now, why I'm under a kind of curse. I had something too complete, too perfect, once, and afterward all I could do was despise myself. That's the curse I can never escape. So I'm not afraid of death. And to answer your question-yes, I have a pretty good idea of when the time is coming.'
Once more I take her hand in mine. The scales are shaking, and just a tiny weight would send them tipping to one side or the other. I have to think. I have to decide. I have to take a step forward. 'Miss Saeki, would you sleep with me?' I ask.
'You mean even if I were your mother in that theory of yours?'
'It's like everything around me's in flux-like it all has a doubled meaning.'
She ponders this. 'That might not be true for me, though. For me, things might not be so nuanced. It might be more like all or nothing.'
'And you know which it is.'
She nods.
'Do you mind if I ask you a question?'
'About what?'
'Where did you come up with those two chords?'
'Chords?'
'The ones in the bridge in 'Kafka on the Shore.''
She looks at me. 'You like them?'
I nod.
'I found those chords in an old room, very far away. The door to the room was open then,' she says quietly. 'A room that was far, far away.' She closes her eyes and sinks back into memories. 'Kafka, close the door when you leave,' she says.
And that's exactly what I do.
After we close up the library for the night, Oshima drives me to a seafood restaurant a little way away. Through a large window in the restaurant we can see the night sea, and I think about all the creatures living under the water.
'Sometimes you've got to get out and eat some decent food,' he tells me. 'Relax. I don't think the cops have staked the place out. We both needed a change of scenery.'
We eat a huge salad, and split an order of paella.
'I'd love to go to Spain someday,' Oshima says.
'Why Spain?'
'To fight in the Spanish Civil War.'
'But that ended a long time ago.'
'I know that. Lorca died, and Hemingway survived,' Oshima says. 'But I still have the right to go to Spain and be a part of the Spanish Civil War.'
'Metaphorically.'
'Exactly,' he says, giving me a wry look. 'A hemophiliac of undetermined sex who's hardly ever set foot outside Shikoku isn't about to actually go off to fight in Spain, I would think.'
We attack the mound of paella, washing it down with Perrier.
'Have there been any developments in my father's case?' I ask.
'Nothing to report, really. Except for a typical smug memorial piece in the arts section, there hasn't been much in the papers. The investigation must be stuck. The sad fact is the arrest rate's been going down steadily these days-just like the stock market. I mean, the police can't even track down the son who's disappeared.'
'The fifteen-year-old youth.'
'Fifteen, with a history of violent behavior,' Oshima adds. 'The obsessed young runaway.'
'How about that incident with things falling from the sky?'
Oshima shakes his head. 'They're taking a break on that one. Nothing else weird has fallen from the sky- unless you count that award-winning lightning we had two days ago.'
'So things have settled down?'
'It seems like it. Or maybe we're just in the eye of the storm.'
I nod, pick up a clam, yank out the meat with a fork, then put the shell on a plate full of empty shells.
'Are you still in love?' Oshima asks me.
I nod. 'How about you?'
'Am I in love, do you mean?'
I nod again.
'In other words, you're daring to get personal and ask about the antisocial romance that colors my warped, homosexual, Gender-Identity-Disordered life?'
I nod, and he follows suit.
'I have a partner, yes,' he admits. He makes a serious face and eats a clam. 'It's not the kind of passionate, stormy love you find in a Puccini opera or anything. We keep a careful distance from each other. We don't get together that often, but we do understand each other at a deep, basic level.'
'Understand each other?'
'Whenever Haydn composed, he always made sure to dress formally, even to wearing a powdered wig.'
I look at him in surprise. 'What's Haydn got to do with anything?'
'He couldn't compose well unless he did that.'
'How come?'
'I have no idea. That's between Haydn and his wig. Nobody else would understand. Inexplicable, I imagine.'
I nod. 'Tell me, when you're alone do you sometimes think about your partner and feel sad?'
'Of course,' he says. 'It happens sometimes. When the moon turns blue, when birds fly south, when-'
'Why of course?' I ask.
'Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves. So anyone who's in love gets sad when they think of their lover. It's like stepping back inside a room you have fond memories of, one you haven't seen in a long time. It's just a natural feeling. You're not the person who discovered that feeling, so don't go trying to patent it, okay?'
I lay my fork down and look up.
'A fond, old, faraway room?'
'Exactly,' Oshima says. He holds his fork straight up for emphasis. 'Just a metaphor, of course.'
Miss Saeki comes to my room after nine that night. I'm sitting at the desk reading a book when I hear her Golf pull into the parking lot. The door slams shut. Rubber-soled shoes slowly crunch across the parking lot. And finally there's a knock at my door. I open the door, and there she is. This time she's wide awake. She has on a pinstriped silk blouse, thin blue jeans, white deck shoes. I've never seen her in pants before.
'I haven't seen this room in a long time,' she says. She stands by the wall and looks at the painting. 'Or this picture, either.'
'Is the place in the painting around here?' I ask.
'Do you like it?'
I nod. 'Who painted it?'
'A young artist who boarded that summer with the Komuras,' she says. 'He wasn't very famous, at least at the time. I've forgotten his name. He was a very friendly person, though, and I think he did a good job with the painting. There's something, I don't know-powerful about it. I sat beside him the whole time and watched him work. I made all kinds of half-joking suggestions as he painted. We got along well. It was a summer a long time ago. I was twelve then. The boy in the painting was twelve, too.'
'It looks like the sea around here.'
'Let's go for a walk,' she says. 'I'll take you there.'
I walk with her to the shore. We cut through a pine forest and walk down the sandy beach. The clouds are breaking up and a half moon shines down on the waves. Small waves that barely reach the shore, barely break. She sits down at a spot on the sand, and I sit down next to her. The sand's still faintly warm.
Like she's checking the angle, she points to a spot on the shoreline. 'It was right over there,' she says. 'He painted that spot from here. He put the deck chair over there, had the boy pose in it, and set up his easel right
