Kafuku thinks women’s drivings are either too rough or too careful, also he found a sign of tension in a woman who can drive usually. There’s no tension like this was founded in drivings by men. Men can divide naturally and unconsciously the tension and existence of self.
So Kakufu puzzled that a veteran, skilled repairman Ohba recommended a middle twenties woman Misaki Watari as his driver. Ohba said she was not beautiful and inelegant, and smoked cigarettes profusely sometimes.
Kafuku’s yellow Saab 900 convertible was repaired and refined completely. When Ohba explained the details of the bill to Kafuku, Misaki arrived at the factory. Kafuku tested Misaki, they drove the central area of Tokyo. He found Misaki drove relaxingly and naturally. When they waited for a traffic light she smoked Marlboro cigarettes. Misaki said she is from a rural mountain area of Hokkaido, so she had driven car from the middle of teenage and her driving skill became very good. Misaki asked why Kafuku looked for a driver, so he talked about Kafuku’s minor collision and glaucoma.
Misaki drove Kafuku from his home in Ebisu to a theatre in Ginza. During drivings, Kafuku recited his lines of a drama. On the way home, Kafuku listened to Beethoven’s Strings Quartets and old pop music like the Beach Boys, the Rascals, Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Temptations. Misaki wasn’t conscious of his recitation and music, she was looked to be a kind of state of zen is made by driving.
When he sat in the side seat, sometimes he remembered his wife had passed away. Somehow she slept with at least four actors of which she plays together. But Kafuku and his wife lived together and slept with usually. Misaki was 24 years old. And she was the age to Kafuku’s child lived only 3 days. Kafuku and his wife were very shocked and they were completely absorbed in their job of acting. They decided they didn’t make a child, and she might begin to sleep with actors.
Misaki asked why Kafuku became an actor. Kafuku said he was unexpectedly invited to a student troupe by a girl, and he found he enjoyed himself acting, and he can become someone by acting and return himself. Then Misaki asked why Kafuku did make friends. Kafuku said he made a kind of friend ten years before, after his wife had passed away, and his name is Takatsuki, a handsome actor who must sleep with her several times. They got along in halves of a real friend and acting.
After the passed away of his wife, Kafuku came across Takatsuki in the lobby of a TV station. He invited Takatsuki to drink and talk about his wife. They drank and talked with her wife at a booth of a famous bar in Ginza. Kafuku had goodwill with him. And they promised to meet again.
They became friendly drinking companions. At a night, they drank at a small bar in Aoyama. Kafuku said he lost his wife completely and he couldn’t really understand the important part of her, it’s a blinking point. And Takatsuki said we (men) can’t completely understand what women think, and to watch others certainly we must only reflect ourselves profoundly.
(…)
Details of the Book
Men Without Women
Haruki Murakami
Bungeishunju, Tokyo, 7 October 2016
300 pages, JPY 748
ISBN: 978-4167907082
Men Without Women: Stories
Haruki Murakami (Author), Philip Gabriel (Translator), Ted Goossen (Translator)
Vintage, London, 17 May 2018
240 pages, £9.99
ISBN: 9781784705374
Contents:
- Drive My Car
- Yesterday
- An Independent Organ
- Cheherazade
- Kino
- Samsa in Love
- Men Without Women
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