A Perfect Day for Kangaroos by Haruki Murakami
"A Perfect Day for Kangaroos" by Haruki Murakami
translation of Valentina Cirella
There were four kangaroos in a cage - one male, two females and a newborn puppy. My girlfriend and I we were stuck in front of the cage. This zoo was not very popular and being Monday morning the number of animals significantly exceeded that of the visitors. I am not exaggerating. The reason for our visit was to see the baby kangaroo. I say, because otherwise we would come to the zoo? A month before we had read the announcement of the birth of the pup in the local page of the newspaper, so we waited patiently for the perfect morning to visit him. But for some reason the perfect day never came. One morning it was raining, and the next day it rained even more. The following day was clearly too muddy, then the wind began to blow like crazy for two days. One morning my girlfriend woke up with sore teeth and another time I had commitments to attend the town hall. I'm not trying to say anything particularly profound, but only to venture that: this is life. Thus, in one way or another, a month has flown by. A month can go just like that. I can barely remember what I did in that whole month. Sometimes I think I did a lot of things, other times I feel like not having accomplished anything. It was only when the postman came to collect money for the delivery of the newspaper at the end of the month that I realized that a whole month had just flown away. Yes, life is just that. Finally came the day when we went to see the baby kangaroo. We woke up at six, we opened the windows, and we decided that would be the perfect day for kangaroos. We washed in a hurry, we had breakfast, settled the food for the cat, quickly did the laundry, we wore hats to shelter from the sun and went out. "Do you think the baby kangaroo is still alive?" Asked me on the train. "I'm sure. There was no news of his death. If he died, I'm sure we would have read it somewhere. "" Maybe he's not dead, but he is badly in some hospital. " "Well, I think the news would come out." "And if he had a nervous breakdown and was hidden in a corner of the cage?" "A puppy with a nervous breakdown?" "Not the puppy. The mother! He may have suffered some sort of trauma and was isolated with the puppy. The women really think every possible scenario, I thought, impressed. "A trauma? What kind of trauma can hit a kangaroo? "" Unless I see the baby now, I do not think I will have more opportunity to do so. Never again, "he said. "I think not." "Have you ever seen one?" "Never," I said. "Are you so sure you would have another chance to do it?" "I do not know." "It 's what I fear." "Yes, but sorry," I replied, "I have never seen a giraffe giving birth, or a whale swim. Why should I care so much of a baby kangaroo? "" Why is the baby of a kangaroo, "he said. "Why". I gave up and began to leaf through the newspaper. I've never won an argument with a girl.
***
As expected, the puppy was alive and well, and he (or was it a she?) Seemed much larger than appeared in the photo in the newspaper, as he jumped the fence around the kangaroos. There seemed so much a puppy, but a miniature kangaroo. My girlfriend was disappointed. "It is no longer a puppy." "Sure it is," I said, trying to comfort her. I put an arm around her waist and gently stroked. He shook his head. I wanted to do something to comfort her, but not anything I could say would change the main fact: the baby kangaroo was undoubtedly grown. So I decided to keep quiet. I walked to the snack bar and bought two chocolate ice cream, and when I came back she was still leaning against the cage, staring at the kangaroos. "It is no longer a puppy," he repeated again. "Are you sure?" I asked, handing her one of the two ice cream cones. "A puppy should be in the mother's pouch." I nodded, licking my ice cream. "But not in the carrier." We tried to identify the mother. The father is easily identified - was the largest of the four and calmly. It seemed a composer whose talent has dried up and stood motionless, staring at the leaves in the forage. The other female kangaroos were identical in shape, color and expression. Each of them could be the mother of the puppy. "One of them must be the mother and the other is not," I remarked. "UMH". "What do you think is not the mother?" "I've caught him," he said. Unaware of what was happening, the baby kangaroo kept skipping around the yard, stopping occasionally to scrape the mud for no apparent reason. He / she found many ways to keep busy. The puppy jumped around to where he was the father, chewing a few leaves, digging in the mud, bothered to females, would lie on the ground and then continued to jump a little longer. "Why do kangaroos jump so fast?" I asked. "To escape from their enemies." "What enemies?" "Humans," I said. "Men kill them with the boomerang and then eat them." "Why the puppies jump in the pouches of their mothers?" "To run away with her. They know not to jump fast. "" So I'm protected? "" Yes "I said. "We protect children until they are." "How long you protect that?" I knew I had read something about kangaroos in an encyclopedia before you make that little trip. A barrage of questions like these it was entirely foreseeable. "A month or two, I guess." "If this puppy is only a month," he said pointing at the small kangaroo, "then it should still jump in the mother's pouch." "Hmm" I said. "I think so." "Do not you think it would be well inside that pouch?" "I think so." The sun was high in the sky at that hour and we could hear the screams of children in a swimming pool nearby. White summer clouds drifted across the sky. "Do you want to eat something?" I asked. "A hot dog and a Coke," he said. A student working at the counter of the hot-dog, which was shaped like a minivan. He had a boombox from which Steve Wonder and Billy Joel made me a serenade while waiting for hot dogs is cuocessero. When I returned to the cage of kangaroos she said, "Look!", Indicating one of two females. "See? And 'in the carrier! "Surely the puppy was curled up in mother's pouch (assuming it was his mother). The pouch was full, and two small pointed ears and the tip of a tail poking out. It was a wonderful vision and certainly repaid the effort of our trip. "It must be heavy with the pup inside," he said. "Do not worry - the kangaroos are strong." "Really?" "Of course it is. And 'how I survived. "Even with the sun scorching the mother never seemed to suffer. It seemed that one had just finished an afternoon of shopping at the supermarket in the main street of chic Aoyama and was making a stop at a cafe nearby. "He's protecting the small, right?" "Yeah." "I wonder if the baby is sleeping." "Probably."
***
We finished our hot dogs, drank and we went away from the cage of kangaroos. When we left, the male kangaroo was still staring at the food in search of a lost note. The mother and the baby had become one, in the quiet flow over time, while the other mysterious female jumped the fence around as if he was carrying his tail in a test run. Seemed to be a sultry day, the first in a while. "Hey, you want to get a beer somewhere?" He said. "Sounds good" I replied.
Haruki Murakami
Valentina translation Cirella valentina.cire @ gmail.com
"A Perfect Day for Kangaroos" is the translation of the short story "A perfect day for kangaroos" by Haruki Murakami, published the story collection "Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman", published by Harvill Secker, London
