Текст книги "1q84"

Автор книги: Haruki Murakami

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Текущая страница: 56 (всего у книги 81 страниц)

“So everyone else can hear him.”

Tengo pondered this for a moment. “Don’t worry about that. It has nothing to do with you, and it’s not going to cause any harm.”

“He said he knows you are hiding in here.”

“Don’t let it bother you,” Tengo said. “He can’t tell that. He’s just saying it to intimidate me. NHK people do that sometimes.”

Tengo had witnessed his father do exactly the same thing any number of times. A Sunday afternoon, his father’s voice, filled with malice, ringing out down the hallway of a public housing project. Threatening and ridiculing the resident. Tengo lightly pressed the tips of his fingers against his temple. The memory brought with it a heavy load of other baggage.

As if sensing something from his silence, Fuka-Eri asked, “Are you okay.”

“I’m fine. Just ignore the NHK person, okay?”

“The crow said the same thing.”

“Glad to hear it,” Tengo said.

Ever since he saw two moons in the sky, and an air chrysalis materializing on his father’s bed in the sanatorium, nothing surprised Tengo very much. Fuka-Eri and the crow exchanging opinions by the windowsill wasn’t hurting anybody.

“I think I’ll be here a little longer. I can’t go back to Tokyo yet. Is that all right?”

“You should be there as long as you want to be.”

And then she hung up. Their conversation vanished in an instant, as if someone had taken a nicely sharpened hatchet to the phone line and chopped it in two.

Afterward Tengo called the publishing company where Komatsu worked. He wasn’t in. He had put in a brief appearance around one p.m. but then had left, and the person on the phone had no idea where he was or if he was coming back. This wasn’t that unusual for Komatsu. Tengo left the number for the sanatorium, saying that was where he could be found during the day, and asked that Komatsu call back. If he had left the inn’s number and Komatsu ended up calling in the middle of the night, that would be a problem.

The last time he had heard from Komatsu had been near the end of September, just a short talk on the phone. Since then Komatsu hadn’t been in touch, and neither had Tengo. For a three-week period starting at the end of August, Komatsu had disappeared. He had called the publisher with some vague excuse, claiming he was ill and needed time off to rest, but hadn’t called afterward, as if he were a missing person. Tengo was concerned, but not overly worried. Komatsu had always done his own thing. Tengo was sure that he would show up before long and saunter back into the office.

Such self-centered behavior was usually forbidden in a corporate environment. But in Komatsu’s case, one of his colleagues always smoothed things over so he didn’t get in trouble. Komatsu wasn’t the most popular man, but somehow there always seemed to be a willing person on hand, ready to clean up whatever mess he left behind. The publishing house, for its part, was willing, to a certain extent, to look the other way. Komatsu was self-centered, uncooperative, and insolent, but when it came to his job, he was capable. He had handled, on his own, the bestseller Air Chrysalis. So they weren’t about to fire him.

As Tengo had predicted, one day Komatsu simply returned, without explaining why he was away or apologizing for his absence, and came back to work. Tengo heard the news from another editor he worked with who happened to mention it.

“So how is Mr. Komatsu feeling?” Tengo asked the editor.

“He seems fine,” the man replied. “Though he seems less talkative than before.”

“Less talkative?” Tengo asked, a bit surprised.

“How should I put it—he’s less sociable than before.”

“Was he really quite sick?”

“How should I know?” the editor said, apathetically. “He says he’s fine, so I have to go with that. Now that he’s back we’ve been able to take care of the work that has been piling up. While he was away there were all sorts of things to do with Air Chrysalis that were a real pain, things I had to take care of in his absence.”

“Speaking of Air Chrysalis, are there any developments in the case of the missing author, Fuka-Eri?”

“No, no updates. No progress at all, and not any idea where the author is. Everybody is at their wits’ end.”

“I’ve been reading the newspapers but haven’t seen a single mention of it recently.”

“The media has mostly backed off the story, or maybe they’re deliberately distancing themselves from it. And the police don’t appear to be actively pursuing the case. Mr. Komatsu will know the details, so he would be the one to ask. But as I said, he has gotten a bit less talkative. Actually he’s not himself at all. He used to be brimming with confidence, but he has toned that down, and has gotten more introspective, I guess you would say, just sitting there half the time. He’s more difficult to get along with, too. Sometimes it seems like he has totally forgotten that there are other people around, like he is all by himself inside a hole.”

“Introspective,” Tengo said.

“You’ll know what I mean when you talk with him.”

Tengo had thanked him and hung up.

A few days later, in the evening, Tengo called Komatsu. He was in the office. Just like the editor had told him, the way Komatsu spoke had changed. Usually the words slipped out smoothly without a pause, but now there was awkwardness about him, as if he were preoccupied. Something must be bothering him, Tengo thought. At any rate, this was no longer the cool Komatsu he knew.

“Are you completely well now?” Tengo asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you took a long break from work because you weren’t feeling well, right?”

“That’s right,” Komatsu said, as if he had just recalled the fact. A short silence followed. “I’m fine now. I’ll tell you all about it sometime, before long. I can’t really explain it at this point.”

Sometime, before long. Tengo mulled over the words. There was something odd about the sound of Komatsu’s voice. The sense of distance that you would normally expect was missing, and his words were flat, without any depth.

Tengo found an appropriate point in the conversation to say good-bye, and hung up. He decided not to bring up Air Chrysalis or Fuka-Eri. Something in Komatsu’s tone indicated he was trying to avoid these topics. Had Komatsu ever had trouble discussing anything before?

This phone call, at the end of September, was the last time he had spoken to Komatsu. More than two months had passed since then. Komatsu usually loved to have long talks on the phone. Tengo was, as it were, the wall against which Komatsu hit a tennis ball. Maybe he was going through a period when he just didn’t want to talk to anyone, Tengo surmised. Everybody has times like that, even somebody like Komatsu. And Tengo, for his part, didn’t have anything pressing he had to discuss with him. Air Chrysalis had stopped selling and had practically vanished from the public eye, and Tengo knew exactly where the missing Fuka-Eri happened to be. If Komatsu had something he needed to discuss, then he would surely call. No calls simply meant he didn’t have anything to talk about.

But Tengo was thinking that it was getting about time to call him. I’ll tell you all about it sometime, before long. Komatsu’s words had stuck with him, oddly enough, and he couldn’t shake them.

Tengo called his friend who was subbing for him at the cram school, to see how things were going.

“Everything’s fine,” his friend replied. “How is your father doing?”

“He has been in a coma the whole time,” Tengo explained. “He’s breathing, and his temperature and blood pressure are low but stable. But he’s unconscious. I don’t think he’s in any pain. It’s like he has gone over completely to the dream world.”

“Not such a bad way to go,” his friend said, without much emotion. What he was trying to say was This might sound a little insensitive, but depending on how you look at it, that’s not such a bad way to die. But he had left out such prefatory remarks. If you study for a few years in a mathematics department, you get used to that kind of abbreviated conversation.

“Have you looked at the moon recently?” Tengo suddenly asked. This friend was probably the only person he knew who wouldn’t find it suspicious to be asked, out of the blue, about the moon.

His friend gave it some thought. “Now that you mention it, I don’t recall looking at the moon recently. What’s going on with the moon?”

“When you have a chance, would you look at it for me? And tell me what you think.”

“What I think? From what standpoint?”

“Any standpoint at all. I would just like to hear what you think when you see the moon.”

A short pause. “It might be hard to find the right way to express what I think about it.”

“No, don’t worry about expression. What’s important are the most obvious characteristics.”

“You want me to look at the moon and tell you what I think are the most obvious characteristics?”

“That’s right,” Tengo replied. “If nothing strikes you, then that’s fine.”

“It’s overcast today, so I don’t think you can see the moon, but when it clears up I’ll take a look. If I remember.”

Tengo thanked him and hung up. If he remembers. This was one of the problems with math department graduates. When it came to areas they weren’t interested in, their memory was surprisingly short-lived.

When visiting hours were over and Tengo was leaving the sanatorium he said good-bye to Nurse Tamura, the nurse at the reception desk. “Thank you. Good night,” he said.

“How many more days will you be here?” she asked, pressing the bridge of her glasses on her nose. She seemed to have finished her shift, because she had changed from her uniform into a pleated dark purple skirt, a white blouse, and a gray cardigan.

Tengo came to a halt and thought for a minute. “I’m not sure. It depends on how things go.”

“Can you still take time off from your job?”

“I asked somebody to teach my classes for me, so I should be okay for a while.”

“Where do you usually eat?” the nurse asked.

“At a restaurant in town,” he replied. “They only provide breakfast at the inn so I go someplace nearby and eat their set meal, or a rice bowl, that sort of thing.”

“Is it good?”

“I wouldn’t say that. Though I don’t really notice what it tastes like.”

“That won’t do,” the nurse said, looking displeased. “You have to eat more nutritious food. I mean, look—these days your face reminds me of a horse sleeping standing up.”

“A horse sleeping standing up?” Tengo asked, surprised.

“Horses sleep standing up. You’ve never seen that?”

Tengo shook his head. “No, I never have.”

“Their faces look like yours,” the middle-aged nurse said. “Go check out your face in the mirror. At first glance you can’t tell they’re asleep, but if you look closely you will see that their eyes are open, but they aren’t seeing anything.”

“Horses sleep with their eyes open?”

The nurse nodded deeply. “Just like you.”

For a moment Tengo did think about going to the bathroom and looking at himself in the mirror, but he decided against it. “I understand. I’ll try to eat better from now on.”

“Would you care to go out to get some yakiniku?”

“Yakiniku?” Tengo didn’t eat much meat. He didn’t usually crave it. But now that she had brought it up, he thought it might be good to have some meat for a change. His body might indeed be crying out for more nourishment.

“All of us were talking about going out now to eat some yakiniku. You should join us.”

“All of us?”

“The others finish work at six thirty and we’ll meet afterward. There will be three of us. Interested?”

The other two were Nurse Omura and Nurse Adachi. The three of them seemed to enjoy spending time together, even after work. Tengo considered the idea of going out to eat yakiniku with them. He didn’t want to disrupt his simple lifestyle, but he couldn’t think of a plausible excuse in order to refuse. It was obvious to them that in a town like this Tengo would have plenty of free time on his hands.

“If you don’t think I’ll be a bother.”

“Of course you won’t,” the nurse said. “I don’t invite people out if I think they’ll be a bother. So don’t hesitate to come with us. It will be nice to have a healthy young man along for a change.”

“Well, healthy I definitely am,” Tengo said in an uncertain voice.

“That is the most important thing,” the nurse declared, giving it her professional opinion.

It wasn’t easy for all three nurses to be off duty at the same time, but once a month they managed it. The three of them would go into town, eat something nutritious, have a few drinks, sing karaoke, let loose, and blow off some steam. They definitely needed a change of scenery. Life in this rural town was monotonous, and with the exception of the doctors and other nurses at work, the only people they saw were the elderly, those devoid of memory and signs of life.

The three nurses ate and drank a lot, and Tengo couldn’t keep up. As they got livelier, he sat beside them, quietly eating a moderate amount of grilled meat and sipping his draft beer so he didn’t get drunk. After they left the yakiniku place, they went to a bar, bought a bottle of whiskey, and belted out karaoke. The three nurses took turns singing their favorite songs, then teamed up to do a Candies number, complete with choreographed steps. Tengo was sure they had practiced, they were that good. Tengo wasn’t into karaoke, but he did manage one Yosui Inoue song he vaguely remembered.

Nurse Adachi was normally reserved, but after a few drinks, she turned animated and bold. Once she got a bit tipsy, her red cheeks turned a healthy tanned color. She giggled at silly jokes and leaned back, in an entirely natural way, on Tengo’s shoulder. Nurse Omura had changed into a light blue dress and had let down her hair. She looked three or four years younger and her voice dropped an octave. Her usually brisk, businesslike manner was subdued, and she moved languidly, as if she had taken on a different personality. Only Nurse Tamura, with her metal-framed glasses, looked and acted the same as always.

“My kids are staying with a neighbor tonight,” Nurse Omura explained. “And my husband has to work the night shift. You have to take advantage of times like this to just go out and have fun. It’s important to get away from it all sometimes. Don’t you agree, Tengo?”

The three nurses had started calling him by his first name. Most people around him seemed to do that naturally. Even his students called him “Tengo” behind his back.

“Yes, that’s for sure,” Tengo agreed.

“We just have to get out sometimes,” Nurse Tamura said, sipping a glass of Suntory Old whiskey and water. “We’re just flesh and blood, after all.”

“Take off our uniforms, and we’re just ordinary women,” Miss Adachi said, and giggled at her comment.

“Tell me, Tengo,” Nurse Omura said. “Is it okay to ask this?”

“Ask what?”

“Are you seeing anybody?”

“Yes, tell us,” Nurse Adachi said, crunching down on some corn nuts with her large, white teeth.

“It’s not an easy thing to talk about,” Tengo said.

“We don’t mind if it’s not easy to talk about,” the experienced Nurse Tamura said. “We have lots of time, and we would love to hear about it. I’m dying to hear this hard-to-talk-about story.”

“Tell us, tell us!” Nurse Adachi said, clapping her hands lightly and giggling.

“It’s not all that interesting,” Tengo said. “It’s kind of trite and pointless.”

“Well, then just cut to the chase,” Nurse Omura said. “Do you have a girlfriend, or not?”

Tengo gave in. “At this point, I’m not seeing anyone.”

“Hmm,” Nurse Tamura said. She stirred the ice in her glass with a finger and licked it. “That won’t do. That won’t do at all. A young, vigorous man like yourself without a girlfriend, it’s such a waste.”

“It’s not good for your body, either,” the large Nurse Omura said. “If you keep it stored inside you for a long time, you’ll go soft in the head.”

Young Nurse Adachi was still giggling. “You’ll go soft in the head,” she said, and poked her forehead.

“I did have someone until recently,” Tengo said, somewhat apologetically.

“But she left?” Nurse Tamura said, pushing up the bridge of her glasses.

Tengo nodded.

“You mean she dumped you?”

“I don’t know,” Tengo said, inclining his head. “Maybe she did. I think I probably was dumped.”

“By any chance is that person—a lot older than you?” Nurse Tamura asked, her eyes narrowed.

“Yes, she is,” Tengo said. How did she know that?

“Didn’t I tell you?” Nurse Tamura said, looking proudly at the other two nurses. They nodded.

“I told the others that,” Nurse Tamura said, “that you were going out with an older woman. Women can sniff out these things.”

“Sniff, sniff,” went Nurse Adachi.

“On top of that, maybe she was already married,” Nurse Omura said in a lazy tone. “Am I right?”

Tengo hesitated for a moment and then nodded. Lying was pointless.

“You bad boy,” Nurse Adachi said, and poked him in the thigh.

“Ten years older,” Tengo said.

“Goodness!” Nurse Omura exclaimed.

“Ah, so you had an experienced, older married woman loving you,” Nurse Tamura, herself a mother, said. “I’m envious. Maybe I should do that myself. And comfort lonely, gentle young Tengo here. I might not look it, but I still have a pretty decent body.”

She grabbed Tengo’s hand and was about to press it against her breasts. The other two women managed to stop her. Even if you were letting your hair down, there was a line that shouldn’t be crossed between nurses and a patient’s relative. That’s what they seemed to think—or else they were afraid that someone might spot them. It was a small town, and rumors spread quickly. Maybe Nurse Tamura’s husband was the jealous type. Tengo had enough problems and didn’t want to get caught up in any more.

“You’re really something,” Nurse Tamura said, wanting to change the subject. “You come all this way here, sit by your father’s bedside for hours a day reading aloud to him … Not many people would do that.”

Young Nurse Adachi tilted her head a bit. “I agree, he really is something. I really respect you for that.”

“You know, we’re always praising you,” Nurse Tamura said.

Tengo’s face reddened. He wasn’t in this town to nurse his father. He was staying here hoping to again see the air chrysalis, and the faint light it gave off, and inside it, the sleeping figure of Aomame. That was the only reason he remained here. Taking care of his unconscious father was only a pretext. But he couldn’t reveal the truth. If he did, he would have to start by explaining an air chrysalis.

“It’s because I never did anything for him up till now.” Awkwardly, he scrunched up his large frame in the narrow wooden chair, sounding uncomfortable. But the nurses found his attitude appealingly humble.

Tengo wanted to tell them he was sleepy so he could get up and go back to his inn, but he couldn’t find the right opportunity. He wasn’t the type, after all, to assert himself.

“Yes, but—” Nurse Omura said, and cleared her throat. “To get back to what we were talking about, I wonder why you and that married woman ten years older than you broke up. I imagine you were getting along all right? Did her husband find out or something?”

“I don’t know the reason,” Tengo said. “At one point she just stopped calling, and I haven’t heard from her since.”

“Hmm,” Nurse Adachi said. “I wonder if she was tired of you.”

Nurse Omura shook her head. She held one index finger pointing straight up and turned to her younger colleague. “You still don’t know anything about the world. You don’t get it at all. A forty-year-old married woman who snags a young, vigorous, delicious young man like this one and enjoys him to the fullest doesn’t then just up and say Thanks. It was fun. Bye! It’s impossible. Of course, the other way around happens sometimes.”

“Is that right?” Nurse Adachi said, inclining her head just a fraction. “I guess I’m a bit naive.”

“Yes, that’s the way it is,” Nurse Omura declared. She looked at Tengo for a while, as if stepping back from a stone monument to examine the words chiseled into it. Then she nodded. “When you get a little older you’ll understand.”

“Oh, my—it’s been simply ages,” Nurse Tamura said, sinking deeper into her chair.

For a time the three nurses were lost in a conversation about the sexual escapades of someone he didn’t know (another nurse, he surmised). With his glass of whiskey and water in hand, Tengo surveyed these three nurses, picturing the three witches in Macbeth. The ones who chant “Fair is foul, and foul is fair,” as they fill Macbeth’s head with evil ambitions. But Tengo wasn’t seeing the three nurses as evil beings. They were kind and straightforward women. They worked hard and took good care of his father. Overworked, living in this small, less-than-stimulating fishing town, they were just letting off steam, as they did once every month. But when he witnessed how the energy in these three women, all of different generations, was converging, he couldn’t help but envision the moors of Scotland—a gloomy, overcast sky, a cold wind and rain howling through the heath.

In college he had read Macbeth in English class, and somehow a few lines remained with him.

    By the pricking of my thumbs,

    Something wicked this way comes,

    Open, locks,

    Whoever knocks!

Why should he remember only these lines? He couldn’t even recall who spoke them in the play. But they made Tengo think of that persistent NHK collector, knocking at the door of his apartment in Koenji. Tengo looked at his own thumbs. They didn’t feel pricked. Still, Shakespeare’s skillful rhyme had an ominous ring to it.

    Something wicked this way comes …

Tengo prayed that Fuka-Eri wouldn’t unlock the door.