After Dark

by Haruki Murakami

  “It’s not raw garbage,” says Shirakawa. “It doesn’t smell. And I’m going to throw it away near here.”

  “That’s fine,” the driver says. “Please.” He opens the door.

  Shirakawa gets into the cab.

  The driver speaks to him in the rearview mirror. “If I’m not mistaken, sir, you’ve been in my cab before. I picked you up here just about this time. Let’s see…your home is in Ekoda?”

  “Close. Tetsugakudo.”

  “That’s it, Tetsugakudo. Would you like to go there today, too?”

  “Sure. Like it or not, it’s the only home I’ve got.”

  “It’s handy to have one place to go home to,” the driver says, and steps on the gas. “But working this late all the time must be rough.”

  “It’s the recession. All that goes up are my overtime hours, not my pay.”

  “Same with me,” the driver says. “The less I take in, the longer I have to work to make up the difference. But still, sir, I think you’ve got it better. At least the company pays your cab fare when you work overtime. I mean it.”

  “Yeah, but if they’re going to make me work this late, they’re going to have to pay for my cabs. Otherwise, I couldn’t get home,” Shirakawa says with a sour smile.

  Then he remembers. “Oh, I almost forgot. Can you go right at the next intersection and let me out at 7-Eleven? My wife wants me to do some shopping. It’ll just take a second.”

  The driver says to the rearview mirror, “If we go right there, we’re gonna have to get onto some one-way streets and make a detour. There are lots of other convenience stores along the way. How about going to one of those?”

  “That’s probably the only place that carries what she wants. And anyhow, I want to get rid of this garbage.”

  “Fine with me. It might run the meter up a little extra, though. Just thought I’d ask.”

  He turns right, goes partway down the block, and finds a place to park. Shirakawa gets out, holding the garbage bag, leaving his briefcase on the seat. The 7-Eleven has a mound of garbage bags out front. He adds his to the pile. Mixed in with a lot of identical garbage bags, his bag loses its distinctiveness instantaneously. It will be collected with all the others when the garbage truck arrives in the morning. Without raw garbage inside, it is not likely to be torn open by crows. He glances one last time at the pile of bags and enters the store.

  There are no customers inside. The young man at the register is involved in an intense conversation on his cell phone. A new song by the Southern All Stars is playing. Shirakawa goes straight to the dairy case and grabs a carton of Takanashi low-fat. He checks the expiration date. Fine. Then he takes a large plastic container of yogurt. Finally it occurs to him to pull the Chinese woman’s cell phone from his coat pocket. He looks around to make sure no one is watching him and sets the phone down next to the boxes of cheese. The little silver telephone fits the spot strangely well. It looks as though it has always been sitting there. Having left Shirakawa’s hand, it is now part of the 7-Eleven.

  He pays at the register and hurries back to the taxi.

  “Did you find what you wanted?” the driver asks.

  “Sure did,” Shirakawa answers.

  “Good. Now we head straight for Tetsugakudo.”

  “I might doze off, so wake me when we get close, okay?” Shirakawa says. “There’s a Showa Shell station along the way. I get off a little after that.”

  “Yes, sir. Have a nice snooze.”

  Shirakawa sets the vinyl bag with the milk and yogurt next to his briefcase, folds his arms, and closes his eyes. He probably won’t manage to sleep, but he is in no mood to make small talk with the driver all the way home. Eyes closed, he tries to think of something that will not grate on his nerves. Something mundane, without deep meaning. Or possibly something purely abstract. But nothing comes to mind. In the vacuum, all he feels is the dull ache in his right hand. It throbs along with the beating of his heart, and echoes in his ears like the roar of the ocean. Strange, he thinks: the ocean is nowhere near here.

  Having run for a while, the taxi with Shirakawa in it stops at a red light. This is a big intersection with a long red light. Also waiting for the light next to the taxi is the black Honda motorcycle with the Chinese man. They are less than a meter apart, but the man on the cycle looks straight ahead, never noticing Shirakawa. Shirakawa is sunk deep in his seat with his eyes closed. He is listening to the imaginary roar of the ocean far away. The light turns green, and the motorcycle shoots straight ahead. The taxi accelerates gently so as not to wake Shirakawa. Turning left, it leaves the neighborhood.

  13

  Mari and Takahashi sit in their swings in the deserted nighttime park. Takahashi is looking at her in profile. His expression says, “I don’t understand.” This is the continuation of their earlier conversation.

  “‘She doesn’t want to wake up?’”

  Mari says nothing.

  “What do you mean?” he asks.

  Mari remains silent, looking at her feet, as if she cannot make up her mind. She is not ready for this conversation.

  “Wanna walk a little?” Mari says.

  “Sure, let’s walk. Walking is good for you. Walk slowly; drink lots of water.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s my motto for life. ‘Walk slowly; drink lots of water.’”

  Mari looks at him. Weird motto. She does not comment on it, however, or ask him about it. She gets out of the swing and starts walking. He follows her. They leave the park and head for a bright area.

  “Going back to the Skylark now?” Takahashi asks.

  Mari shakes her head. “I guess just sitting and reading in family restaurants is starting to bother me.”

  “I think I know what you mean,” Takahashi says.

  “I’d like to go back to the Alphaville if I can.”

  “I’ll walk you over there. It’s right near where we’re practicing.”

  “Kaoru said I could go there any time I wanted, but I wonder if it’s going to be a bother for her.”

  Takahashi shakes his head. “She’s got a foul mouth, but she means what she says. If she told you to come over anytime, then it’s okay to come over anytime. You can take her at her word.”

  “Okay.”

  “And besides, they’ve got nothing to do at this time of night. She’ll be glad to have you visit.”

  “You’re going back to do more practicing?”

  Takahashi looks at his watch. “This is probably the last all-nighter for me. I’m gonna give it my best shot.”

  They return to the center of the neighborhood. Hardly anyone is walking along the street, given the time. Four in the morning: slack time in the city. All kinds of stuff is scattered on the street: aluminum beer cans, a trampled evening newspaper, a crushed cardboard box, plastic bottles, tobacco butts. Fragments of a car’s tail lamp. Some kind of discount coupon. Vomit, too. A big, dirty cat is sniffing at a garbage bag, intent on securing a share for the cats before the rats can mess things up or dawn brings the ferocious flocks of crows. Over half the neon lights are out, making the lights of an all-night convenience store that much more conspicuous. Advertising circulars have been stuffed under the windshield wipers of cars parked along the street. An unbroken roar of huge trucks reverberates from the nearby arterial. This is the best time for the truckers to cover long distances, when the streets are empty. Mari has her Red Sox cap pulled down low. Her hands are thrust into the pockets of her varsity jacket. There is a stark difference in their heights as the two walk side by side.

  “Why are you wearing a Red Sox cap?” Takahashi asks.

  “Somebody gave it to me,” she says.

  “You’re not a Red Sox fan?”

  “I don’t know a thing about baseball.”

  “I’m not much interested in baseball, either,” he says. “I’m more of a soccer fan. So anyway, about your sister…we were talking before.”

  “Uh-huh.”

&nbs
p; “I didn’t quite get it, but you were saying that Eri Asai wasn’t going to wake up?”

  Mari looks up at him and says, “Sorry, but I don’t want to talk about that while we’re walking along like this. It’s kind of a delicate subject.”

  “I see.”

  “Talk about something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “Anything. Talk about yourself.”

  “About myself?”

  “Yeah. Tell me about yourself.”

  Takahashi thinks for a moment.

  “I can’t think of any sunny topics offhand.”

  “Okay, so tell me something dark.”

  “My mother died when I was seven,” he says. “Breast cancer. They found it too late. She only lasted three months from when they found it till when she died. Just like that. It spread quickly; there was no time for a decent treatment. My father was in prison the whole time. Like I said before.”

  Mari looks up at Takahashi again.

  “Your mother died of breast cancer when you were seven and your father was in prison?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So you were all by yourself?”

  “Right. He was arrested on fraud charges and got sentenced to two years. I think he was running a pyramid scheme or something. He couldn’t get a suspended sentence because the damages were big and he had an arrest record from the time he was in a student-movement organization. They had suspected him of being a fund-raiser for the organization, but he really had nothing to do with it. I remember my mother took me to visit him in prison once. It was freezing cold there. Six months after they locked him up, my mother’s cancer was discovered, and she was hospitalized immediately. So I became a temporary orphan. Father in jail, mother in hospital.”

  “Who took care of you during that time?”

  “I found out later my father’s family put the money together for the hospital and my living expenses. My father had been cut off from his family for years, but they couldn’t just leave a seven-year-old kid to fend for himself, so one of my aunts came to see me every other day, halfheartedly, and people in the neighborhood took turns looking after me—laundry, shopping, cooking. We lived in the old working-class area then, which was probably good for me. They still believe in ‘neighborhood’ over there. But for the most part, I think I was pretty much on my own. I’d make myself simple meals, get myself ready for school and stuff. My memories are pretty vague about that, though, like it all happened to somebody else, far away.”

  “When did your father come back?”

  “I think maybe about three months after my mother died. Under the circumstances, they approved an early parole for him. Obviously, I was thrilled when my father came home. I wasn’t an orphan anymore. Whatever else he might have been, he was a big, strong adult. I could relax now. He came back wearing an old tweed coat. I still remember the scratchy feeling of the material and the tobacco smell.”

  Takahashi pulls his hand from his pocket and strokes the back of his neck several times.

  “But even though I was with my father again, I never felt really secure deep down. I don’t know how to put it exactly, but things were never really settled inside me. I always had this feeling like, I don’t know, like somebody was putting something over on me, like my real father had disappeared forever and, to fill the gap, some other guy was sent to me in his shape. Do you see what I’m saying?”

  “Sort of.”

  Takahashi goes silent for a while before continuing his story.

  “So anyway, this is how I felt back then: that my father should never have left me all alone like that, no matter what. He should never have made me an orphan in this world. No matter what the reason, he should never have gone to prison. Of course, at that age, I didn’t quite know what a prison even was. I mean, I was seven years old. But I sort of got the idea that it was like some huge closet—dark and scary and sinister. My father should never have gone to a place like that.”

  Takahashi breaks off his story. Then he asks Mari, “Has your father ever gone to prison?”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Your mother?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You’re lucky. You should be grateful that’s never been a part of your life.” Takahashi smiles. “I don’t suppose you know that.”

  “Never thought about it.”

  “Most people don’t. I do.”

  Mari glances at Takahashi.

  “So, your father never went to prison after that?”

  “No, he never had any more problems with the law. Or maybe he did. Come to think of it, he must have. He just wasn’t the kind of guy who could walk the straight and narrow. But at least he never got involved in anything bad enough to send him back to prison. Once was probably enough for him. Or maybe, in his own way, he felt some degree of personal responsibility toward my dead mother and toward me. Anyhow, he became a respectable businessman—though it’s true he operated in a kind of gray zone. He had some extreme ups and downs—filthy rich sometimes, barely scraping by at other times. It was like riding a roller coaster every day. Once he had a Mercedes-Benz with a chauffeur; another time he couldn’t buy me a bicycle. We sneaked out of one house in the middle of the night. We never settled down in any one place, so I had to change schools every six months or so. Of course, I could never make any friends. It went on pretty much like this until I entered middle school.”

  Takahashi shoves his hands into his coat pockets again and shakes his head as if trying to thrust dark memories aside.

  “Now, though, he’s pretty much settled down. He’s got that baby-boomer toughness. Like Mick Jagger being called ‘Sir’ now—it’s that generation, just hangin’ in there. He doesn’t do a lot of soul searching, but he learns his lessons. I don’t know what kind of work he’s doing now. I don’t ask and he doesn’t tell. But he never misses a tuition payment. And sometimes, if the mood strikes him, he’ll give me a little spending money. Certain things it’s better not to know.”

  “Your father remarried, you said?”

  “Yeah, four years after my mother died. He’s not the shining-hero type who raises his kid all by himself.”

  “And he didn’t have any kids with his new wife?”

  “Nope, just me. Which is maybe why she raised me as if I was hers. I’m really grateful for that. So the problem is all mine.”

  “What problem?”

  Takahashi smiles and looks at Mari. “Well, finally, once you become an orphan, you’re an orphan till the day you die. I keep having the same dream. I’m seven years old and an orphan again. All alone, with no adults around to take care of me. It’s evening, and the light is fading, and night is pressing in. It’s always the same. In the dream I always go back to being seven years old. Software like that you can’t exchange once it’s contaminated.”

  Mari keeps silent.

  “I try not to think about this stuff most of the time,” Takahashi says. “It doesn’t do any good to dwell on it. You just have to live one day at a time.”

  “Walk a lot; drink your water slowly.”

  “That’s not it,” he says. “Walk slowly; drink lots of water.”

  “One’s as good as the other, I’d say.”

  Takahashi thinks this over seriously. “Hmm,” he says. “You may be right.”

  This brings their conversation to an end. They walk on in silence. Puffing white breath, they climb the dark stairway and come out in front of the Hotel Alphaville. Its gaudy purple neon lights now seem fondly familiar to Mari.

  Takahashi stops at the entrance and looks straight at Mari with an unusually somber expression.

  “I have a confession to make,” he says.

  “What?”

  “I’m thinking exactly the same thing you are. But today’s no good. I’m not wearing clean underwear.”

  Mari shakes her head in disgust. “No more pointless jokes, please. They tire me out.”

  Takahashi laughs. “I’ll come get yo
u at six. If you like, we can have breakfast together. I know a restaurant nearby that makes a good omelet—hot and fluffy. Oh, do you think there’s some problem with omelets as food? Like, genetic engineering or systematic cruelty to animals or political incorrectness?”

  Mari thinks a moment. “I don’t know about the political part, but if there’s a problem with chickens, I suppose there must be a problem with eggs.”

  “Oh, no,” Takahashi sighs, wrinkling his brow. “Everything I like seems to have a problem.”

  “I like omelets, too, though.”

  “Okay, then, let’s find a point of compromise,” Takahashi says. “I promise you—these are great omelets.”

  He gives her a wave and heads off toward the practice space. Mari resettles her cap and enters the hotel.

  14

  Eri Asai’s room.

  The TV is switched on. Eri, in pajamas, is looking out from inside the screen. A lock of hair falls over her forehead. She shakes her head to sweep it away. She presses her hands against her side of the glass and begins speaking in this direction. It is as though a person had wandered into an empty fish tank at an aquarium and was trying to explain the predicament to a visitor through the thick glass. Her voice, however, does not reach our side. It cannot vibrate the air over here.

  Something about Eri suggests that her senses are still numbed, as though she is unable to use the full force of her limbs. This is probably because her sleep was so very deep and long. She is trying, nevertheless, to gain some understanding, however limited, of the inscrutable circumstances in which she finds herself. Disoriented and confused though she may be, she is exerting all her strength to comprehend the logic underlying this place—the basis of its existence. Her emotional state communicates itself through the glass.

  Which is not to suggest that she is shouting at the top of her voice or making an impassioned appeal. She seems exhausted from having done precisely that. She knows all too well that her voice will not get through.

  What she is trying to do now is to transform what her eyes grasp and her senses perceive into the simplest and most appropriate words she can find. And so the words themselves emerge directed half at us and half at herself. This is no simple task, of course. Her lips move only sluggishly and intermittently. It is as though she were speaking a foreign language: her sentences are all short, and irregular gaps form between her words. The gaps stretch out and dilute the meaning that ought to be there. We train our eyes intently upon her from our side of the glass, but we can not clearly distinguish between the words and the silences that Eri Asai is forming with her lips. Reality spills through her slim fingers like the sands of an hourglass. Thus time is by no means on her side.