Kafka on the Shore

Chapter 33

I get the library all ready to open up before Oshima arrives. Vacuum all the floors, wipe the windows, clean the restroom, wipe off all the chairs and desks. Spray the banister, polish it up nicely. Carefully dust the stained glass on the landing. Sweep the garden, switch on the AC in the reading room and the storeroom's dehumidifier. Make coffee, sharpen pencils. A deserted library in the morning-there's something about it that really gets to me. All possible words and ideas are there, resting quietly. I want to do what I can to preserve this place, keep it neat and tidy. Sometimes I come to a halt and gaze at all the silent books on the stacks, reach out and touch the spines of a few. At ten-thirty, as always, the Mazda Miata roars into the parking lot and Oshima appears, looking a little sleepy. We chat for a while till it's time to open up.

"If it's okay, I'd like to go out for a while," I tell him right after we open up.

"Where to?"

"I need to go to the gym and work out. I haven't gotten any exercise for a while."

That isn't the only reason. Miss Saeki comes in to work late in the morning, and I don't want to run into her. I need some time to get my head together before I see her again.

Oshima looks at me and, after a pause, nods. "Watch out, though. I don't want to henpeck you, but you can't be too careful, okay?"

"Don't worry, I'll be careful," I assure him.

Backpack slung from one shoulder, I board the train. At Takamatsu Station I take a bus to the fitness club. I change into my gym clothes in the locker room, then do some circuit training, plugged into my Walkman, Prince blasting away. It's been a while and my muscles complain, but I manage. It's the body's normal reaction-muscles screaming out, resisting the extra burden put on them. Listening to "Little Red Corvette," I try to soothe that reaction, suppress it. I take a deep breath, hold it, exhale. Inhale, hold, exhale. Even breathing, over and over. One by one I push my muscles to the limit. I'm sweating like crazy, my shirt's soaked and heavy. I have to go over to the cooler a few times to gulp down water.

I go through the machines in the usual order, my mind filled with Miss Saeki. About the sex we had. I try to clear my head, blank everything out, but it's not easy. I focus on my muscles, absorb myself in the routine. The same machines as always, same weights, same number of reps. Prince is singing "Sexy Motherfucker" now. The end of my penis is still a bit sore and stings a little when I take a leak. The tip's red. My fresh-from-the-foreskin cock is still plenty young and tender. Condensed sexual fantasies, Prince's slippery voice, quotes from all kinds of books-the whole confused mess swirls around in my brain, and my head feels like it's about to burst.

I take a shower, change into fresh underwear, and take the bus back to the station. Hungry, I duck inside a diner and have a quick meal. As I'm eating I realize this is where I ate on my first day in Takamatsu. Which gets me wondering how many days I've been here. It's been a week or so since I started staying at the library, so I must have gotten to Shikoku about three weeks ago.

I have some tea after I'm finished eating and watch the people hustling back and forth in front of the station. They're all headed somewhere. If I wanted to, I could join them. Take a train to some other place. Throw away everything here, head off somewhere I've never been, start from scratch. Like turning a new page in a notebook. I could go to Hiroshima, Fukuoka, wherever. Nothing's keeping me here. I'm one hundred percent free. Everything I need to get by for a while is in my backpack. Clothes, toilet kit, sleeping bag. I've hardly touched the cash I took from my father's study.

But I know I can't go anywhere.

"But you can't go anywhere, you know that very well," the boy named Crow says.

You held Miss Saeki, came inside her so many times. And she took it all. Your penis is still stinging, still remembering how it felt to be inside her. One of the places that's just for you. You think of the library. The tranquil, silent books lining the stacks. You think of Oshima. Your room. Kafka on the Shore hanging on the wall, the fifteen-year-old girl gazing at the painting. You shake your head. There's no way you can leave here. You aren't free. But is that what you really want? To be free?

Inside the station I pass by patrolmen making their rounds, but they don't pay me any mind. Seems like every other guy I pass is some tanned kid my age shouldering a backpack. And I'm just one of them, melting into the scenery. No need to get all jumpy. Just act natural, and nobody'll notice me.

I jump on the little two-car train and return to the library.

"Hey, you're back," Oshima says. He looks at my backpack, dumbfounded. "My word, do you always lug around so much luggage with you? You're a regular Linus."

I boil some water and have a cup of tea. Oshima's twirling his usual long, freshly sharpened pencil. Where his pencils wind up when they get too short I have no idea.

"That backpack's like your symbol of freedom," he comments.

"Guess so," I say.

"Having an object that symbolizes freedom might make a person happier than actually getting the freedom it represents."

"Sometimes," I say.

"Sometimes," he repeats. "You know, if they had a contest for the world's shortest replies, you'd win hands down."

"Perhaps."

"Perhaps," Oshima says, as if fed up. "Perhaps most people in the world aren't trying to be free, Kafka. They just think they are. It's all an illusion. If they really were set free, most people would be in a real bind. You'd better remember that. People actually prefer not being free."

"Including you?"

"Yeah. I prefer being unfree, too. Up to a point. Jean-Jacques Rousseau defined civilization as when people build fences. A very perceptive observation. And it's true-all civilization is the product of a fenced-in lack of freedom. The Australian Aborigines are the exception, though. They managed to maintain a fenceless civilization until the seventeenth century. They're dyed-in-the-wool free. They go where they want, when they want, doing what they want. Their lives are a literal journey. Walkabout is a perfect metaphor for their lives. When the English came and built fences to pen in their cattle, the Aborigines couldn't fathom it. And, ignorant to the end of the principle at work, they were classified as dangerous and antisocial and were driven away, to the outback. So I want you to be careful. The people who build high, strong fences are the ones who survive the best. You deny that reality only at the risk of being driven into the wilderness yourself."

I go back to my room and lay down my backpack. Next I head to the kitchen, brew up some coffee, and take it to Miss Saeki's room. Metal tray in both hands, I carefully walk up each step, the old floorboards creaking. On the landing, I step through a rainbow of brilliant colors from the stained glass.

Miss Saeki's sitting at her desk, writing. I put down the coffee cup, and she looks up and asks me to sit down in my usual chair. Today she has on a café-au-lait-colored shirt over a black T-shirt. Her hair's pinned back, and she's wearing a pair of small pearl earrings.

She doesn't say anything for a while. She's looking over what she's just written. Nothing in her expression looks out of the ordinary. She screws on the cap of her fountain pen and lays it on top of her writing paper. She spreads her fingers, checking for ink stains. Sunday-afternoon sunlight is shining through the window. Somebody's outside in the garden, talking.

"Mr. Oshima told me you went to the gym," she says, studying my face.

"That's right," I say.

"What kind of exercise do you do there?"

"I use the machines and the free weights," I reply.

"Anything else?"

I shake my head.

"Kind of a lonely type of sport, isn't it?"

I nod.

"I imagine you want to become stronger."

"You have to be strong to survive. Especially in my case."

"Because you're all alone."

"Nobody's going to help me. At least no one has up till now. So I have to make it on my own. I have to get stronger-like a stray crow. That's why I gave myself the name Kafka. That's what Kafka means in Czech, you know-crow."

"Hmm," she says, mildly impressed. "So you're Crow."

"That's right," I say.

That's right, the boy named Crow says.

"There must be a limit to that kind of lifestyle, though," she says. "You can't use that strength as a protective wall around you. There's always going to be something stronger that can overcome your fortress. At least in principle."

"Strength itself becomes your morality."

Miss Saeki smiles. "You catch on quickly."

"The strength I'm looking for isn't the kind where you win or lose. I'm not after a wall that'll repel power coming from outside. What I want is the kind of strength to be able to absorb that outside power, to stand up to it. The strength to quietly endure things-unfairness, misfortune, sadness, mistakes, misunderstandings."

"That's got to be the most difficult strength of all to make your own."

"I know…"

Her smile deepens one degree. "You seem to know everything."

I shake my head. "That's not true. I'm only fifteen, and there're plenty of things I don't know. I should know them, but I don't. I don't know anything about you, for one thing."

She picks up the coffee cup and takes a sip. "There's nothing that you have to know, nothing inside me you need to know."

"Do you remember my theory?"

"Of course," she says. "But that's your theory, not mine. So I have no responsibility for it, right?"

"Exactly. The person who comes up with the theory is the one who has to prove it," I say. "Which leads me to a question."

"About?"

"You told me you'd published a book about people who'd been struck by lightning."

"That's right."

"Is it still available?"

She shakes her head. "They didn't print that many copies to begin with. It went out of print a long time ago, and I imagine any leftover copies were destroyed. I don't even have a copy. Like I said before, nobody was interested."

"Why were you interested in that topic?"

"I'm not sure. I guess there was something symbolic about it. Or maybe I just wanted to keep myself busy, so I set a goal that kept me running around and my mind occupied. I can't recall now what the original motivation was. I came up with the idea and just started researching it. I was a writer then, with no money worries and plenty of free time, so I could mostly do whatever sparked my interest. Once I got into it, though, the topic itself was fascinating. Meeting all kinds of people, hearing all kinds of stories. If it weren't for that project, I probably would've withdrawn even further from reality and ended up completely isolated."

"When my father was young he worked as a caddy at a golf course and was hit by lightning. He was lucky to survive. The guy with him didn't make it."

"A lot of people are killed by lightning on golf courses-big, wide-open spaces, with almost nowhere to take shelter. And lightning loves golf clubs. Is your father also named Tamura?"

"Yes, and I think he was about your age."

She shakes her head. "I don't remember anybody named Tamura. I didn't interview anybody by that name."

I don't say anything.

"That's part of your theory, isn't it? That your father and I met while I was researching the book, and as a result you were born."

"Yes."

"Well, that puts an end to it, doesn't it? That never happened. Your theory doesn't stand up."

"Not necessarily," I say.

"What do you mean?"

"Because I don't believe everything you're telling me."

"Why not?"

"Well, you immediately said you'd never interviewed anybody called Tamura without even giving it any thought. Twenty years is a long time, and you must've interviewed quite a number of people. I don't think you'd be able to recall so quickly whether one of them was or wasn't named Tamura."

She shakes her head and takes another sip of coffee. A faint smile springs to her lips. "Kafka, I-" She stops, looking for the right words.

I wait for her to find them.

"I feel like things are starting to change around me," she says.

"How so?"

"I can't really say, but something's happening. The air pressure, the way sounds reverberate, the reflection of light, how bodies move and time passes-it's all transforming, bit by bit. It's like each small change is a drop that's steadily building up into a stream." She picks up her black Mont Blanc pen, looks at it, puts it back where it was, then looks straight at me. "What happened between us in your room last night is probably part of that flow. I don't know if what we did last night was right or not. But at the time I decided not to force myself to judge anything. If the flow is there, I figured I'd just let it carry me along where it wanted."

"Can I tell you what I think?"

"Go right ahead."

"I think you're trying to make up for lost time."

She thinks about it for a while. "You may be right," she says. "But how do you know that?"

"Because I'm doing the same thing."

"Making up for lost time?"

"Yes," I say. "A lot of things were stolen from my childhood. Lots of important things. And now I have to get them back."

"In order to keep on living."

I nod. "I have to. People need a place they can go back to. There's still time to make it, I think. For me, and for you."

She closes her eyes, and tents her fingers on top of her desk. Like she's resigned to it, she opens her eyes again. "Who are you?" she asks. "And why do you know so much about everything?"

You tell her she must know who you are. I'm Kafka on the Shore, you say. Your lover-and your son. The boy named Crow. And the two of us can't be free. We're caught up in a whirlpool, pulled beyond time. Somewhere, we were struck by lightning. But not the kind of lightning you can see or hear.

That night you make love again. You listen as the blank within her is filled. It's a faint sound, like fine sand on a shore crumbling in the moonlight. You hold your breath, listening. You're inside your theory now. Then you're outside. And inside again, then outside. You inhale, hold it, exhale. Inhale, hold it, exhale. Prince sings on, like some mollusk in your head. The moon rises, the tide comes in. Seawater flows into a river. A branch of the dogwood just outside the window trembles nervously. You hold her close, she buries her face in your chest. You feel her breath against your bare skin. She traces your muscles, one by one. Finally, she gently licks your swollen penis, as if healing it. You come again, in her mouth. She swallows it down, as if every drop is precious. You kiss her vagina, touching every soft, warm spot with your tongue. You become someone else there, something else. You are somewhere else.

"There's nothing inside me you need to know," she says. Until Monday morning dawns you hold each other, listening to time passing by.