Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami Page B

alone.”
    “So consciously or unconsciously you always kept a distance between yourself and the women you dated. Or else you chose women you could keep that distance from. So you wouldn’t get hurt. Does that sound about right?”
    Tsukuru didn’t reply, his silence an affirmation. At the same time, though, he knew that wasn’t what was at the heart of the problem.
    “And the same thing might happen with you and me,” Sara said.
    “No, I don’t think so. It’s different with you. I really mean that. I want to open up my heart to you. I truly feel that way. That’s why I’m telling you all this.”
    “You want to see more of me?” Sara asked.
    “Of course I do.”
    “I’d like to see more of you, too, if I can,” Sara said. “You’re a good person, honest and sincere.”
    “Thank you,” Tsukuru said.
    “So tell me those four names. After that, you decide. Once I find out more about them, if you feel you don’t want to see them, then you don’t have to go ahead with it. That’s entirely up to you. But apart from all that, personally, I’m curious about them. I want to find out more about these people who are still weighing you down.”
    When he got back to his apartment Tsukuru took an old pocket notebook out of his desk drawer, opened it to the list of addresses, and typed the four names, addresses, and phone numbers from when he’d last seen his four friends into his laptop.
    Kei Akamatsu
    Yoshio Oumi
    Yuzuki Shirane
    Eri Kurono
    As he gazed at the four names on the screen, and considered the memories those names brought back, he felt the past silently mingling with the present, as a time that should have been long gone hovered in the air around him. Like odorless, colorless smoke leaking into the room through a small crack in the door. Finally, at a certain point, he snapped back to the present, clicked the key on his laptop, and sent the email to Sara’s address. He checked that it had been sent and switched off the computer. And waited for time to become real again.
    Personally, I’m curious about them. I want to find out more about these people who are still weighing you down
.
    Sara is right, he thought as he lay down on his bed. Those four people are still stuck to me. Probably more tightly than Sara can ever imagine.
    Mister Red
    Mister Blue
    Miss White
    Miss Black

The night that Haida told him the story from his father’s youth, about meeting a jazz pianist named Midorikawa at a hot springs deep in the mountains of Kyushu, several strange things happened.
    Tsukuru bolted awake in the darkness. A tapping sound had woken him, like the sound of a pebble striking a window. Maybe he’d only imagined it, but he wasn’t sure. He wanted to check the alarm clock on his nightstand, but he couldn’t turn his neck. His entire body was immobile. He wasn’t numb, it was just that when he tried to make his body move, he couldn’t. The connection between mind and muscles had been severed.
    The room was swathed in darkness. Tsukuru had trouble sleeping when there was any light in the room, and always closed the curtains tightly when he went to bed, so there was no light filtering in from outside.Still, he felt the presence in the room of someone else, concealed in the darkness, watching him. Like a camouflaged animal, whoever it was held his breath, hid his scent, changed his color, and receded into the shadows. Still, for some reason Tsukuru knew who it was. Haida.
    Mister Gray.
    Gray is a mixture of white and black. Change its shade, and it can easily melt into various gradations of darkness.
    Haida was standing in a corner of the dark room, staring down at Tsukuru, who lay faceup on the bed. As if he were a mime pretending to be a statue, Haida didn’t move a muscle for a long time. The only thing that moved, possibly, were his long eyelashes. Therein lay a strange contrast: Haida chose to be completely still, while Tsukuru chose to move, but couldn’t. I have to say something, Tsukuru thought,