murakami, haruki - Norwegian wood

the point. I can't forgive myself. You tell me there's nothing I can do
about a natural change in feelings, but my relationship with Naoko
was not that simple. If you stop and think about it, she and I were
bound together at the border between life and death. It was like that
for us from the start."
"If you feel some kind of pain with regard to Naoko's death, I would
advise you to keep on feeling that pain for the rest of your life. And if
there's something you can learn from it, you should do that, too. But
quite aside from that, you should be happy with Midori. Your pain has
nothing to do with your relationship with her. If you hurt her any more
than you already have, the wound could be too deep to fix. So, hard as
it may be, you have to be strong. You have to grow up more, be more
of an adult. I left the sanatorium and came all the way up here to
Tokyo to tell you that - all the way on that coffin of a train."
"I understand what you're telling me," I said to Reiko, "but I'm still not
prepared to follow through on it. I mean, that was such a sad little
funeral! No one should have to die like that."
Reiko stretched out her hand and stroked my head. "We all have to die
like that sometime. I will, and so will you."
We took the five-minute walk along the river bank to the local public
baths and came home feeling more refreshed. I opened the bottle of
wine and we sat on the veranda drinking it.
"Hey, Watanabe, could you bring out another glass?"
"Sure," I said. "But what for?"
"We're going to have our own funeral for Naoko, just the two of us.
One that's not so sad."
When I handed her the glass, Reiko filled it to the brim and set it on
the stone lantern in the garden. Then she sat on the veranda, leaning
against a pillar, guitar in her arms, and smoked a cigarette.
"And now could you bring out a box of matches? Make it the biggest
344