here before long.' He cleared his throat, frowned, and spat on the ground, then stamped the spit into the dirt with his boot.
'I was just resting, and feeling a bit bored with no one to talk to. How about coming over here? We can have a nice little talk. What do you say? I've never seen you before, but that doesn't mean we're total strangers.'
The boy named Crow kept his mouth shut, holding his wings close in against himself.
The man in the silk hat lightly shook his head. 'Ah, I see. You can't speak, can you? No matter. I'll do the talking, if you don't mind. I know what you're going to do, even if you don't say a word. You don't want me to go any further, do you? It's so obvious I can predict what'll happen. You don't want me to go any further, but that's exactly what I want to do. Because it's a golden opportunity I can't let slip through my fingers-a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.'
He gave the ankle of his hiking boots a good slap. 'To leap to the conclusion here, you won't be able to stop me. You aren't qualified. Let's say I play my flute, what's going to happen? You won't be able to come any closer to me. That's the power of my flute. You might not know this, but it's a unique kind of flute, not just some ordinary, everyday instrument. And actually I've got quite a few here in my bag.'
The man reached out and carefully patted the bag, then looked up again at the boy named Crow perched on his branch. 'I made this flute out of the souls of cats I've collected. Cut out the souls of cats while they were still alive and made them into this flute. I felt sorry for the cats, of course, cutting them up like that, but I couldn't help it. This flute is beyond any world's standards of good and evil, love or hatred. Making these flutes has been my longtime calling, and I've always done a decent job of fulfilling my role and doing my bit. Nothing to be ashamed of. I got married, had children, and made more than enough flutes. So I'm not going to make any more. Just between you and me, I'm thinking of taking all the flutes I've made and creating a much larger, far more powerful flute out of them-a super-size flute that becomes a system unto itself. Right now I'm heading to a place where I can construct that kind of flute. I'm not the one who decides whether that flute turns out to be good or evil, and neither are you. It all depends on when and where I am. In that sense I'm a man totally without prejudices, like history or the weather-completely unbiased. And since I am, I can transform into a kind of system.'
He removed his silk hat, rubbed the thinning hair on top of his head, put the hat back on, and quickly adjusted the brim. 'Once I play this flute, getting rid of you will be a snap. The thing is, I don't feel like playing it right now. It takes a lot out of me, and I don't want to waste any strength. I'll need all of it later on. But whether I play the flute or not, you can't stop me. That should be obvious.'
The man cleared his throat once more, and rubbed the slight swell of his belly. 'Do you know what limbo is? It's the neutral point between life and death. A kind of sad, gloomy place. Where I am now, in other words-this forest. I died, at my own bidding, but haven't gone on to the next world. I'm a soul in transition, and a soul in transition is formless. I've merely adopted this form for the time being. That's why you can't hurt me. You follow me? Even if I were to bleed all over the place, it's not real blood. Even if I were to suffer horribly, it's not real suffering. The only one who could wipe me out right now is someone who's qualified to do so. And-sad to say-you don't fit the bill. You're nothing more than an immature, mediocre illusion. No matter how determined you may be, eliminating me's impossible for the likes of you.' The man looked at the boy named Crow and beamed. 'How 'bout it? Want to give it a try?'
As if that was the signal he'd been waiting for, the boy named Crow spread his wings wide, leaped off the branch, and darted straight at him. He seized the man's chest with both talons, drew his head back, and brought his beak down on the man's right eye, pecking away fiendishly like he was hacking away with a pickax, his jet black wings flapping noisily all the while. The man put up no resistance, didn't lift a finger to protect himself. He didn't cry out, either. Instead, he laughed out loud. His hat fell to the ground, and his eyeball was soon shredded and hanging from its socket. The boy named Crow tenaciously attacked the other eye now. Once both eyes were replaced by vacant cavities, he turned immediately to the man's face, pecking away, slashing it all over. His face was soon cut to ribbons, pieces of skin flying off, blood spurting out, nothing more than a lump of reddish flesh. Crow next attacked the top of his head, where the hair was thinnest, and still the man kept on laughing. The more vicious the attack became, the louder he laughed, as if the whole situation was so hilarious he couldn't control himself.
The man never took his eyes-now vacant sockets-off Crow, and in between laughs managed to choke out a few words. 'See, what'd I tell you? Don't make me laugh. You can try all you want, but it's not going to hurt me. You're not qualified to do that. You're just a flimsy illusion, a cheap echo. It's useless, no matter what you do. Don't you get it?'
The boy named Crow stabbed at the mouth these words had come from. His huge wings ceaselessly beat at the air, a few shiny black feathers coming loose, swirling in the air like fragments of a soul. Crow tore at the man's tongue, grabbed it with his beak, and yanked with all his might. It was long and hugely thick, and once it was pulled out from deep within the man's throat, it squirmed like a gigantic mollusk, forming dark words. Without a tongue, however, not even this man could laugh anymore. He looked like he couldn't breathe, either, but still he held his sides and shook with soundless laughter. The boy named Crow listened, and this unheard laughter-as vacant and ominous as wind blowing over a far-off desert-never ceased. It sounded, in fact, very much like an otherworldly flute.
Chapter 47
I wake up just after dawn, boil water on the electric hot plate, and make some tea. I sit down beside the window to see what, if anything, is going on outside. Everything is dead quiet, with no sign of anybody on the street. Even the birds seem reluctant to launch into their usual morning chorus. The hills to the east are barely edged in a faint light. The place is surrounded by high hills, which explains why dawn comes so late and twilight so early. I go over to the nightstand where my watch is to check the time, but the digital screen's a complete blank. When I push a few buttons at random, nothing happens. The batteries should still be good, but for some unfathomable reason the thing stopped while I was sleeping. I put the watch back on top of my pillow and rub my left wrist, where I normally wear it, with my right. Not that time's much of a factor here.
As I gaze at the vacant, birdless scene outside, I suddenly want to read a book-any book. As long as it's shaped like a book and has printing, it's fine by me. I just want to hold a book in my hands, turn the pages, scan the words with my eyes. Only one problem-there isn't a book in sight. In fact, it's like printing hasn't been invented here. I quickly look around the room, and sure enough, there's nothing at all with any writing on it.
I open the chest of drawers in the bedroom to see what kind of clothes are inside. Everything's neatly folded. None of the clothes are new. The colors are faded, the material soft from countless washings. Still, they look clean. There's round-neck shirts, underwear, socks, cotton shirts with collars, and cotton trousers. Not a perfect fit, but pretty much my size. All the clothes are perfectly plain and design-free, like the whole idea of clothes with patterns never existed. None of them have any makers' labels-so much for any writing there. I exchange my smelly T-shirt for a gray one from the drawer that smells like sunlight and soap.
A while later-how much later I couldn't say-the girl arrives. She taps lightly on the door and, without waiting for an answer, opens it. The door doesn't have any kind of lock. Her canvas bag is slung over her shoulder. The sky behind her is already light.
She goes straight to the kitchen and cooks some eggs in a small black frying pan. There's a pleasant sizzle as the eggs hit the hot oil, and the fresh cooking smells waft through the room. Meanwhile, she toasts some bread in a squat little toaster that looks like a prop from an old movie. Her clothes and hair are the same as the night before-a light blue dress, hair pinned back. Her skin is so smooth and beautiful, and her slim, porcelain-like arms glisten in the morning sun. Through the open window a tiny bee buzzes in, as if to make the world a little more complete. The girl carries the food over to the table, sits in a chair, and watches me eat the vegetable omelette and buttered toast and drink some herb tea. She doesn't eat or drink anything. The whole thing's a repeat of last night.
'Don't people here cook their own meals?' I ask her. 'I was wondering because you're making meals for me.'
'Some people make their own, others have somebody make meals for them,' she replies. 'Mostly, though, people here don't eat very much.'
