After Dark by Haruki Murakami Page A

crawling all over me, but once I quit there was nothing left. Zip. Where’d all the money go? Well, I built a house for my parents back in Yamagata, so I was a good girl as far as that goes, but the rest went to pay off my younger brother’s gambling debts or got used up by relatives I hardly knew, or disappeared into fishy investments that some bank guy came along with. Once that happened, people didn’t wanna have anything to do with me. I felt
bad
, like, what the hell have I been doing with myself the past ten years? I’m getting ready to turn thirty and I’m falling apart and I’ve got nothing in the bank. So I’m wondering what I’m gonna do for the rest of my life when somebody in my fan club puts me in touch with the boss of this house and he says, ‘Why not become a manager of a love ho?’ Manager? Hell, you can see I’m more like a bouncer or bodyguard.”
    Kaoru drinks what is left of her beer. Then she looks at her watch.
    “Don’t you have to get back to work?” Mari asks.
    “In a love ho, this is the time you can take it easy. The trains aren’t running anymore, so most of the customers now are gonna stay the night, and nothing much will happen till the morning. I guess you can say I’m on duty, but nobody’s gonna give me a hard time for drinking a beer.”
    “So you work all night and then go home?”
    “Well, I’ve got an apartment I can go back to, but there’s nothing for me to do there, nobody waiting for me. I spend more nights in the hotel’s back room and just start work when I get up. What’re
you
gonna do now?”
    “Just kill time reading a book somewhere.”
    “Y’know, you can stay in our place if you don’t mind. We can put you up in one of the empty rooms—we’ve got a few tonight. It’s a little sad to spend a night alone in a love ho, but it’s great for sleeping. Beds are one thing we’ve got plenty of.”
    Mari gives a little nod, but her mind is made up. “Thanks, but I can manage by myself.”
    “Okay, if you say so.”
    “Is Takahashi practicing somewhere nearby? His band, I mean.”
    “Oh yeah, Takahashi. They’ll be wailin’ away all night in the basement. The building’s right down the street. Wanna go have a peek? They’re noisy as hell, though.”
    “No, that’s okay. I was just curious.”
    “Oh, okay. He’s a nice kid. He’s gonna be something someday. He looks kinda goofy, but he’s surprisingly solid underneath. Not bad at all.”
    “How did you get to know him?”
    Kaoru purses her lips out of shape. “Now
that
is an interesting story, but you’d better get it straight from him instead of from me.”
    Kaoru pays the bill.
    “Mari, aren’t your folks gonna get mad at you for staying out all night?”
    “They think I’m staying at a friend’s house. My parents don’t worry that much about me, whatever I do.”
    “I’ll bet they think they can leave you alone because you’ve really got it together.”
    Mari does not respond to this remark.
    “But maybe sometimes you don’t really have it together,” Kaoru says.
    Mari gives her a slight frown. “What makes you think that?”
    “It’s not a question of what I think. It’s part of being nineteen years old. I used to be nineteen myself once. I know what it’s like.”
    Mari looks at Kaoru. She starts to say something, but decides she can’t make it come out right, changes her mind.
    Kaoru says, “The Skylark is near here. I’ll walk you there. The boss is a buddy of mine, so I’m gonna ask him to take care of you. He’ll let you stay there till morning. Okay?”
    Mari nods. The record ends, the automatic turntable lifts the needle, and the tone arm drops onto its rest. The bartender approaches the player to change records. He carefully lifts the platter and slips it into its jacket. Then he takes out the next record, examines its surface under a light, and sets it on the turntable. He presses a button and the needle descends to the record. Faint scratching. Then Duke