murakami, haruki - Norwegian wood

At 1.30 she left the hospital to do some shopping. Both men were
sound asleep. Gentle afternoon sunlight flooded the room, and I felt as
though I might drift off at any moment perching on my stool. Yellow
and white chrysanthemums in a vase on the table by the window
reminded people it was autumn. In the air floated the sweet smell of
boiled fish left over from lunch. The nurses continued to clip-clop up
and down the hall, talking to each other in clear, penetrating voices.
They would peep into the room now and then and flash me a smile
when they saw that both patients were sleeping. I wished I had
something to read, but there were no books or magazines or
newspapers in the room, just a calendar on the wall.
I thought about Naoko. I thought about her naked, wearing only her
hairslide. I thought about the curve of her waist and the dark shadow
of her pubic hair. Why had she shown herself to me like that? Had she
been sleep-walking? Or was it just a fantasy of mine? As time went by
and that little world receded into the distance, I grew increasingly
uncertain whether the events of that night had actually happened. If I
told myself they were real, I believed they were, and if I told myself
they were a fantasy, they seemed like a fantasy. They were too clear
and detailed to have been a fantasy, and too whole and beautiful to
have been real: Naoko's body and the moonlight.
Midori's father woke suddenly and started coughing, which put a stop
to my daydreaming. I helped him spit his phlegm into a tissue, and
wiped the sweat from his brow with a towel.
"Would you like some water?" I asked, to which he gave a fourmillimetre
nod. I held the small glass water bottle so that he could sip
a little bit at a time, dry lips trembling, throat twitching. He drank
every bit of the lukewarm water in the bottle.
"Would you like some more?" I asked. He seemed to be trying to
speak, so I brought my ear closer.