murakami, haruki - Norwegian wood

Reiko wrote to me several times after Naoko's death. It wasn't my
fault, she said. It was nobody's fault, any more than you could blame
someone for the rain. But I never answered her. What could I have
said? What good would it have done? Naoko no longer existed in this
world; she had become a handful of ashes.
They held a quiet funeral for Naoko in Kobe at the end of August, and
when it was over, I went back to Tokyo. I told my landlord I would be
away for a while and my boss at the Italian restaurant that I wouldn't
be coming in to work. To Midori I wrote a short note: I couldn't say
anything just yet, but I hoped she would wait for me a little longer. I
spent the next three days in cinemas, and after I had seen every new
film in Tokyo, I packed my rucksack, took out all my savings from the
bank, went to Shinjuku Station, and got the first express train I could
find going out of town.
Where I went on my travels, it's impossible for me to recall. I
remember the sights and sounds and smells clearly enough, but the
names of the towns are gone, as well as any sense of the order in
which I travelled from place to place. I would move from town to
town by train or bus or hitching a lift in a lorry, spreading out my
sleeping bag in empty car parks or stations or parks or on river banks
or the seashore. I once persuaded them to let me sleep in the corner of
a local police station, and another time slept alongside a graveyard. I
didn't care where I slept, provided I was out of people's way and could
stay in my sleeping bag as long as I felt like it. Exhausted from
walking, I would crawl into it, gulp down some cheap whisky, and fall
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