Kafka On The Shore (Vintage Magic) by Haruki Murakami

Author:Haruki Murakami [Murakami, Haruki]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781448103690
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2011-10-10T04:00:00+00:00

25

I FALL ASLEEP for a short time, wake up, fall asleep again, wake up, over and over. I don’t want to miss the moment she appears. But I do miss it – I look up and she’s already sitting at the desk, just like last night. The clock next to my bed shows a little past three. I’m positive I closed the curtains before going to bed, but again they’re wide open. But there’s no moon tonight – that’s the only difference. There’s a heavy cloud cover, and it might be drizzling outside. The room’s much darker than last night, with only distant lamps in the garden casting a faint light between the trees. It takes a while for my eyes to adjust.

The girl is at the desk, her head in her hands, gazing at the painting. She’s wearing the same clothes as last night. Even if I squint and look hard this time it’s too dark to make out her face. Strangely enough, though, her body and silhouette stand out, floating there clearly in the darkness. The girl is Miss Saeki when she was young – I have absolutely no doubt about it.

She looks deep in thought. Or in the midst of a long, deep dream. Hang on – maybe she herself is Miss Saeki’s long, deep dream. At any rate, I try to breathe very quietly so as not to disturb the balance of this scene before me. I don’t move an inch, just glance occasionally at the clock to check the time. Time passes slowly, steadily.

Out of the blue my heart starts beating hard, a dry sound as if someone’s knocking at the door. The sound echoes through the silent, dead-of-night room, and startles me so much that I nearly leap right out of bed.

The girl’s black silhouette moves ever so slightly. She looks up and listens in the dark. She’s heard it – the sound of my heart. She tilts her head just a fraction, for all the world like an animal in the woods focusing on an unexpected, unknown sound. Then she turns to face me in bed. I don’t register in her eyes, though, I can tell. I’m not in her dream. She and I are in two separate worlds, divided by an invisible border.

Just as quickly as it came on, my pounding heart settles back down to normal. And so does my breathing. I’m back to being invisible, and she’s no longer listening. Her gaze falls back on “Kafka on the Shore”. Head in hands as before, her heart is drawn once more towards the boy in that summer scene.

She’s there for about 20 minutes, then vanishes. Just like last night, she stands up, barefoot, noiselessly glides towards the door and, without opening it, disappears beyond it. I sit still for a while, then finally get up. Keeping the light off, I go over in the darkness and sit down on the seat she just occupied. I rest both hands on the desk and absorb the afterglow of her presence.

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