She gave a tiny shrug. Then she took her Hope regulars and matches from the folds of her beach towel and lit up.
You look terrible, Mr. Wind-Up Bird.
Of course I look terrible- after days in the bottom of a well with almost nothing to eat or drink, who wouldn't look terrible?
May Kasahara took off her sunglasses and turned to face me. She still had that deep cut next to her eye. Tell me, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. Are you mad at me?
I'm not sure. I've got tons of things I have to think about before I start getting mad at you.
Did your wife come back? I shook my head. She sent me a letter. Says shes never coming back. Poor Mr. Wind-Up Bird, said May Kasahara. She sat up and reached out to place her hand lightly on my knee. Poor, poor Mr. Wind-Up Bird. You know, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, you may not believe this, but I was planning to save you from the well at the very end. I just wanted to frighten you a little, torment you a little. I wanted to see if I could make you scream. I wanted to see how much it would take until you were so mixed up you kinda lost your world. I didn't know how to reply to this, so I just nodded. Did you think I was serious when I said I was going to let you die down there? Instead of answering right away, I rolled the lemon drop wrapper into a ball. Then I said, I really wasn't sure. You sounded serious, but you sounded like you were just trying to scare me too. When you're down in a well, talking to somebody up top, something weird happens to the sound: you cant really catch the expression in the other persons voice. But finally, its not a question of which is right. I mean, reality is kind of made up of these different layers. So maybe in that reality you were serious about trying to kill me, but in this reality you weren't. It depends on which reality you take and which reality I take. I pushed my rolled-up candy wrapper into the hole of a Sprite can.
Say, could you do me a favor, Mr. Wind-Up Bird? said May Kasahara, pointing at the hose on the lawn. Would you spray me with that? Its sooo hot! My brains gonna fry if I don't wet myself down.
I left my deck chair and walked over to pick up the blue plastic hose on the lawn. It was warm and limp. I reached behind the bushes and turned on the spigot. At first only hot water that had been warmed inside the hose came out, but it cooled down until it was spraying cold water. May Kasahara stretched out on the lawn, and I aimed a good, strong spray at her.
She closed her eyes and let the water wash over her body. Oh, that feels so good! You should do it too, Mr. Wind-Up Bird.
This isn't a bathing suit, I said, but May Kasahara looked as if she was enjoying the water a lot, and the heat was just too intense for me to keep resisting. I took off my sweat- soaked T-shirt, bent forward, and let the cold water run over my head. While I was at it, I took a swallow of the water: it was cold and delicious.
Hey, is this well water? I asked.
Sure is! It comes up through a pump. Feels great, doesn't it? Its so cold. You can drink it too. We had a guy from the health department do a water quality inspection, and he said theres nothing wrong with it, you almost never get water this clean in Tokyo. He was amazed. But still, were kind of afraid to drink it. With all these houses packed together like this, you never know whats going to get into it.
But don't you think its weird? The Miyawaki's well is bone dry, but yours has all this nice, fresh water. They're just across the alley. Why should they be so different?
Yeah, really, said May Kasahara, cocking her head. Maybe something caused the underground water flow to change just a little bit, so their well dried up and ours didn't. Of course, I don't know what the exact reason would be.
Has anything bad happened in your house? I asked.
May Kasahara wrinkled up her face and shook her head. The only bad thing thats happened in this house in the last ten years is that its so damned boring!
May Kasahara wiped herself down and asked if I wanted a beer. I said I did. She brought two cold cans of Heineken from the house. She drank one, and I drank the other.
So tell me, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, whats your plan from now on?
I haven't really decided, I said. But I'll probably get out of here. I might even get out of Japan.
Get out of Japan? Where would you go? To Crete. Crete? Does this have something to do with that Whats-her-name woman? Something, yeah. May Kasahara thought this over for a moment. And was it Whats-her-name that saved you from the well? Creta Kano, I said. Yeah, shes the one. You've got a lot of friends, don't you, Mr. Wind-Up Bird?
Not really. If anything, I'm famous for having so few friends.
Still, I wonder how Creta Kano found out you were down in the well. You didn't tell anybody you were going down there, right? So how did she figure out where you were?
I don't know, I said. But anyhow, you're going to Crete, right? I haven't really decided I'm going to go. Its just one possibility. I have to settle things with Kumiko first. May Kasahara put a cigarette in her mouth and lit up. Then she touched the cut next to her eye with the tip of her little finger. You know, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, just about the whole time you were down in the well, I was out here sunbathing. I was watching the garden of the vacant house, and baking myself, and thinking about you in the well, that you were starving and moving closer to death little by little. I was the only one who knew you were down there and couldn't get out. And when I thought about that, I had this incredibly clear sense of what you were feeling: the pain and anxiety and fear. Do you see what I mean? By doing that, I was able to get sooo close to you! I really wasn't gonna let you die. This is true. Really. But I wanted to keep going. Right down to the wire. Right down to where you would start to fall apart and be scared out of your mind and you couldn't take it anymore. I really felt that that would be the best thing-for me and for you.
Well, I'll tell you what, I said. I think that if you really had gone down to the wire, you might have wanted to go all the way. It might have been a lot easier than you think. If you went that far, all it would have taken was one last push. And then afterward you would have told yourself that it was the best thing-for me and for you. I took a swig of beer.
May Kasahara thought about that for a time, biting her lip. You may be right, she said. Not even I know for sure.
I took my last swallow of beer and stood up. I put on my sunglasses and slipped into my sweat-soaked T-shirt. Thanks for the beer.
You know, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, said May Kasahara, last night, after my family left for the summer house, I went down into the well. I stayed there five or maybe six hours altogether, just sitting still.
So you're the one who took the rope ladder away. Yeah, said May Kasahara, with a little frown. I'm the one. I turned my eyes to the broad lawn. The moisture-laden earth was giving off vapor that looked like heat shimmer. May Kasahara pushed the butt of her cigarette into an empty Sprite can.
I didn't feel anything special for the first few hours. Of course, it bothered me a little bit to be in such a totally dark place, but I wasn't terrified or scared or anything. I'm not one of those ordinary girls that scream their heads off over every little thing. But I knew it wasn't just dark. You were down there for days, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. You know theres nothing down there to be afraid of. But after a few hours, I knew less and less who I was. Sitting still down there in the darkness, I could tell that something inside me-inside my body-was getting bigger and bigger. It felt like this thing inside me was growing, like the roots of a tree in a pot, and when it got big enough it would break me apart. That would be the end of me, like the pot splitting into a million pieces. Whatever this thing was, it stayed put inside me when I was under the sun, but it, like, sucked up some special kind of nourishment in the darkness and started growing sooo fast it was scary. I tried to hold it down, but I couldn't. And thats when I really got scared. It was the scaredest I've ever been in my life. This thing inside me, this gooshy white thing like a lump of fat, was taking over, taking me over, eating me up. This gooshy thing was really small at first, Mr. Wind-Up Bird.