Kafka on the Shore (21 page)

But that calm won't last long, you know. It's like beasts that never tire, tracking you everywhere you go. They come out at you deep in the forest. They're tough, relentless, merciless, untiring, and they never give up. You might control yourself now, and not masturbate, but they'll get you in the end, as a wet dream. You might dream about raping your sister, your mother. It's not something you can control. It's a power beyond you—and all you can do is accept it.

You're afraid of imagination. And even more afraid of dreams. Afraid of the responsibility that begins in dreams. But you have to sleep, and dreams are a part of sleep. When you're awake you can suppress imagination. But you can't suppress dreams.

I lie down in bed and listen to Prince on my headphones, concentrating on this strangely unceasing music. The batteries run out in the middle of "Little Red Corvette," the music disappearing like it's been swallowed up by quicksand. I yank off my headphones and listen. Silence, I discover, is something you can actually hear.

The black dog stood up and led Nakata out of the study and down the dark corridor to the kitchen, which had only a couple of windows and was dark. Though it was neat and clean, it had an inert feel, like a science lab in school. The dog stopped in front of the doors of a large refrigerator, turned around, and drilled Nakata with a cold look Open the left door, he said in a low voice. Nakata knew it wasn't the dog talking but Johnnie Walker, speaking to Nakata through him. Looking at Nakata through the dog's eyes.

Nakata did as he was told. The avocado green refrigerator was taller than he was, and when he opened the left door the thermostat came on with a thump, the motor groaning to life. White vapor, like fog, wafted out. This side of the refrigerator was a freezer, at a very low setting.

Inside was a row of about twenty round, fruit-like objects, neatly arranged.

Nothing else. Nakata bent over and looked at them fixedly. When the vapor cleared he saw it wasn't fruit at all but the severed heads of cats. Cut-off heads of all colors and sizes, arranged on three shelves like oranges at a fruit stand. The cats' faces were frozen, facing forward. Nakata gulped.

Take a good look, the dog commanded. Check with your own eyes whether Goma's in there or not.

Nakata did this, examining the cats' heads one by one. He didn't feel afraid—his mind focused on finding the missing little cat. Nakata carefully checked each head, confirming that Goma's wasn't among them. No doubt about it—not a single tortoiseshell.

The faces of the bodyless cats had a strangely vacant expression, not one of them appearing to have suffered. That, at least, brought Nakata a sigh of relief. A few of the cats had their eyes closed, but most were staring out blankly at a point in space.

"I don't see Goma here," Nakata said in a flat tone. He cleared his throat and shut the refrigerator door.

Are you absolutely sure?

"Yes, I'm sure."

The dog stood up and led Nakata back to the study. Johnnie Walker was still seated in the swivel chair, waiting for him. As Nakata entered, he touched the brim of his silk hat in greeting and smiled pleasantly. Then he clapped his hands loudly, twice, and the dog left the room.

"I'm the one who cut off all those cats' heads," he said. He lifted his glass of whisky and took a drink. "I'm collecting them."

"So you're the one who's been catching cats in that vacant lot and killing them."

"That's right. The infamous cat-killer Johnnie Walker, at your service."

"Nakata doesn't understand this so well, so do you mind if I ask a question?"

"Be my guest," Johnnie Walker said, lifting his glass. "Feel free to ask anything. To save time, though, if you don't mind, I can guess that the first thing you want to know is why I have to kill all these cats. Why I'm collecting their heads. Am I right?"

"Yes, that's right. That's what Nakata wants to know."

Johnnie Walker set his glass down on the desk and looked straight at Nakata.

"This is an important secret I wouldn't tell just anybody. For you, Mr. Nakata, I'll make an exception, but I don't want you telling other people. Not that they'd believe you even if you did." He chuckled.

"Listen—I'm not killing cats just for the fun of it. I'm not so disturbed I find it amusing," he went on. "I'm not just some dilettante with time on his hands. It takes a lot of time and effort to gather and kill this many cats. I'm killing them to collect their souls, which I use to create a special kind of flute. And when I blow that flute it'll let me collect even larger souls. Then I collect larger souls and make an even bigger flute.

Perhaps in the end I'll be able to make a flute so large it'll rival the universe. But first come the cats. Gathering their souls is the starting point of the whole project. There's an essential order you have to follow in everything. It's a way of showing respect, following everything in the correct order. It's what you need to do when you're dealing with other souls. It's not pineapples and melons I'm working with here, agreed?"

"Yes," Nakata replied. But actually he had no idea. A flute? Was he talking about a flute you held sideways? Or maybe a recorder? What sort of sound would it make?

And what did he mean by cats' souls? All of this exceeded his limited powers of comprehension. But Nakata did understand one thing: he had to locate Goma and get her out of here.

"What you want to do is take Goma home," Johnnie Walker said, as though reading Nakata's mind.

"That's right. Nakata wants to take Goma back to her home."

"That's your mission," Johnnie Walker said. "We all follow our mission in life. That's natural. Now I imagine you've never heard a flute made out of cats' souls, have you?"

"No, I haven't."

"Of course you haven't. You can't hear it with your ears."

"It's a flute you can't hear?"

"Correct. I can hear it, of course," Johnnie Walker said. "If I don't hear it none of this would work. Ordinary people, though, can't detect it. Even if they do hear it, they don't realize it. They may have heard it in the past but don't remember. A very strange flute, for sure. But maybe—just maybe—you might be able to hear it, Mr. Nakata. If I had a flute on me right now we could try it, but I'm afraid I don't." Then, as if recalling something, he pointed one finger straight up. "Actually, I was about to cut off the heads of the cats I've rounded up. Harvest time. I've got all the cats that can be caught in that vacant lot, and it's time to move on. The cat you're looking for, Goma, is among them.

Of course if I cut her head off, you wouldn't be able to take her home to the Koizumis, now would you?"

"That's right," Nakata said. He couldn't take back Goma's cut-off head to the Koizumis. If those two little girls saw that they might give up eating forever.

"I want to cut off Goma's head, but you don't want that to happen. Our two missions, our two interests, conflict. That happens a lot in the world. So I'll tell you what—we'll negotiate. What I mean is, if you do something for me, I'll return the favor and give you Goma safe and sound."

Nakata lifted a hand above his head and vigorously rubbed his salt-and-pepper hair, his habitual pose when puzzling over something. "Is it something I can do?"

"I thought we'd already settled that," Johnnie Walker said with a wry smile.

"Yes, we did," Nakata said, remembering. "That's correct. We did settle that already. Pardon me."

"We don't have a lot of time, so let me jump to the conclusion, if you don't mind. What you can do for me is kill me. Take my life, in other words."

Hand resting on the top of his head, Nakata stared at Johnnie Walker for a long time. "You want Nakata to kill you?"

"That's right," Johnnie Walker said. "Truthfully, I'm sick and tired of this life. I've lived a long, long time. I don't even remember how old I am. And I don't feel like living any longer. I'm sick and tired of killing cats, but as long as I live that's what I have to do—murder one cat after another and harvest their souls. Following things in the correct order, step one to step ten, then back to one again. An endless repetition. And I've had it!

Nobody respects what I'm doing, it doesn't make anybody happy. But the whole thing's all fixed already. I can't just suddenly say I quit and stop what I'm doing. And taking my own life isn't an option. That's already been decided too. There're all sorts of rules involved. If I want to die, I have to get somebody else to kill me. That's where you come in. I want you to fear me, to hate me with a passion—and then terminate me. First you fear me. Then you hate me. And finally you kill me."

"But why—why ask me? Nakata's never ever killed anyone before. It's not the kind of thing I'm suited for."

"I know. You've never killed anyone, and don't want to. But listen to me—there are times in life when those kinds of excuses don't cut it anymore. Situations when nobody cares whether you're suited for the task at hand or not. I need you to understand that. For instance, it happens in war. Do you know what war is?"

"Yes, I do. There was a big war going on when Nakata was born. I heard about it."

"When a war starts people are forced to become soldiers. They carry guns and go to the front lines and have to kill soldiers on the other side. As many as they possibly can. Nobody cares whether you like killing other people or not. It's just something you have to do. Otherwise you're the one who gets killed." Johnnie Walker pointed his index finger at Nakata's chest. "Bang!" he said. "Human history in a nutshell."

"Is the Governor going to make Nakata a soldier and order me to kill people?"

"Yes, that's what the Governor will do. Tell you to kill somebody."

Nakata thought about this but couldn't quite figure it out. Why in the world would the Governor do that?

"You've got to look at it this way: this is war. You're a soldier, and you have to make a decision. Either I kill the cats or you kill me. One or the other. You need to make a choice right here and now. This might seem an outrageous choice, but consider this: most choices we make in life are equally outrageous." Johnnie Walker lightly touched his silk hat, as if making sure it was still in place.

"The one saving grace for you here—if indeed you need such a thing—is the fact that I want to die. I've asked you to kill me, so you don't need to suffer any pangs of conscience. You're doing exactly what I'm hoping for. It's not like you're killing somebody who doesn't want to die. In fact, you're doing a good deed."

Nakata wiped away the beads of sweat that had formed on his hairline. "But there's no way Nakata could do something like that. Even if you tell me to kill you, I don't know how to go about it."

"I hear you," Johnnie Walker said admiringly. "You've never killed anybody before, so you don't know how to go about it. All right then, let me explain. The knack to killing someone, Mr. Nakata, is not to hesitate. Focus your prejudice and execute it swiftly—that's the ticket when it comes to killing. I have an excellent example right here. It's not a person, but it might help you get the picture."

Johnnie Walker stood up and picked up a large leather case from the shadows below the desk. He placed it on the chair where he'd been sitting and opened it, whistling a cheery tune. As if performing a magic trick, he extracted a cat from out of the case. Nakata had never seen this cat before, a gray-striped male that had just reached adulthood. The cat was limp, but its eyes were open. It looked conscious, though only barely. Still whistling his merry tune—"Heigh-Ho" from Disney's Snow White, the one the Seven Dwarves sang—Johnnie Walker held up the cat like he was showing off a fish he'd just caught.

"I've got five cats inside this case, all from that vacant lot. A fresh batch. Just picked, fresh from the grove, so to speak. I've given them all injections to paralyze them. It's not an anesthetic—they're not asleep and they can feel pain, but they can't move their arms or legs. Or even their heads. I do this to keep them from thrashing about. What I'm going to do is slice open their chests with a knife, extract their still-beating hearts, and cut their heads off. Right in front of your eyes. There'll be lots of blood, and unimaginable pain. Imagine how much it'd hurt if somebody cut open your chest and pulled out your heart! Same thing holds true for cats—it's got to hurt. I feel sorry for the poor little things. I'm not some cold, cruel sadist, but there's nothing I can do about it. There has to be pain. That's the rule. Rules everywhere you look here." He winked at Nakata. "A job's a job. Got to accomplish your mission. I'm going to dispose of one cat after another, and finish off Goma last. So you still have some time to decide what you should do. Remember, now—it's either I kill the cats or you kill me. There's no other choice."

Johnnie Walker placed the limp cat on top of the desk, opened a drawer, and with both hands extracted a large black package. He carefully unwrapped it and spread out the contents on the desk. These included a small electric saw, scalpels of various sizes, and a very large knife, all of them gleaming like they'd just been sharpened. Johnnie Walker lovingly checked each and every blade as he lined them up on the desk. Next he got several metal trays from another drawer and arranged them, too, on the desk. Then he took a large black plastic bag from a drawer. All the while whistling "Heigh-Ho."

"As I mentioned, Mr. Nakata, in everything there's a proper order," Johnnie Walker said. "You can't look too far ahead. Do that and you'll lose sight of what you're doing and stumble. I'm not saying you should focus solely on details right in front of you, mind you. You've got to look ahead a bit or else you'll bump into something. You've got to follow the proper order and at the same time keep an eye out for what's ahead. That's critical, no matter what you're doing."

Johnnie Walker narrowed his eyes and gently stroked the cat's head. He ran the tip of his index finger up and down the cat's belly, then picked up a scalpel in his right hand and without any warning made an incision straight down the stomach. It all happened in an instant. The belly split wide open and reddish guts spilled out. The cat tried to scream but barely made any sound at all. His tongue, after all, was numb, and he could hardly open his mouth. But his eyes were contorted in terrible pain. And Nakata could well imagine how awful this pain was. A moment later blood gushed out, wetting Johnnie Walker's hands and running down his vest. But he didn't pay attention. Still to the accompaniment of "Heigh-Ho," he thrust his hand inside the cat's body and with a small scalpel skillfully cut loose the tiny heart.