The Beer at Soba Restaurants (Murakami)

The thing that’s troubled me the most since moving from the city to the suburbs in the summer of 1981, is that there’s no one wandering about in the middle of the day. Most of the men here are office workers, so they leave home early in the morning and don’t come back until evening. Inevitably, therefore, housewives are the only other people around town at that time.

I tend to only work in the mornings and evenings, so in the afternoon I like to take a stroll around town. But ever since I moved to the suburbs it’s felt strange. People look at me with a sort of deep suspicion, and I start to feel like I actually am doing something suspicious.

Most of the people seem to think I’m a student of some sort. The other day an older woman asked me if I was looking for somewhere to stay, and taxi drivers ask me if what I’m studying is difficult. I was even asked to show my student ID at a music rental store.

This is despite the fact that I practically live in jeans and sneakers all year round, and, at the age of 33, am far too old to be a student. Unfortunately, it seems that to the people of the town I live in, anyone walking around in the middle of the day must to be a student. This is completely different to when I lived in the city. When I walked along Aoyama Street in the middle of the day, I would often meet people similar to myself. I even met the illustrator of this book, Mr. Mizumaru Anzai, a few times.

Whenever I ran into him like this and asked him what he was doing, his response would usually be something like “You know… this and that…”

I still don’t know whether Mr. Anzai has a lot of free time, or whether he’s actually really busy but just never looks it.

Anyway, there were always a lot of unusual people in the city, and they would always come out in the middle of the day to wander around. I don’t know if this was a good thing or a bad one, but it was certainly comfortable. Now I’m just grateful to not get a strange look when I order a beer with my lunch at a soba restaurant. The beer at soba restaurants is always especially delicious.