Kafka on the Shore (30 page)

Oshima reaches out to touch my shoulder. I can feel the warmth of his hand. "For the sake of argument, let's say all your choices and all your effort are destined to be a waste. You're still very much yourself and nobody else. And you're forging ahead, as yourself. So relax."

I raise my head and look at him. He sounds so convincing. "Why do you think that?"

"Because there's irony involved."

"Irony?"

Oshima gazes deep into my eyes. "Listen, Kafka. What you're experiencing now is the motif of many Greek tragedies. Man doesn't choose fate. Fate chooses man. That's the basic worldview of Greek drama. And the sense of tragedy—according to Aristotle—comes, ironically enough, not from the protagonist's weak points but from his good qualities. Do you know what I'm getting at? People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues. Sophocles' Oedipus Rex being a great example.

Oedipus is drawn into tragedy not because of laziness or stupidity, but because of his courage and honesty. So an inevitable irony results."

"But it's a hopeless situation."

"That depends," Oshima says. "Sometimes it is. But irony deepens a person, helps them mature. It's the entrance to salvation on a higher plane, to a place where you can find a more universal kind of hope. That's why people enjoy reading Greek tragedies even now, why they're considered prototypical classics. I'm repeating myself, but everything in life is metaphor. People don't usually kill their father and sleep with their mother, right? In other words, we accept irony through a device called metaphor. And through that we grow and become deeper human beings."

I don't say anything. I'm too involved in thinking about my own situation.

"How many people know you're in Takamatsu?" Oshima asks.

I shake my head. "Coming here was my own idea, so I don't think anybody else knows."

"Then you'd better lay low in the library for a while. Don't go out to work at the reception area. I don't think the police will be able to track you down, but if things get sticky you can always hide out at the cabin."

I look at Oshima. "If I hadn't met you, I don't think I would've made it. There's nobody else who can help me."

Oshima smiles. He takes his hand away from my shoulder and stares at his hand.

"That's not true. If you hadn't met me, I'm sure you would've found another path to take.

I don't know why, but I'm certain of it. I just get that feeling about you." He stands up and brings over another newspaper from the desk. "By the way, this article was in the paper the day before the other one. I remember it because it was so unusual. Maybe it's just coincidence, but it took place near your house."

FISH RAIN FROM THE SKY!

2,000 Sardines and Mackerel in Nakano Ward

Shopping District 

At around 6 p.m. on the evening of the 29th, residents of the *-chome district of Nakano Ward were startled when some 2,000 sardines and mackerel rained down from the sky. Two housewives shopping in the neighborhood market received slight facial injuries when struck by the falling fish, but no other injuries were reported. At the time of the incident it was sunny, with no clouds or wind. Many of the fish were still alive and jumped about on the pavement....

I finish reading the article and pass the paper back to Oshima. The reporter speculated about several possible causes of the incident, though none of them are very convincing. The police are investigating the possibility it involved theft and someone playing a kind of practical joke. The Weather Service reported that there weren't any atmospheric conditions present that might have led to fish raining from the sky. And from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries spokesman, still no comment.

"Do you have any idea why this happened?" Oshima asks me.

I shake my head. I don't have a clue.

"The day after your father was murdered, close to where it happened, two thousand sardines and mackerel fall from the sky. Just coincidence?"

"I suppose so."

"The newspaper also says that at the Fujigawa rest area on the Tomei Highway, late at night on the very same day, a mess of leeches fell from the sky in one small spot.

Several fender benders resulted, they say. Apparently the leeches were quite large. No one can explain why leeches would rain from the sky. It was a clear night, not a cloud in the sky. No idea why this happened, either?"

Again I shake my head.

Oshima folds up the newspaper and says, "Which leaves us with the fact that strange, inexplicable events are happening one after the other. Maybe it's just a series of coincidences, but it still bothers me. There's something about it I can't shake."

"Maybe it's a metaphor?" I venture.

"Maybe... But sardines and mackerel and leeches raining down from the sky?

What kind of metaphor is that?"

In the silence I try putting into words something I haven't been able to say for a long time. "You know something? A few years back my father had a prophecy about me."

"A prophecy?"

"I've never told anybody this before. I figured nobody'd believe me."

Oshima doesn't say a word. His silence, though, encourages me.

"More like a curse than a prophecy, I guess. My father told me this over and over.

Like he was chiseling each word into my brain." I take a deep breath and check once more what it is I have to say. Not that I really need to check it—it's always there, banging about in my head, whether I examine it or not. But I have to weigh the words one more time. And this is what I say: "Someday you will murder your father and be with your mother, he said."

Once I've spoken this, put this thought into concrete words, a hollow feeling grabs hold of me. And inside that hollow, my heart pounds out a vacant, metallic rhythm.

Expression unchanged, Oshima gazes at me for a long time.

"So he said that someday you would kill your father with your own hands, that you would sleep with your mother."

I nod a few more times.

"The same prophecy made about Oedipus. Though of course you knew that."

I nod. "But that's not all. There's an extra ingredient he threw into the mix. I have a sister six years older than me, and my father said I would sleep with her, too."

"Your father actually said this to you?"

"Yeah. I was still in elementary school then, and didn't know what he meant by 'be with.' It was only a few years later that I caught on."

Oshima doesn't say anything.

"My father told me there was nothing I could do to escape this fate. That prophecy is like a timing device buried inside my genes, and nothing can ever change it. I will kill my father and be with my mother and sister."

Oshima stays silent for quite some time, like he's inspecting each word I'd spoken, one by one, examining them for clues to what this is all about. "Why in the world would your father tell you such an awful thing?" he finally asks.

"I have no idea. He didn't explain it beyond that," I say, shaking my head.

"Maybe he wanted revenge on his wife and daughter who left him. Wanted to punish them, perhaps. Through me."

"Even if it meant hurting you?"

I nod. "To my father I'm probably nothing more than one of his sculptures. Something he could make or break as he sees fit."

"That's a pretty twisted way of thinking," Oshima says.

"In our home everything was twisted. And when everything's twisted, what's normal ends up looking weird too. I've known this for a long time, but I was a child. Where else could I go?"

"I've seen your father's works a number of times," Oshima replies. "He's a wonderful sculptor. His pieces are original, provocative, powerful. Uncompromising, is how I'd put it. Most definitely the real thing."

"Maybe so. But the dregs left over from creating these he spread everywhere, like a poison you can't escape. My father polluted everything he touched, damaged everyone around him. I don't know if he did it because he wanted to. Maybe he had to. Maybe it's just part of his makeup. Anyhow, I get the feeling he was connected to something very unusual. Do you have any idea what I mean?"

"Yeah, I think so," Oshima says. "Something beyond good and evil. The source of power, you might call it."

"And half my genes are made up of that. Maybe that's why my mother abandoned me. Maybe she wanted to cut herself off from me because I was born from this terrible source. Since I was polluted."

Oshima lightly presses his fingertips against his temples as he mulls this over. He narrows his eyes and stares at me. "Is there any chance he's not your biological father?"

I shake my head. "A few years ago we got tested at a hospital. The two of us had a DNA check done on our blood. No doubt about it—biologically we're father and son a hundred percent. They showed me the results of the tests."

"Very cautious of him."

"I guess he wanted me to know I was one of the works he'd created. Something he'd finished and signed."

Oshima's fingers stay pressed to his temples. "But your father's prophecy didn't come true, did it? You didn't murder him. You were here in Takamatsu when it happened. Somebody else killed him in Tokyo."

Silently I spread my hands out in front of me and stare at them. Those hands that, in the darkness of night, had been covered with blood. "I'm not so sure of that," I tell him.

And I proceed to tell him everything. About how that night, on my way back to the hotel, I'd lost consciousness for a few hours. About waking up in the woods behind the shrine, my shirt sticky with somebody's blood. About washing the blood off in the restroom. About how several hours had been erased from my memory. To save time I don't go into how I stayed overnight at Sakura's. Oshima asks the occasional question, and files away the details in his head. But he doesn't voice any opinions.

"I have no idea how that blood got all over me, or whose blood it could be. It's a complete blank," I tell him. "But maybe I did kill my father with my own hands, not metaphorically. I really get the feeling that I did. Like you said, I was in Takamatsu that day—I definitely didn't go to Tokyo. But In dreams begin responsibilities, right?"

Oshima nods. "Yeats."

"So maybe I murdered him through a dream," I say. "Maybe I went through some special dream circuit or something and killed him."

"To you that might feel like the truth, but nobody's going to grill you about your poetic responsibilities. Certainly not the police. Nobody can be in two places at once. It's a scientific fact—Einstein and all that—and the law accepts that principle."

"But I'm not talking about science or law here."

"What you're talking about, Kafka," Oshima says, "is just a theory. A bold, surrealistic theory, to be sure, but one that belongs in a science fiction novel."

"Of course it's just a theory. I know that. I don't think anybody else is going to believe such a stupid thing. But my father always used to say that without counterevidence to refute a theory, science would never progress. A theory is a battlefield in your head—that was his pet phrase. And right now I can't think of any evidence to counter my hypothesis."

Oshima is silent. And I can't think of anything else to say.

"Anyway," Oshima finally says, "that's why you ran away to Shikoku. To escape your father's curse."

I nod, and point to the folded-up newspaper. "But it looks like there's no escape."

Distance won't solve anything, the boy named Crow says.

"Well, you definitely need a hiding place," Oshima says. "Beyond that there's not much I can say."

I suddenly realize how exhausted I am. I lean against Oshima, and he wraps his arms around me.

I push my face up against his flat chest. "Oshima, I don't want to do those things. I don't want to kill my father. Or be with my mother and sister."

"Of course you don't," he replies, running his fingers through my short hair.

"How could you?"

"Not even in dreams."

"Or in a metaphor," Oshima adds. "Or in an allegory, or an analogy." He pauses and then says, "If you don't mind, I'll stay with you here tonight. I can sleep on the chair."

But I turn him down. I think I'm better off alone for a while, I tell him.

Oshima brushes the strands of hair off his forehead. After hesitating a bit he says,

"I know I'm a hopeless, damaged, homosexual woman, and if that's what's bothering you..."

"No," I say, "that's not it at all. I just need some time alone to think. Too many things have happened all at once. That's all."

Oshima writes down a phone number on a memo pad. "In the middle of the night, if you feel like talking to anybody, call this number. Don't hesitate, okay? I'm a light sleeper anyway." I thank him.

That's the night I see a ghost.

The truck Nakata was riding in arrived in Kobe just after five in the morning. It was light out, but the warehouse was still closed and their freight couldn't be unloaded. They parked the truck in a broad street near the harbor and took a nap. The young driver stretched out on the back seat—his usual spot for napping—and was soon snoring away contentedly. His snores sometimes woke Nakata up, but each time he quickly dropped back into a comfortable sleep. Insomnia was one phenomenon Nakata had never experienced.

A little before eight the young driver sat up and gave a big yawn. "Hey, Gramps, ya hungry?" he asked. He was busy shaving with an electric razor, using the rearview mirror.

"Now that you mention it, yes, Nakata does feel a little hungry."

"Well, let's go grab some breakfast."

From the time they left Fujigawa to their arrival in Kobe, Nakata had spent most of the time sleeping. The young driver barely said a word the whole time, just drove on, listening to a late-night radio show. Occasionally he'd sing along to a song, none of which Nakata had ever heard before. He wondered if they were even in Japanese, since he could barely understand any of the lyrics, just the occasional word. From his bag he took out the chocolate and rice balls he'd gotten from the two young office girls in Shinjuku, and shared them.

The driver had chain-smoked, saying it helped keep him awake, so Nakata's clothes were reeking of smoke by the time they arrived in Kobe.