Kafka on the Shore

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 pi

"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."

"Really?"

She nods. "Sometimes they eat. When they want to."

"You mean no one else eats as much as I do?"

"Can you get by without eating for one whole day?"

I shake my head.

"Folks here often go a whole day without eating, no problem. They actually forget to eat, sometimes for days at a time."

"I'm not used to things here yet, so I have to eat."

"I suppose so," she says. "That's why I'm cooking for you."

I look in her face. "How long will it take for me to get used to this place?"

"How long?" she parrots, and slowly shakes her head. "I have no idea. It's not a question of time. When that time comes, you'll already be used to it."

We're sitting across from each other, her hands neatly lined up on the table, palms down. Her ten little resolute fingers are there, real objects before me. Directly across from her, I catch each tiny flutter of her eyelashes, count each blink of her eyes, watch the strands of hair swaying over her forehead. I can't take my eyes off her.

"That time?" I say.

"It isn't like you'll cut something out of yourself and throw it away," she says. "We don't throw it away-we accept it, inside us."

"And I'll accept this inside of me?"

"That's right."

"And then?" I ask. "After I accept it, then what happens?"

She inclines her head slightly as she thinks, an utterly natural gesture. The strands of hair sway again. "Then you'll become completely yourself," she says.

"So you mean up till now I haven't been completely me?"

"You are totally yourself even now," she says, then thinks it over. "What I mean is a little different. But I can't explain it well."

"You can't understand until it actually happens?"

She nods.

When it gets too painful to watch her anymore, I close my eyes. Then I open them right away, to make sure she's still there. "Is it sort of a communal lifestyle here?"

She considers this. "Everyone does live together, and share certain things. Like the shower rooms, the electrical station, the market. There are certain simple, unspoken agreements in place, but nothing complicated. Nothing you need to think about, or even put into words. So there isn't anything I need to teach you about how things are done. The most important thing about life here is that people let themselves be absorbed into things. As long as you do that, there won't be any problems."

"What do you mean by absorbed?"

"It's like when you're in the forest, you become a seamless part of it. When you're in the rain, you're a part of the rain. When you're in the morning, you're a seamless part of the morning. When you're with me, you become a part of me."

"When you're with me, then, you're a seamless part of me?"

"That's true."

"What does it feel like? To be yourself and part of me at the same time?"

She looks straight at me and touches her hairpin. "It's very natural. Once you're used to it, it's quite simple. Like flying."

"You can fly?"

"Just an example," she says, and smiles. It's a smile without any deep or hidden meaning, a smile for the sake of smiling. "You can't know what flying feels like until you actually do it. It's the same."

"So it's a natural thing you don't even have to think about?"

She nods. "Yes, it's quite natural, calm, quiet, something you don't have to think about. It's seamless."

"Am I asking too many questions?"

"Not at all," she replies. "I only wish I could explain things better."

"Do you have memories?"

Again she shakes her head and rests her hands on the table, this time with the palms faceup. She glances at them expressionlessly.

"No, I don't. In a place where time isn't important, neither is memory. Of course I remember last night, coming here and making vegetable stew. And you ate it all, didn't you? The day before that I remember a bit of. But anything before that, I don't know. Time has been absorbed inside me, and I can't distinguish between one object and whatever's beside it."

"So memory isn't so important here?"

She beams. "That's right. Memory isn't so important here. The library handles memories."

After the girl leaves, I sit by the window holding my hand out in the morning sun, its shadow falling on the windowsill, a distinct five-finger outline. The bee stops buzzing around and quietly lands above the windowpane. It seems to have some serious thinking to do. And so do I.

When the sun is a little bit past its highest point, she comes to where I'm staying, knocks lightly, and opens the door. For a moment I can't tell who I'm looking at-the young girl or her. A slight shift in light, or the way the wind blows, is all it takes for her to change completely. It's like in one instant she transforms into the young girl, a moment later changing back into Miss Saeki. Not that this really takes place. The person in front of me is, without a doubt, Miss Saeki and no other.