Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami Read Free Book Online Page A

managed to view him in the most favorable light. His greatest virtue was his honesty. Not only would he never lie, he would always acknowledge his shortcomings. He never tried to hide things that might embarrass him. And where I was concerned, he was unfailingly kind and supportive. Had he not been, my life in the dorm would have been far more unpleasant than it was. Still, I never once opened my heart to him, and in that sense my relationship with Nagasawa stood in stark contrast to my relationship with Kizuki. The first time I saw Nagasawa drunk and tormenting a girl, I promised myself never, under any circumstances, to open myself up to him.
    There were several “Nagasawa legends” that circulated through the dorm. According to one, he supposedly once ate three slugs. Another gave him a huge penis and had him sleeping with over a hundred girls.
    The slug story was true. He told me so himself. “Three big mothers,” he said. “Swallowed ’em whole.”
    “What the hell for?”
    “Well, it happened the first year I came to live here,” he said. “There was some shit between the freshmen and the upperclassmen. Started in April and finally came to a head in September. I went to work things out with the upperclassmen as freshman representative. Real right-wing assholes. They had these wooden kendo swords, and ‘working things out’ was probably the last thing they wanted to do. So I said, ‘All right, let’s put an end to this. Do what you want to me, but leave the other guys alone.’ So they said, ‘O.K., let’s see you swallow a couple of slugs.’ ‘Fine,’ I said, ‘let’s have ’em.’ The sons of bitches went out and got three huge slugs. And I swallowed ’em.”
    “What was it like?”
    “‘What was it like?’ You have to swallow one yourself. The way it slidesdown your throat and into your stomach … it’s cold, and it leaves this disgusting aftertaste … yuck, I get chills just thinking about it. I wanted to puke but I fought it. I mean, if I had puked ’em up, I would have just had to swallow ’em all over again. So I kept ’em down. All three of ’em.”
    “Then what happened?”
    “I went back to my room and drank a bunch of salt water. What else could I do?”
    “Yeah, I guess so.”
    “But after that, nobody could say a thing to me. Not even the upperclassmen. I’m the only guy in this place who can swallow three slugs.”
    “I bet you are.”
    Finding out about his penis size was easy enough. I just went to the dorm’s communal bath with him. He had a big one, all right. But a hundred girls was probably an exaggeration. “Maybe seventy-five,” he said. “I can’t remember them all, but I’m sure it’s at least seventy.” When I told him I had slept with only one, he said, “Oh, we can fix that, easy. Come with me next time. I’ll get you one like nothing.”
    I didn’t believe him, but he turned out to be right. It was easy. Almost too easy, with all the excitement of stale beer. We went to a bar in Shibuya or Shinjuku (he had his favorites), found a pair of girls (the world was full of pairs of girls), talked to them, drank, went to a hotel, and had sex with them. He was a great talker. Not that he had anything great to say, but girls would get carried away listening to him, they’d drink too much and end up sleeping with him. I guess they enjoyed being with somebody so nice and handsome and clever. And the most amazing thing was that, just because I was with him, I seemed to become as fascinating to them as he was. Nagasawa would urge me to talk, and girls would respond to me with the same smiles of admiration they gave him. His magic did it, a real talent he had that impressed me every time. Compared with Nagasawa, Kizuki’s conversational gift was child’s play. This was a whole different level of accomplishment. As much as I found myself caught up in Nagasawa’s power, though, I still missed Kizuki. I felt a new admiration for his sincerity. Whatever