murakami, haruki - Norwegian wood

Shinjuku I bought a thin sandwich at a stand in the station to make up
for the breakfast I hadn't eaten. The coffee I had with it tasted like
boiled printer's ink. The Sunday morning trains were filled with
couples and families on outings. A group of boys with baseball bats
and matching uniforms scampered around inside the carriage. Several
of the girls on the train had short skirts on, but none as short as
Midori's. Midori would pull on hers every now and then as it rode up.
Some of the men stared at her thighs, which made me feel uneasy, but
she didn't seem to mind.
"Know what I'd like to do right now?" she whispered when we had
been travelling a while.
"No idea," I said. "But please, don't talk about that stuff here.
Somebody'll hear you."
"Too bad. This one's kind of wild," Midori said with obvious
disappointment.
'Anyway, why are we going to Ochanomizu?"
"Just come along, you'll see."
With all the cram schools around Ochanomizu Station, on Sunday the
area was full of school kids on their way to classes or exam practice.
Midori barged through the crowds clutching the strap of her shoulder
bag with one hand and my hand with the other.
Without warning, she asked me, "Hey, Watanabe, can you explain the
difference between the English present subjunctive and past
subjunctive?"
"I think I can," I said.
"Let me ask you, then, what possible use is stuff like that for everyday
life?"
"None at all," I said. "It may not serve any concrete purpose, but it
does give you some kind of training to help you grasp things in
general more systematically."
Midori gave that a moment's serious thought. "You're amazing," she
said. "That never occurred to me before. I always thought of things
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