Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami
Her smile deepened. But what I’d said was neither a lie nor flattery. She was too gorgeous for me to be seriously interested in her. Back then, and even now. Plus her smile was a little too amazing to be real.
“I called that coffee shop you used to work at, but they said you didn’t work there anymore,” she said.
After Kitaru left, the job became a total bore, and I quit two weeks later.
Erika and I briefly reviewed the lives we’d led over the past sixteen years. After college, I was hired by a small publisher, but quit after three years and had been a writer ever since. I got married at twenty-seven but didn’t have any children yet. Erika was still single. “They drive me so hard at work,” she joked, “that I have no time to get married.” I surmised that she’d had a number of affairs over the years. There was something about her, some aura radiating from her, that made me sure. She was the first one to bring up the topic of Kitaru.
“Aki-kun is working as a sushi chef in Denver now,” she said.
“Denver?”
“Denver, Colorado. At least, according to the postcard he sent me a couple of months ago.”
“Why Denver?”
“I don’t know,” Erika said. “The postcard before that was from Seattle. He was a sushi chef there, too. That was about a year ago. He sends me postcards sporadically. Always some silly card with just a couple of lines dashed off. Sometimes he doesn’t even write his return address.”
“A sushi chef,” I mused. “So he never did go to college?”
She shook her head. “At the end of that summer, I think it was, he suddenly announced that he’d had it with studying for the entrance exams. It’s just a waste of time to keep on doing this, he said. And he went off to a cooking school in Osaka. Said he really wanted to learn Kansai cuisine and go to games at Koshien Stadium, the Hanshin Tigers’ stadium. Of course, I asked him, ‘How can you decide something so important like that and never ask me? What about me?’ ”
“And what did he say to that?”
She didn’t respond. She just held her lips tight. She seemed about to say something, but it looked like if she did, she would cry. She managed to hold back the tears, as if wanting to avoid, above all, ruining her delicate eye makeup. I quickly changed the subject.
“When we went to that Italian restaurant in Shibuya, I remember we had cheap Chianti. Now look at us, tasting premium Napa wines. Kind of a strange twist of fate.”
“I remember,” she said, pulling herself together. “We saw a Woody Allen movie. Which one was it again?”
I told her.
“That was a great movie.”
I agreed. It was definitely one of Woody Allen’s masterpieces.
“Did things work out with that guy in your tennis club you were seeing?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No. We just didn’t connect the way I thought we would. We went out for six months and then broke up.”
“Can I ask a question?” I said. “It’s very personal, though.”
“Of course. I hope I can answer it.”
“I don’t want you to be offended.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“You slept with that guy, right?”
Erika looked at me in surprise, her cheeks reddening.
“Why are you bringing that up now?”
“Good question,” I said. “It’s just been on my mind for a long time. But that was a weird thing to ask. I’m sorry.”
Erika shook her head slightly. “No, it’s okay. I’m not offended. I just wasn’t expecting it. It was all so long ago.”
I looked around the room. People in formal wear were scattered about. Corks popped one after another from expensive bottles of wine. A female pianist was playing “Like Someone in Love.”
“The answer is yes,” Erika Kuritani said. “I had sex with him a number of times.”
“Curiosity, a thirst to know more,” I said.
She gave a hint of a smile. “That’s right. Curiosity, a thirst to know more.”
“That’s how we develop our growth rings.”
“If you say so,” she said.
“And I’m guessing that the first time you slept with him was soon after we had our date in Shibuya?”
She turned a page in her mental record book. “I think so. About a week after that. I remember that whole time pretty well. It was the first time I had ‘that kind’ of experience.”
“And Kitaru was pretty quick on the uptake,” I said, gazing into her eyes.
She looked down and fingered the pearls on her necklace one by one, as if making sure that they were all still there. She gave a small sigh, perhaps remembering something. “Yes, you’re right about that. Aki-kun had a very strong sense of intuition.”
“But it didn’t work out with the other man.”
She nodded. “Unfortunately, I’m just not that smart. I needed to take the long way around. I always take a roundabout way.”
That’s what we all do: endlessly take the long way around. I wanted to tell her this, but kept silent. Blurting out aphorisms like that was another one of my problems.
“Is Kitaru married?”
“As far as I know, he’s still single,” Erika said. “At least, he hasn’t told me that he got married. Maybe the two of us are the type who will never make a go of marriage.”
“Or maybe you’re just taking a roundabout way of getting there.”
“Perhaps.”
“Is it out of the realm of possibility that the two of you might meet up again and get together?”
She smiled, looked down, and shook her head. I couldn’t tell what that gesture meant. Maybe that this was not a possibility. Or else that it was pointless to even think about it.
“Do you still dream about the moon made of ice?” I asked.
Her head snapped up and she stared at me. Very calmly, slowly, a smile spread across her face. A completely natural, open smile.
“You remember my dream?” she asked.
“For some reason, I do.”
“Even though it’s someone else’s dream?”
“Dreams are the kind of things you can—when you need to—borrow and lend out,” I said. I really do overplay these sayings sometimes.
“That’s a wonderful idea,” she said. The smile still graced her face.
Someone called her name from behind me. It was time for her to get back to work.
“I don’t have that dream anymore,” she said in parting. “But I still remember every detail. What I saw, the way I felt. I can’t forget it. I probably never will.”
Erika Kuritani looked past me, staring off in the distance for a moment, as if searching the night sky for a moon made of ice. She abruptly turned and walked away. Off to the ladies’ room, I imagined, to touch up her mascara.
—
When I’m driving and the Beatles song “Yesterday” comes on the radio, I can’t help but hear those crazy lyrics Kitaru crooned in the bath. And I regret not writing them down. The lyrics were so weird that I remembered them for a while, but gradually my memory started to fade until finally I had nearly forgotten them. All I recall now are fragments, and I’m not even sure if these are actually what Kitaru sang. As time passes, memory, inevitably, reconstitutes itself.
When I was twenty or so, I tried several times to keep a diary, but I just couldn’t do it. So many things were happening around me back then that I could barely keep up with them, let alone stand still and write them all down in a notebook. And most of these things weren’t the kind that made me think, Oh, I’ve got to write this down. It was all I could do to open my eyes in the strong headwind, catch my breath, and forge ahead.
But, oddly enough, I remember Kitaru so well. We were friends for just a few months, yet every time I hear “Yesterday” scenes and conversations with him well up in my mind. The two of us talking while he soaked in the bath at his home in Denenchofu. Talking about the Hanshin Tigers’ batting order, how troublesome certain aspects of sex could be, how mind
But when I look back at myself at age twenty, what I remember most is being alone and lonely. I had no girlfriend to warm my body or my soul, no friends I could open up to. No clue what I should do every day, no vision for the future. For the most part, I remained hidden away, deep within myself. Sometimes I’d go a week without talking to anybody. That kind of life continued for a year. A long, long year. Whether this period was a cold winter that left valuable growth rings inside me, I can’t really say.
At the time I felt as if every night I, too, were gazing out a porthole at a moon made of ice. A transparent, eight-inch-thick, frozen moon. But no one was beside me. I watched that moon alone, unable to share its cold beauty with anyone.
Yesterday
Is two days before tomorrow,
The day after two days ago.
I hope that in Denver (or some other faraway town) Kitaru is happy. If it’s too much to ask that he’s happy, I hope at least that today he has his health, and all his needs met. For no one knows what kind of dreams tomorrow will bring.
Translated by Philip Gabriel
AN INDEPENDENT ORGAN
THERE ARE PEOPLE in the world who—thanks to a lack of intellectual acuity—live a life that is surprisingly artificial. I haven’t run across all that many, but there are certainly a few. And Dr. Tokai was one of them.
In order for these so-called principled souls to survive in this warped world, these sort of people need to carefully adjust every day, though in most cases they’re not consciously aware of the tiresome level of finesse necessary to do so. They’re thoroughly convinced that they’re perfectly guileless people who live honest lives devoid of ulterior motives or artifice. And when, by some chance, a special light shines on them, revealing how artificial and unreal the inner workings of their lives really are, circumstances can take a tragic, or in some cases comic, turn. Of course, there are many such people—we can call them blessed—who never encounter that light, or who see it but come away unfazed.
I’d like to record everything that I learned about this man named Tokai. Most of it originates from things he told me directly, though certain parts are based on information that people close to him told me, people he trusted. Admittedly, a certain amount is also conjecture, based on my own observations of things I thought might be true. Like soft pâté nicely filling in the gaps between one fact and another. In other words, the portrait that follows is not based entirely on fact. As the writer of this account, I cannot recommend that the reader treat it like evidence submitted in a trial, or supporting documents for a business transaction (though what sort of business transaction this could possibly be, I haven’t a clue).
But if you slowly take a few steps back (making certain beforehand, mind you, that you’re not standing in front of a cliff) and view this portrait from a distance, I’m sure you’ll understand that the veracity of each tiny detail really isn’t critical. All that matters is that a clear portrait of Dr. Tokai should emerge. At least, that’s my hope, as the writer. He was, in short—how best to put this?—not the sort of person with an excessive amount of room for misunderstanding.
Not to say that he was a simple, accessible individual. In certain ways he was a complex, layered person, hard to grasp. I have no way of knowing what darkness lay in his subconscious, or what sins he may have carried with him. Still, based on his consistent patterns of behavior, composing an accurate overall picture is relatively easy. As a professional writer this may be a little presumptuous of me, but that’s the impression I got at the time.
Tokai is fifty-two, and has never been married, or even lived with a woman. He lives in a two-bedroom apartment on the sixth floor of an elegant building in the tony Azabu district in Tokyo. A confirmed bachelor, you might say. He takes cares of most household chores himself—cooking, laundry, ironing, cleaning—and the rest are handled by professional housecleaners who come twice a month. He’s basically a tidy person, so it’s not hard to keep his house clean. When necessary, he can whip up delicious cocktails, and manages to cook most dishes, from nikujaga stew to sea bass en papillote. (Like most people who enjoy cooking, he spares no expense, so the dishes he prepares use the best ingredients and are always delicious.) He never felt he needed a woman around the house, never felt bored spending time alone, and hardly ever felt lonely sleeping by himself. Up to a certain point, that is.
He’s a cosmetic plastic surgeon and runs the Tokai Beauty Clinic in Roppongi, which he inherited from his father. Naturally he has lots of opportunities to meet women. He isn’t what you would call handsome, but has decent features—he never once considered getting plastic surgery himself—and, as the clinic does very well, he receives a high salary. He is well brought up, with good manners and a keen interest in culture, never at a loss for conversational topics. He still has a full head of hair (though some gray is starting to show), and though he’s starting to put on a few pounds, regular workouts at the gym help him maintain a youthful physique. People might react negatively to this candor, but he has never lacked for women to date.
For some reason, ever since he was young, Tokai never wanted to get married and have a family. He was quite positive he wasn’t suited for married life. So no matter how appealing the woman, if she was on the lookout for a permanent mate he kept his distance. As a result, most of the women he chose as girlfriends were either already married or had another primary boyfriend. As long as he maintained this arrangement, none of his partners had the desire to marry him. To put a finer point on it, Tokai was always a casual number-two lover, a convenient rainy-day boyfriend, or else a handy partner for a casual fling. And truthfully, Tokai was in his element in this kind of relationship, which for him was the most comfortable way to be with women. Any other arrangement—the kind where the woman sought a real partner—made him uncomfortable and on edge.
It didn’t particularly bother him that these women made love to men other than him. Physical relations were, after all, just physical. As a doctor, this is what Tokai believed, and the women he dated felt the same. Tokai just hoped that when he was with a woman, she thought only of him. What she did or thought outside of their time together was her own business, not something for him to speculate about. Meddling in their lives outside the confines of their affair was out of the question.
For Tokai, having dinner with these women, drinking wine with them, and talking together was a distinct pleasure. Sex was merely an added pleasure, but never the ultimate goal. What he sought most was an intimate, intellectual connection with a number of attractive women. What came after that just happened. Because of this, women found themselves naturally attracted to him, enjoyed spending time with him, and often took the initiative. Personally, I think most women in the world (particularly the really attractive ones) are fed up with men who are always panting to get them into bed.
Tokai sometimes thought he should have kept track of how many women he’d had this sort of relationship with over the course of nearly thirty years. But he was never all that interested in quantity. Quality of experience was the goal. And he wasn’t that particular about a woman’s physical appearance. As long as there wasn’t some major flaw that aroused his professional interest, and as long as her looks weren’t so boring as to make him yawn, that was enough. If you were worried about your looks, and had enough money saved up, you could alter your appearance pretty much any way you liked (as a specialist in that field, he knew of numerous remarkable examples). What he valued instead were bright, quick-witted women with a sense of humor. If a woman was very beautiful but had nothing to say, or no opinions of her own, Tokai became discouraged. No o
Never once did he have any serious troubles with women, which was a good thing, because sticky emotional conflicts were definitely not for him. If, for some reason, the ominous dark clouds of impending friction appeared on the horizon, he knew how to skillfully back out of the relationship, careful not to aggravate things, and also careful not to hurt the woman. He did this swiftly and naturally, like a shadow drawn up into the gathering twilight. As a veteran bachelor he was well acquainted with the essential techniques.
He broke off relations with his girlfriends on a pretty regular basis. Most of the women with other boyfriends would, at a certain point in the relationship, say, “I’m very sorry, but I can’t see you anymore. I’m getting married soon.” In most cases the decision to get married came just before they were about to turn thirty, or forty. Just like calendars that sell well at the end of the year. Tokai always took the news calmly, with a suitably rueful smile. It was a shame, but what could you do? Matrimony wasn’t for him, yet it was, in its way, a sacred institution, one that had to be respected.
At those times he would buy the woman an expensive wedding present. “Congratulations on your marriage,” he’d tell her. “You’re such an intelligent, charming, lovely woman. I hope you are truly happy—you deserve to be.” And he really felt this way. These women had shared a precious portion of their lives with him and, out of what he hoped was genuine affection, provided him with some warm and wonderful times. For that alone he was grateful. What more could he ask of them?
But nearly a third of these women who went off to tie the sacred matrimonial knot ended up, some years later, phoning Tokai and asking to see him again. And he was always happy enough to have a pleasant—and certainly not very sacred—relationship with them. They transitioned from a casual relationship between two singles to the more complex relationship between a single man and a married woman—which made it all the more enjoyable. What they actually did together was pretty much the same as before, albeit a bit more competently. The remaining two-thirds of the women who got married never got in touch, and he never saw them again. They were, he surmised, living happy, fulfilling married lives, as wonderful wives and, he imagined, with a couple of children. If that was the case, Tokai was happy for them. At this very moment a baby might be nursing at the marvelous breasts he used to lovingly stroke.