Norwegian Wood

I wanted to begin a new life where I didn't know a soul.

"I suppose I don't really understand you yet," I said. "I'm not all that smart. It takes me a while to understand things. But if I do have the time, I will come to understand you - better than anyone else in the world."

If you don't want to spend time in an insane asylum, you have to open up a little more and let yourself go with life's natural flow.

"I broke up with him. Just like that." Midori put a Marlboro in her mouth, shielded it with her hand as she lit up, and inhaled.

"Why?"

""Why?'!" she screamed. "Are you crazy? You know the English subjunctive, you understand trigonometry, you can read Marx, and 313

you don't know the answer to something as simple as that? Why do you even have to ask? Why do you have to make a girl say something like this? I like you more than I like him, that's all. I wish I had fallen in love with somebody a little more handsome, of course. But I didn't.

I fell in love with you!"

But your problems are not going to continue for the rest of your life," I said, touching her back. "They'll end eventually. And when they do, we'll stop and think about how to go on from there. Maybe you will have to help me. We're not running our lives according to some account book. If you need me, use me.

And worse, I was in love. Love with complications. Scenery was the last thing on my mind

Writing from memory like this, I often feel a pang of dread. What if I've forgotten the most important thing? What if somewhere inside me there is a dark limbo where all the truly important memories are heaped and slowly turning into mud?

"I'll never forget you," I said. "I could never forget you."

"I want you always to remember me. Will you remember that I existed, and that I stood next to you here like this?"

"Always," I said. "I'll always remember."

I've always lived like this, and it's the only way I know how to go on living. If I relaxed for a second, I'd never find my way back. I'd go to pieces, and the pieces would be blown away. Why can't you see that?