Vintage Murakami by Haruki Murakami Read Free Book Online Page A

and then. Just what did she see? What lit up those eyes? If ever she gets well enough to speak unhindered, that’s something I’d want to ask: “That day I came to visit, what did you see?”
    But that day is still far off. Before that comes Disneyland.
    —Translated by Alfred Birnbaum and Philip Gabriel

HONEY PIE
    1
    “So Masakichi got his paws full of honey—way more honey than he could eat by himself—and he put it in a bucket, and do-o-o-wn the mountain he went, all the way to the town to sell his honey. Masakichi was the all-time Number One honey bear.”
    “Do bears have buckets?” Sala asked.
    “Masakichi just happened to have one,” Junpei explained. “He found it lying in the road, and he figured it would come in handy sometime.”
    “And it did.”
    “It really did. So Masakichi the Bear went to town and found a spot for himself in the square. He put up a sign:
Deeelicious Honey. All Natural. One Cup ¥ 200.
”
    “Can bears write?”
    “No, of course not,” Junpei said. “There was a nice old man with a pencil sitting next to him, and he asked
him
to write it.”
    “Can bears count money?”
    “Absolutely. Masakichi lived with people when he was just a cub, and they taught him how to talk and count money and stuff. Anyway, he was a very talented bear.”
    “Oh, so he was a little different from ordinary bears.”
    “Well, yes, just a little. Masakichi was a kind of special bear. And so the other bears, who weren’t so special, tended to shun him.”
    “Shun him?”
    “Yeah, they’d go like, ‘Hey, what’s with this guy, acting so special?’ and keep away from him. Especially Tonkichi the tough guy. He really hated Masakichi.”
    “Poor Masakichi!”
    “Yeah, really. Meanwhile, Masakichi
looked
just like a bear, and so the people would say, ‘OK, he knows how to count, and he can talk and all, but when you get right down to it he’s still a bear.’ So Masakichi didn’t really belong to either world—the bear world or the people world.”
    “Poor, poor Masakichi! Didn’t he have any friends?”
    “Not one. Bears don’t go to school, you know, so there’s no place for them to make friends.”
    “
I
have friends,” Sala said. “In preschool.”
    “Of course you do,” Junpei said.
    “Do
you
have friends, Jun?” “Uncle Junpei” was too long for her, so Sala just called him “Jun.”
    “Your daddy is my absolute bestest friend from a long, long time ago. And so’s your mommy.”
    “It’s good to have friends.”
    “It
is
good,” Junpei said. “You’re right about that.”
    Junpei often made up stories for Sala when she went to bed. And whenever she didn’t understand something, she would ask him to explain. Junpei gave a lot of thought to his answers. Sala’s questions were always sharp and interesting, and while he was thinking about them he could also come up with new twists to the story.
    Sayoko brought a glass of warm milk.
    “Junpei is telling me the story of Masakichi the bear,” Sala said. “He’s the all-time Number One honey bear, but he doesn’t have any friends.”
    “Oh really? Is he a big bear?” Sayoko asked.
    Sala gave Junpei an uneasy look. “Is Masakichi big?”
    “Not so big,” he said. “In fact, he’s kind of on the small side. For a bear. He’s just about
your
size, Sala. And he’s a very sweet-tempered little guy. When he listens to music, he doesn’t listen to rock or punk or that kind of stuff. He likes to listen to Schubert all by himself.”
    Sayoko hummed a little “Trout.”
    “He listens to music?” Sala asked. “Does he have a CD player or something?”
    “He found a boom box lying on the ground one day. He picked it up and brought it home.”
    “How come all this stuff just happens to be lying around in the mountains?” Sala asked with a note of suspicion.
    “Well, it’s a very, very steep mountain, and the hikers get all faint and dizzy, and they throw away tons of stuff they don’t need. Right there by