Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki And His Years Of Pilgrimage Part 3

"Who's the pianist here?"

"A Russian, Lazar Berman. When he plays Liszt it's like he's painting a delicately imagined landscape. Most people see Liszt's piano music as more superficial, and technical. Of course, he has some tricky pieces, but if you listen very carefully to his music you discover a depth to it that you don't notice at first. Most of the time it's hidden behind all the embellishments. This is particularly true of the Years of Pilgrimage suites. There aren't many living pianists who can play it accurately and with such beauty. Among more contemporary pianists, Berman gets it right, and with the older pianists I'd have to go with Claudio Arrau."

Haida got quite talkative when it came to music. He went on, delineating the special characteristics of Berman's performance of Liszt, but Tsukuru barely listened. Instead, a picture of s.h.i.+ro performing the piece, a mental image, vivid and three-dimensional, welled up in his mind. As if those beautiful moments were steadily swimming back, through a waterway, against the legitimate pressure of time.

The Yamaha grand piano in the living room of her house. Reflecting s.h.i.+ro's conscientiousness, it was always perfectly tuned. The l.u.s.trous exterior without a single smudge or fingerprint to mar its l.u.s.ter. The afternoon light filtering in through the window. Shadows cast in the garden by the cypress trees. The lace curtain wavering in the breeze. Teacups on the table. Her black hair, neatly tied back, her expression intent as she gazed at the score. Her ten long, lovely fingers on the keyboard. Her legs, as they precisely depressed the pedals, possessed a hidden strength that seemed unimaginable in other situations. Her calves were like glazed porcelain, white and smooth. Whenever she was asked to play something, this piece was the one she most often chose. "Le mal du pays." The groundless sadness called forth in a person's heart by a pastoral landscape. Homesickness. Melancholy.

As he lightly shut his eyes and gave himself up to the music, Tsukuru felt his chest tighten with a disconsolate, stifling feeling, as if, before he'd realized it, he'd swallowed a hard lump of cloud. The piece ended and went on to the next track, but he said nothing, simply allowing those scenes to wash over him. Haida shot him an occasional glance.

"If you don't mind, I'd like to leave this record here.

I can't listen to it in my dorm room anyway," Haida said as he slipped the LP back in its jacket.

Even now this three-disc boxed set was still in Tsukuru's apartment. Nestled right next to Barry Manilow and the Pet Shop Boys.

Haida was a wonderful cook. To thank Tsukuru for letting him listen to music, he would go shopping and prepare a meal in Tsukuru's kitchen. Tsukuru's sister had left behind a set of pots and pans, as well as a set of dishes. These were his inheritance-as well as most of his furniture, and the occasional phone call from one of her ex-boyfriends ("Sorry, my sister doesn't live here anymore"). He and Haida had dinner together two or three times a week. They'd listen to music, talk, and eat the meal Haida had prepared. The meals he made were mostly simple, everyday dishes, though on holidays when he had more time, he'd try more elaborate recipes. Everything he made was delicious. Haida seemed to have a gift as a cook. Whatever he made-a plain omelet, miso soup, cream sauce, or paella-was done skillfully and intelligently.

"It's too bad you're in the physics department. You should open a restaurant," Tsukuru said, half joking.

Haida laughed. "That sounds good. But I don't like to be tied down in one place. I want to be free-to go where I want, when I want, and be able to think about whatever I want."

"Sure, but that can't be easy to actually do."

"It isn't. But I've made up my mind. I always want to be free. I like cooking, but I don't want to be holed up in a kitchen doing it as a job. If that happened, I'd end up hating somebody."

"Hating somebody?"

"The cook hates the waiter, and they both hate the customer," Haida said. "A line from the Arnold Wesker play The Kitchen. People whose freedom is taken away always end up hating somebody. Right? I know I don't want to live like that."

"Never being constrained, thinking about things freely-that's what you're hoping for?"

"Exactly."

"But it seems to me that thinking about things freely can't be easy."

"It means leaving behind your physical body. Leaving the cage of your physical flesh, breaking free of the chains, and letting pure logic soar free. Giving a natural life to logic. That's the core of free thought."

"It doesn't sound easy."

Haida shook his head. "No, depending on how you look at it, it's not that hard. Most people do it at times, without even realizing it. That's how they manage to stay sane. They're just not aware that's what they're doing."

Tsukuru considered this. He liked talking with Haida about these kinds of abstract, speculative ideas. Usually he wasn't much of a talker, but something about talking with this younger man stimulated his mind, and sometimes the words just flowed. He'd never experienced this before. Back in Nagoya, in his group of five, he'd more often than not played the listener.

"But unless you can do that intentionally," Tsukuru said, "you can't achieve the real freedom of thought you're talking about, right?"

Haida nodded. "Exactly. But it's as difficult as intentionally dreaming. It's way beyond your average person."

"Yet you want to be able to do it intentionally."

"You could say that."

"I don't imagine they teach that technique in the physics department."

Haida laughed. "I never expected they would. What I'm looking for here is a free environment, and time. That's all. In an academic setting if you want to discuss what it means to think, you first need to agree on a theoretical definition. And that's where things get sticky. Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. So said Voltaire, the realist."

"You agree with that?"

"Everything has boundaries. The same holds true with thought. You shouldn't fear boundaries, but you also should not be afraid of destroying them. That's what is most important if you want to be free: respect for and exasperation with boundaries. What's really important in life is always the things that are secondary. That's about all I can say."

"Can I ask you a question?" Tsukuru said.

"Sure."

"In different religions prophets fall into a kind of ecstasy and receive a message from an absolute being."

"Correct."

"And this takes place somewhere that transcends free will, right? Always pa.s.sively."

"That's correct."

"And that message surpa.s.ses the boundaries of the individual prophet and functions in a broader, universal way."

"Correct again."

"And in that message there is neither contradiction nor equivocation."

Haida nodded silently.

"I don't get it," Tsukuru said. "If that's true, then what's the value of human free will?"

"That's a great question," Haida said, and smiled quietly. The kind of smile a cat gives as it stretches out, napping in the sun. "I wish I had an answer for you, but I don't. Not yet."

Haida began staying over at Tsukuru's apartment on the weekends. They would talk until late at night, at which point Haida would make up the fold-out sofa in the living room and go to sleep. In the morning he would make coffee and cook them omelets. Haida was very particular about coffee, always using special aromatic beans, which he ground with a small electric mill that he brought along. His devotion to coffee beans was the one luxury in his otherwise poor, meager lifestyle.

To this new friend and confidant, Tsukuru opened up about all sorts of personal things. Still, he carefully avoided ever mentioning his four friends in Nagoya.

It wasn't something he could easily talk about. The wounds were still too fresh, too deep.

Yet when he was with this younger friend he could, by and large, forget those four people. No, forget wasn't the right word. The pain of having been so openly rejected was always with him. But now, like the tide, it ebbed and flowed. At times it flowed up to his feet, at other times it withdrew far away, so far away he could barely detect it. Tsukuru could feel, little by little, that he was setting down roots in the new soil of Tokyo, building a new life there, albeit one that was small and lonely.

His days in Nagoya felt more like something in the past, almost foreign. This was, unmistakably, a step forward that Haida, his new friend, had brought to his life.

Haida had an opinion on everything, and was always able to logically argue his perspective. The more time Tsukuru spent with this younger friend, the deeper his respect grew. Yet Tsukuru couldn't understand why Haida was drawn to him, or was even interested in him. But they enjoyed each other's company so much that time spent bantering just flew by.

When he was alone, though, sometimes Tsukuru longed for a girlfriend. He wanted to hold a woman close, caress her body, inhale the scent of her skin. It was an entirely natural desire for a healthy young man. But when he tried to conjure up the image of a woman, and when he thought about embracing one, for some reason what automatically came to mind was an image of s.h.i.+ro and Kuro. They always appeared, in this imaginary world, as an inseparable pair. And that always gave Tsukuru an inexplicably gloomy feeling. Why, even now, does it always have to be these two? he thought. They flatly rejected me. Said they never wanted to see me anymore, or talk to me ever again. Why can't they just make a quiet exit and leave me alone? Tsukuru Tazaki was twenty years old at this point, but had never held a woman in his arms. Or kissed a woman, or held someone's hand, or even gone on a date.

Something must be fundamentally wrong with me, Tsukuru often thought. Something must be blocking the normal flow of emotions, warping my personality. But Tsukuru couldn't tell whether this blockage came about when he was rejected by his four friends, or whether it was something innate, a structural issue unrelated to the trauma he'd gone through.

a a a One Sat.u.r.day night, he and Haida were up talking late as usual when they turned to the subject of death. They talked about the significance of dying, about having to live with the knowledge that you were going to die. They discussed it mainly in theoretical terms. Tsukuru wanted to explain how close to death he had been very recently, and the profound changes that experience had brought about, both physically and mentally. He wanted to tell Haida about the strange things he'd seen. But he knew that if he mentioned it, he'd have to explain the whole sequence of events, from start to finish. So as always, Haida did most of the talking, while Tsukuru sat back and listened.

A little past 11 p.m. their conversation petered out and silence descended on the room. At this point they would normally have called it a night and gotten ready for bed. Both of them tended to wake up early. But Haida remained seated, cross-legged, on the sofa, deep in thought. Then, in a hesitant tone, something unusual for him, he spoke up.

"I have a kind of weird story related to death. Something my father told me. He said it was an actual experience he had when he was in his early twenties. Just the age I am now. I've heard the story so many times I can remember every detail. It's a really strange story-it's hard even now for me to believe it actually happened-but my father isn't the type to lie about something like that. Or the type who would concoct such a story. I'm sure you know this, but when you make up a story the details change each time you retell it. You tend to embellish things, and forget what you said before.... But my father's story, from start to finish, was always exactly the same, each time he told it. So I think it must be something he actually experienced. I'm his son, and I know him really well, so the only thing I can do is believe what he said. But you don't know my father, Tsukuru, so feel free to believe it or not. Just understand that this is what he told me. You can take it as folklore, or a tale of the supernatural, I don't mind. It's a long story, and it's already late, but do you mind if I tell it?"

Sure, Tsukuru said, that would be fine. I'm not sleepy yet.

"When my father was young, he spent a year wandering around j.a.pan," Haida began. "This was at the end of the 1960s, the peak of the counterculture era, when the student movement was upending universities. I don't know all the details, but when he was in college in Tokyo, a lot of stupid things happened, and he got fed up with politics and left the movement. He took a leave of absence from school and wandered around the country. He did odd jobs to earn a living, read books when he had the time, met all sorts of people, and gained a lot of real-life, practical experience. My father says this was the happiest time of his life, when he learned some important lessons. When I was a kid, he used to tell me stories from those days, like an old soldier reminiscing about long-ago battles in some far-off place. After those bohemian days, he went back to college, and returned to academic life. He never went on a long trip ever again. As far as I know, he's spent his time since just shuttling back and forth between home and his office. It's strange, isn't it? No matter how quiet and conformist a person's life seems, there's always a time in the past when they reached an impa.s.se. A time when they went a little crazy. I guess people need that sort of stage in their lives."

That winter Haida's father worked as general handyman at a small hot-springs resort in the mountains of Oita Prefecture in southern j.a.pan. He really liked the place and decided to stay put for a while. As long as he completed his daily tasks, and any other miscellaneous jobs they asked him to undertake, the rest of the time he could do as he pleased. The pay was minimal, but he got a free room plus three meals a day, and he could bathe in the hot springs as often as he liked. When he had time off he lay around in his tiny room and read. The other people there were kind to this taciturn, eccentric Tokyo student, and the meals were simple but tasty, made with fresh, local ingredients. The place was, above all, isolated from the outside world-there was no TV reception, and the newspapers were a day late. The nearest bus stop was three kilometers down the mountain, and the only vehicle that could make it from there and back on the awful road was a battered old jeep owned by the inn. They'd only just recently gotten electricity installed.

In front of the inn was a beautiful mountain stream where one could catch lots of firm, colorful fish. Noisy birds were always skimming over the surface of the stream, their calls piercing, and it wasn't unusual to spot wild boar or monkeys roaming around nearby. The mountains were a treasure trove of edible wild plants. In this isolated environment, young Haida was able to indulge himself in reading and contemplation. He no longer cared what was happening in the real world.

Two months into his stay at the inn, he began to chat with a guest who was staying there. The man appeared to be in his mid-forties. He was tall, with lanky arms and legs, and short hair. He wore gold-framed gla.s.ses, and he had a receding hairline, which made the top of his head as smooth as a freshly laid egg. He had walked up the mountain road alone, a plastic travel bag hanging from one shoulder, and had been staying at the inn for a week. Whenever he went out, he invariably dressed in a leather jacket, jeans, and work boots. On cold days he would add a wool cap and a navy-blue m.u.f.fler. The man's name was Midorikawa. At least that was the name he signed in the guest book at the inn, along with an address in Koganei City in Tokyo. He meticulously paid in cash every morning for the previous night's stay.

(Midorikawa? "Green river." Another person with a color, Tsukuru thought, but said nothing and listened to the rest of the story.) Midorikawa didn't do anything special. He spent time soaking in the open-air bath, took walks in the nearby hills, or lay in the kotatsu-the foot-warmer table-reading the paperbacks he'd brought with him (mostly mindless mysteries). In the evening he'd enjoy two small bottles of hot sake-no more, no less. He was as taciturn as Haida's father, and never spoke unless absolutely necessary, though it didn't seem to bother the people at the inn. They were used to these sort of guests. All of the people who came to this remote, backwoods hot springs were odd, those who stayed long term even more so.

One morning, just before dawn, Haida was soaking in the open-air hot spring next to the river when Midorikawa came to bathe and started talking to him. For some reason Midorikawa seemed to have taken a deep interest in this young odd-job worker. It might have stemmed, in part, from the time he saw Haida on the porch reading a book by Georges Bataille.

I'm a jazz pianist from Tokyo, Midorikawa said. I had some personal disappointments, and the daily grind was wearing me down, so I came alone to this quiet place deep in the mountains, hoping to rest up. Actually, I set out without any plan, and just happened to land here.

I like it, everything's stripped to the bare essentials. I hear you're from Tokyo too?

As he soaked in the hot water in the dim light, Haida explained, as briefly as he could, his own situation.

How he'd taken a leave of absence from college and was traveling around the country. Besides, the campus was blockaded, he added, so there was no reason to stay in Tokyo.

Aren't you interested in what's going on now in Tokyo? Midorikawa asked. It's quite a spectacle. One uproar after another, every day. Like the whole world's turned upside down. Don't you feel bad that you're missing out?

The world isn't that easily turned upside down, Haida replied. It's people who are turned upside down. I don't feel bad about missing that. Midorikawa seemed to appreciate the younger man's curt, direct way of speaking.

I wonder if there's anyplace around here where I might play the piano, Midorikawa asked Haida.

There's a junior high school on the other side of the mountain, Haida replied. After school's out for the day, they might let you play the piano in their music room. Midorikawa was happy to hear this. If it isn't any trouble, he said, could you take me there? Haida relayed this request to the inn's owner, who instructed him to escort Midorikawa to the school. The owner phoned the junior high to set it up. After lunch, the two of them hiked over the mountain. The rain had just stopped falling, so the path was slippery, but Midorikawa, shoulder bag slung diagonally across his shoulders, strode quickly, surefooted, down the path. Though outwardly a city person, he was much more robust than he appeared.

The keyboard of the old upright piano in the music room was uneven, and the tuning was off, but overall it was tolerable. Midorikawa sat down on the creaky chair, stretched out his fingers, ran through all eighty-eight keys, then began trying out a few chords. Fifths, sevenths, ninths, elevenths. He didn't seem too pleased with the sound, but appeared to get a certain physical satisfaction from the mere act of pressing down on the keys. As Haida watched the nimble, resilient way his fingers moved over the keyboard, he decided that Midorikawa must be a pretty well-known pianist.

After trying out the piano, Midorikawa took a small cloth bag from his shoulder bag and gingerly placed it on top of the piano. The bag was made of expensive cloth, the opening tied up with string. Somebody's funeral ashes, maybe? Haida thought. It seemed like placing the bag on top of the piano was his habit, whenever he played. You could tell by the practiced way he went about it.

Midorikawa hesitantly began playing " 'Round Midnight." At first he played each chord carefully, cautiously, like a person sticking his toes into a stream, testing the swiftness of the water and searching for a foothold. After playing the main theme, he started a long improvisation. As time went by, his fingers became more agile, more generous, in their movements, like fish swimming in clear water. The left hand inspired the right, the right hand spurred on the left. Haida's father didn't know much about jazz, but he did happen to be familiar with this Thelonious Monk composition, and Midorikawa's performance went straight to the heart of the piece. His playing was so soulful it made Haida forget about the piano's erratic tuning. As he listened to the music in this junior-high music room deep in the mountains, as the sole audience for the performance, Haida felt all that was unclean inside him washed away. The straightforward beauty of the music overlapped with the fresh, oxygen-rich air and the cool, clear water of the stream, all of them acting in concert. Midorikawa, too, was lost in his playing, as if all the minutiae of reality had disappeared. Haida had never seen someone so thoroughly absorbed in what he was doing. He couldn't take his eyes off Midorikawa's ten fingers, which moved like independent, living creatures.

In fifteen minutes Midorikawa finished playing, took out a thick towel from his shoulder bag, and carefully wiped his perspiring face. He closed his eyes for a while as if he were meditating. "Okay," he finally said, "that's enough. Let's go back." He reached out, picked up the cloth bag on the piano, and gently returned it to his shoulder bag.

"What is that bag?" Haida's father ventured to ask.

"It's a good-luck charm," Midorikawa said simply.

"Like the guardian G.o.d of pianos?"

"No, it's more like my alter ego," Midorikawa replied, a weary smile rising to his lips. "There's a strange story behind it. But it's pretty long, and I'm afraid I'm too worn out to tell it right now."

Haida stopped and glanced at the clock on the wall. Then he looked at Tsukuru. He was, of course, Haida the son, but Haida the father had been his same age in this story, and so the two of them began to overlap in Tsukuru's mind. It was an odd sensation, as if the two distinct temporalities had blended into one. Maybe it wasn't the father who had experienced this, but the son. Maybe Haida was just relating it as if his father had experienced it, when in reality he was the one who had. Tsukuru couldn't shake this illusion.

"It's getting late. If you're sleepy I can finish this later."

No, it's fine, Tsukuru said. I'm not sleepy. In fact, he'd gotten his second wind, and wanted to hear the rest of the story.

"Okay, then I'll continue," Haida said. "I'm not very sleepy either."

That was the only time that Haida heard Midorikawa play the piano. Once he had played " 'Round Midnight" in the junior-high music room, Midorikawa seemed to lose all interest in playing again. "Don't you want to play anymore?" Haida asked, trying to draw him out, but a silent shake of Midorikawa's head was his only response. Haida gave up asking. Midorikawa no longer planned to play the piano. Haida wished he could hear him perform just one more time.

Midorikawa had a genuine talent. Of that there was no doubt. His playing had the power to physically and viscerally move the listener, to transport you to another world. Not the sort of thing one could easily create.

But what did this unusual talent mean for Midorikawa himself? Haida couldn't quite grasp it. If you possessed a talent like Midorikawa did, was it amazingly blissful, or was it a burden? A blessing or a curse? Or something that simultaneously contained all of these components? Either way, Midorikawa didn't seem like a very happy person. His expression switched between gloom and apathy. A slight smile would occasionally rise to his lips, but it was always subdued and a little ironic.

One day as Haida was chopping and carrying firewood in the backyard, Midorikawa came over to him.

"Do you drink?" he asked.

"A little bit," Haida replied.

"A little bit's fine," Midorikawa said. "Can you have some drinks with me tonight? I'm tired of drinking alone."

"I have some ch.o.r.es to do in the evening, but I'll be free at seven thirty."

"Okay. Come to my room then."

When young Haida arrived at Midorikawa's room, dinner was already laid out for both of them, along with bottles of hot sake. They sat across from each other, eating and drinking. Midorikawa ate less than half of his dinner, mainly drinking the sake, serving himself. He didn't say anything about his own life, instead asking Haida about where he had grown up (in Akita) and about his college life in Tokyo. When he learned that Haida was studying philosophy, he asked a few technical questions. About Hegel's worldview. About Plato's writings. It became clear that he had systematically read those kinds of books. Mysteries weren't the only books he read.

"I see. So you believe in logic, do you?" Midorikawa said.

"I do. I believe in logic, and I rely on it. That's what philosophy's all about, after all," Haida replied.

"So you don't much like anything that's at odds with logic?"

"Apart from whether I like it or not, I don't reject thinking about things that aren't logical. It's not like I have some deep faith in logic. I think it's important to find the point of intersection between what is logical and what is not."

"Do you believe in the devil?"

"The devil? You mean the guy with horns?"

"That's right. Whether he actually has horns or not, I don't know."

"If you mean the devil as a metaphor for evil, then of course I believe in him."

"How about if this metaphor for evil takes on actual form?"

"I couldn't say, unless I actually saw him," Haida said.