Norwegian Wood Part 5

"You'll laugh if I tell you," he said.

"No I won't."

"All right," he said. "'To be a gentleman.'"

I didn't laugh, but I nearly fell off my chair. "'To be a gentleman'? A gentleman?" gentleman?"

"You heard me."

"What does it mean to be a gentleman? How do you define it?"

"A gentleman is someone who does not what he wants wants to do but what he to do but what he should should do." do."

"You're the weirdest guy I've ever met," I said.

"You're the straightest guy I've ever met," he said. And he paid for us both.

I WENT TO THE FOLLOWING WENT TO THE FOLLOWING week's drama lecture, but still saw no sign of Midori Kobayashi. After a quick survey of the room convinced me she was not there, I took my usual seat in the front row and wrote a letter to Naoko while I waited for the professor to come. I wrote about my summer travels-the roads I had walked, the towns I had pa.s.sed through, the people I had met. "And every night I would think of you. Now that I can no longer see you, I realize how much I needed you. School is incredibly boring, but as a matter of self-discipline I am going to all my cla.s.ses and doing all the a.s.signments. Everything seems pointless since you left. I'd like to have a nice, long talk with you. If possible, I'd like to visit your sanatorium and see you for several hours. And, if possible, I'd like to go out walking with you side by side the way we used to. Please try to answer this letter, even a short note, I don't care." week's drama lecture, but still saw no sign of Midori Kobayashi. After a quick survey of the room convinced me she was not there, I took my usual seat in the front row and wrote a letter to Naoko while I waited for the professor to come. I wrote about my summer travels-the roads I had walked, the towns I had pa.s.sed through, the people I had met. "And every night I would think of you. Now that I can no longer see you, I realize how much I needed you. School is incredibly boring, but as a matter of self-discipline I am going to all my cla.s.ses and doing all the a.s.signments. Everything seems pointless since you left. I'd like to have a nice, long talk with you. If possible, I'd like to visit your sanatorium and see you for several hours. And, if possible, I'd like to go out walking with you side by side the way we used to. Please try to answer this letter, even a short note, I don't care."

I filled four sheets of letter paper, folded it, slipped it into an envelope, and addressed it to Naoko care of her family.

By then the professor had arrived, wiping the sweat from his brow as he took the roll. He was a small, mournful-looking man who walked with a metal cane. While not exactly fun, the lectures in his course were always well prepared and worthwhile. After remarking that the weather was as hot as ever, the professor began to talk about the use of the deus ex machina in Euripides and explained how the concept of "G.o.d" was different in Euripides than it was in Aeschylus or Sophocles. He had been talking for some fifteen minutes when the cla.s.sroom door opened and in walked Midori. She was wearing a dark blue sport shirt, cream-colored cotton slacks, and her usual sungla.s.ses. After flashing a "sorry I'm late" kind of smile toward the professor, she sat down next to me. Then she took a notebook-my notebook-from her shoulder bag and handed it to me. Inside, I found a note: "Sorry about Wednesday. Are you mad?"

The lecture was about half over and the professor was drawing a sketch of a Greek stage on the blackboard when the door opened again and two students in helmets walked in. They looked like some kind of comedy team, one tall and thin and pale, the other short and round and dark and totally unsuited to the long beard he wore. The tall one carried an armload of political agitation handbills. The short one walked up to the professor and said, with a degree of politeness, that they would like to use the second half of his period for political debate and hoped that he would cooperate, adding, "The world is full of problems far more urgent and relevant than Greek tragedy." This was more an announcement than a request. The professor replied, "I rather doubt that the world has problems far more urgent and relevant than Greek tragedy, but you're not going to listen to anything I have to say, so do what you like." Grasping the edge of his table, he set his feet on the floor, picked up his cane, and limped out of the cla.s.sroom. totally unsuited to the long beard he wore. The tall one carried an armload of political agitation handbills. The short one walked up to the professor and said, with a degree of politeness, that they would like to use the second half of his period for political debate and hoped that he would cooperate, adding, "The world is full of problems far more urgent and relevant than Greek tragedy." This was more an announcement than a request. The professor replied, "I rather doubt that the world has problems far more urgent and relevant than Greek tragedy, but you're not going to listen to anything I have to say, so do what you like." Grasping the edge of his table, he set his feet on the floor, picked up his cane, and limped out of the cla.s.sroom.

While the tall student pa.s.sed out his handbills, the round one went to the podium and started lecturing. The handbills were full of the usual simplistic sloganeering: "Smash Fraudulent Elections for University President"; "Marshal All Forces for New All-Campus Strike"; "Crush the Imperial-Educational-Industrial Complex." I had no problem with what they were saying, but the writing was lame. It had nothing to inspire confidence or arouse the pa.s.sions. And the round guy's speech was just as bad-the same old tune with different words. The true enemy of this bunch was not State Power but Lack of Imagination.

"Let's get out of here," said Midori.

I nodded and stood, and the two of us made for the door. The round guy said something to me at that point, but I couldn't catch it. Midori waved to him and said, "See ya later."

"Gee, are we counterrevolutionaries?" Midori asked me when we were outside. "Are we going to be strung up on telephone poles if the revolution succeeds?"

"Let's have lunch first, just in case."

"Good. There's a place I want to take you. It's kinda far, though. Can you spare the time?"

"Sure, I'm O.K. until my two o'clock cla.s.s."

Midori took me to Yotsuya by bus and showed me to a fancy boxed-lunch specialty shop in a sheltered spot just behind the station. The minute we sat down they served us soup and the lunch of the day in square, red-lacquered boxes. This was a place worth a bus ride to eat at.

"Great food," I said.

"And cheap, too. I've been coming here since high school. My old school's right down the street. They were so strict, we had to sneak out to eat here. They'd suspend you if they caught you eating out." school's right down the street. They were so strict, we had to sneak out to eat here. They'd suspend you if they caught you eating out."

Without the sungla.s.ses, Midori's eyes looked somewhat sleepier than they had the last time. When she was not playing with the narrow silver bracelet on her left wrist, she would be scratching at the corners of her eyes with the tip of her little finger.

"Tired?" I asked.

"Kinda. I'm not getting enough sleep. But I'm O.K., don't worry," she said. "Sorry about the other day. Something important came up and I just couldn't get out of it. All of a sudden, in the morning. I thought about calling you at the restaurant but I couldn't remember the name, and I didn't know your home number. Did you wait long?"

"No big deal. I've got a lot of time on my hands."

"A lot?"

"Way more than I need. I wish I could give you some to help you sleep."

Midori rested her cheek on her hand and smiled at me. "What a nice guy you are."

"Not nice. Just got time to kill," I said. "By the way, I called your house that day and somebody told me you were at the hospital. Something wrong?"

"You called my house?" she asked with a slight wrinkle forming between her eyebrows. "How did you get my number?"

"Looked it up in the student affairs office. Anybody can do that."

She nodded once or twice and started playing with the bracelet again. "I never would have thought of that. I guess I could have looked your number up. Anyhow, about the hospital, I'll tell you next time. I don't feel like it now. Sorry."

"That's O.K. I didn't mean to pry."

"No, you're not prying. I'm just kinda tired. Like a monkey in the rain."

"Don't you think you ought to go home and get some sleep?"

"Not now. Let's get out of here."

SHE TOOK ME to her old high school a short walk from Yotsuya. to her old high school a short walk from Yotsuya.

Pa.s.sing the station, I thought about Naoko and our endless walking. It had all started from there. I realized that if I hadn't run into Naoko on the train that Sunday in May, my life would have been very different from what it was now. But then I changed my mind: no, even if we hadn't met that day, my life might not have been any different. We had met that day because we were supposed to meet. If we hadn't met then and there, we would have met somewhere else sometime. I didn't have any basis for thinking this: it was just a feeling. train that Sunday in May, my life would have been very different from what it was now. But then I changed my mind: no, even if we hadn't met that day, my life might not have been any different. We had met that day because we were supposed to meet. If we hadn't met then and there, we would have met somewhere else sometime. I didn't have any basis for thinking this: it was just a feeling.

Midori Kobayashi and I sat on a park bench together, looking at the building where she used to go to high school. Ivy clung to the walls, and pigeons huddled beneath the gables, resting their wings. It was a nice old building with character. A great oak tree stood in the schoolyard, and a column of white smoke rose straight up beside it. The fading summer light gave the smoke a soft and cloudy look.

"Do you know what that smoke is?" Midori asked me without warning.

"No idea," I said.

"They're burning sanitary napkins."

"No kidding." I couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Sanitary napkins, tampons, stuff like that," Midori said with a smile. "It is is a girls' school. The old janitor collects them from all the receptacles and burns them in the incinerator. a girls' school. The old janitor collects them from all the receptacles and burns them in the incinerator. That's That's the smoke." the smoke."

"Whoa."

"Yeah, that's what I used to say to myself whenever I was in cla.s.s and saw the smoke outside the window. 'Whoa.' Think about it: the school had almost a thousand girls in junior and senior high. So figure nine hundred of them have started their periods, and maybe a fifth of those are having their periods at any one time: one hundred and eighty girls. That's a hundred and eighty girls' worth of napkins in the receptacles every day."

"I bet you're right-though I'm not so sure about the figures."

"Anyhow, it's a lot. One hundred and eighty girls. What do you think it feels like to collect and burn that much stuff?"

"Can't imagine," I said. How could I have imagined what the old guy was going through? Midori and I went on watching the smoke.

"I really didn't want to go to this school," Midori said. She gave her head a little shake. "I wanted to go to an absolutely ordinary public high school. An ordinary school with ordinary people where I could relax and have fun like an ordinary teenager. But my parents thought it would look good for me to go to this fancy place. They're the ones who stuck me in here. You know: that's what happens when your grades are good in elementary school. The teacher tells your parents, 'With grades like hers, she ought to go school. The teacher tells your parents, 'With grades like hers, she ought to go there.' there.' So that's where I ended up. Six years I went and I never liked it. All I could think of was getting out. And you know, I've got certificates of merit for never having been late or missed a day of school. That's how much I hated the place. Get it?" So that's where I ended up. Six years I went and I never liked it. All I could think of was getting out. And you know, I've got certificates of merit for never having been late or missed a day of school. That's how much I hated the place. Get it?"

"No, I don't get it."

"It's 'cause I hated the place so much. I wasn't going to let it beat me. I figured, let it get me once and I'd be finished. I was scared I'd just keep slipping down and down. I'd crawl to school with a temperature of a hundred and three. The teacher would ask me if I was sick, but I'd say no. At graduation they gave me certificates for perfect attendance and perfect punctuality, plus a French dictionary. That's why I'm taking German now. I didn't want to owe this school anything anything. I'm not kidding."

"Why did you hate it so much?"

"Did you you like like your your school?" school?"

"Well, no, but I didn't especially hate it, either. I went to an ordinary public high school but I never thought about it one way or another."

"Well, this this school," Midori said, scratching the corner of her eye with her little finger, "had nothing but upper-cla.s.s girls-almost a thousand girls with good backgrounds and good grades. school," Midori said, scratching the corner of her eye with her little finger, "had nothing but upper-cla.s.s girls-almost a thousand girls with good backgrounds and good grades. Rich Rich girls. They had to be rich to survive. High tuition, endless contributions, expensive school trips. Like, if we went to Kyoto, they'd put us up in a first-cla.s.s inn and serve us tea-ceremony food on lacquer tables, and they'd take us once a year to the most expensive hotel in Tokyo to study table manners. I mean, this was no ordinary school. Out of a hundred and sixty girls in my cla.s.s, I was the only one from a middle-cla.s.s neighborhood like Toshima. I looked at the school register once to see where the others lived, and every single one of them was from a rich area. Well, no, there was one girl from way out in Chiba with the farmers, so I got kinda friendly with her. And she was really nice. She invited me to her house, though she apologized for how far I'd have to travel to get there. I went and it was girls. They had to be rich to survive. High tuition, endless contributions, expensive school trips. Like, if we went to Kyoto, they'd put us up in a first-cla.s.s inn and serve us tea-ceremony food on lacquer tables, and they'd take us once a year to the most expensive hotel in Tokyo to study table manners. I mean, this was no ordinary school. Out of a hundred and sixty girls in my cla.s.s, I was the only one from a middle-cla.s.s neighborhood like Toshima. I looked at the school register once to see where the others lived, and every single one of them was from a rich area. Well, no, there was one girl from way out in Chiba with the farmers, so I got kinda friendly with her. And she was really nice. She invited me to her house, though she apologized for how far I'd have to travel to get there. I went and it was incredible incredible, this giant piece of land you'd have to walk fifteen minutes to get around. It had this amazing garden and two dogs like compact cars they fed steaks steaks to. But still, this girl felt embarra.s.sed about living out in Chiba. This is a girl who would be driven to school in a Mercedes Benz if she was late! By a chauffeur! Like right out of the Green Hornet: the hat, the white gloves, the whole deal. And still she had this inferiority complex. Can you believe it?" to. But still, this girl felt embarra.s.sed about living out in Chiba. This is a girl who would be driven to school in a Mercedes Benz if she was late! By a chauffeur! Like right out of the Green Hornet: the hat, the white gloves, the whole deal. And still she had this inferiority complex. Can you believe it?"

I shook my head.

"I was the only one in the whole school who lived in a place like Kita-Otsuka Toshima. And under 'parent's profession' it said, 'bookstore owner.' Everybody in my cla.s.s thought that was so neat: 'Oh, you're so lucky, you can read any book you like' and stuff. Of course, they were thinking of some monster bookstore like Kinokuniya. They could never have imagined the poor little Kobayashi Bookstore. The door creaks open and you've got nothing but magazines. The steady sellers are the ladies' magazines with ill.u.s.trated pullout sections on the latest s.e.xual techniques. The local housewives buy them and sit at the kitchen table reading them from cover to cover, and give 'em a try when their husbands get home. And they've got the most incredible positions! Is this what housewives have on their minds all day? The cartoons are the other big seller: Magazine, Sunday, Jump Magazine, Sunday, Jump. And of course the weeklies. So this 'bookstore' is almost all magazines. Oh, there are a few books, paperbacks, like mysteries and swashbucklers and romances. That's all that sell. And how-to books: how to win at go, how to raise bonsai, how to give wedding speeches, how to have s.e.x, how to quit smoking, you name it. We even sell writing supplies-stacks of ballpoint pens and pencils and notebooks next to the cash register. But that's it. No War and Peace War and Peace, no Kenzaburo Oe, no Catcher in the Rye Catcher in the Rye. That's the Kobayashi Bookstore. That's how 'lucky' I am. Do you think I'm lucky?"

"I can just see the place."

"You know what I mean. Everybody in the neighborhood comes there, some of them for years, and we deliver. It's a good business, more than enough to support a family of four, no debts, two daughters in college, but that's it. Nothing to spare for extras. They should never have sent me to a school like that. It was a recipe for heartache. I had to listen to them grumble to me every time the school asked for a contribution, and I was always scared to death I'd run out of money if I went out with my cla.s.smates and they wanted to eat someplace expensive. It's a miserable way to live. Is your family rich?"

"My family? No, my parents are absolutely ordinary working people, not rich, not poor. I know it's not easy for them to send me to a private college in Tokyo, but there's just me, so it's not that big a deal. They don't give me much to live on, so I work part-time. We live in a typical house with a little garden and drive a Toyota Corolla."

"What's your job like?"

"I work in a Shinjuku record shop three nights a week. It's easy. I just sit there and mind the store."

"No kidding," said Midori. "I don't know, just looking at you, I kinda figured you had never been hard up for money."

"It's true. I never have have been hard up for money. Not that we have tons of it, either. I'm like most people." been hard up for money. Not that we have tons of it, either. I'm like most people."

"Well, 'most people' in my school were rich," rich," said Midori, palms up on her lap. "That was the problem." said Midori, palms up on her lap. "That was the problem."

"So now you'll have plenty of chances to see a world without that problem. More than you want to, maybe."

"Hey, tell me, what d'you think the best thing is about being rich?"

"Beats me."

"Being able to say you don't have any money. Like, if I suggested to a cla.s.smate we do something, she could say, 'Sorry, I don't have any money.' Which is something I could never never say if the situation was reversed. If say if the situation was reversed. If I I said 'I don't have any money,' it would said 'I don't have any money,' it would really mean really mean 'I don't have any money.' It's sad. Like if a pretty girl says 'I look terrible today, I don't want to go out,' that's O.K., but if an ugly girl says the same thing people laugh at her. That's what the world was like for me. For six years, until last year." 'I don't have any money.' It's sad. Like if a pretty girl says 'I look terrible today, I don't want to go out,' that's O.K., but if an ugly girl says the same thing people laugh at her. That's what the world was like for me. For six years, until last year."

"You'll get over it."

"I hope so. College is such a relief! It's full of ordinary people."

She smiled with the slightest curl of her lip and smoothed her short hair with the palm of her hand.

"Do you have a job?" I asked.

"Yeah, I write map notes. You know those little pamphlets that come with maps? With descriptions of the different neighborhoods and population figures and points of interest. Here there's so-and-so hiking trail or such-and-such a legend, or some special flower or bird. I write the texts for those things. It's so so easy! Takes no time at all. I can write a whole booklet with a day of looking things up in the library. All you have to do is master a couple of secrets and all kinds of work comes your way." easy! Takes no time at all. I can write a whole booklet with a day of looking things up in the library. All you have to do is master a couple of secrets and all kinds of work comes your way."

"What kind of secrets?"

"Like you put in some little something that n.o.body else has written and the people at the map company think you're a literary genius and send you more work. It doesn't have to be anything at all, just some tiny thing. Like, say, when they made a dam in this particular valley, the water covered over a village, but still every spring the birds come up from the south and you can see them flying over the lake. Put in one little episode like that and people love it, it's so graphic and sentimental. The usual part-timer doesn't bother with stuff like that, but I can make myself decent money with what I write." covered over a village, but still every spring the birds come up from the south and you can see them flying over the lake. Put in one little episode like that and people love it, it's so graphic and sentimental. The usual part-timer doesn't bother with stuff like that, but I can make myself decent money with what I write."

"Yeah, but you have to find those 'episodes.'"

"True," said Midori with a tilt of the head. "But if you're looking for them, you usually find them. And if you don't, you can always make up something harmless."

"Oh-ho!"

"Peace," said Midori.

She said she wanted to hear about my dormitory, so I told her the usual stories about the raising of the flag and Storm Trooper's Radio Calisthenics. Storm Trooper gave Midori an especially big laugh, as he seemed to do with all the world's people. Midori said she thought it would be fun to have a look at the dorm. There was nothing fun about the place, I told her: "Just a few hundred guys in grubby rooms, drinking and jerking off."

"Does that include you?"

"It includes every man on the face of the earth," I explained. "Girls have periods and boys jerk off. Everybody."

"Even ones with girlfriends? I mean, s.e.x partners."

"It's got nothing to do with that. The Keio student living next door to me jerks off before every date. He says it relaxes him."

"I don't know much about that stuff. I was in a girls' school so long."

"I guess the ladies' magazine supplements don't go into that."

"Not at all!" she said, laughing. "Anyhow, Watanabe, would you have some time this Sunday? Are you free?"

"I'm free every Sunday. Until six, at least. That's when I go to work."

"Why don't you come visit me? At the Kobayashi Bookstore. The store itself will be closed, but I have to hang around there alone all day. I might be getting an important phone call. How about lunch? I'll cook for you."

"I'd like that," I said.

Midori tore a page from a notebook and drew a detailed map of the way to her place. She used a red pen to make a large X where the house stood.

"You can't miss it. There's a big sign: 'Kobayashi Bookstore.' Come at noon. I'll have lunch ready."

I thanked her and put the map in my pocket. "I'd better get back to campus now," I said. "My German cla.s.s starts at two." Midori said she had someplace to go and took the train from Yotsuya. campus now," I said. "My German cla.s.s starts at two." Midori said she had someplace to go and took the train from Yotsuya.

SUNDAY MORNING I I GOT UP AT NINE GOT UP AT NINE, shaved, did my laundry, and hung the clothes on the roof. It was a beautiful day. The first smell of autumn was in the air. Red dragonflies were flitting around the quadrangle, chased by neighborhood kids swinging nets. With no wind, the Rising Sun hung limp on its pole. I put on a freshly ironed shirt and walked from the dorm to the streetcar stop. A student neighborhood on a Sunday morning: the streets were dead, virtually empty, most stores closed. What few sounds there were echoed with special clarity. A girl wearing sabots clip-clopped across the asphalt roadway, and next to the streetcar barn four or five kids were throwing rocks at a line of empty cans. A flower store was open, so I went in and bought some daffodils. Daffodils in the autumn: that was strange. But I had always liked that particular flower.

Three old women were the only pa.s.sengers on the Sunday morning streetcar. They all looked at me and my flowers. One of them gave me a smile. I smiled back. I sat in the last seat and watched the old houses pa.s.sing close by the window. The streetcar almost touched the overhanging eaves. The laundry deck of one house had ten potted tomato plants, next to which a big black cat lay stretched out in the sun. In the yard of another house, a little kid was blowing soap bubbles. I heard an Ayumi Ishida song coming from someplace, and could even catch the smell of curry cooking. The streetcar snaked its way through this private back-alley world. A few more pa.s.sengers got on at stops along the way, but the three old women went on talking intently about something, huddled together face-to-face.

I got off near Otsuka Station and followed Midori's map down a broad street without much to look at. None of the shops along the way seemed to be doing very well, housed as they were in old buildings with gloomy-looking interiors and faded writing on some of the signs. Judging from the age and style of the buildings, this area had been spared the wartime air raids, leaving whole blocks intact. A few of the places had been entirely rebuilt, but just about all had been enlarged or repaired in spots, and it was those additions that tended to look far more shabby than the old buildings themselves.