“What possible good could come from stealing people’s names? Explain yourself,” Mr. Sakaki said sharply.
“I do steal people’s names, no doubt about that. In doing so, though, I’m also able to remove some of the negative elements that stick to those names. I don’t mean to brag, but if I’d been able to steal Yuko Matsunaka’s name back then, she may very well not have taken her life.”
“Why do you say that?” Mizuki asked.
“If I had succeeded in stealing her name, I might have taken away some of the darkness that was hidden inside her,” the monkey said. “Take her darkness, along with her name, back to the world underground.”
“That’s too convenient. I don’t buy it,” Sakurada said. “This monkey’s life is on the line, so of course he’s going to use any tricks he can to explain away his actions.”
“Maybe not,” Mrs. Sakaki said, arms folded, after she’d given it some thought. “He might have a point after all.” She turned to the monkey. “When you steal names you take on both the good and the bad?”
“Yes, that’s right,” the monkey said. “I have no choice. If there are evil things included in them, we monkeys have to accept those, too. We take on the whole package, as it were. I beg you—don’t kill me. I’m a monkey with an awful habit, I know that, but I may be performing a useful service.”
“Well—what sort of bad things were included in my name?” Mizuki asked the monkey.
“I’d rather not say in front of you,” the monkey said.
“Please tell me,” Mizuki insisted. “If you tell me that, I’ll forgive you. And I’ll ask all those present to forgive you.”
“Do you mean it?”
“If this monkey tells me the truth, will you forgive him?” Mizuki asked Mr. Sakaki. “He’s not evil by nature. He’s already suffered, so let’s hear what he has to say and then you can take him to Mount Takao or somewhere and release him. If you do that, I don’t think he’ll bother anyone again. What do you think?”
“I have no objection as long as it’s all right with you,” Mr. Sakaki said. He turned to the monkey. “How ’bout it? You swear if we release you in the mountains you won’t come back to the Tokyo city limits?”
“Yes, sir. I swear I won’t come back,” the monkey promised, a meek look on his face. “I will never cause any trouble for you again. Never again will I wander around the sewers. I’m not young anymore, so this will be a good chance for a fresh start in life.”
“Just to make sure, why don’t we brand him on the butt so we’ll recognize him again,” Sakurada said. “I think we have a soldering iron around here that brands in the official seal of Shinagawa Ward.”
“Please, sir—don’t do that!” the monkey pleaded, eyes welling up. “If you put a strange brand on my butt the other monkeys will never let me join them. I’ll tell you everything you want to know, but just don’t brand me!”
“Well, let’s forget about the branding iron, then,” Mr. Sakaki said, trying to smooth things over. “If we used the official Shinagawa seal, we’d have to take responsibility for it later on.”
“I’m afraid you’re right,” Sakurada said, disappointed.
“All right, then, why don’t you tell me what evil things have stuck to my name?” Mizuki said, staring right into the monkey’s small red eyes.
“If I tell you it might hurt you.”
“I don’t care. Go ahead.”
For a time the monkey thought about this, deep frown lines on his forehead. “I think it’s better that you don’t hear this.”
“I told you it’s all right. I really want to know.”
“All right,” the monkey said. “Then I’ll tell you. Your mother doesn’t love you. She’s never loved you, even once, since you were little. I don’t know why, but it’s true. Your older sister’s the same. She doesn’t like you. Your mother sent you away to school in Yokohama because she wanted to get rid of you. Your mother and sister wanted to drive you away as far as possible. Your father isn’t a bad person, but he isn’t what you’d call a forceful personality, and he couldn’t stand up for you. For these reasons, then, ever since you were small you’ve never gotten enough love. I think you’ve had an inkling of this, but you’ve intentionally turned your eyes away from it, shut this painful reality up in a small dark place deep in your heart and closed the lid, trying not to think about it. Trying to suppress any negative feelings. This defensive stance has become part of who you are. Because of all this, you’ve never been able to deeply, unconditionally love anybody else.”
Mizuki was silent.
“Your married life seems happy and problem-free. And perhaps it is. But you don’t truly love your husband. Am I right? Even if you were to have a child, if things don’t change it would just be more of the same.”
Mizuki didn’t say a thing. She sank down onto the floor and closed her eyes. Her whole body felt like it was unraveling. Her skin, her insides, her bones felt like they were about to fall to pieces. All she heard was the sound of her own breathing.
“Pretty outrageous thing for a monkey to say,” Sakurada said, shaking his head. “Chief, I can’t stand it anymore. Let’s beat the crap out of him!”
“Hold on,” Mizuki said. “What this monkey’s saying is true. I’ve known it for a long time, but I’ve always tried to avoid it. I always closed my eyes to it, shut my ears. This monkey’s telling the truth, so please forgive him. Just take him to the mountains and let him go.”
Mrs. Sakaki gently rested a hand on Mizuki’s shoulder. “Are you sure you’re OK with that?”
“I don’t mind, as long as I get my name back. From now on I’m going to live with what’s out there. That’s my name, and that’s my life.”
Mrs. Sakaki turned to her husband. “Honey, next weekend why don’t we drive out to Mount Takao and let the monkey go. What do you say?”
“I have no problem with that,” Mr. Sakaki said. “We just bought a new car and it’d make for a nice little test run.”
“I’m so grateful. I don’t know how to thank you,” the monkey said.
“You don’t get carsick, do you?” Mrs. Sakaki asked the monkey.
“No, I’ll be fine,” the monkey replied. “I promise I won’t throw up or pee on your new car seats. I’ll behave myself the whole way. I won’t be a bother at all.”
As Mizuki was saying goodbye to the monkey she handed him Yuko Matsunaka’s name tag.
“You should have this, not me,” she said. “You liked Yuko, didn’t you?”
“I did. I really did like her.”
“Take good care of her name. And don’t steal anybody else’s.”
“I’ll take very good care of it. And I’m not going to ever steal again, I promise,” the monkey said, a serious look on his face.
“But why did Yuko leave this name tag with me just before she died? Why would she pick me?”
“I don’t know the answer,” the monkey said. “But because she did, at least you and I have been able to meet and talk with each other. A twist of fate, I suppose.”
“You must be right,” Mizuki said.
“Did what I told you hurt you?”
“It did,” Mizuki said. “It hurt a lot.”
“I’m very sorry. I didn’t want to tell you.”
“It’s all right. Deep down, I think I knew all this already. It’s something I had to confront—someday.”
“I’m relieved to hear that,” the monkey said.
“Goodbye,” Mizuki said. “I don’t imagine we’ll meet again.”
“Take care of yourself,” the monkey said. “And thank you for saving the life of the likes of me.”
“You better not show your face round Shinagawa anymore,” Sakurada warned, slapping his palm with the nightstick. “We’re giving you a break this time since the chief says so, but if I ever catch you here again, you aren’t going to get out of here alive.”
The monkey knew this was no empty threat.
“Well, so what should we do about n
ext week?” Mrs. Sakaki asked after they returned to the counseling center. “Do you still have things you’d like to discuss with me?”
Mizuki shook her head. “No. Thanks to you, I think my problem’s solved. I’m so grateful for everything you’ve done for me.”
“You don’t need to talk over the things the monkey told you?”
“No, I should be able to handle that by myself. It’s something I have to think over on my own for a while.”
Mrs. Sakaki nodded. “You should be able to handle it. If you put your mind to it, I know you can grow stronger.”
“But if I can’t, can I still come to see you?” Mizuki asked.
“Of course!” Mrs. Sakaki said. Her supple face broke into a broad smile. “We can catch something else together.”
The two of them shook hands and said goodbye.
After she got home Mizuki took the name tag with “Mizuki Ozawa” and the bracelet with Mizuki (Ozawa) Ando engraved on it, put them in a plain brown business envelope, and placed that inside the cardboard box in her closet. She finally had her name back, and could resume a normal life. Things might work out. And then again they might not. But at least she had her own name now, a name that was hers, and hers alone.
—TRANSLATED BY PHILIP GABRIEL
HARUKI MURAKAMI
BLIND WILLOW, SLEEPING WOMAN
Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into thirty-eight languages, and the most recent of his many honors is the Yomiuri Literary Prize, whose previous recipients include Yukio Mishima, KenzaburÅ ÅŒe, and Kobo Abe.
ALSO BY HARUKI MURAKAMI
After Dark
After the Quake
Dance Dance Dance
The Elephant Vanishes
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Kafka on the Shore
Norwegian Wood
South of the Border, West of the Sun
Sputnik Sweetheart
Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche
Vintage Murakami
A Wild Sheep Chase
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Acclaim for Haruki Murakami’s
BLIND WILLOW, SLEEPING WOMAN
“A virtuosic demonstration of Murakami’s incredible range…. Thrilling, funny, sad, moving, scary—all at once.”
—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“[These] tales seem to speak with one very seductive voice. That voice, in each of these wildly varied excursions into the strange, dim territory of the self, says that someone named Haruki Murakami is still looking, quixotically, for something less fragile, less provisional than the usual accommodations we make do with on the road.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“The trouble with a story by Haruki Murakami is that it leaves you wanting another story by Haruki Murakami…. All of them…display the masterly imagination that can shift the reader almost imperceptibly from actuality to memory or fantasy or dream.”
—The Dallas Morning News
“Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is a satisfying, entertaining collection [and] a solid introduction to the eclectic talents of this master storyteller.”
—The Seattle Times
“Mysterious and evanescent…. [A] dexterous story collection that illustrates the range and vitality of the genre.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“What shines in all of [these stories] is Murakami’s love for the open-ended mystery at the core of existence and his willingness to give himself up ‘to the flow’ in order to capture some of the magic in the mundane.”
—The Christian Science Monitor
“In this extraordinary new story collection by…Haruki Murakami, reality is ever in danger of breaking loose of its moorings…. The inconsequential registers as significant in these wonderful stories as people struggle to figure out how to be, and what ‘normal’ means, if anything.”
—The Baltimore Sun
“An intimate pleasure.”
—The Times (London)
“[The] real strength…[of] Murakami’s writing…is its aestheticism: its haunting imagery, its credible voices, its allegorical play, its skill for surprise.”
—The New Republic
“Murakami effortlessly conjures modern fairy tales that dazzle…. These stories are full of wisdom, wrenching us into understanding our innermost impulses by confronting us with the unexpected.”
—Rocky Mountain News
FIRST VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, OCTOBER 2007
Copyright © 2006 by Haruki Murakami
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2006.
Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage International and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
“The Seventh Man” appeared originally in Granta; “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman,” “Birthday Girl,” and “Chance Traveler” in Harper’s; “Dabchick” in McSweeney’s; “Airplane: Or, How He Talked to Himself as If Reciting Poetry” (originally published as “Airplane”), “The Folklore of My Generation: A Pre-History of Late-Stage Capitalism” (originally published as “The Folklore of Our Times” and translated by Alfred Birnbaum), “Hunting Knife,” “The Ice Man” (in a translation by Richard Peterson), “The Kidney-Shaped Stone That Moves Every Day,” “Man-Eating Cats,” “New York Mining Disaster,” “A ‘Poor Aunt’ Story,” “Tony Takitani,” “A Shinagawa Monkey,” “Where I’m Likely to Find It,” and “The Year of Spaghetti” in The New Yorker; “Crabs” in Storie Magazine; and “The Mirror” in The Yale Review. “Firefly” appeared originally in the novel Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami (New York: Vintage, 2000).
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:
Murakami, Haruki, [date]
Blind willow, sleeping woman: twenty-four stories / by Haruki Murakami.—1st ed.
p. cm.
I. Title.
PL856.U673A23 2006
895.6'35—dc22 2005044544
www.vintagebooks.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-38762-2
v3.0
Haruki Murakami, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
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