murakami, haruki - Norwegian wood

somebody in the dorm had taken down Storm Trooper's Amsterdam
canal scene and put up a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge instead. He
told me he wanted to know if Storm Trooper could masturbate to the
Golden Gate Bridge. "He loved it," I reported later, which prompted
someone else to put up a picture of an iceberg. Each time the photo
changed in his absence, Storm Trooper became upset.
"Who-who-who the hell is doing this?" he asked.
"I wonder," I said. "But what's the difference? They're all nice
pictures. You should be grateful."
"Yeah, I s'pose so, but it's weird."
My stories of Storm Trooper always made Naoko laugh. Not many
things succeeded in doing that, so I talked about him often, though I
was not exactly proud of myself for using him this way. He just
happened to be the youngest son in a not-too-wealthy family who had
grown up a little too serious for his own good. Making maps was the
one small dream of his one small life. Who had the right to make fun
of him for that?
By then, however, Storm-Trooper jokes had become an indispensable
source of dormitory talk, and there was no way for me to undo what I
had done. Besides, the sight of Naoko's smiling face had become my
own special source of pleasure. I went on supplying everyone with
new stories.
Naoko asked me one time - just once - if I had a girl I liked. I told her
about the one I had left behind in Kobe. "She was nice," I said, "I
enjoyed sleeping with her, and I miss her every now and then, but
finally, she didn't move me. I don't know, sometimes I think I've got
this hard kernel in my heart, and nothing much can get inside it. I
doubt if I can really love anybody."
"Have you ever been in love?" Naoko asked.
"Never," I said.
She didn't ask me more than that.
When autumn ended and cold winds began tearing through the city,
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