: "You'd be a big help."
May Kasahara nodded in silence.
At home, I looked at my face in the mirror. It was true: I looked
terrible. I got undressed,
showered, gave myself a good shampoo, shaved, brushed my teeth, put
aftershave lotion on
my face, and went to the mirror again for a close examination. A
little better than before, it
seemed. My nausea was gone. My head was still a little foggy,
though.
I put on short pants and a fresh polo shirt. I sat on the veranda,
leaning against a pillar and
watching the garden while my hair dried. I tried to put the events
of recent days in order. First
there was the call from Lieutenant Mamiya. That had been yesterday
morning? Yes, no doubt
about it: yesterday morning. Then Kumiko had left the house. I had
zipped up her dress. Then
I had found the cologne box. Then Lieutenant Mamiya had come and
told me his strange war
stories: how he had been captured by Outer Mongolian troops and
thrown into a well. He had
left me the keepsake from Mr. Honda. An empty box. Then Kumiko had
failed to come home.
She had picked up her cleaning that morning by the station and
afterward just disappeared
somewhere. Without a word to her company. So that was what had
happened yesterday.
I could hardly believe that all that had happened in the course of a
single day. It was too
much for one day.
As I mulled these things over, I began to feel incredibly sleepy.
This was not an ordinary
kind of sleepiness. It was an intense, even violent, sleepiness.
Sleep was stripping me of
consciousness the way the clothes might be stripped from the body of
an unresisting person. I
went to the bedroom without thinking, took everything off but my
underwear, and got in bed.
I tried to look at the clock on the night table, but I couldn't even
turn my head sideways. I
closed my eyes and fell instantly into a deep, bottomless sleep.
In my sleep, I was zipping up Kumiko's dress. I could see her smooth
white back. But by
the time I had the zipper to the top, I realized it was not Kumiko
but Creta Kano. She and I
were the only ones in the room.
It was the same room as in the last dream: a room in the same hotel
suite. On the table was
a bottle of Cutty Sark and two glasses. There was also a
stainless-steel ice bucket, full of ice.
In the corridor outside, someone was passing by, speaking in a loud
voice. I couldn't catch the
words, which seemed to be in a foreign language. An unlighted
chandelier hung from the
ceiling. The only illumination in this murky room came from lamps
mounted on the wall.
Again the windows had thick curtains that were closed tight.
Creta Kano was wearing a summer dress of Kumiko's: pale blue, with
an openwork
pattern of birds. The skirt came to just above her knees. As always,
her makeup was in the
Jacqueline Kennedy style. On her left wrist she wore a matched pair
of bracelets.
"How did you get that dress?" I asked. "Is it yours?"
Creta Kano looked at me and shook her head. When she did this, the
curled tips of her hair
moved in a pleasant way. "No, it is not mine," she said. "I'm
borrowing it. But don't worry,
Mr. Okada, this is not causing anyone any difficulty."
"Where are we?" I asked.
Creta Kano didn't answer. As before, I was sitting on the edge of
the bed. I wore a suit
and my polka-dot tie.
"You don't have to think about a thing, Mr. Okada," said Creta Kano.
"There is nothing to
worry about. Everything is going to be fine."
And again, as before, she unzipped my fly, took out my penis, and
put it in her mouth.
The one thing different from before was that she did not take off
her own clothing. She wore
Kumiko's dress the whole time. I tried to move, but it felt as if my
body were tied down by
invisible threads. I felt myself growing big and hard inside her
mouth.
I saw her fake eyelashes and curled hair tips moving. Her bracelets
made a dry sound
against each other. Her tongue was long and soft and seemed to wrap
itself around me. Just as
I was about to come, she suddenly moved away and began slowly to
undress me. She took off
my jacket, my tie, my pants, my shirt, my underwear, and made me lie
down on the bed. Her
own clothes she kept on, though. She sat on the bed, took my hand,
and brought it under her
dress. She was not wearing panties. My hand felt the warmth of her
vagina. It was deep,
warm, and very wet. My fingers were all but sucked inside.
"Won't Noboru Wataya be here any minute?" I asked. "Weren't you
expecting to see him
here?"
Instead of answering, Creta Kano touched my forehead. "You don't
have to think, Mr.
Okada. We'll take care of all that. Leave everything to us."
"To us?" I asked, but there was no reply.
Then Creta Kano mounted me and used her hand to slip me inside her.
Once she had me
deep inside, she began a slow rotation of her hips. As she moved,
the edges of the pale-blue
dress caressed my naked stomach and thighs. With the skirts of the
dress spread out around
her, Creta Kano, riding atop me, looked like a soft, gigantic
mushroom that had silently poked
its face up through the dead leaves on the ground and opened under
the sheltering wings of
night. Her vagina felt warm and at the same time cold. It tried to
envelop me, to draw me in,
and at the same time to press me out. My erection grew larger and
harder. I felt I was about to
burst wide open. It was the strangest sensation, something that went
beyond simple sexual
pleasure. It felt as if something inside her, something special
inside her, were slowly working
its way through my organ into me.
With her eyes closed and her chin lifted slightly, Creta Kano rocked
quietly forward and
back as if she were dreaming. I could see her chest rising and
falling with each breath beneath
the dress. A few hairs had come loose and hung over her forehead. I
imagined myself floating
alone in the middle of a vast sea. I closed my eyes and listened,
expecting to hear the sound of
little waves hitting my face. My body was bathed in lukewarm ocean
water. I sensed the
gradual flow of the tide. It was carrying me away. I decided to do
as Creta Kano had said and
not think about anything. I closed my eyes, let the strength go out
of my limbs, and gave
myself up to the current.
All of a sudden, I noticed that the room had gone dark. I tried to
look around, but I could
hardly see a thing. The wall lamps had all been extinguished. There
was only the faint
silhouette of Creta Kano's blue dress rocking on top of me. "Just
forget," she said, but it was
not Creta Kano's voice. "Forget about everything. You're asleep.
You're dreaming. You're
lying in nice, warm mud. We all come out of the warm mud, and we all
go back to it."
It was the voice of the woman on the telephone. The mysterious woman
on the phone was
now mounted atop me and joining her body with mine. She, too, wore
Kumiko's dress. She
and Creta Kano had traded places without my being aware of it. I
tried to speak. I did not
know what I was hoping to say, but at least I tried to speak. I was
too confused, though, and
my voice would not work. All I could expel from my mouth was a hot
blast of air. I opened
my eyes wide and tried to see the face of the woman mounted on top
of me, but the room was
too dark.
The woman said nothing more. Instead, she began to move her hips in
an even more
erotically stimulating way. Her soft flesh, itself almost an
independent organism, enveloped
my erection with a gentle pulling motion. From behind her I heard-or
thought I heard-the
sound of a knob being turned. A white flash went through the
darkness. The ice bucket on the
table might have shone momentarily in the light from the corridor.
Or the flash might have
been the glint of a sharp blade. But I couldn't think anymore. There
was only one thing I
could do: I came.
I washed myself off in the shower and laundered my semen-stained
underwear by hand.
Terrific, I thought. Why did I have to be having wet dreams at such
a difficult time in my life?
Once again I put on fresh clothing, and once again I sat on the
veranda, looking at the
garden. Splashes of sunlight danced on everything, filtered through
thick green leaves.
Several days of rain had promoted the powerful growth of
bright-green weeds here and there,
giving the garden a subtle shading of ruin and stagnation.
Creta Kano again. Two wet dreams in a short interval, and both times
it had been Creta
Kano. Never once had I thought of sleeping with her. The desire had
not even flashed through
my mind. And yet both times I had been in that room, joining my body
with hers. What could
possibly be the reason for this? And who was that telephone woman
who had taken her place?
She knew me, and I supposedly knew her. I went through the various
sexual partners I had
had in life, but none of them was the telephone woman. Still, there
was something about her
that seemed familiar. And that was what annoyed me so.
Some kind of memory was trying to find its way out. I could feel it
in there, bumping
around. All I needed was a little hint. If I pulled that one tiny
thread, then everything would
come unraveled. The mystery was waiting for me to solve it. But the
one slim thread was
something I couldn't find.
I gave up trying to think. "Forget everything. You're asleep. You're
dreaming. You're
lying in nice, warm mud. We all come out of the warm mud, and we all
go back to it."
Six o'clock came, and still no phone call. Only May Kasahara showed
up. All she wanted,
she said, was a sip of beer. I took a cold can from the refrigerator
and split it with her. I was
hungry, so I put some ham and lettuce between two slices of bread
and ate that. When she saw
me eating, May said she would like the same. I made her a sandwich
too. We ate in silence
and drank our beer. I kept looking up at the wall clock.
"Don't you have a TV in this house?"
"No TV," I said.
She gave the edge of her lip a little bite. "I kinda figured that.
Don't you like TV?"
"I don't dislike it. I get along fine without it."
May Kasahara let that sink in for a while. "How many years have you
been married, Mr.
Wind-Up Bird?"
"Six years," I said.
"And you did without TV for six years?"
"Uh-huh. At first we didn't have the money to buy one. Then we got
used to living
without it. It's nice and quiet that way."
"The two of you must have been happy."
"What makes you think so?"
She wrinkled up her face. "Well, I couldn't live a day without
television."
"Because you're unhappy?"
May Kasahara did not reply to that. "But now Kumiko is gone. You
must not be so happy
anymore, Mr. Wind-Up Bird."
I nodded and sipped my beer. "That's about the size of it," I said.
That was about the size
of it.
She put a cigarette between her lips and, in a practiced motion,
struck a match to light it.
"Now, Mr. Wind-Up Bird," she said, "I want you to tell me the
absolute truth: Do you think
I'm ugly?"
I put my beer glass down and took another look at May Kasahara's
face. All this time
while talking with her, I had been vaguely thinking of other things.
She was wearing an
oversize black tank top, which gave a clear view of the girlish
swell of her breasts.
"You're not the least bit ugly," I said. "That's for sure. Why do
you ask?"
"My boyfriend always used to tell me how ugly I was, that I didn't
have any boobs."
"The boy who wrecked the bike?"
"Yeah, him."
I watched May Kasahara slowly exhaling her cigarette smoke. "Boys
that age will say
things like that. They don't know how to express exactly what they
feel, so they say and do
the exact opposite. They hurt people that way, for no reason at all,
and they hurt themselves
too. Anyhow, you're not the least bit ugly. I think you're very
cute. No flattery intended."
May Kasahara mulled that one over for a while. She dropped ashes
into the empty beer
can. "Is Mrs. Wind-Up Bird pretty?"
"Hmm, that's hard for me to say. Some would say she is, and some
would say not. It's a
matter of taste."
"I see," she said. She tapped on her glass as if bored.
"What's your biker boyfriend doing?" I asked. "Doesn't he come to
see you anymore?"
"No, he doesn't," said May Kasahara, laying a finger on the scar by
her left eye. "I'll
never see him again, that's for sure. Two hundred percent sure. I'd
bet my left little toe on it.
But I'd rather not talk about that right now. Some things, you know,
if you say them, it makes
them not true? You know what I mean, Mr. Wind-Up Bird?"
"I think I do," I said. Then I glanced at the phone in the living
room. It sat on the table,
cloaked in silence. It looked like a deep-sea creature pretending to
be an inanimate object,
crouching there in wait for its prey.
"Someday, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, I'll tell you all about him. When I feel
like it. But not now.
I just don't feel like it now."
She looked at her watch. "Gotta get home. Thanks for the beer."
I saw her out to the garden wall. A nearly full moon was pouring its
grainy light down to
the earth. The sight of the full moon reminded me that Kumiko's
period was approaching. But
that would probably have nothing to do with me anymore. The thought
sent a sharp pain
through my chest. The intensity of it caught me off guard: it
resembled sorrow.
With her hand on the wall, May Kasahara looked at me. "Tell me, Mr.
Wind-Up Bird, you
do love Kumiko, don't you?"
"I think I do."
"Even though she might have gone off with a lover? If she said she
wanted to come back
to you, would you take her back?"
I released a sigh. "That's a tough question," I said. "I'd have to
think about it once it really
happened."
"Sorry for sticking my nose in," said May Kasahara, with a little
click of the tongue. "But
don't get mad. I'm just trying to learn. I want to know what it
means for a wife to run away.
There're all kinds of things I don't know."
"I'm not mad," I said. Then I looked up at the full moon again.
"All right, then, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. You take care of yourself. I
hope your wife comes
back and everything works out." Moving with incredible lightness,
May Kasahara swung
herself over the wall and disappeared into the summer night.
With May Kasahara gone, I was alone again. I sat on the veranda,
thinking about the
questions she had raised. If Kumiko had gone off somewhere with a
lover, could I take her
back again? I didn't know the answer. I really didn't know. There
were all kinds of things that
I didn't know.
Suddenly the phone rang. My hand shot out in a conditioned reflex
and picked up the
receiver.
The voice at the other end belonged to a woman. "This is Malta
Kano," she said. "Please
forgive me for calling you so often, Mr. Okada, but I was wondering
if you might happen to
have any plans for tomorrow."
I had no plans, I said. Plans were simply something I did not have.
"In that case, I wonder if it might be possible for me to see you
after noon."
"Does this have something to do with Kumiko?"
"I do believe that it does," said Malta Kano, choosing her words
carefully. "Noboru
Wataya will also be joining us, most likely."
I almost dropped the receiver when I heard this. "You mean the three
of us will be getting
together to talk?"
"Yes, I believe that is the case," said Malta Kano. "The present
situation makes this
necessary. I am sorry, but I cannot go into any further detail on
the telephone."
"I see. All right, then," I said.
"Shall we meet at one o'clock? In the same place we met before: the
tearoom of the
Shinagawa Pacific Hotel."
One o'clock in the tearoom of the Shinagawa Pacific Hotel, I said,
and hung up.
May Kasahara called at ten o'clock. She had nothing in particular to
say; she just wanted
to talk to somebody. We chatted about harmless topics for a while.
"Tell me, Mr. Wind-Up
Bird," she said in the end. "Have you had any good news since I was
there?" "No good
news," I said. "Nothing."