The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami Read Free Book Online Page A

I? Why do you think we’re both so hungry? I never, ever, once in my life felt a hunger like this until I married you. Don’t you think it’s abnormal? Your curse is working on me, too.”
    I nodded. Then I broke up the ring of pull-tabs and put them back in the ashtray. I didn’t know if she was right, but I did feel she was onto something.
    The feeling of starvation was back, stronger than ever, and it was giving me a deep headache. Every twinge of my stomach was being transmitted to the core of my head by a clutch cable, as if my insides were equipped with all kinds of complicated machinery.
    I took another look at my undersea volcano. The water was even clearer than before—much clearer. Unless you looked closely, you might not even notice it was there. It felt as though the boat were floating in midair, with absolutely nothing to support it. I could see every little pebble on the bottom. All I had to do was reach out and touch them.
    “We’ve only been living together for two weeks,” she said, “but all this time I’ve been feeling some kind of weird presence.” She looked directly into my eyes and brought her hands together on the tabletop, her fingers interlocking. “Of course, I didn’t know it was a curse until now. This explains everything. You’re under a curse.”
    “What kind of presence?”
    “Like there’s this heavy, dusty curtain that hasn’t been washed for years, hanging down from the ceiling.”
    “Maybe it’s not a curse. Maybe it’s just me,” I said, and smiled.
    She did not smile.
    “No, it’s not you,” she said.
    “Okay, suppose you’re right. Suppose it is a curse. What can I do about it?”
    “Attack another bakery. Right away. Now. It’s the only way.”
    “Now?”
    “Yes. Now. While you’re still hungry. You have to finish what you left unfinished.”
    “But it’s the middle of the night. Would a bakery be open now?”
    “We’ll find one. Tokyo’s a big city. There must be at least one all-night bakery.”
    •   •   •
    W E GOT INTO my old Corolla and started drifting around the streets of Tokyo at 2:30 a.m., looking for a bakery. There we were, me clutching the steering wheel, she in the navigator’s seat, the two of us scanning the street like hungry eagles in search of prey. Stretched out on the backseat, long and stiff as a dead fish, was a Remington automatic shotgun. Its shells rustled dryly in the pocket of my wife’s windbreaker. We had two black ski masks in the glove compartment. Why my wife owned a shotgun, I had no idea. Or ski masks. Neither of us had ever skied. But she didn’t explain and I didn’t ask. Married life is weird, I felt.
    Impeccably equipped, we were nevertheless unable to find an all-night bakery. I drove through the empty streets, from Yoyogi to Shinjuku, on to Yotsuya and Akasaka, Aoyama, Hiroo, Roppongi, Daikanyama, and Shibuya. Late-night Tokyo had all kinds of people and shops, but no bakeries.
    Twice we encountered patrol cars. One was huddled at the side of the road, trying to look inconspicuous. The other slowly overtook us and crept past, finally moving off into the distance. Both times I grew damp under the arms, but my wife’s concentration never faltered. She was looking for that bakery. Every time she shifted the angle of her body, the shotgun shells in her pocket rustled like buckwheat husks in an old-fashioned pillow.
    “Let’s forget it,” I said. “There aren’t any bakeries open at this time of night. You’ve got to plan for this kind of thing or else—”
    “Stop the car!”
    I slammed on the brakes.
    “This is the place,” she said.
    The shops along the street had their shutters rolled down, forming dark, silent walls on either side. A barbershop sign hung in the dark like a twisted, chilling glass eye. There was a bright McDonald’s hamburger sign some two hundred yards ahead, but nothing else.
    “I don’t see any bakery,” I said.
    Without a word, she opened the glove compartment