69 by Ryu Murakami

Author:Ryu Murakami
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Published: 2015-04-07T04:00:00+00:00

It was the same in the classroom. The other kids were reading The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, trying to look as if nothing had happened. People like Adama and me were as much of a puzzle to them as to their teachers, here in darkest Kyushu. Between classes, a few close friends gathered around the two of us. I started talking in a loud voice about how much fun it had been. I told them about the planning, the execution, and the police interrogation, playing it up for laughs. The part about Nakamura’s “doo-doo” was punctuated by one burst of laughter after another, and the crowd around us grew till it included about half the kids there. Telling the story made me a star. I learned something from that. If you got all gloomy and apologetic, you’d be on your own. No one there was capable of judging the right or wrong of it all. No one was capable of assessing the barricade in ideological terms. Victory went to whoever had the most fun. Behind the blasé front, of course, I was afraid of being expelled, but to put everyone else at ease it was best just to shrug it all off and tell them what a ball we’d had. The fact is that most of that crowd—or at least half of them—would have liked to have done it themselves. The rest, no doubt—the ones who thought I should get down on my knees and beg for mercy— only hated me more than ever. Aware of their hostility, I kept on talking. Even if I am thrown out, my heart was warning them, you’re the ones who lose. My laughter will ring in your ears for the rest of your miserable lives.

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