murakami, haruki - Norwegian wood

still taste my morning coffee. By the time the number of curves began
to decrease to the point where I felt some relief, the bus plunged into a
chilling cedar forest. The trees might have been old growth the way
they towered over the road, blocking out the sun and covering
everything in gloomy shadows. The breeze flowing into the bus's open
windows turned suddenly cold, its dampness sharp against the skin.
The valley road hugged the river bank, continuing so long through the
trees it began to seem as if the whole world had been buried for ever
in cedar forest - at which point the forest ended, and we came to an
open basin surrounded by mountain peaks. Broad, green farmland
spread out in all directions, and the river by the road looked bright and
clear. A single thread of white smoke rose in the distance. Some
houses had laundry drying in the sun, and dogs were howling. Each
farmhouse had firewood out front piled up to the eaves, usually with a
cat resting somewhere on the pile. The road was lined with such
houses for a time, but I saw not a single person.
The scenery repeated this pattern any number of times. The bus would
enter cedar forest, come out to a village, then go back into forest. It
would stop at a village to let people off, but no one ever got on. Forty
minutes after leaving the city, the bus reached a mountain pass with a
wide-open view. The driver stopped the bus and announced that we
would be waiting there for five or six minutes: people could step down
from the bus if they wished. There were only four passengers left now,
including me. We all got out and stretched or smoked and looked
down at the panorama of Kyoto far below. The driver went off to one
side for a pee. A suntanned man in his early fifties who had boarded
the bus with a big, rope-tied cardboard carton asked me if I was going
out to hike in the mountains. I said yes to keep things simple.
Eventually another bus came climbing up from the other side of the
pass and stopped next to ours. The driver got out, had a short talk with
our driver, and the two men climbed back into their buses. The four of
us returned to our seats, and the buses pulled out in opposite
110