South of the Border, West of the Sun: A Novel (Vintage International)

by Haruki Murakami

And that was probably (probably is the only word I can think of to use here; I don’t consider it my job to investigate the expanse of memory called the past and judge what is correct and what isn’t) a mistake.

The closest comparison might be the power of perfume. Perhaps even the master blender himself can’t explain how a fragrance that has a special power is created. Science sure can’t explain it. Still, the fact remains that a certain combination of fragrances can captivate the opposite sex like the scent of an animal in heat. One kind of fragrance might attract fifty out of a hundred people. And another scent will attract the other fifty. But there also are scents that only one or two people will find wildly exciting. And I have the ability, from far away, to sniff out those special scents. When I do, I want to go up to the girl who radiates this aura and say, Hey, I picked it up, you know. No one else gets it, but I do.

That ultimately I am a person who can do evil. I never consciously tried to hurt anyone, yet good intentions notwithstanding, when necessity demanded, I could become completely self-centered, even cruel. I was the kind of person who could, using some plausible excuse, inflict on a person I cared for a wound that would never heal.

Another person’s life is that person’s life. You can’t take responsibility. It’s like we’re living in a desert. You just have to get used to it.

“Hajime, you can’t tell anything from photographs. They’re just a shadow. The real me is far away. That won’t show up in a picture.”