I was in the kitchen, boiling a potful of spaghetti and whistling along with an FM broadcast of the overture to Rossini’s The Thieving Magpie, which has to be the perfect music for cooking pasta.
So now I had to go cat hunting. I had always liked cats. And I liked this particular cat. But cats have their own way of living. They’re not stupid. If a cat stopped living where you happened to be, that meant it had decided to go somewhere else. If it got tired and hungry, it would come back.
If I was going to quit, now was the time to do it. If I stayed with the firm any longer, I’d be there for the rest of my life.
“You must have finished your spaghetti by now,” said the woman. “You’re right. But now I have to go look for the cat.” “That can wait for ten minutes, I’m sure. It’s not like cooking spaghetti.”
“Tell me,” she said, picking up her earlier conversation. “If you were in love with a girl and she turned out to have six fingers, what would you do?” “Sell her to the circus,” I answered.
I nodded, but this was simply a physical movement of the head: I had no idea what she was talking about.
I suddenly recalled Mr. Honda’s words from long before. “When you’re supposed to go up, find the highest tower and climb to the top. When you’re supposed to go down, find the deepest well and go down to the bottom.” So now I had a well if I needed one.
I couldn’t believe that anyone who wrote these articles understood what Noboru Wataya was saying in his book. I had my doubts they had even opened it. But such things were of no concern to them. Noboru Wataya was young and single and smart enough to write a book that nobody could understand.
The lieutenant appeared to be a man accustomed to making his own decisions and taking responsibility for them.
“That’s about the size of it,” I said. That was about the size of it.
No one said anything. Noboru Wataya appeared not to have even noticed that I had arrived. In order to make sure that I had not suddenly turned transparent, I put a hand on the table and watched it as I turned it over and back a few times.
Certain kinds of information are like smoke: they work their way into people’s eyes and minds whether sought out or not, and with no regard to personal preference.
Kumiko and I felt something for each other from the beginning. It was not one of those strong, impulsive feelings that can hit two people like an electric shock when they first meet, but something quieter and gentler, like two tiny lights traveling in tandem through a vast darkness and drawing imperceptibly closer to each other as they go.
What we see before us is just one tiny part of the world. We get into the habit of thinking, This is the world, but that’s not true at all. The real world is in a much darker and deeper place than this, and most of it is occupied by jellyfish and things. We just happen to forget all that. Don’t you agree? Two-thirds of the earth’s surface is ocean, and all we can see of it with the naked eye is the surface: the skin. We hardly know anything about what’s underneath the skin.”
To know one’s own state is not a simple matter. One cannot look directly at one’s own face with one’s own eyes, for example. One has no choice but to look at one’s reflection in the mirror. Through experience, we come to believe that the image is correct, but that is all.”
“This is all logically consistent,” she said. “It may be logically consistent, but it’s not getting us anywhere,” I said.
Sometimes, when I’m looking at you, I get this feeling like maybe you’re fighting real hard against something for me. I know this sounds weird, but when that happens, I feel like I’m right with you, sweating with you. See what I mean? You always look so cool, like no matter what happens, it’s got nothing to do with you, but you’re not really like that. In your own way, you’re out there fighting as hard as you can, even if other people can’t tell by looking at you. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have gone into the well like that, right? But anyhow, you’re not fighting for me, of course. You’re falling all over yourself, trying to wrestle with this big whatever-it-is, and the only reason you’re doing it is so you can find Kumiko. So there’s no point in me getting all sweaty for you. I know all that, but still, I can’t help feeling that you are fighting for me, Mr. Wind-Up Bird—that, in a way, you probably are fighting for a lot of other people at the same time you’re fighting for Kumiko. And that’s maybe why you look like an absolute idiot sometimes. That’s what I think, Mr. Wind-Up Bird.
Probably someone should take this girl in his arms and hold her tight, I thought. Probably someone other than me. Someone qualified to give her something.
He seemed to be deep in thought. Apparently at home in the area, he never hesitated or looked around.
The next day I did exactly the same thing. Nothing happened that day, either. I made no discoveries, solved no riddles, answered no questions. But I did have the vague sense that I was, little by little, moving closer to something. I could see this movement, this gradually increasing closeness, whenever I looked at myself in the mirror above the sink.
If I had anything in my favor, it was that I had nothing to lose. Probably.
She was less a teacher for him than the one who chose the books he needed.
As Nutmeg had said, I had no trouble understanding the words that his fingers conveyed. I was unacquainted with sign language, but it was easy for me to follow his complex, fluid movements. It may have been Cinnamon’s skill that brought his meaning out so naturally, just as a play performed in a foreign language can be moving. Or then again, perhaps it only seemed to me that I was watching his fingers move but was not actually doing so. The moving fingers were perhaps no more than a decorative facade,
as clear as counting crows on snow.
(I wouldn’t say Mrs. Miyawaki was “abnormal” or anything, but she liked to do laundry—way more than most ordinary people).
a morning without Cinnamon’s appearance was like a well-executed landscape painting that lacked a focal point.