murakami, haruki - Norwegian wood

"It's true. Don't you think I'm terrible? Cold-hearted?" "I'm sure you
have your reasons."
"My reasons. Hmm. Things were pretty complicated in this house. But
I always thought, I mean, they're my mother and father, of course I'd
be sad if they died or I never saw them again. But it didn't happen that
way. I didn't feel anything. Not sad, not lonely. I hardly even think of
them. Sometimes I'll have dreams, though. Sometimes my mother will
be glaring at me out of the darkness and she'll accuse me of being
happy she died. But I'm not happy she died. I'm just not very sad. And
to tell the truth, I never shed a single tear. I cried all night when my
cat died, though, when I was little."
Why so much smoke? I wondered. I couldn't see flames, and the
burning area didn't seem to be spreading. There was just this column
of smoke winding up into the sky. What could have kept burning so
long?
"But I'm not the only one to blame," Midori continued. "It's true I have
a cold streak. I recognize that. But if they - my father and mother - had
loved me a little more, I would have been able to feel more - to feel
real sadness, for example."
"Do you think you weren't loved enough?"
She tilted her head and looked at me. Then she gave a sharp, little nod.
"Somewhere between "not enough' and "not at all'. I was always
hungry for love. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get
my fill of it - to be fed so much love I couldn't take any more. Just
once. But they never gave that to me. Never, not once. If I tried to
cuddle up and beg for something, they'd just shove me away and yell
at me. "No! That costs too much!' It's all I ever heard. So I made up
my mind I was going to find someone who would love me unconditionally
365 days a year. I was still in primary school at the time, but
I made up my mind once and for all."
"Wow," I said. "And did your search pay off?"
"That's the hard part," said Midori. She watched the rising smoke for a
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