Kafka on the Shore

Chapter 31

Just after one o'clock I take coffee up to the second-floor study. The door, as always, is open. Miss Saeki's standing by the window gazing outside, one hand resting on the windowsill. Lost in thought, unaware that her other hand's fingering the buttons on her blouse. This time there's no pen or writing paper on the desk. I place the coffee cup on the desk. A thin layer of clouds covers the sky, and the birds outside are quiet for a change.

She finally notices me and, pulled back from her thoughts, comes away from the window, sits down at the desk, and takes a sip of coffee. She motions for me to sit in the same chair as yesterday. I sit down and look at her across the desk, sipping her coffee. Does she remember anything at all about what happened last night? I can't tell. She looks like she knows everything, and at the same time like she doesn't know a thing. Images of her naked body come to mind, memories of how different parts felt. I'm not even sure that was the body of the woman who's here in front of me. At the time, though, I'm a hundred percent sure.

She has on a light green, silky-looking blouse and a tight beige skirt. There's a thin silver necklace at her throat, very chic. Like some neatly crafted object, her slim fingers on the desk are beautifully intertwined. "So, do you like this area now?" she asks me.

"Do you mean Takamatsu?"

"Yes."

"I don't know. I haven't seen much of it, just a few things along the way. This library, of course, a gym, the station, the hotel… those kinds of places."

"Don't you find it boring?"

I shake my head. "I don't know yet. I haven't had time to get bored, and cities look the same anyway. Why do you ask? Do you think it's a boring town?"

She gave a slight shrug. "When I was young I did. I was dying to get out. To leave here and go someplace else, where something special was waiting, where I could find more interesting people."

"Interesting people?"

Miss Saeki shakes her head slightly. "I was young," she says. "Most young people have that feeling, I suppose. Haven't you?"

"No, I never felt that if I go somewhere else there'll be special things waiting for me. I just wanted to be somewhere else, that's all. Anywhere but there."

"There?"

"Nogata, Nakano Ward. Where I was born and grew up."

At the sound of this name something flashed across her eyes. At least it looked like it.

"As long as you left there, you didn't particularly care where you went?" she asks.

"That's right," I say. "Where I went wasn't the issue. I had to get out of there or else I knew I'd get totally messed up. So I left."

She looks down at her hands resting on the desk, a very detached look in her eyes. Then, very quietly, she says, "When I left here when I was twenty, I felt the same way. I had to leave or else I wouldn't survive. And I was convinced I'd never see this place again as long as I lived. I never considered coming back, but things happened and here I am. Like I'm starting all over again." She turns around and looks out the window.

The clouds covering the sky are the same tone as before, and there isn't any wind to speak of. The whole thing looks as still as the painted background scenery in a movie.

"Incredible things happen in life," she says.

"You mean I might go back to where I started?"

"I don't know. That's up to you, sometime well in the future. But I think where a person is born and dies is very important. You can't choose where you're born, but where you die you can-to some degree." She says all this in a quiet voice, staring out the window like she's talking to some imaginary person outside. Remembering I'm here, she turns toward me. "I wonder why I'm confessing all these things to you."

"Because I'm not from around here, and our ages are so different."

"I suppose so," she says.

For twenty, maybe thirty seconds, we're lost in our own thoughts. She picks up her cup and takes another sip of coffee.

I decide to come right out and say it. "Miss Saeki, I have something I need to confess, too."

She looks at me and smiles. "We're exchanging secrets, I see."

"Mine isn't a secret. Just a theory."

"A theory?" she repeats. "You're confessing a theory?"

"Yes."

"Sounds interesting."

"It's a sequel to what we're talking about," I say. "What I mean is, did you come back to this town to die?"

Like a silvery moon at dawn, a smile rises to her lips. "Perhaps I did. But it doesn't seem to matter. Whether you come to a place to live or to die, the things you do every day are about the same."

"Are you hoping to die?"

"I wonder…," she says. "I don't know myself."

"My father was hoping to die."

"Your father died?"

"Not long ago," I tell her. "Very recently, in fact."

"Why was your father trying to die?"

I take a deep breath. "For a long time I couldn't figure it out. But now I think I have. After coming here I finally understand."

"Why?"

"My father was in love with you, but couldn't get you back. Or maybe from the very beginning he couldn't really make you his. He knew that, and that's why he wanted to die. And that's also why he wanted his son-your son, too-to murder him. Me, in other words. He wanted me to sleep with you and my older sister, too. That was his prophecy, his curse. He programmed all this inside me."

Miss Saeki returns her coffee cup to the saucer with a hard, neutral sound. She looks straight at me, but she's not really seeing me. She's gazing at some void, some blank space somewhere else. "Do I know your father?"

I shake my head. "As I told you, it's just a theory."

She rests her hands on the desk, one on top of the other. Faint traces of a smile remain. "In your theory, then, I'm your mother."

"That's right," I say. "You lived with my father, had me, and then went away, leaving me behind. In the summer when I'd just turned four."

"So that's your theory."

I nod.

"Which explains why you asked me yesterday whether I have any children?"

Again I nod.

"I told you I couldn't answer that. Couldn't give you a yes or a no."

"I know."

"So your theory remains speculative."

I nod again. "That's right."

"So tell me, how did your father die?"

"He was murdered."

"You didn't murder him, did you?"

"No, I didn't. I have an alibi."

"But you're not entirely sure?"

I shake my head. "I'm not sure at all."

She lifts the coffee cup again and takes a tiny sip, as if it has no taste. "Why did your father put you under that curse?"

"He must've wanted me to take over his will," I say.

"To desire me, you mean."

"That's right," I say.

Miss Saeki stares into the cup in her hand, then looks up again.

"So do you-desire me?"

I give one clear nod.

She closes her eyes. I gaze at her closed eyelids for a long time, and through them I can see the darkness that she's seeing. Odd shapes loom up in it, floating up only to disappear.

Finally she opens her eyes. "You mean in theory you desire me."

"No, apart from the theory. I want you, and that goes way beyond any theory."

"You want to have sex with me?"

I nod.

She narrows her eyes like something's shining in them. "Have you ever had sex with a girl before?"

I nod again. Last night-with you, I think. But I can't say it out loud. She doesn't remember a thing.

Something close to a sigh escapes her lips. "Kafka, I know you realize this, but you're fifteen and I'm over fifty."

"It's not that simple. We're not talking about that sort of time here. I know you when you were fifteen. And I'm in love with you at that age. Very much in love. And through her, I'm in love with you. That young girl's still inside you, asleep inside you. Once you go to sleep, though, she comes to life. I've seen it."

She closes her eyes once more, her eyelids trembling slightly.

"I'm in love with you, and that's what's important. I think you understand that."

Like someone rising to the surface of the sea from deep below, she takes a deep breath. She searches for the words to say, but they lie beyond her grasp. "I'm sorry, Kafka, but would you mind leaving? I'd like to be alone for a while," she says. "And close the door on your way out."

I nod, stand up, and start to go, but something pulls me back. I stop at the door, turn around, and walk across the room to where she is. I reach out and touch her hair. Through the strands my hand brushes her small ear. I just can't help it.

Miss Saeki looks up, surprised, and after a moment's hesitation lays her hand on mine. "At any rate, you-and your theory-are throwing a stone at a target that's very far away. Do you understand that?"

I nod. "I know. But metaphors can reduce the distance."

"We're not metaphors."

"I know," I say. "But metaphors help eliminate what separates you and me."

A faint smile comes to her as she looks up at me. "That's the oddest pickup line I've ever heard."

"There're a lot of odd things going on-but I feel like I'm slowly getting closer to the truth."

"Actually getting closer to a metaphorical truth? Or metaphorically getting closer to an actual truth? Or maybe they supplement each other?"

"Either way, I don't think I can stand the sadness I feel right now," I tell her.

"I feel the same way."

"So you did come back to this town to die."

She shakes her head. "To be honest about it, I'm not trying to die. I'm just waiting for death to come. Like sitting on a bench at the station, waiting for the train."

"And do you know when the train's going to arrive?"

She takes her hand away from mine and touches her eyelids with the tips of her fingers. "Kafka, I've worn away so much of my own life, worn myself away. At a certain point I should have stopped living, but didn't. I knew life was pointless, but I couldn't give up on it. So I ended up just marking time, wasting my life in pointless pursuits. I wound up hurting myself, and that made me hurt others around me. That's why I'm being punished now, why I'm under a kind of curse. I had something too complete, too perfect, once, and afterward all I could do was despise myself. That's the curse I can never escape. So I'm not afraid of death. And to answer your question-yes, I have a pretty good idea of when the time is coming."

Once more I take her hand in mine. The scales are shaking, and just a tiny weight would send them tipping to one side or the other. I have to think. I have to decide. I have to take a step forward. "Miss Saeki, would you sleep with me?" I ask.

"You mean even if I were your mother in that theory of yours?"

"It's like everything around me's in flux-like it all has a doubled meaning."

She ponders this. "That might not be true for me, though. For me, things might not be so nuanced. It might be more like all or nothing."

"And you know which it is."

She nods.

"Do you mind if I ask you a question?"

"About what?"

"Where did you come up with those two chords?"

"Chords?"

"The ones in the bridge in 'Kafka on the Shore.'"

She looks at me. "You like them?"

I nod.

"I found those chords in an old room, very far away. The door to the room was open then," she says quietly. "A room that was far, far away." She closes her eyes and sinks back into memories. "Kafka, close the door when you leave," she says.

And that's exactly what I do.

After we close up the library for the night, Oshima drives me to a seafood restaurant a little way away. Through a large window in the restaurant we can see the night sea, and I think about all the creatures living under the water.

"Sometimes you've got to get out and eat some decent food," he tells me. "Relax. I don't think the cops have staked the place out. We both needed a change of scenery."

We eat a huge salad, and split an order of paella.

"I'd love to go to Spain someday," Oshima says.

"Why Spain?"

"To fight in the Spanish Civil War."

"But that ended a long time ago."

"I know that. Lorca died, and Hemingway survived," Oshima says. "But I still have the right to go to Spain and be a part of the Spanish Civil War."

"Metaphorically."

"Exactly," he says, giving me a wry look. "A hemophiliac of undetermined sex who's hardly ever set foot outside Shikoku isn't about to actually go off to fight in Spain, I would think."

We attack the mound of paella, washing it down with Perrier.

"Have there been any developments in my father's case?" I ask.

"Nothing to report, really. Except for a typical smug memorial piece in the arts section, there hasn't been much in the papers. The investigation must be stuck. The sad fact is the arrest rate's been going down steadily these days-just like the stock market. I mean, the police can't even track down the son who's disappeared."

"The fifteen-year-old youth."

"Fifteen, with a history of violent behavior," Oshima adds. "The obsessed young runaway."

"How about that incident with things falling from the sky?"

Oshima shakes his head. "They're taking a break on that one. Nothing else weird has fallen from the sky-unless you count that award-winning lightning we had two days ago."

"So things have settled down?"

"It seems like it. Or maybe we're just in the eye of the storm."

I nod, pick up a clam, yank out the meat with a fork, then put the shell on a plate full of empty shells.

"Are you still in love?" Oshima asks me.

I nod. "How about you?"

"Am I in love, do you mean?"

I nod again.

"In other words, you're daring to get personal and ask about the antisocial romance that colors my warped, homosexual, Gender-Identity-Disordered life?"

I nod, and he follows suit.

"I have a partner, yes," he admits. He makes a serious face and eats a clam. "It's not the kind of passionate, stormy love you find in a Puccini opera or anything. We keep a careful distance from each other. We don't get together that often, but we do understand each other at a deep, basic level."

"Understand each other?"

"Whenever Haydn composed, he always made sure to dress formally, even to wearing a powdered wig."

I look at him in surprise. "What's Haydn got to do with anything?"

"He couldn't compose well unless he did that."

"How come?"

"I have no idea. That's between Haydn and his wig. Nobody else would understand. Inexplicable, I imagine."

I nod. "Tell me, when you're alone do you sometimes think about your partner and feel sad?"

"Of course," he says. "It happens sometimes. When the moon turns blue, when birds fly south, when-"

"Why of course?" I ask.

"Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves. So anyone who's in love gets sad when they think of their lover. It's like stepping back inside a room you have fond memories of, one you haven't seen in a long time. It's just a natural feeling. You're not the person who discovered that feeling, so don't go trying to patent it, okay?"

I lay my fork down and look up.

"A fond, old, faraway room?"

"Exactly," Oshima says. He holds his fork straight up for emphasis. "Just a metaphor, of course."

Miss Saeki comes to my room after nine that night. I'm sitting at the desk reading a book when I hear her Golf pull into the parking lot. The door slams shut. Rubber-soled shoes slowly crunch across the parking lot. And finally there's a knock at my door. I open the door, and there she is. This time she's wide awake. She has on a pinstriped silk blouse, thin blue jeans, white deck shoes. I've never seen her in pants before.

"I haven't seen this room in a long time," she says. She stands by the wall and looks at the painting. "Or this picture, either."

"Is the place in the painting around here?" I ask.

"Do you like it?"

I nod. "Who painted it?"

"A young artist who boarded that summer with the Komuras," she says. "He wasn't very famous, at least at the time. I've forgotten his name. He was a very friendly person, though, and I think he did a good job with the painting. There's something, I don't know-powerful about it. I sat beside him the whole time and watched him work. I made all kinds of half-joking suggestions as he painted. We got along well. It was a summer a long time ago. I was twelve then. The boy in the painting was twelve, too."

"It looks like the sea around here."

"Let's go for a walk," she says. "I'll take you there."

I walk with her to the shore. We cut through a pine forest and walk down the sandy beach. The clouds are breaking up and a half moon shines down on the waves. Small waves that barely reach the shore, barely break. She sits down at a spot on the sand, and I sit down next to her. The sand's still faintly warm.

Like she's checking the angle, she points to a spot on the shoreline. "It was right over there," she says. "He painted that spot from here. He put the deck chair over there, had the boy pose in it, and set up his easel right around here. I remember it well. Do you notice how the position of the island is the same as in the painting?"

I follow where she's pointing, and sure enough it's the same. No matter how long I gaze at it, though, it doesn't look like the place in the painting. I tell her that.

"It's changed completely," Miss Saeki replies. "That was forty years ago, after all. Things change. A lot of things affect the shoreline-waves, wind, typhoons. Sand gets washed away, they truck more in. But this is definitely the spot. I remember what occurred there very well. That was the summer I had my first period, too."

We sit there looking at the scenery. The clouds shift and the moonlight dapples the sea. Wind blows through the pine forest, sounding like a crowd of people sweeping the ground at the same time. I scoop up some sand and let it slowly spill out between my fingers. It falls to the beach and, like lost time, becomes part of what's already there. I do this over and over.

"What are you thinking about?" Miss Saeki asks me.

"About going to Spain," I reply.

"What are you going to do there?"

"Eat some delicious paella."

"That's all?"

"And fight in the Spanish Civil War."

"That ended over sixty years ago."

"I know," I tell her. "Lorca died, and Hemingway survived."

"But you want to be a part of it."

I nod. "Yup. Blow up bridges and stuff."

"And fall in love with Ingrid Bergman."

"But in reality I'm here in Takamatsu. And I'm love with you."

"Tough luck."

I put my arm around her.

You put your arm around her.

She leans against you. And a long spell of time passes.

"Did you know that I did this exact same thing a long time ago? Right in this same spot?"

"I know," you tell her.

"How do you know that?' Miss Saeki asks, and looks you in the eyes.

"I was there then."

"Blowing up bridges?"

"Yes, I was there, blowing up bridges."

"Metaphorically."

"Of course."

You hold her in your arms, draw her close, kiss her. You can feel the strength deserting her body.

"We're all dreaming, aren't we?" she says.

All of us are dreaming.

"Why did you have to die?"

"I couldn't help it," you reply.

Together you walk along the beach back to the library. You turn off the light in your room, draw the curtains, and without another word climb into bed and make love. Pretty much the same sort of lovemaking as the night before. But with two differences. After sex, she starts to cry. That's one. She buries her face in the pillow and silently weeps. You don't know what to do. You gently lay a hand on her bare shoulder. You know you should say something, but don't have any idea what. Words have all died in the hollow of time, piling up soundlessly at the dark bottom of a volcanic lake. And this time as she leaves you can hear the engine of her car. That's number two. She starts the engine, turns it off for a time, like she's thinking about something, then turns the key again and drives out of the parking lot. That blank, silent interval between leaves you sad, so terribly sad. Like fog from the sea, that blankness wends its way into your heart and remains there for a long, long time. Finally it's a part of you.

She leaves behind a damp pillow, wet with her tears. You touch the warmth with your hand and watch the sky outside gradually lighten. Far away a crow caws. The Earth slowly keeps on turning. But beyond any of those details of the real, there are dreams. And everyone's living in them.