Record of a Night too Brief

by Hiromi Kawakami

  “Do you have any hobbies?”

  “How’s business these days?”

  “Do you know any nice cafes round here?”

  His questions came thick and fast. Answering in what I hoped was the least objectionable way possible, I stole more glances, trying to suss out the situation.

  Without intending to be, we were back on the familiar path: I could hear the strains of that same melody. I told myself to keep my wits about me, but when that tune found its way into my ears, something inside me fell apart.

  By the time he asked me, “What do you feel is the most important quality in a man?” I was filled with a feeling of such recklessness, I was ready to throw caution to the winds. My mouth was itching to say it.

  I said it in a low voice.

  He didn’t appear to have heard me. “What’s that?” he asked, loudly.

  “That he’s loaded. Loaded with moles…”

  As soon as I uttered the words, the moles stuffed down his jacket burst out, tumbling onto the path.

  The man clutched his fists.

  “Loaded with moles?…” He was shaking all over.

  The moles poured forth in a continuous stream, falling on top of each other at our feet. The ground was teeming with them. The moles filled the night with their eloquent, scrabbling sounds.

  10 CLONING

  For a while, I just cried, as I gathered together the bits of the girl. But since nothing would be accomplished by crying, I decided I would take the bits to the Boss.

  As I got closer to the Boss, I could hear a steady, continuous noise, which got louder and louder. It was a huge windmill, whose blades were going round and round, whirring. The windmill was located behind the throne where the Boss sat. It was pulling in the night, stirring it around.

  Sucked in and turned around by the blades, the night at first flows smoothly, but then it starts to take on a denser consistency. Already the night was nearly halfway through its course, so a good portion of it had hardened. Because of this, as I walked through it, it gave me none of the easy, buoyant feeling you get in the early-evening hours. Something about it seemed creaky. But that was, in its own way, typical of the night too.

  “I’d like to request a replay,” I said, dropping to the ground on my knees and bowing my head low.

  “A replay, you say?” the Boss replied, narrowing his eyes.

  The Boss’s body sank low in the throne. He was not a very big Boss. The enormous blue jewel in the sceptre he was holding sparkled brightly.

  “It is my humble understanding that the Boss possesses the power to bring about a replay, and that is why…” I bowed again, very low, head to the ground.

  But before I could raise my head, he growled:

  “Request refused.”

  “What?”

  “Why would I want to do that, for a girl!”

  And he refused to engage any more. I tried my most obsequious bow a number of times. To no avail. Maybe he didn’t really enjoy all this formalized ceremony.

  I got up and was about to go on my way when something tapped me on the shoulder. It felt hard; I realized it was the tip of the sceptre.

  “I won’t do it, but if you insist, you may have a try yourself,” he said, now poking me with the sceptre.

  As I stood there in a quandary, he poked me again, several times. With each poke, the enormous blue jewel in the sceptre sparkled.

  “Thank you,” I answered, finding this unbearable.

  He finally stopped poking me and sank back down in his throne. The windmill made its loud whirring sound.

  I walked to a place that was a distance away from the Boss, and then divided the bits of the girl into piles, carefully extracting the cell nuclei that looked as if they could be used for the replay. Copying the Boss’s usual practice, I injected a small amount of cell nuclei into the inside of my elbow with a micropipette, and then, again copying the Boss’s usual practice, I turned three somersaults. I had no idea how a somersault would help with a replay, but I wanted to do everything the exact same way the Boss did, so that’s what I did.

  I waited a few moments, and then I dozed off.

  I snoozed for a while, and woke up to find it was still night. So that meant there had been no replay, I thought, disappointed, but then, examining the inner part of my elbow, lo and behold, there were some new cells!

  Overjoyed, I pressed my back against the ground, and spun myself round and round like a top. It was part of a little dance. I didn’t know what this was supposed to accomplish, but here again I was copying the Boss. The cells were gradually forming themselves into shapes—commas, ribbons, balls, all sorts of other weird things—and finally they turned into something that resembled a girl. By now my arm was getting numb with the weight of this girl-like thing. The time had come for separation, I understood, so I tied her stalk up with wire. Immediately, her stalk rotted, and she dropped off me.

  She immediately did the replay dance, and then came and gave me a kiss.

  The girl had come back to life. But she seemed mechanical, so I wasn’t totally convinced. I didn’t return her kiss very enthusiastically. She didn’t seem to care, and kissed me again.

  The whirring sound of the windmill could be heard from far away. Coagulated bits of the night air were flung against me, and then unstuck themselves and flew off in great lumps somewhere else.

  “You don’t care about me any more, do you?” the girl said, sensing my lack of enthusiasm.

  “It’s not that,” I answered, vaguely.

  The girl threw herself on the ground, wailing.

  I was determined not to care.

  “Why did you revive me then? Why did you bother?” she said, and started to sob loudly.

  This irritated me, so I turned my back on her and started to walk away. The girl clung to me, crying.

  “That’s so mean of you. To bring things this far…”

  Nothing she said had the slightest effect on me. I knew I was being heartless, but it couldn’t be helped.

  “Please. Please reconsider,” the girl begged.

  The bits of coagulated night were now hitting me with more force, then falling about me like a meteor shower. I shook my head, dodging the paths of the flying lumps.

  “All right, so that’s what you want. But I have my own ideas.”

  There was a flash of silver, and the girl lunged at me with a knife, wielding it wildly.

  Before I had time to react, the girl cut a piece of flesh from my right breast, then turned and raced away. I looked, dazed, at the blood dripping, and with a start it came to me what she was up to.

  I made my way stealthily back, without being seen, to the place where the Boss was. As I thought, the girl was just handing the Boss the bit of flesh. The Boss nodded magnanimously, and immediately carried out a replay. As I watched, an exact replica of myself was born. The girl received the replica with an air of satisfaction.

  After watching the girl leave hand-in-hand with the replica, I presented myself before the Boss.

  “Is this how it’s supposed to go?” I asked.

  The Boss cleared his throat, and nodded grandly.

  “In general, this is how it’s supposed to go.” The blue jewel on the end of his sceptre was sparkling exaggeratedly.

  “Do you have a problem?” the Boss asked.

  “Sort of.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’m not sure,” I answered. It was the truth.

  “If that’s the case, you should do another replay.”

  The breeze from the windmill hit me, blowing into my eyes, my head, my belly, smearing me with the elements of the night. The spots on my body hit by the night gleamed black for a while, and then returned to their normal colour.

  I did as he suggested, and carried out a replay. Any number of times I brought the girl back to life, and any number of times the result was the same.

  “You just don’t give up, do you?” I said, as the girl flashed her knife at me for the umpteenth time.


  The girl hung her head sadly.

  “It’s because I’m always new. It’s always the first time for me,” she said, hanging her head so low her slender neck looked as if it would snap.

  I took pity on her, and for the first time kissed her of my own accord. The girl, drained of strength, responded to my kiss. I felt even sorrier for her then, and put some passion into it. And that was when a touch of my old feeling for her came back.

  “You’re the last replay I’ll do,” I said, hugging her a little more tightly.

  This is how it’s supposed to go, I thought, more or less resignedly. I held the girl tight.

  The night pressing around our bodies was showing slight signs of change, like cream on the point of thickening. The girl was still weak and lifeless.

  “I won’t allow it!” the girl suddenly said, in a voice that seemed to come up from the depths of the earth.

  Making a petulant sound, she pulled herself sharply away. I found myself on my hands and knees.

  “Goodbye!” The girl cut off a bit of my flesh, as she had done before, and went away looking very pleased.

  With sadness, I presented myself before the Boss.

  “Is this how it’s supposed to go?” I asked for a second time.

  The Boss answered with an unperturbed air:

  “Well, yes—in general, I’d say it is.”

  I withdrew, despondent, and conducted my final replay. Carrying the girl I had recreated in my arms, carefully, like a treasured possession, I made my way into the night. I kept going, into its very depths, as far away from the Boss as I could.

  I nodded off, holding the girl’s hand in mine. I slept lightly, though I longed to sleep deeply, and for a while not to wake up at all.

  11 HILL DIGGERS

  The creature was sitting on a velvet cloth decorated with green and reddish-brown tassels. The cloth had been spread on top of a mound that was five metres high and made of compacted dried branches and leaves with some soft earth mixed in. One knee up, arms outstretched, palms turned upwards, the creature sat in an expectant pose. The base of the mound was quite wide, and all the way up its slopes steam rose in loose drifts, together with the stench of fermentation. Sometimes the steam was thin, and sometimes it was thick. It wound and curled about the creature’s limbs, like mist. The creature sat unperturbed.

  Waak, waak.

  The birds squawked. In a cluster around the base of the mound, they kept up an endless screeching. They looked rather like pheasants, and they squawked and they screeched, stretching out their necks, at times as if to menace the creature, at times as if to petition him. He, however, made not a move in response to their clamour. He was still as a statue, one knee up, palms turned upwards. His eyes, which, depending on the angle, were either a shiny purple or a subdued, ashen grey, remained fixed on one corner of the heavens. There, nothing twinkled: the fixed stars and dwarf stars and the nebulae that filled the rest of the sky were nowhere to be seen, and the heavens were uniformly black, as if blotted out by a cloth.

  A bird, squawking, flew to the top of the mound, loudly flapping its wings, and proceeded to peck at the creature. The creature still did not change his pose, keeping his one knee up and palms turned upwards. Blood flowed in trickles from where the bird had pecked most deeply. Another bird, and then another, flew to the top of the mound and pecked at him—and suddenly all the birds flew to the top of the mound, squawking, screeching, flapping their wings violently, and pecking at the creature, producing yet more trickles of blood, which turned into streams of blood that flowed down the body of the creature onto the velvet cloth, leaving blackish-red streaks.

  In a great mob, the birds pecked at his arms, ankles, chin, temples, neck, stomach.

  The creature started very slowly to keel over, but even so he maintained his original pose, one knee up, palms turned upwards. The surface of his skin was riddled with the holes gouged out by the birds. Deep and black, the holes threatened to take his body over completely.

  One bird started attacking his eyes.

  Out came the left eye. The creature stared even more determinedly at the heavens with his right eye. Teetering unsteadily in the breeze created by the flapping of the birds’ wings, he glared at the sky.

  Another bird attacked his right eye, and still the creature glared up at the heavens. By now most of his body was a gaping hole, and it was no longer even possible to tell whether his knee was up, or his palms turned upwards. The vestiges of whatever had been there before remained on the velvet cloth, staring up at the heavens.

  Waak, waak.

  One last peck, and the body was gone completely. Bereft of the body’s weight, the velvet cloth was tossed aside with the beating of the birds’ wings. The mound was now the birds’ mound: and at the very top, where the odour of fermentation was rising from, dozens of eggs that had been covered by the velvet cloth were exposed. The birds sent up a chorus of joyful squawks and screeches.

  Meanwhile, the night moved on, the shadows deepened, and midnight approached, the birds oblivious.

  The presence of that creature-that-was-no-longer spread everywhere, filling the space between earth and sky. And the night, enveloped by that presence, reached its deepest and darkest state of being, the darkness a kind of truth in itself.

  12 BLACK HOLE

  I awoke to the sound of something bursting. The girl who was supposed to be sleeping close to me was nowhere to be seen. I lifted myself up, drowsily, and looked around: the girl was sitting in the crotch of a tree, staring into the distance.

  “What can you see?” I asked.

  The girl beckoned to me, and pointed. “Look.”

  I looked in the direction she was pointing and saw a huge firework going up into the sky.

  The flaming ball shot up, higher and higher, and then exploded, sending a burst of tiny points of red and orange and green light outwards, like rain. Another firework rose, and then another, then another one, and every time, the girl’s face lit up in the darkness, tinged red and orange and green.

  “Come on,” she said.

  Climbing down from the tree, she headed towards where the fireworks were bursting, and I followed. Then she started rising rapidly into the air, as if she were ascending a staircase. She quickly rose high into the sky.

  “Come on!” she said, stretching her hand out towards me.

  I grasped it, and with her hand pulling me up, I took a step, gingerly, and felt steps under my feet. I followed the steps up, and found my whole body rising.

  We rose rapidly, until finally we were on a level with the fireworks.

  Up close, the fireworks were very hot. The sparks shot out and fell on us, fizzled, and vanished. We were heedless.

  “Let’s go closer,” the girl said, gripping my hand tightly.

  I was suddenly afraid. “Let’s not,” I tried saying.

  But the girl wouldn’t give up. “We’ll be able to get through.” She gripped my hand even more tightly.

  With her pulling me forcibly, we charged right in.

  “Deeper, deeper,” she said. So I went in deeper. I couldn’t stand to—I hated to. But nevertheless I went in deeper. One place after another on my body caught fire, and I became engulfed in flames. It was hot, searingly hot.

  I got burnt. The girl got burnt too. The fire consumed us so completely that not even our bones were left.

  “Why do you do such things?” I asked, angrily.

  The girl was silent.

  “You can’t be happy unless you have everything your own way, can you?” I said, my voice growing shrill.

  But the girl said nothing.

  “I’ve had enough,” I said. And I left her.

  I had no idea where I was going, but I stormed off. I was determined not to think about her any more. I tried not to think about anything. While I was walking, not thinking about anything, I forgot how to speak.

  This wasn’t surprising: I had no body. And I had no brain.

  I kept walking, on and on and
on. Finally I found myself at a place that was darker even than night.

  I was immediately sucked inside it, and I couldn’t get out. I did have the thought, briefly, that if I’d stayed with the girl, without leaving her, I wouldn’t be stuck in this God-awful place. But other than that, I didn’t think anything.

  After a while, I forgot about the girl. I forgot about everything. Every now and then, I thought I saw a face that resembled mine staring back at me in the darkness, but by now nothing about me remained: no face, no body, nothing. So I couldn’t ask myself who it was. I couldn’t think about it, and I didn’t care.

  13 ELEPHANT

  Having heard that in the west there was something called the Elephant of Eternity, I ended up going on a quest for it. I wasn’t so keen on the quest myself, but as it had been decided that I should go on it, I had no choice. Going alone made me a little nervous, so I asked a few acquaintances if they would come along.

  “Well, what would the point of that be?” they asked, and then, while I was struggling for a reply, they all found some excuse or other for why they couldn’t accompany me. Cash-flow difficulties ruled it out, or their common-law wife had got pregnant so the timing was bad, or they’d consulted a specialist in divination and been given a verdict of “Disaster Imminent”, et cetera, et cetera.

  I had no choice but to set out alone.

  Heading up a path with watermelon vines overgrowing it, I came out onto a square.

  THIS WAY FOR THE ELEPHANT OF ETERNITY was written on an arrow-shaped sign.

  I had imagined that the way would be beset with difficulty. This was almost disappointingly easy.

  Heading in the direction indicated, I walked for an hour, and then there the elephants were.

  They were quite small, and they had roundish ears. There was a whole line of them. Every one of them white. Even seeing them now, at night, they were white.

  Which one of them was the Elephant of Eternity, though? I had no idea. So as an experiment, I addressed the one closest to me:

  “Are you the Elephant of Eternity?”