Hear the Wind Sing by Haruki Murakami Read Free Book Online

absent-mindedly read books, watch television, and occasionally have uninterested sex with me. Her only possession was a white canvas bag which held inside it: a thin windbreaker, two T-shirts, one pair of blue jeans, three pairs of dirty underwear, and one box of tampons; that’s all she had.
    “Where’re you from?”
    Sometimes I asked her this.
    “Someplace you don’t know.”
    Saying that, the refused to elaborate. One day, when I came back from the supermarket clutching a grocery bag, she was gone. Her white bag was gone as well. A number of other things were gone as well. Some loose change I’d scattered atop the desk, a carton of cigarettes, and my carefully washed T-shirt. On the desk there was a torn piece of paper like a note, bearing the simple message: ‘rat bastard’. It’s quite possible that was a reference to me.
    My third partner was a girl I’d met at our university’s library, she was a French Lit major, but in the spring of the following year she was found in a small forest past the edge of the tennis courts, hanged. Her corpse hung there unnoticed until past the beginning of spring semester, for an entire two weeks it dangled there, blown around by the wind. Even now, nobody goes in those woods after the sun goes down.
    20
    She was sitting at the counter of J’s Bar looking ill at ease, stirring around the almost-melted ice at the bottom of her ginger ale glass with a straw.
    “I didn’t think you’d show.”
    She said this as I sat next to her; she looked slightly relieved.
    “I don’t stand girls up. I had something to do, so I was a little late.”
    “What did you have to do?”
    “Shoes. I had to polish shoes.”
    “Those sneakers you’re wearing right now?”
    She said this with deep suspicion while pointing at my shoes.
    “No way! My dad’s shoes. It’s kind of a family tradition. The kids have to polish the father’s shoes.”
    “Why?”
    “Hmm...well, of course, the shoes are a symbol for something, I think. Anyway, my father gets home at 8pm every night, like clockwork. I polish his shoes, then I sprint out the door to go drink beer.”
    “That’s a good tradition.”
    “You really think so?”
    “Yeah. It’s good to show your father some appreciation.”
    “My appreciation is for the fact that he only has two feet.”
    She giggled at that.
    “Sounds like a great family.”
    “Yeah, not just great, but throw in the poverty and we’re crying tears of joy.”
    She kept stirring her ginger ale with the end of her straw.
    “Still, I think my family was much worse off.”
    “What makes you think so?”
    “Your smell. The way rich people can sniff out other rich people, poor people can do the same.”
    I poured the beer J brought me into my glass.
    “Where are your parents?”
    “I don’t wanna talk about it.”
    “Why not?”
    “So-called ‘great’ people don’t talk about their family troubles. Right?”
    “You’re a ‘great’ person?”
    Fifteen seconds passed as she considered this.
    “I’d like to be one, someday. Honestly. Doesn’t everyone?”
    I decided not to answer that.
    “But it might help to talk about it,” I said.
    “Why?”
    “First off, sometimes you’ve gotta vent to people. Second, it’s not like I’m going to run off and tell anybody.”
    She laughed and lit a cigarette, and she stared silently at the wood-paneled counter while she took three puffs of smoke.
    “Five years ago, my father died from a brain tumor. It was terrible. Suffered for two whole years. We managed to pour all our money into that. We ended up with absolutely nothing left. Thanks to that, our family was completely exhausted. We disintegrated, like a plane breaking up mid-flight. The same story you’ve heard a thousand times, right?”
    I nodded. “And your mother?”
    “She’s living somewhere. Sends me New Year’s cards.”
    “Sounds like you’re not too keen on her.”
    “Yes.”
    “You have any brothers or sisters?”
    “I have a twin sister,