Man-Eating-Cats
by Haruki Murakami
Ttranslated by Philip Gabriel
I bought a newspaper at the harbor and came across an article about an old woman who had been eaten by cats. She was seventy years old and lived alone in a small suburb of Athens -- a quiet sort of life, just her and her three cats in a small one-room apartment. One day, she suddenly keeled over face down on the sofa -- a heart attack, most likely. Nobody knew how long it had taken for her to die after she collapsed. The old woman didnt have any relatives or friends who visited her regularly, and it was a week before her body was discovered. The windows and door were closed, and the cats were trapped. There wasnt any food in the apartment. Granted, there was probably something in the fridge, but cats havent evolved to the point where they can open refrigerators. On the verge of starvation, they were forced to devour their owners flesh.
I read this article to Izumi, who was sitting across from me. On sunny days, wed walk to the harbor, buy a copy of the Athens English-language newspaper, and order coffee at the cafe next door to the tax office, and Id summarize in Japanese anything interesting I might come across. That was the extent of our daily schedule on the island. If something in a particular caught our interest, wed bat around opinions for a while, Izumis English was pretty fluent, and she could easily have read the articles herself. But I never once saw her pick up a paper.
"I like to have someone to read to me," she explained. "Its been my dream ever since.
I was a child -- to sit in a sunny place, gave at the sky or the sea, and have someone read aloud to me. I dont care what they read -- a newspaper, a textbook, a novel. It doesnt matter. But no ones ever read to me before. So I suppose that means youre making up for all those lost opportunities. Besides, I love your voice."
We had the sky and the sea there, all right. And I enjoyed reading aloud. When I lived in Japan, I used to read picture books aloud to my son. Reading aloud is different from just sentences with your eyes. Something quite unexpected wells up in your mind, a kind of indefinable resonance that I find impossible to resist.
Taking the occasional sip of bitter coffee, I slowly read the artic1e to Izumi. Id read a few lines to myself, mull over how to put them into Japanese, then translate aloud. A few bees popped up from somewhere to lick the jam that a previous customer spilled on the table. They spent a moment lapping it up, then, as if suddenly remembering something, flew into the air with a ceremonious buzz, circled the table a couple of times, and then -- again as if something had jogged their memory -- settled once more on the tabletop. After I had finished reading the whole article, Izumi sat there, unmoving, elbow resting on the table. She put the tips of the fingers of her right hand against those of her left to form a tent. I rested the paper on my lap and gazed at her slim hands. She looked at me through the spaces between her fingers.
"Then what happened?" she asked.
"Thats it" I replied, and folded up the paper. I took a handkerchief out of my pocket and wiped the flecks of coffee grounds off my lips. "At least, thats all it says."
"But what happened to The cats?"
I stuffed the handkerchief back in my pocket. "I have no idea. It doesnt say."
Izumi pursed her lips to one side, her own litt1e habit. Whenever she was about to give an opinion ? which always took the form of a mini-declarat
"Newspapers are all the same, no matter where you go," she finally announced. "They never tell you what you really want to know."
She took a Salem out of its box, put it in her mouth, and struck a match. Every day, she smoked one pack of Salem -- no more, no less. Shed open a new pack in the morning x and smoke it up by the end of the day. I didnt smoke. My wife had made me quit, five years ear1ier, when she was pregnant.
"What I really want to know." Izumi began, the smoke from her cigarette silently curling up into the air, "is what happened to the cats afterward. Did the authorities kill them because theyd eaten human fresh? Or did they say, Yon guys have had a tough time of it, give them a pat on the head, and send them on their way? What do you think?"
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