murakami, haruki - Norwegian wood

of loving anybody. There's always some part of him somewhere that's
wide awake and detached. He just has that hunger that won't go away.
Believe me, I know what I'm talking about."
I flagged down a taxi and let Hatsumi in first. "Anyway," I said to
Nagasawa, "I'll make sure she gets home."
"Sorry to put you through this," said Nagasawa, but I could see that he
was already thinking about something else.
Once inside the cab, I asked Hatsumi, "Where do you want to go?
Back to Ebisu?" Her flat was in Ebisu.
She shook her head.
"OK. How about a drink somewhere?"
"Yes," she said with a nod.
"Shibuya," I told the driver.
Folding her arms and closing her eyes, Hatsumi sank back into the
corner of the seat. Her small gold earrings caught the light as the taxi
swayed. Her midnight-blue dress seemed to have been made to match
the darkness of the interior. Every now and then her lightly made-up,
beautifully formed lips would quiver slightly as though she had caught
herself on the verge of talking to herself. Watching her, I could see
why Nagasawa had chosen her as his special companion. There were
any number of women more beautiful than Hatsumi, and Nagasawa
could have made any of them his. But Hatsumi had some quality that
could send a tremor through your heart. It was nothing forceful. The
power she exerted was a subtle thing, but it called forth deep
resonances. I watched her all the way to Shibuya, and wondered,
without ever finding an answer, what this emotional reverberation
could be that I was feeling.
It finally hit me some dozen or so years later. I had gone to Santa Fe
to interview a painter and was sitting in a local pizza parlour, drinking
beer and eating pizza and watching a miraculously beautiful sunset.
Everything was soaked in brilliant red - my hand, the plate, the table,
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