Men Without Women, Page 20

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  It’s quite easy to become Men Without Women. You love a woman deeply, and then she goes off somewhere. That’s all it takes. Most of the time (as I’m sure you’re well aware) it’s crafty sailors who take them away. They sweet-talk them into going with them, then carry them off to Marseilles or the Ivory Coast. And there’s hardly anything we can do about it. Or else the women have nothing to do with sailors, and take their own lives. And there’s very little we can do about that, too. Not even the sailors can do a thing.

  In any case, that’s how you become Men Without Women. Before you even know it. And once you’ve become Men Without Women, loneliness seeps deep down inside your body, like a red-wine stain on a pastel carpet. No matter how many home ec books you study, getting rid of that stain isn’t easy. The stain might fade a bit over time, but it will still remain, as a stain, until the day you draw your final breath. It has the right to be a stain, the right to make the occasional, public, stain-like pronouncement. And you are left to live the rest of your life with the gradual spread of that color, with that ambiguous outline.

  Sounds are different in that world. So is the way you experience thirst. And the way your beard grows. And the way baristas at Starbucks treat you. Clifford Brown’s solos sound different, too. Subway-car doors close in new and unexpected ways. Walking from Omote Sando to Aoyama Itchome, you discover the distance is no longer what it once was. You might meet a new woman, but no matter how wonderful she may be (actually, the more wonderful she is, the more this holds true), from the instant you meet, you start thinking about losing her. The suggestive shadow of sailors, the sound of foreign tongues they speak (is it Greek? Estonian? Tagalog?), leaves you anxious. The names of exotic ports around the world unnerve you. Because you already know what it means to be Men Without Women. You are a pastel-colored Persian carpet, and loneliness is a Bordeaux wine stain that won’t come out. Loneliness is brought over from France, the pain of the wound from the Middle East. For Men Without Women, the world is a vast, poignant mix, very much the far side of the moon.

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  M and I went out for about two years. Not a very long time. But a substantial two years. Only two years, you could say. Or a long two years. It all depends on your viewpoint. I say we “went out,” but really we only saw each other two or three times a month. She had her reasons, and I had mine. At this point we were, unfortunately, no longer fourteen. And these reasons were what broke us apart. No matter how tightly I held on to her so she couldn’t get away. And the thick, dark shadows of sailors still went on relentlessly, scattering sharp, metaphoric thumbtacks all around.

  What I remember most about M is how much she loved elevator music. Percy Faith, Montovani, Raymond Lefèvre, Frank Chacksfield, Francis Lai, 101 Strings, Paul Mauriat, Billy Vaughan. She had a kind of predestined affection for this—according to me—harmless music. The angelic strings, the swell of luscious woodwinds, the muted brass, the harp softly stroking your heart. The charming melody that never faltered, the harmonies like candy melting in your mouth, the just-right echo effect in the recording.

  I usually listened to rock or blues when I drove. Derek and the Dominos, Otis Redding, The Doors. But M would never let me play any of that. She always carried a paper bag filled with a dozen or so cassettes of elevator music, which she’d play one after the other. We’d drive around aimlessly while she’d quietly hum along to Francis Lai’s “13 Jours en France.” Her lovely, sexy lips with a light trace of lipstick. Anyway, she must have owned ten thousand tapes. And she knew all there was to know about all the innocent music in the world. If there were an Elevator Music Museum, she could have been the head curator.

  It was the same when we had sex. She was always playing music in bed. I don’t know how many times I heard Percy Faith’s “A Summer Place” when we were doing it. It’s a little embarrassing to say this, but even now I get pretty aroused whenever I hear that tune—my breathing ragged, my face flushed. You could scour the world and I bet you’d only find one man—me—who gets horny just hearing the intro to “A Summer Place.” No—maybe her husband does too. Let’s leave that possibility open. You could scour the world and probably find (including me) only two men who get all hot and bothered hearing the intro to “A Summer Place.” Let’s restate it this way. That’ll work.

  Space.

  “The reason I like this kind of music,” M said one time, “is a question of space.”

  “Space?”

  “When I listen to this music I feel like I’m in a wide-open, empty place. It’s a vast space, with nothing to close it off. No walls, no ceiling. I don’t need to think, don’t need to say anything, or do anything. Just being there is enough. I close my eyes and give myself up to the beautiful strings. There’re no headaches, no sensitivity to cold, no periods, or ovulation. Everything is simply beautiful, peaceful, flowing. I can just be.”

  “Like you’re in heaven?”

  “Right,” M said. “I’m sure in heaven Percy Faith is playing the background music. Would you rub my back some more?”

  “Sure,” I reply.

  “You really give good back rubs.”

  Henry Mancini and I exchange a secret look, and a faint smile rises to our lips.

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  Elevator music is another item on the list of things I’ve lost. The thought hits me each time I go for a drive. While I’m waiting for the light to change, I half hope a girl I’ve never laid eyes on before will suddenly yank open the passenger door, slip inside, and, without a word or even a glance, jam a cassette with “A Summer Place” into the radio. I’ve even dreamed about it. Of course, it never happens. I mean, my car doesn’t even have a cassette deck anymore. When I drive now, I use an iPod with a USB cable. And Francis Lai and 101 Strings are definitely not on my iPod. Gorillaz or the Black Eyed Peas are more like it.

  That’s what it’s like to lose a woman. And at a certain time, losing one woman means losing all women. That’s how we become Men Without Women. We lose Percy Faith, Francis Lai, and 101 Strings. And ammonites and coelacanths. And we lose her beautiful back. I used to rub M’s back with my palm, in time to the soft triple beat of Henry Mancini’s version of “Moon River.” Waiting round the bend, my Huckleberry friend…But all of that has vanished. All that remains is an old broken piece of eraser, and the far-off sound of the sailors’ dirge. And the unicorn beside the fountain, his lonely horn aimed at the sky.

  I hope that M is in heaven now—or somewhere like it—enjoying “A Summer Place.” Gently enveloped by that open, boundless music. I just hope there’s no Jefferson Airplane playing. (Surely God wouldn’t be that cruel.) And it would be nice if, as she listens to the pizzicato violins of “A Summer Place,” her thoughts occasionally turn to me. But maybe that’s asking too much. I pray that, even if I’m not part of it, M is happy and at peace, with Muzak playing on into eternity.

  As one of the Men Without Women, I pray for this with all my heart. At this point prayer seems like the only thing I can do. Probably.

  Translated by Philip Gabriel

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into more than fifty languages, and the most recent of his many international honors is the Jerusalem Prize, whose previous recipients include J. M. Coetzee, Milan Kundera, and V. S. Naipaul.