Photograph by Michael Marcelle

The man always sat in the same seat, the stool farthest down the counter. When it wasn’t occupied, that is, but it was nearly always free. The bar was seldom crowded, and that particular seat was the most inconspicuous and the least comfortable. A staircase in the back made the ceiling slanted and low, so it was hard to stand up there without bumping your head. The man was tall, yet, for some reason, preferred that cramped, narrow spot.

Kino remembered the first time the man had come to his bar. His appearance had immediately caught Kino’s eye—the bluish shaved head, the thin build yet broad shoulders, the keen glint in his eye, the prominent cheekbones and wide forehead. He looked to be in his early thirties, and he wore a long gray raincoat, though it wasn’t raining. At first, Kino tagged him as a yakuza, and was on his guard around him. It was seven-thirty, on a chilly mid-April evening, and the bar was empty. The man chose the seat at the end of the counter, took off his coat, and in a quiet voice ordered a beer, then silently read a thick book. After half an hour, finished with the beer, he raised his hand an inch or two to motion Kino over, and ordered a whiskey. “Which brand?” Kino asked, but the man said he had no preference.

“Just an ordinary sort of Scotch. A double. Add an equal amount of water and a little bit of ice, if you would.”

Kino poured some White Label into a glass, added the same amount of water and two small, nicely formed ice cubes. The man took a sip, scrutinized the glass, and narrowed his eyes. “This will do fine.”

He read for another half hour, then stood up and paid his bill in cash. He counted out exact change so that he wouldn’t get any coins back. Kino breathed a small sigh of relief as soon as he was out the door. But after the man had left his presence remained. As Kino stood behind the counter, he glanced up occasionally at the seat the man had occupied, half expecting him still to be there, raising his hand a couple of inches to order something.

The man began coming regularly to Kino’s bar. Once, at most twice, a week. He would invariably have a beer first, then a whiskey. Sometimes he would study the day’s menu on the blackboard and order a light meal.

The man hardly ever said a word. He always came fairly early in the evening, a book tucked under his arm, which he would place on the counter. Whenever he got tired of reading (at least, Kino guessed that he was tired), he looked up from the page and studied the bottles of liquor lined up on the shelves in front of him, as if examining a series of unusual taxidermied animals from faraway lands.

Once Kino got used to the man, though, he never felt uncomfortable around him, even when it was just the two of them. Kino never spoke much himself, and didn’t find it hard to remain silent around others. While the man read, Kino did what he would do if he were alone—wash dishes, prepare sauces, choose records to play, or page through the newspaper.

Kino didn’t know the man’s name. He was just a regular customer who came to the bar, enjoyed a beer and a whiskey, read silently, paid in cash, then left. He never bothered anybody else. What more did Kino need to know about him?

Back in college, Kino had been a standout middle-distance runner, but in his junior year he’d torn his Achilles tendon and had to give up on the idea of joining a corporate track team. After graduation, on his coach’s recommendation, he got a job at a sports-equipment company, and he stayed there for seventeen years. At work, he was in charge of persuading sports stores to stock his brand of running shoes and leading athletes to try them out. The company, a mid-level firm headquartered in Okayama, was far from well known, and lacked the financial power of a Nike or an Adidas to draw up exclusive contracts with the world’s best runners. Still, it made carefully handcrafted shoes for top athletes, and quite a few swore by its products. “Do an honest job and it will pay off” was the slogan of the company’s founder, and that low-key, somewhat anachronistic approach suited Kino’s personality. Even a taciturn, unsociable man like him was able to make a go of sales. Actually, it was because of his personality that coaches trusted him and athletes took a liking to him. He listened carefully to each runner’s needs, and made sure that the head of manufacturing got all the details. The pay wasn’t much to speak of, but he found the job engaging and satisfying. Although he couldn’t run anymore himself, he loved seeing the runners race around the track, their form textbook perfect.

When Kino quit his job, it wasn’t because he was dissatisfied with his work but because he discovered that his wife was having an affair with his best friend at the company. Kino spent more time out on the road than at home in Tokyo. He’d stuff a large gym bag full of shoe samples and make the rounds of sporting-goods stores all over Japan, also visiting local colleges and companies that sponsored track teams. His wife and his colleague started sleeping together while he was away. Kino wasn’t the type who easily picked up on clues. He thought everything was fine with his marriage, and nothing his wife said or did tipped him off to the contrary. If he hadn’t happened to come home from a business trip a day early, he might never have discovered what was going on.

When he got back to Tokyo that day, he went straight to his condo in Kasai, only to find his wife and his friend naked and entwined in his bedroom, in the bed where he and his wife slept. His wife was on top, and when Kino opened the door he came face to face with her and her lovely breasts bouncing up and down. He was thirty-nine then, his wife thirty-five. They had no children. Kino lowered his head, shut the bedroom door, left the apartment, and never went back. The next day, he quit his job.

Kino had an unmarried aunt, his mother’s older sister. Ever since he was a child, his aunt had been nice to him. She’d had an older boyfriend for many years (“lover” might be the more accurate term), and he had generously given her a small house in Aoyama. She lived on the second floor of the house, and ran a coffee shop on the first floor. In front was a small garden and an impressive willow tree, with low-hanging, leafy branches. The house was on a narrow backstreet behind the Nezu Museum, not exactly the best location for drawing customers, but his aunt had a gift for attracting people, and her coffee shop did a decent amount of business.

After she turned sixty, though, she hurt her back, and it became increasingly difficult for her to run the shop alone. She decided to move to a resort condo in the Izu Kogen Highlands. “I was wondering if eventually you might want to take over the shop?” she asked Kino. This was three months before he discovered his wife’s affair. “I appreciate the offer,” he told her, “but right now I’m happy where I am.”