Wind/Pinball - DropPDF

1 ALSO BY HARUKI MURAKAMIFICTION1Q84 After DarkAfter the QuakeBlind Willow, SleepingWomanColorless Tsukuru Tazakiand His Years ofPilgrimageDance Dance DanceThe Elephant VanishesHard- boiled Wonderlandand the End of the WorldKafka on the ShoreNorwegian WoodSouth of the Border, Westof the SunSputnik SweetheartThe Strange LibraryA Wild Sheep ChaseThe wind -Up BirdChronicleNONFICTIONU nderground: The TokyoGas Attack and theJapanese PsycheWhat I Talk About When ITalk About Running: AMemoirTHIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BYALFRED A. KNOPFT ranslation copyright 2015 byHaruki MurakamiAll rights reserved.

2 Published in theUnited States by Alfred A. Knopf, adivision of Penguin Random HouseLLC, New York. Published as Hearthe wind Sing and pinball , 1973 inCanada by Bond Street Books, adivision of Penguin Random HouseLtd., Toronto. Originally publishedin Japan as two separate novellas,Kaze no uta o kike by Kodansha Ltd,Tokyo, in 1979, copyright 1979 byHaruki Murakami, and 1973 nen nopinb ru by Kodansha Ltd, Tokyo, in1980, copyright 1980 by , Borzoi Books, and thecolophon are registered trademarksof Penguin Random House acknowledgment is madeto Hal Leonard Corporation forpermission to reprint lyric excerptsof the following: California Girls, words and music by Brian Wilsonand Mike Love, copyright 1965 byIrving Music, Inc.

3 , copyrightrenewed. All rights reserved. Return to Sender, words andmusic by Otis Blackwell andWinfield Scott, copyright 1962,copyright renewed 1990 by ElvisPresley Music (BMI). All rights forElvis Presley Music administered byImagem Music LLC d/b/a Songs ofImagem Music. Internationalcopyright secured. All rightsreserved. Reprinted by permissionof Hal Leonard of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataMurakami, Haruki, [date]. [Novels. Selections. English] Wind/Pinball : two novels /Haruki Murakami ; translated fromthe Japanese by Ted Goossen. Firstedition. pages cm ISBN 978-0-385-35212-3(hardback) ISBN 978-0-385-35213-0 (eBook) I.

4 Goossen, Ted, translator. 2015 5 dc232015010860eBook ISBN 9780385352130 This is a work of fiction. Names,characters, places, and incidentseither are the product of theauthor s imagination or are usedfictitiously. Any resemblance toactual persons, living or dead,events, or locales is photograph by Geoff SpearCover design by Chip PageCopyrightTHE BIRTH OF MYKITCHEN-TABLEFICTION HEAR THEWIND SING pinball ,1973A Note About theAuthorTHE BIRTH OFMY KITCHEN-TABLEFICTIONANINTRODUCTIONTO TWO SHORTNOVELSMost people by which Imean most of us who arepart of Japanese society graduate from school, thenfind work, then, after sometime has passed, getmarried.

5 Even I originallyintended to follow thatpattern. Or at least thatwas how I imagined thingswould turn out. Yet inreality I married, thenstarted working, then(somehow) finallymanaged to graduate. Inother words, the order Ichose was the exactopposite to what wasconsidered I hated the idea ofworking for a company, Idecided to open my ownestablishment, a placewhere people could go tolisten to jazz records, havea coffee, eat snacks, anddrink. It was a simple,rather happy-go-lucky kindof idea: running a businesslike that, I figured, wouldlet me relax listening to myfavorite music frommorning till night.

6 Theproblem was, since my wifeand I had married whilestill in university, we hadno money. Therefore, forthe first three years, weworked like slaves, oftentaking on several jobs atonce to save as much as wecould. After that, I madethe rounds, borrowingwhatever money friendsand family could we took all the fundswe had managed to scrapetogether and opened asmall coffee shop/bar inKokubunji, a studenthangout, in the westernsuburbs of Tokyo. It cost a lot less to openyour own place back thenthan it does now. Youngpeople like us who weredetermined to avoid company life at all costswere launching smallshops left and right.

7 Caf sand restaurants, varietystores, bookstores youname it. Several placesnear us were owned andrun by people of ourgeneration. Kokubunjiretained a strongcounterculture vibe, andmany of those who hungaround the area weredropouts from theshrinking studentmovement. It was an erawhen, all over the world,one could still find gaps inthe brought my old uprightpiano from my parents house and began offeringlive music on were many youngjazz musicians living in theKokubunji area whohappily (I think) played forthe small amount we couldpay them. Many went on tobecome well-knownmusicians; even now Isometimes run acrossthem in jazz clubs we were doingwhat we liked, paying backour debts was a constantstruggle.

8 We owed thebank, and we owed thepeople who had supportedus. On one occasion, stuckfor our monthly paymentto the bank, my wife and Iwere trudging along withour heads down late atnight when we stumbledacross some money lyingin the street. Whether itwas synchronicity or somesort of divine interventionI don t know, but theamount was exactly whatwe needed. Since thepayment was due the nextday, it was truly a last-minute reprieve. (Strangeevents like this havehappened at variousjunctures in my life.) MostJapanese would haveprobably done the properthing, and turned themoney in to the police, butstretched to the limit as wewere, we couldn t live bysuch fine , it was fun.

9 Noquestion about that. I wasyoung and in my prime,could listen to my favoritemusic all day long, and wasthe lord of my own littledomain. I didn t have tosqueeze onto packedcommuter trains, or attendmind-numbing meetings,or suck up to a boss Idisliked. Instead, I had thechance to meet all kinds ofinteresting twenties were thusspent paying off loans anddoing hard physical labor(making sandwiches andcocktails, hustling foul-mouthed patrons out thedoor) from morning tillnight. After a few years,our landlord decided torenovate the Kokubunjibuilding, so we moved tomore up-to-date andspacious digs near thecenter of Tokyo, inSendagaya.

10 Our newlocation provided enoughroom for a grand piano,but our debt increased as aresult. So things stillweren t any back, all I canremember is how hard weworked. I imagine mostpeople are relatively laidback in their twenties, butwe had virtually no time toenjoy the carefree days ofyouth. We barely got free time I did have,though, I spent with music, bookswere my great joy. Nomatter how busy, or howbroke, or how exhausted Iwas, no one could takethose pleasures away the end of mytwenties approached, ourSendagaya jazz bar was, atlast, beginning to showsigns of stability.