After Dark by Haruki Murakami Read Free Book Online Page A

straight into this room where we are. Of course his eyes are hidden behind the mysterious glossy mask, but we can vividly feel the existence—the weight—of his line of vision. With unwavering determination, he stares at something ahead of him. Judging from the angle of his face, he could well be staring toward Eri Asai’s bed. We trace this hypothetical line of vision with great care. Yes, there can be no doubt about it. What the man in the mask is staring at with his invisible eyes is the sleeping form of Eri. It finally dawns on us: this is what he has been doing all along. He is able to see through to this side. The television screen is functioning as a window on this room.
    Now and then the picture flickers and recovers. The static also increases. The noise sounds like an amplified sonic version of someone’s brain waves. It rises with increasing density, but at a certain point it peaks, begins to degrade, and eventually dies out. Then, as if changing its mind, it emerges again. The same thing repeats. But the line of vision of the Man with No Face never wavers. His concentration is never broken.
    A beautiful girl sleeping on and on in bed. Her straight black hair spreads over the pillow like a deeply meaningful fan. Softly pursed lips. Heart and mind at the bottom of the sea. Whenever the TV screen flickers, the light striking her profile wavers, and shadows dance like inscrutable signals. Sitting on a plain wooden chair and staring at her in silence, the Man with No Face. His shoulders rise and fall unobtrusively in concert with his breathing, like an empty boat bobbing on gentle early-morning waves.
    In the room, nothing else moves.

5
    M ari and Kaoru walk down a deserted back street.
    Kaoru is seeing Mari somewhere. Mari has her navy blue Boston Red Sox cap pulled down low. In the cap, she looks like a boy—which is probably why she always has it with her.
    “Man, am I glad you were there,” Kaoru says. “I didn’t know what the hell was going on.”
    They descend the same stairway shortcut they climbed on the way to the hotel.
    “Hey, let’s stop off at a place I know—if you’ve got the time,” Kaoru says.
    “Place?”
    “I could really use a nice cold beer. How about you?”
    “I can’t drink.”
    “So have some juice or something. What the hell, you’ve gotta be
some place
killing time till morning.”
     
    T hey are seated at the counter of a small bar, the only customers. An old Ben Webster record is playing. “My Ideal.” From the fifties. Some forty or fifty old-style LPs are lined up on a shelf. Kaoru is drinking draft beer from a tall, thin glass. In front of Mari sits a glass of Perrier with lime juice. Behind the bar, the aging bartender is involved in cracking ice.
    “She was pretty, though, wasn’t she?” Mari says.
    “That Chinese girl?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I suppose so. But she won’t be pretty for long, living like that. She’ll get old and ugly overnight. I’ve seen tons of them.”
    “She’s nineteen—like me.”
    “Okay,” Kaoru says, munching on a few nuts. “But age doesn’t matter. That kind of work takes a lot out of you. You’ve gotta have stainless-steel nerves. Otherwise you start shootin’ up, and you’re finished.”
    Mari says nothing.
    “You a college kid?”
    “Uh-huh. I’m doing Chinese at the University of Foreign Studies.”
    “University of Foreign Studies, huh? What’re ya gonna do after you graduate?”
    “If possible, I’d like to be a freelance translator or interpreter. I don’t think I’m suited to a nine-to-five.”
    “Smart girl.”
    “Not really. From the time I was little, though, my parents always told me I’d better study hard, because I’m too ugly for anything else.”
    Kaoru looks at Mari with narrowed eyes. “You’re plenty damn cute. It’s true: I’m not just saying it to make you feel good. Let ’em get a load of
me
if they wanna see ugly.”
    Mari gave an uncomfortable little shrug. “My sister’s older