A Wild Sheep Chase
A WILD SHEEP CHASE
by Haruki Murakami
translated from the Japanese by Alfred Birnbaum
Part One
November 25, 1970
1
Wednesday Afternoon Picnic
it was a short one-paragraph item in the morning edition, a friend of mine rang me up and read it to me . nothing special. something a rookie reporter fresh out of college might have written it for practice.
the date, a street corner, a man driving a truck, a pedestrian, a casualty, an investigation of a possible negligence.
sounded like one of those poems on the inner flap of a magazine.
"where's the funeral?" i asked.
"you got me," he said," did she even have family?"
of course she had a family.
i called the police department to track down her family's address and telephone number, after which i gave them a call to get details of the funeral.
her family lived in an old quarter of tokyo. i got out my map and marked the block in red. there were subway and train and bus lines everywhere, overlapping like some misshapen spider web, the whole area a maze of narrow streets and drainage canals.
the day of the funeral, i took a streetcar from Waseda. i got off near the end of the line. the map proved about as helpful as a globe would have been. i ended up buying pack after pack cigarettes, asking directions each time.
it was a wood-frame house with a brown board fence around it, a small yard, with an abandoned ceramic brazier filled with standing rain water. the ground was dark and damp.
she had left home when she was sixteen, which may have been the reason why the funeral was so somber. only family present, nearly everyone older. it was presided over by her older brother, barely thirty, or maybe it was her brother-in-law.
her father, a shortish man in his mid-fifties, wore a black armband of mourning. he stood by the entrance and scarcely moved, reminded me of a street washed clean after a downpour.
on leaving, i lowered my head i silence, and he lowered his head in return, without a word.
i met her in autumn nine years ago, when i was twenty and she was seventy.
there was a small coffee shop near the university where i hung out with friends. it wasn't much of anything, but it offered certain constants: hard rock and bad coffee.
she'd always be sitting in the same spot, elbows planted on the table, reading. with her glasses - which resembled orthodontia, - and skinny hands, she seemed somehow endearing. always her coffee would be cold, always her ashtray full of cigarette butts.
the only thing that changed was the nook. one time it'd be Mickey Spillane, another time Kenzaburo Oe, another time Allen Ginsberg. didn't matter what it was, as long as it was a book. the students drifted in and out of the place would lend her books, and she'd read them clean through, cover to cover. devour them, like so many ears of corn. in those days, people lent books as a matter of course, so she never wanted for anything to read.
those were days of the doors, the stones, the byrds, deep purple, and the moody blues. the air was alive, even as everything seemed on the verge of collapse, waiting for a push.
she and i would trade books, talk endlessly, engage in unremarkable sex. you know, the stuff of everyday. meanwhile, the curtain was creaking down on the shambles of the sixties.
i forget her name.
i could pull out her obituary, but what difference would it make now. i have forgotten her name.
suppose i meet up with old friends and mid-swing the conversation turns to her. no one ever remembers her name either. say, back then there was this girl who'd sleep with anyone, you know, what- her -face, the name escape me, but i slept with her lots of times, wonder what she's doing now, be funny to run into her on the street.
"back then, there was this girl who'd sleep with anyone. " that's her name.
of course, strictly speaking, she didn't sleep with just anyone, she had standards.
by Haruki Murakami
translated from the Japanese by Alfred Birnbaum
Part One
November 25, 1970
1
Wednesday Afternoon Picnic
it was a short one-paragraph item in the morning edition, a friend of mine rang me up and read it to me . nothing special. something a rookie reporter fresh out of college might have written it for practice.
the date, a street corner, a man driving a truck, a pedestrian, a casualty, an investigation of a possible negligence.
sounded like one of those poems on the inner flap of a magazine.
"where's the funeral?" i asked.
"you got me," he said," did she even have family?"
of course she had a family.
i called the police department to track down her family's address and telephone number, after which i gave them a call to get details of the funeral.
her family lived in an old quarter of tokyo. i got out my map and marked the block in red. there were subway and train and bus lines everywhere, overlapping like some misshapen spider web, the whole area a maze of narrow streets and drainage canals.
the day of the funeral, i took a streetcar from Waseda. i got off near the end of the line. the map proved about as helpful as a globe would have been. i ended up buying pack after pack cigarettes, asking directions each time.
it was a wood-frame house with a brown board fence around it, a small yard, with an abandoned ceramic brazier filled with standing rain water. the ground was dark and damp.
she had left home when she was sixteen, which may have been the reason why the funeral was so somber. only family present, nearly everyone older. it was presided over by her older brother, barely thirty, or maybe it was her brother-in-law.
her father, a shortish man in his mid-fifties, wore a black armband of mourning. he stood by the entrance and scarcely moved, reminded me of a street washed clean after a downpour.
on leaving, i lowered my head i silence, and he lowered his head in return, without a word.
i met her in autumn nine years ago, when i was twenty and she was seventy.
there was a small coffee shop near the university where i hung out with friends. it wasn't much of anything, but it offered certain constants: hard rock and bad coffee.
she'd always be sitting in the same spot, elbows planted on the table, reading. with her glasses - which resembled orthodontia, - and skinny hands, she seemed somehow endearing. always her coffee would be cold, always her ashtray full of cigarette butts.
the only thing that changed was the nook. one time it'd be Mickey Spillane, another time Kenzaburo Oe, another time Allen Ginsberg. didn't matter what it was, as long as it was a book. the students drifted in and out of the place would lend her books, and she'd read them clean through, cover to cover. devour them, like so many ears of corn. in those days, people lent books as a matter of course, so she never wanted for anything to read.
those were days of the doors, the stones, the byrds, deep purple, and the moody blues. the air was alive, even as everything seemed on the verge of collapse, waiting for a push.
she and i would trade books, talk endlessly, engage in unremarkable sex. you know, the stuff of everyday. meanwhile, the curtain was creaking down on the shambles of the sixties.
i forget her name.
i could pull out her obituary, but what difference would it make now. i have forgotten her name.
suppose i meet up with old friends and mid-swing the conversation turns to her. no one ever remembers her name either. say, back then there was this girl who'd sleep with anyone, you know, what- her -face, the name escape me, but i slept with her lots of times, wonder what she's doing now, be funny to run into her on the street.
"back then, there was this girl who'd sleep with anyone. " that's her name.
of course, strictly speaking, she didn't sleep with just anyone, she had standards.
