The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami Read Free Book Online Page B

polka-dot tie. There was no way that that tie could be in our house without my finding it. Kumiko was such a perfectionist when it came to the arrangement of our clothes, my necktie couldn’t possibly be in a place other than where it was normally kept. And in fact, I found everything—both her clothes and mine—in perfect order. My shirts were neatly folded in the drawer where they belonged. My sweaters were in boxes so full of mothballs my eyes hurt just from opening the lid. One box contained the clothing she had worn in high school: a navy uniform, a flowered minidress, preserved like photos in an old album. What was the point of keeping such things? Perhaps she had simply brought them with her because she had never found a suitable opportunity to get rid of them. Or maybe she was planning to send them to Bangladesh. Or donate them someday as cultural artifacts. In any case, my polka-dot necktie was nowhere to be found.
    Hand on the wardrobe door, I tried to recall the last time I had worn the tie. It was a rather stylish tie, in very good taste, but a bit too much for the office. If I had worn it to the firm, somebody would have gone on and on about it at lunch, praising the color or its sharp looks. Which would have been a kind of warning. In the firm I worked for, it was not good to be complimented on your choice of tie. So I had never worn it there. Rather, I put it on for more private—if somewhat formal—occasions: a concert, or dinner at a good restaurant, when Kumiko wanted us to “dress properly” (not that there were so many such occasions). The tie went well with my navy suit, and she was very fond of it. Still, I couldn’t manage to recall when I had last worn it.
    I scanned the contents of the wardrobe again and gave up. For one reason or another, the polka-dot tie had disappeared. Oh, well. I put on my navy suit with a blue shirt and a striped tie. I wasn’t too worried. She might not be able to spot me, but all I had to do was look for a thirtyish woman in a red vinyl hat.
    Dressed to go out, I sat on the sofa, staring at the wall. It had been a long time since I last wore a suit. Normally, this three-season navy suit would have been a bit too heavy for this time of year, but that particular day was a rainy one, and there was a chill in the air. It was the very suit I had worn on my last day of work (in April). Suddenly it occurred to me that there might be something in one of the pockets. In the inside breast pocket I found a receipt with a date from last autumn. It was some kind of taxi receipt, one I could have been reimbursed for at the office. Now, though, it was too late. I crumpled it up and threw it into the wastebasket.
    I had not worn this suit once since quitting, two months earlier. Now, after such a long interval, I felt as if I were in the grip of a foreign substance. It was heavy and stiff, and seemed not to match the contours of my body. I stood and walked around the room, stopping in front of the mirror to yank at the sleeves and the coattails in an attempt to make it fit better. I stretched out my arms, took a deep breath, and bent forward at the waist, checking to see if my physical shape might have changed in the past two months. I sat on the sofa again, but still I felt uncomfortable.
    Until this spring, I had commuted to work every day in a suit without its ever feeling strange. My firm had had a rather strict dress code, requiring even low-ranking clerks such as myself to wear suits. I had thought nothing of it.
    Now, however, just sitting on the couch in a suit felt like some kind of immoral act, like faking one’s curriculum vitae or passing as a woman. Overcome with something very like a guilty conscience, I found it increasingly difficult to breathe.
    I went to the front hall, took my brown shoes from their place on the shelf, and pried myself into them with a shoehorn. A thin film of dust clung to them.
    •
    As it turned out, I didn’t have to find the woman. She found