murakami, haruki - Norwegian wood

amount of cash. So don't worry. I wasn't about to leave the sanatorium
broke."
Reiko washed the rice and put it on to boil while I arranged everything
for cooking on the veranda. When everything was ready, Reiko took
out her guitar and appeared to be testing it with a slow Bach fugue. On
the hard parts she would purposely slow down or speed up or make it
detached or sentimental, listening with obvious pleasure to the variety
of sounds she could draw from the instrument. When she played the
guitar, Reiko looked like a 17-year-old girl enjoying the sight of a new
dress. Her eyes sparkled, and she pouted with just the hint of a smile.
When she had finished the piece, she leaned back against a pillar and
looked up at the sky as though deep in thought.
"Do you mind if I talk to you?" I asked.
"Not at all," she said. "I was just thinking how hungry I am."
"Aren't you planning to see your husband or your daughter while
you're here? They must be in Tokyo somewhere."
"Close enough. Yokohama. But no, I don't plan to see them. I'm sure I
told you before: it's better for them if they don't have anything more to
do with me. They've started a new life. And I'd just feel terrible if I
saw them. No, the best thing is to keep away."
She crumpled up her empty box of Seven Stars cigarettes and took a
new one from her suitcase. She cut the seal and put a cigarette in her
mouth, but she didn't light up.
"I'm finished as a human being," she said. "All you're looking at is the
lingering memory of what I used to be. The most important part of
me, what used to be inside, died years ago, and I'm just functioning by
auto-memory."
"But I like you now, Reiko, the way you are, lingering memory or
whatever. And what I have to say about it may not make any
difference, but I'm really glad that you're wearing Naoko's clothes."
Reiko smiled and lit her cigarette with a lighter. "For such a young
man, you know how to make a woman happy."
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