murakami, haruki - Norwegian wood

unning away."
"Even if this place burns?"
"You heard me. I don't mind dying."
I looked her in the eye, and she looked straight at me. I couldn't tell if
she was serious or joking. We stayed like that for a while, and soon I
stopped worrying.
"OK," I said. "I get it. I'll stay with you."
"You'll die with me?" Midori asked with shining eyes.
"No way," I said. "I'll run if it gets dangerous. If you want to die, you
can do it alone."
"Cold-hearted bastard!"
"I'm not going to die with you just because you made lunch for me. Of
course, if it had been dinner. .."
"Oh, well ... Anyway, let's stay here and watch for a while. We can
sing songs. And if something bad happens, we can think about it
then."
"Sing songs?"
Midori brought two floor pillows, four cans of beer and a guitar from
downstairs. We drank and watched the black smoke rising. She
strummed and sang. I asked her if she didn't think this might anger the
neighbours. Drinking beer and singing while you watched a local fire
from the laundry deck didn't seem like the most admirable behaviour I
could think of.
"Forget it," she said. "We never worry about what the neighbours
might think."
She sang some of the folk songs she had played with her group. I
would have been hard pressed to say she was good, but she did seem
to enjoy her own music. She went through all the old standards -
"Lemon Tree", "Puff (The Magic Dragon)", "Five Hundred Miles",
"Where Have All the Flowers Gone?", "Michael, Row the Boat
Ashore". At first she tried to get me to sing bass harmony, but I was so
bad she gave up and sang alone to her heart's content. I worked on my
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