Norwegian Wood

somewhere for coffee, walked some more, had dinner in the evening, and said goodbye. Again, she talked only in snatches, but this didn't seem to bother her, and I made no special effort

hat else could I do?" "Yeah, I guess so." "But after that, nobody could say a thing to me. Not even the third-years. I'm the only guy in this place who can swallow three slugs." "I bet you are." Finding out about his penis size was easy enough. I just went to the dorm's communal shower with him. He had a big one, all right. But 100 girls was probably an exaggeration. "Maybe 75," he said. "I can't remember them all, but I'm sure it's at least 70." When I told him I had slept with only one, he said, "Oh, we can fix that, easy. Come with me next time. I'll get you one easy as that." I didn't believe him, but he turned out to be right. It was easy. Almost too easy, with all the excitement of flat beer. We went to some kind of bar in Shibuya or Shinjuku (he had his favourites), found a pair of girls (the world was full of pairs of girls), talked to them, drank, went to a hotel, and had sex with them. He was a great talker. Not that he had anything great to say, but girls would get carried away listening to him, they'd drink too much and end up sleeping with him. I guess they enjoyed being with somebody so nice and handsome and clever. And the most amazing thing was that, just because I was with him, I seemed to become equally fascinating to them. Nagasawa would urge me to talk, and girls would respond to me with the same smiles of admiration they offered him. He worked his magic, a real talent he had that impressed me every time. Compared with Nagasawa, Kizuki's conversational gifts were child's play. This was a completely different level of accomplishment. As much as I found myself caught up in Nagasawa's power, though, I still missed Kizuki. I felt a new admiration for his sincerity. Whatever talents he had he would share with Naoko and me alone, while Nagasawa was bent on disseminating his considerable gifts to all around him. Not that he was dying to sleep with the girls he found: it was just a game to him. I was not too crazy about sleeping with girls I didn't know. It was an easy way to take care of my sex drive of course, and I did enjoy all the holding and touching, but I hated the morning after. I'd wake up and find this strange girl sleeping next to me, and the room would reek of alcohol, and the bed and the lighting and the curtains had that special "love hotel" garishness, and my head would be in a hungover fog. Then the girl would wake up and start groping around for her knickers and while she was putting on her stockings she'd say something like, "I hope you used one last night. It's the worst day of the month for me." Then she'd sit in front of a mirror and start grumbling about her aching head or her uncooperative make-up while she redid her lipstick or attached her false eyelashes. I would have preferred not to spend the whole night with them, but you can't worry about a midnight curfew while you're seducing women (which runs counter to the laws of physics anyway), so I'd go out with an overnight pass. This meant I had to stay put until morning and go back to the dorm filled with self-loathing and disillusionment, sunlight stabbing my eyes, mouth coated with sand, head belonging to someone else. When I had slept with three or four girls this way, I asked Nagasawa, "After you've done this 70 times, doesn't it begin to seem kind of pointless?" "That proves you're a decent human being," he said. "Congratulations. There is absolutely nothing to be gained from sleeping with one strange woman after another. It just tires you out and makes you disgusted with yourself. It's the same for me." "So why the hell do you keep it up?" "Hard to say. Hey, you know that thing Dostoevsky wrote on gambling? It's like that. When you're surrounded by endless possibilities, one of the hardest things you can do is pass them up. See what I mean?" "Sort of." "Look. The sun goes down. The girls come out and drink. They wander around, looking for something. I can give them that something. It's the easiest thing in the world, like drinking water from a tap. Before you know it, I've got 'em down. It's what they expect. That's what I mean by possibility. It's all around you. How can you ignore it? You have a certain ability and the opportunity to use it: can you keep your mouth shut and let it pass?" "I don't know, I've never been in a situation like that," I said with a smile. "I can't imagine what it's like." "Count your blessings," Nagasawa said. His womanizing was the reason Nagasawa lived in a dorm despite his affluent background. Worried that Nagasawa would do nothing else if allowed to live alone in Tokyo, his father had compelled him to live all four years at university in the dormitory. Not that it mattered much to Nagasawa. He was not going to let a few rules bother him. Whenever he felt like it, he would get an overnight permission and go girl-hunting or spend the night at hi s girlfriend's flat. These permissions were not easy to get, but for him they were like free passes - and for me, too, as long as he did the asking. Nagasawa did have a steady girlfriend, one he'd been going out with since his first year. Her name was Hatsumi, and she was the same age as Nagasawa. I had met her a few times and found her to be very nice. She didn't have the kind of looks that immediately attracted attention, and in fact she was so ordinary that when I first met her I had to wonder why Nagasawa couldn't do better, but anyone who talked to her took an immediate liking to her. Quiet, intelligent, funny, caring, she always dressed with immaculate good taste. I liked her a lot and knew that if I could have a girlfriend like Hatsumi, I wouldn't be sleeping around with a bunch of easy marks. She liked me, too, and tried hard to fix me up with a first-year in her club so we could double-date, but I would make up excuses to keep from repeating past mistakes. Hatsumi went to the absolute top girls' coll ege in the country, and there was no way I was going to be able to talk to one of those super-rich princesses. Hatsumi had a pretty good idea that Nagasawa was sleeping around, but she never complained to him. She was seriously in love, but she never made demands. "I don't deserve a girl like Hatsumi," Nagasawa once said to me. I had to agree with him. That winter I found a part-time job in a little record shop in Shinjuku. It didn't pay much, but the work was easy- just watching the place three nights a week - and they let me buy records cheap. For Christmas I bought Naoko a Henry Mancini album with a track of her favourite "Dear Heart". I wrapped it myself and added a bright red ribbon. She gave me a pair of woollen gloves she had knitted. The thumbs were a little short, but they did keep my hands warm. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said, blushing, "What a bad job!" "Don't worry, they fit fine," I said, holding my gloved hands out to her. "Well, at least you won't have to shove your hands in your pockets, I guess." Naoko didn't go home to Kobe for the winter break. I stayed in Tokyo, too, working in the record shop right up to the end of the year. I didn't have anything especially fun to do in Kobe or anyone I wanted to see. The dorm's dining hall was closed for the holiday, so I went to Naoko's flat for meals. On New Year's Eve we had rice cakes and soup like everybody else. A lot happened in late January and February that year, 1969. At the end of January, Storm Trooper went to bed with a raging fever. Which meant I had to stand up Naoko that day. I had gone to a lot of trouble to get my hands on some free tickets for a concert. She had been especially eager to go because the orchestra was performing one of her favourites: Brahms' Fourth Symphony. But with Storm Trooper tossing around in bed on the verge of what looked like an agonizing death, I couldn't just leave him, and I couldn't find anyone stupid enough to nurse him in my place. I bought some ice and used several layers of plastic bags to hold it on his forehead, wiped his sweating brow with cold towels, took his temperature every hour, and even changed his vest for him. The fever stayed high for a day, but the following morning he jumped out of bed and started exercising as though nothing had happened. His temperature was completely normal. It was hard to believe he was a human being. "Weird," said Storm Trooper. "I've never run a fever in my life." It was almost as if he were blaming me. This made me mad. "But you did have a fever," I insisted, showing him the two wasted tickets. "Good thing they were free," he said. I wanted to grab his radio and throw it out of the window, but instead I went back to bed with a headache. It snowed several times in February. Near the end of the month I got into a stupid fight with one of the third-years on my floor and punched him. He hit his head against the concrete wall, but he wasn't badly injured, and Nagasawa straightened things out for me. Still, I was called into the dorm Head's office and given a warning, after which I grew increasingly uncomfortable living in the dormitory. The academic year ended in March, but I came up a few credits short. My exam results were mediocre - mostly "C"s and "D"s with a few "B"s. Naoko had all the grades she needed to begin the spring term of her second year. We had completed one full cycle of the seasons. Halfway through April Naoko turned 20. She was seven months older than I was, my own birthday being in November. There was something strange about her becoming 20. I. felt as if the only thing that made sense, whether for Naoko or for me, was to keep going back and forth between 18 and 19. After 18 would come 19, and after 19, 18, of course. But she turned 20. And in the autumn, I would do the same. Only the dead stay 17 for ever. It rained on her birthday. After lectures I bought a cake nearby and took the tram to her flat. "We ought to have a celebration," I said. I probably would have wanted the same thing if our positions had been reversed. It must be hard to pass your twentieth birthday alone. The tram had been packed and had pitched so wildly that by the time I arrived at Naoko's room the cake was looking more like the Roman Colosseum than anything else. Still, once I had managed to stand up the 20 candles I had brought along, light them, close the curtains and turn out the lights, we had the makings of a birthday party. Naoko opened a bottle of wine. We drank, had some cake, and enjoyed a simple dinner. "I don't know, it's stupid being 20," she said. "I'm just not ready. It feels weird. Like somebody's pushing me from behind." "I've got seven months to get ready," I said with a laugh. "You're so lucky! Still 19!" said Naoko with a hint of envy. While we ate I told her about Storm Trooper's new jumper. Until then he had had only one, a navy-blue pullover, so two was a big move for him. The jumper itself was a nice one, red and black with a knitted deer motif, but on him it made everybody laugh. He couldn't work out what was going on. "W what's so funny, Watanabe?" he asked, sitting next to me in the dining hall. "Is something stuck to my forehead?" "Nothing," I said, trying to keep a straight face. "There's nothing funny. Nice jumper." "Thanks," he said, beaming. Naoko loved the story. "I have to meet him," she said. "Just once." "No way," I said. "You'd laugh in his face." "You think so?" "I'd bet on it. I see him every day, and still I can't help laughing sometimes." We cleared the table and sat on the floor, listening to music and drinking the rest of the wine. She drank two glasses in the time it took me to finish one. Naoko was unusually talkative that night. She told me about her childhood, her school, her family. Each episode was a long one, executed with the painstaking detail of a miniature. I was amazed at the power of her memory, but as I sat listening it began to dawn on me that there was something wrong with the way she was telling these stories: something strange, warped even. Each tale had its own internal logic, but the link from one to the next was odd. Before you knew it, story A had turned into story B, which had been contained in A, and then came C from something in B, with no end in sight. I found things to say in response at first, but after a while I stopped trying. I put on a record, and when it ended I lifted the needle and put on another. After the last record I went back to the first. She only had six. The cycle started with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and ended with Bill Evans' Waltz for Debbie. Rain fell past the window. Time moved slowly. Naoko went on talking by herself. It eventually dawned on me what was wrong: Naoko was taking great care as she spoke not to touch on certain things. One of those things was Kizuki, of course, but there was more than Kizuki. And though she had certain subjects she was determined to avoid, she went on endlessly and in incredible detail about the most trivial, inane things. I had never heard her speak with such intensity before, and so I did not interrupt her. Once the clock struck eleven, though, I began to feel nervous. She had been talking non-stop for more than four hours. I had to worry about the last train, and my midnight curfew. I saw my chance and cut in. "Time for the troops to go home," I said, looking at my watch. "Last train's coming." My words did not seem to reach her. Or, if they did, she was unable to grasp their meaning. She clamped her mouth shut for a split second, then went on with her story. I gave up and, shifting to a more comfortable position, drank what was left of the second bottle of wine. I thought I had better let her talk herself out. The curfew and the last train would have to take care of themselves. She did not go on for long, though. Before I knew it, she had stopped talking. The ragged end of the last word she spoke seemed to float in the air, where it had been torn off. She had not actually finished what she was saying. Her words had simply evaporated. She had been trying to go on, but had come up against nothing. Something was gone now, and I was probably the one who had destroyed it.My words might have finally reached her, taken their time to be understood, and obliterated whatever energy it was that had kept her talking so long. Lips slightly parted, she turned her half focused eyes on mine. She looked like some kind of machine that had been humming along until someone pulled the plug. Her eyes appeared clouded, as if covered by some thin, translucent membrane. "Sorry to interrupt," I said, "but it's getting late, and ..." One big tear spilled from her eye, ran down her cheek and splattered onto a record jacket. Once that first tear broke free, the rest followed in an unbroken stream. Naoko bent forwards on all fours on the floor and, pressing her palms to the mat, began to cry with the force of a person vomiting. Never in my life had I seen anyone cry with such intensity. I reached out and placed a hand on her trembling shoulder. Then, all but instinctively, I took her in my arms. Pressed against me, her whole body trembling, she continued to cry without a sound. My shirt became damp - then soaked - with her tears and hot breath. Soon her fingers began to move across my back as if in search of something, some important thing that had always been there. Supporting her weight with my left arm, I used my right hand to caress her soft, straight hair. And I waited. In that position, I waited for Naoko to stop crying. And I went on waiting. But Naoko's crying never stopped. I slept with Naoko that night. Was it the right thing to do? I can't tell. Even now, almost 20 years later, I can't be sure. I suppose I'll never know. But at the time, it was all I could do. She was in a heightened state of tension and confusion, and she made it clear she wanted me to give her release. I turned the lights down and began, one piece at a time, with the gentlest touch I could manage, to remove her clothes. Then I undressed. It was warm enough, that rainy April night, for us to cling to each other's nakedness without a sense of chill. We explored e