Kafka on the Shore Read online

  Her thin metal earrings sparkle like duralumin. She wears her dark brown, almost reddish dyed hair down to her shoulders, and has on a long-sleeved crewneck shirt with wide stripes. A small leather backpack hangs from one shoulder, and a light sweater's tied around her neck. A cream-colored miniskirt completes her outfit, with no stockings.

  She's evidently washed her face, since a few strands of hair, like the thin roots of a plant, are plastered to her broad forehead. Strangely enough, those loose strands of hair draw me to her.

  "You were on the bus, weren't you?" she asks me, her voice a little husky.

  "Yeah, that's right."

  She frowns as she takes a sip of the coffee. "How old are you?"

  "Seventeen," I lie.

  "So you're in high school."

  I nod.

  "Where're you headed?"

  "Takamatsu."

  "Same with me," she says. "Are you visiting, or do you live there?"

  "Visiting," I reply.

  "Me too. I have a friend there. A girlfriend of mine. How about you?"

  "Relatives."

  I see, her nod says. No more questions. "I've got a younger brother the same age as you," she suddenly tells me, as if she'd just remembered. "Things happened, and we haven't seen each other for a long time.... You know something? You look a lot like that guy. Anybody ever tell you that?"

  "What guy?"

  "You know, the guy who sings in that band! As soon as I saw you in the bus I thought you looked like him, but I just can't come up with his name. I must have busted a hole in my brain trying to remember. That happens sometimes, right? It's on the tip of your tongue, but you just can't think of it. Hasn't anybody said that to you before—that you remind them of somebody?"

  I shake my head. Nobody's ever said that to me. She's still staring at me, eyes narrowed intently. "What kind of person do you mean?" I ask.

  "A TV guy."

  "A guy who's on TV?"

  "Right," she says, picking up her ham sandwich and taking an uninspired bite, washing it down with a sip of coffee. "A guy who sings in some band. Darn—I can't think of the band's name, either. This tall guy who has a Kansai accent. You don't have any idea who I mean?"

  "Sorry, I don't watch TV."

  The girl frowns and gives me a hard look. "You don't watch at all?"

  I shake my head silently. Wait a sec—should I nod or shake my head here? I go with the nod.

  "Not very talkative, are you? One line at a time seems your style. Are you always so quiet?"

  I blush. I'm sort of a quiet type to begin with, but part of the reason I don't want to say much is that my voice hasn't changed completely. Most of the time I've got kind of a low voice, but all of a sudden it turns on me and lets out a squeak. So I try to keep whatever I say short and sweet.

  "Anyway," she goes on, "what I'm trying to say is you look a lot like that singer with the Kansai accent. Not that you have a Kansai accent or anything. It's just—I don't know, there's something about you that's a lot like him. He seems like a real nice guy, that's all."

  Her smile steps offstage for a moment, then does an encore, all while I'm dealing with my blushing face. "You'd resemble him even more if you changed your hair," she says. "Let it grow out a little, use some gel to make it flip up a bit. I'd love to give it a try.

  You'd definitely look good like that. Actually, I'm a hairdresser."

  I nod and sip my tea. The cafeteria is dead silent. None of the usual background music, nobody else talking besides the two of us.

  "Maybe you don't like talking?" she says, resting her head in one hand and giving me a serious look.

  I shake my head. "No, that's not it."

  "You think it's a pain to talk to people?"

  One more shake of my head.

  She picks up her other sandwich with strawberry jam instead of ham, then frowns and gives me this look of disbelief. "Would you eat this for me? I hate strawberry-jam sandwiches more than anything. Ever since I was a kid."

  I take it from her. Strawberry-jam sandwiches aren't exactly on my top-ten list either, but I don't say a word and start eating.

  From across the table she watches until I finish every last crumb. "Could you do me a favor?" she says.

  "A favor?"

  "Can I sit next to you until we get to Takamatsu? I just can't relax when I sit by myself. I always feel like some weird person's going to plop himself down next to me, and then I can't get to sleep. When I bought my ticket they told me they were all single seats, but when I got on I saw they're all doubles. I just want to catch a few winks before we arrive, and you seem like a nice guy. Do you mind?"

  "No problem."

  "Thanks," she says. "'In traveling, a companion,' as the saying goes."

  I nod. Nod, nod, nod—that's all I seem capable of. But what should I say?

  "How does that end?" she asks.

  "How does what end?"

  "After a companion, how does it go? I can't remember. I never was very good at Japanese."

  "'In life, compassion,'" I say.

  "'In traveling, a companion, in life, compassion,'" she repeats, making sure of it.

  If she had paper and pencil, it wouldn't surprise me if she wrote it down. "So what does that really mean? In simple terms."

  I think it over. It takes me a while to gather my thoughts, but she waits patiently.

  "I think it means," I say, "that chance encounters are what keep us going. In simple terms."

  She mulls that over for a while, then slowly brings her hands together on top of the table and rests them there lightly. "I think you're right about that—that chance encounters keep us going."

  I glance at my watch. It's five-thirty already. "Maybe we better be getting back."

  "Yeah, I guess so. Let's go," she says, making no move, though, to get up.

  "By the way, where are we?" I ask.

  "I have no idea," she says. She cranes her neck and sweeps the place with her eyes. Her earrings jiggle back and forth like two precarious pieces of ripe fruit ready to fall. "From the time I'm guessing we're near Kurashiki, not that it matters. A rest area on a highway is just a place you pass through. To get from here to there." She holds up her right index finger and her left index finger, about twelve inches apart.

  "What does it matter what it's called?" she continues. "You've got your restrooms and your food. Your fluorescent lights and your plastic chairs. Crappy coffee.

  Strawberry-jam sandwiches. It's all pointless—assuming you try to find a point to it.

  We're coming from somewhere, heading somewhere else. That's all you need to know, right?"

  I nod. And nod. And nod.

  When we get back to the bus the other passengers are already aboard, with just us holding things up. The driver's a young guy with this intense look that reminds me of some stern watchman. He turns a reproachful gaze on the two of us but doesn't say anything, and the girl shoots him an innocent sorry-we're-late smile. He reaches out to push a lever and the door hisses closed. The girl lugs her little suitcase over and sits down beside me—a nothing kind of suitcase she must've picked up at some discount place—and I pick it up for her and store it away in the overhead rack. Pretty heavy for its size. She thanks me, then reclines her seat and fades off to sleep. Like it can barely wait to get going, the bus starts to roll the instant we get settled. I pull out my paperback and pick up where I'd left off.

  The girl's soon fast asleep, and as the bus sways through each curve her head leans against my shoulder, finally coming to a rest there. Mouth closed, she's breathing quietly through her nose, the breath grazing my shoulder at regular beats. I look down and catch a glimpse of her bra strap through the collar of her crewneck shirt, a thin, cream-colored strap. I picture the delicate fabric at the end of that strap. The soft breasts beneath. The pink nipples taut under my fingertips. Not that I'm trying to imagine all this, but I can't help it. And—no surprise—I get a massive hard-on. So rigid it makes me wonder how any part of your body
could ever get so rock hard.

  Just then a thought hits me. Maybe—just maybe—this girl's my sister. She's about the right age. Her odd looks aren't at all like the girl in the photo, but you can't always count on that. Depending on how they're taken people sometimes look totally different.

  She said she has a brother my age who she hasn't seen in ages. Couldn't that brother be me—in theory, at least?

  I stare at her chest. As she breathes, the rounded peaks move up and down like the swell of waves, somehow reminding me of rain falling softly on a broad stretch of sea. I'm the lonely voyager standing on deck, and she's the sea. The sky is a blanket of gray, merging with the gray sea off on the horizon. It's hard to tell the difference between sea and sky. Between voyager and sea. Between reality and the workings of the heart.

  The girl wears two rings on her fingers, neither of which is a wedding or engagement ring, just cheap things you find at those little boutiques girls shop at. Her fingers are long and thin but look strong, the nails are short and nicely trimmed with a light pink polish. Her hands are resting lightly on the knees thrust out from her miniskirt.

  I want to touch those hands, but of course I don't. Asleep, she looks like a young child.

  One pointy ear peeks out from the strands of hair like a little mushroom, looking strangely fragile.

  I shut my book and look for a while at the passing scenery. But very soon, before I realize it, I fall asleep myself.

  Chapter 4

  U.S. ARMY INTELLIGENCE SECTION (MIS) REPORT

  Dated: May 12, 1946

  Title: Report on the Rice Bowl Hill Incident, 1944

  Document Number: PTYX-722-8936745-42216-WWN

  The following is a taped interview with Doctor Juichi Nakazawa (53), who ran an internal medicine clinic in [name deleted] Town at the time of the incident. Materials related to the interview can be accessed using application number PTYX-722-SQ-162 to 183.

  Impressions of the interviewer Lt. Robert O'Connor: Doctor Nakazawa is so big boned and dark skinned he looks more like a farm foreman than a doctor. He has a calm manner but is very brisk and concise and says exactly what's on his mind. Behind his glasses his eyes have a very sharp, alert look, and his memory seems reliable.

  That's correct—at eleven a.m. on November 7, 1944, I received a phone call from the assistant principal at the local elementary school. I used to be the school doctor, or something close to it, so that's why they contacted me first.

  The assistant principal was terribly upset. He told me that an entire class had lost consciousness while on an outing in the hills to pick mushrooms. According to him they were totally unconscious. Only the teacher in charge had remained conscious, and she'd run back to school for help just then. She was so flustered I couldn't grasp the whole situation, though one fact did come through loud and clear: sixteen children had collapsed in the woods.

  The kids were out picking mushrooms, so of course my first thought was that they'd eaten some poisonous ones and been paralyzed. If that were the case it'd be difficult to treat. Different varieties of mushrooms have different toxicity levels, and the treatments vary. The most we could do at the moment would be to pump out their stomachs. In the case of highly toxic varieties, though, the poison might enter the bloodstream quickly and we might be too late. Around here, several people a year die from poison mushrooms.

  I stuffed some emergency medicine in my bag and rode my bike over to the school as fast as I could. The police had been contacted and two policemen were already there. We knew we had to get the unconscious kids back to town and would need all the help we could get. Most of the young men were away at war, though, so we set off with the best we had—myself, the two policemen, an elderly male teacher, the assistant principal and principal, the school janitor. And of course the homeroom teacher who'd been with the kids. We grabbed whatever bicycles we could find, but there weren't enough, so some of us rode two to a bike.

  —What time did you arrive at the site?

  It was 11:55. I remember since I happened to glance at my watch when we got there. We rode our bicycles to the bottom of the hill, as far as we could go, then climbed the rest of the way on foot.

  By the time I arrived several children had partially regained consciousness. Three or four of them, as I recall. But they weren't fully conscious—sort of dizzily on all fours.

  The rest of the children were still collapsed. After a while some of the others began to come around, their bodies undulating like so many big worms. It was a very strange sight. The children had collapsed in an odd, flat, open space in the woods where it looked like all the trees had been neatly removed, with autumn sunlight shining down brightly. And here you had, in this spot or at the edges of it, sixteen elementary-school kids scattered about prostrate on the ground, some of them starting to move, some of them completely still. The whole thing reminded me of some weird avant-garde play.

  For a moment I forgot that I was supposed to treat the kids and just stood there, frozen, staring at the scene. Not just myself—everyone in the rescue group reacted the same, paralyzed for a while by what they saw. This might be a strange way of putting it, perhaps, but it was like some mistake had occurred that allowed us to see a sight people should never see. It was wartime, and I was always mentally prepared, as a physician, to deal with whatever came, in the remote possibility that something awful would occur way out here in the country. Prepared as a citizen of Japan to calmly do my duty if the need arose. But when I saw this scene in the woods I literally froze.

  I soon snapped out of it, and picked up one of the children, a little girl. Her body had no strength in it at all and was limp as a rag doll. Her breathing was steady but she was still unconscious. Her eyes, though, were open, tracking something back and forth. I pulled a small flashlight out of my bag and shined it on her pupils. Completely unreactive. Her eyes were functioning, watching something, yet showed no response to light. I picked up several other children and examined them and they were all exactly the same, unresponsive. I found this quite odd.

  I next checked their pulse and temperature. Their pulses were between 50 and 55, and all of them had temperatures just below 97 degrees. Somewhere around 96 degrees or thereabouts, as I recall. That's correct—for children of that age this pulse rate is well below normal, the body temperature over one degree below average. I smelled their breath, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. Likewise with their throats and tongues.

  I immediately ascertained these weren't the symptoms of food poisoning. Nobody had vomited or suffered diarrhea, and none of them seemed to be in any pain. If the children had eaten something bad you could expect—with this much time having elapsed—the onset of at least one of these symptoms. I heaved a sigh of relief that it wasn't food poisoning. But then I was stumped, since I hadn't a clue what was wrong with them.

  The symptoms were similar to sunstroke. Kids often collapse from this in the summer. It's like it's contagious—once one of them collapses their friends all do the same, one after the other. But this was November, in a cool woods, no less. One or two getting sunstroke is one thing, but sixteen children simultaneously coming down with it was out of the question.

  My next thought was some kind of poison gas or nerve gas, either naturally occurring or man-made. But how in the world could gas appear in the middle of the woods in such a remote part of the country? I couldn't account for it. Poison gas, though, would logically explain what I saw that day. Everyone breathed it in, went unconscious, and collapsed on the spot. The homeroom teacher didn't collapse because the concentration of gas wasn't strong enough to affect an adult.

  But when it came to treating the children, I was totally lost. I'm just a simple country doctor and have no special expertise in poison gasses, so I was out of my league.

  We were out in this remote town and I couldn't very well ring up a specialist. Very gradually, in fact, some of the children were getting better, and I figured that perhaps with time they would all regain consciousness.
I know it's an overly optimistic view, but at the time I couldn't think of anything else to do. So I suggested that we just let them lie there quietly for a while and see what developed.

  —Was there anything unusual in the air?

  I was concerned about that myself, so I took several deep breaths to see if I could detect any unusual odor. But it was just the ordinary smell of a woods in the hills. It was a bracing scent, the fragrance of trees. Nothing unusual about the plants and flowers around there, either. Nothing had changed shape or been discolored.

  One by one I examined the mushrooms the children had been picking. There weren't all that many, which led me to conclude that they'd collapsed not long after they began picking them. All of them were typical edible mushrooms. I've been a doctor here for some time and am quite familiar with the different varieties. Of course to be on the safe side I collected them all and took them back and had a specialist examine them. But as far as I could tell, they were all ordinary, edible mushrooms.

  —You said the unconscious children's eyes moved back and forth, but did you notice any other unusual symptoms or reactions? For instance, the size of their pupils, the color of the whites of their eyes, the frequency of their blinking?

  No. Other than their eyes moving back and forth like a searchlight, there was nothing out of the ordinary. All other functions were completely normal. The children were looking at something. To put a finer point on it, the children weren't looking at what we could see, but something we couldn't. It was more like they were observing something rather than just looking at it. They were essentially expressionless, but overall they seemed calm, not afraid or in any pain. That's also one of the reasons I decided to just let them lie there and see how things played out. I decided if they're not in any pain, then just let them be for a while.