murakami, haruki - Norwegian wood

The entrance was on the second floor. I climbed the stairs and went in
through a big glass door to find a young woman in a red dress at the
reception desk. I gave her my name and said I had been instructed to
ask for Doctor Ishida. She smiled and gestured towards a brown sofa,
suggesting in low tones that I wait there for the doctor to come. Then
she dialled a number. I lowered my rucksack from my back, sank
down into the deep cushions of the sofa, and surveyed the place. It
was a clean, pleasant lobby, with ornamental potted plants, tasteful
abstract paintings, and a polished floor. As I waited, I kept my eyes on
the floor's reflection of my shoes.
At one point the receptionist assured me, "The doctor will be here
soon." I nodded. What an incredibly quiet place! There were no
sounds of any kind. It was as though everyone were taking a siesta.
People, animals, insects, plants must all be sound asleep, I thought, it
was such a quiet afternoon.
Before long, though, I heard the soft padding of rubber soles, and a
mature, bristly-haired woman appeared. She swept across the lobby,
sat down next to me, crossed her legs and took my hand. Instead of
just shaking it, she turned my hand over, examining it front and back.
"You haven't played a musical instrument, at least not for some years
now, have you?" were the first words out of her mouth.
"No," I said, taken aback. "You're right."
"I can tell from your hands," she said with a smile.
There was something almost mysterious about this woman. Her face
had lots of wrinkles. These were the first thing to catch your eye, but
they didn't make her look old. Instead, they emphasized a certain
youthfulness in her that transcended age. The wrinkles belonged
where they were, as if they had been part of her face since birth. When
she smiled, the wrinkles smiled with her; when she frowned, the
wrinkles frowned, too. And when she was neither smiling nor frowning,
the wrinkles lay scattered over her face in a strangely warm,
ironic way. Here was a woman in her late thirties who seemed not
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