I could never have imagined that you could blink one day and all of this would be gone. But thats just what happened. One day I noticed that the whole family- the German shepherd with them-had disappeared as if a gust of wind had just blown them away, leaving only the house behind. For a while-maybe a week-no one in the neighborhood noticed that the Miyawaki's had disappeared. It did cross my mind at first that it was strange the lights weren't going on at night, but I figured they must be off on one of their family trips. Then my mother heard people saying that the Miyawaki's seemed to have absconded. I remember asking her to explain to me what the word meant. Nowadays we just say run away, I guess.
Whatever you call it, once the people who lived there had disappeared, the whole look of the house changed. It was almost creepy. I had never seen a vacant house before, so I didn't know what an ordinary vacant house looked like, but I guess I figured it would have a sad, beaten sort of look, like an abandoned dog or a cicadas cast-off shell. The Miyawaki's house, though, was nothing like that. It didn't look beaten at all. The minute the Miyawaki's left, it got this know-nothing look on its face, like, I never heard of anybody called Miyawaki. At least thats how it looked to me. It was like some stupid, ungrateful dog. As soon as they were gone, it turned into this totally self-sufficient vacant house that had nothing at all to do with the Miyawaki family's happiness. It really made me mad! I mean, the house must have been just as happy as the rest of the family when the Miyawaki's were there. I'm sure it enjoyed being cleaned so nicely and taken care of, and it wouldn't have existed at all if Mr. Miyawaki hadn't been nice enough to build it in the first place. Don't you agree? You just cant trust a house.
You know as well as I do what the place was like after that, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. The house was abandoned, with no one to live in it, and all smeared with bird shit and stuff. That was all I had to look at from my window for years when I was at my desk, studying-or pretending to be studying. On clear days, rainy days, snowy days, or in typhoons, it was right there, outside my window, so I couldn't help but see it when I looked out. And strangely enough, as the years went by, I tried less and less not to notice it. I could-and often did-spend whole half hours at a time with my elbow on my desk, doing nothing but look at that vacant house. I don't know-not very long ago the place had been overflowing with laughter, and clean white clothes had been flapping in the wind like in a commercial for laundry detergent (I wouldn't say Mrs. Miyawaki was abnormal or anything, but she liked to do laundry-way more than most ordinary people). All of that was gone in a flash, the yard was covered with weeds, and there was nobody left to remember the happy days of the Miyawaki family. To me that seemed sooo strange!
Let me just say this: I wasn't especially friendly with the Miyawaki family. In fact, I hardly ever talked to any of them, except to say Hi on the street. But because I spent so much time and energy watching them from my window every day, I felt as if the family's happy doings had become a part of me. You know how in the corner of a family photo there'll be a glimpse of this person who has nothing to do with them. So sometimes I get this feeling like part of me absconded with the Miyawaki's and just disappeared. I guess thats pretty weird, huh, to feel like part of you is gone because it absconded with people you hardly know?
As long as I've started telling you one weird thing, I might as well tell you another one.
Now, this one is really weird!
Lately, I sometimes feel like I have turned into Kumiko. I am actually Mrs. Wind-Up Bird, and I've run away from you for some reason and I'm hiding here in the mountains, working in a wig factory. For all kinds of complicated reasons, I have to use the name May Kasahara as an alias and wear this mask and pretend I'm not Kumiko. And you're just sitting there on that sad little veranda of yours, waiting for me to come back. I don't know-I really feel like that.
Tell me, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, do you ever get obsessed with these delusions? Not to boast or anything, but I do. All the time. Sometimes, when they're really bad, I'll spend the whole workday wrapped up in a cloud of delusion. Of course, I'm just performing these simple operations, so it doesn't get in the way of my work, but the other girls sometimes give me strange looks. Or maybe I say crazy things to myself out loud. I hate that, but it doesn't do any good to try and fight it. When a delusion wants to come, it comes, like a period. And you cant just meet it at the front door and say, Sorry, I'm busy today, try me later. Anyway, I hope it doesn't bother you, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, that I sometimes pretend I'm Kumiko. I mean, I'm not doing it on purpose.
I'm getting really really really tired. I'm going to go to sleep now for three or four hours-I mean out cold-then get up and work hard from morning to night. I'll put in a good day making wigs with the other girls, listening to some kind of harmless music. Please don't worry about me. I'm good at doing all kinds of things even when I'm in the middle of a delusion. And in my own way, I'm saying little prayers for you, hoping that everything works out for you, that Kumiko comes back and you can have your quiet, happy life again.
Goodbye.
29 A Vacant House Is Born
Nine o'clock, then ten o'clock, arrived the next morning, with no sign of Cinnamon.
Nothing like this had ever happened before.. He had never missed a single day, from the time I started working in this place. At exactly nine o'clock each morning, the gate would open and the bright glare of the Mercedes' hood ornament would appear. This simultaneously mundane and theatrical appearance of Cinnamon would mark the clear beginning of each day for me. I had become accustomed to this fixed daily routine the way people become accustomed to gravity or barometric pressure. There was a kind of warmth to Cinnamon's punctilious regularity, something beyond mere mechanical predictability, something that gave me comfort and encouragement. Which is why a morning without Cinnamon's appearance was like a well-executed landscape painting that lacked a focal point.
I gave up waiting for him, left the window, and peeled myself an apple as a substitute for breakfast. Then I peeked into Cinnamon's room to see if there might be any messages on the computer, but the screen was as dead as ever. All I could do at that point was follow Cinnamon's example and listen to a tape of Baroque music while doing laundry, vacuuming the floors, and cleaning windows. To kill time, I purposely performed each function slowly and carefully, going so far as to clean the blades of the kitchen exhaust fan, but still the time refused to move.
I ran out of things to do by eleven o'clock, so I stretched out on the fitting room sofa and gave myself up to the languid flow of time. I tried to tell myself that Cinnamon had been delayed by some minor matter. Maybe the car had broken down, or he had been caught in an incredible traffic jam. But I knew that couldn't be true. I would have bet all I had on it. Cinnamon's car would never break down, and he always took the possibility of traffic jams into account. Plus, he had the car phone to call me on in case of an unforeseen emergency in traffic. No, Cinnamon was not here because he had decided not to come here.
I tried calling Nutmeg's Akasaka office just before one, but there was no answer. I tried again and again, with the same results. Then I tried Ushikawa's office but got only a message that the number had been disconnected. This was strange. I had called him at that number just two days earlier. I gave up and went back to the fitting room sofa again. All of a sudden in the last two days there seemed to be a conspiracy against contact with me.