“How about it? What say you take on the Rat and me as copartners? No worry about dividends or interest. A partnership in name is fine.”
“But I couldn’t do that.”
“Sure you could. All you got to do in return is take in the Rat and me whenever one of us gets into a fix.”
“That’s no different than what I’ve done all along.”
Beer glass in hand, I looked J in the face. “I know. But that’s how I want it.”
J laughed and shoved the check into his pocket. “I still remember the very first time you got drunk. How many years ago was that now?”
“Thirteen.”
“Already?”
J talked about old times the next half hour, something he rarely did. Customers began to filter in, and I got up to leave.
“But you only just got here,” said J.
“The well-mannered child doesn’t overstay,” said I.
“Did you see the Rat?”
I took a deep breath, both hands on the counter. “I saw him all right.”
“That a long story too?”
“A longer story than you’ve ever heard in your whole life.”
“Can’t you give me the highlights?”
“Highlights wouldn’t mean anything.”
“Was he well?”
“Fine. He wished he could see you.”
“Do you suppose I’ll get to see him sometime?”
“You’ll get to see him. He’s a co-partner, after all. That’s money the Rat and I earned.”
“Well then, I’m glad.”
I stepped down from the barstool and took a whiff of the old place.
“Oh, and as I’m a co-partner, how about a pinball machine and jukebox?”
“I’ll have them here by your next visit,” said J.
I walked along the river to its mouth. I sat down on the last fifty yards of beach, and I cried. I never cried so much in my life.
I brushed the sand from my trousers and got up, as if I had somewhere to go.
The day had all but ended. I could hear the sound of waves as I started to walk.
Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into more than forty languages. The most recent of his many honors is the Franz Kafka Prize.
www.harukimurakami.com
After Dark
After the Quake
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Dance Dance Dance
The Elephant Vanishes
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Kafka on the Shore
Norwegian Wood
South of the Border, West of the Sun
Sputnik Sweetheart
A Wild Sheep Chase
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
ALSO BY
HARUKI
MURAKAMI
AFTER DARK
Murakami’s trademark humor and psychological insight are here distilled with an extraordinary, harmonious mastery. Combining the pyrotechnical genius that made
Fiction/978-0307-27873-9
AFTER THE QUAKE
Set at the time of the 1995 Kobe earthquake, Murakami’s characters emanate from a place where the human meets in the inhuman. An electronics salesman who has been abruptly deserted by his wife agrees to deliver an enigmatic package—and is rewarded with a glimpse of his true nature. A man who has been raised to view himself as the son of God pursues a stranger who may or not be his human father. A collection agent receives a visit from a giant talking frog who enlists his help in saving Tokyo from destruction.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-375-71327-9
BLIND WILLOW, SLEEPING WOMAN
This superb collection of stories generously express Murakami’s mastery of the form. Here are animated crows, a criminal monkey, and an ice man, as well as the dreams that shape us and the things we might wish for.
