"Do we really have to?" "Eat sushi hot on the navel of a woman?" "If we sign the agreement, yes, we have to" "In short, it would be good to do." "You know you love this place." "They love all that is vulgar and free." "Nevertheless, in spite of the alcohol carried in my body," "I might as well be at the zoo eating hot dogs." "We have to fit into the idea they have of us, Nagara-san." "Within half an hour they'll be so be drunk if you go they will not notice." "We'll stay with them." "There must be another way of doing business." "There is." "But it is not profitable." "Yes?" "Hello?" "Why?" "What am I doing here?" "Why didn't anyone tell me?" "Why?" "This smell of fish will never go away." "There is no day that does not recall the breathing of Ryu," "nor a day that does not miss its silence" "When I met her she was called Ryu." "I later learned that she had other names..." "Keiko, Momoyo, Yuri." "But Ryu, I'm almost certain, was her real name." "We met" "Sunday afternoon in the Ramen Museum." "I said I liked the sound it made to sip the soup" "It reminded me of the way my mother did." "Would you let me record the sound you make?" "It's what I do." "How I make my living." "Really you make a living like that?" "Yes" "Recorded sounds for a sound studio, for radio, television, videos," "sometimes... some movies." "So you also record people sniffling?" "Of course, I thought, but that day we started to be friends." "I did not know that I would be her only friend." "From that moment we often met in little local bars and eateries" "near the market where she worked." "One day I asked why work there." "He said it was the only that prevented him from thinking too much." "That was the closest thing to a confidence I got it." "Most times we only her company while we ate." "Sometimes, when she was in a good mood, she let me record our lengthy conversations about nothing in particular." "Do you have something to do on Sunday?" "On Sunday?" "Yes, on Sunday." "Why are you always making plans?" "And why you do not plan ever?" "What do you know - I make plans." "Never tell me none." "Why should I tell you?" "She never told me if she was an only child or had a brother, if her parents were still alive." "If she had good grades at school." "If she had read "War and Peace"." "If she believed in God or something." "If when she saw an old woman the street had she suddenly wondered how was she at my age." "If she had suffered." "If she was in love." "After a while," "I stopped asking." "Nagara-san..." "Midori also... was my life." "Today is kissing day!" "A kiss is the best medicine!" "3, 2, 1," "Kiss!" "Finish!" "Some things occured to me." "That I knew she had insomnia." "She was crazy about strawberry sticky rice cakes." "That she was so brave but yet feared people." "That she always believed she would die young." "One of the things that we often did together, was visiting cemeteries on Sundays." "I followed her while she sought certain tombs and devoted herself conscientiously to clean the tombstones." "She never told me who owned the graves." "I did not ask." "The silence which prevails in a cemetery in the summer is unlike any other silence in the world." "We never interrupted this silence." "Nagara-san," "Do you want to see the bathroom?" "No." "WHY COULDN'T YOU TELL ME HOW MUCH YOU LOVED ME?" "Okay?" "I cannot imagine a world where my daughter is dead" "and that man continues to live." "I find it unbearable, now she is gone," "the idea that he continue to breathe, laughing," "eating." "I know I can't do it." "Leave it in my hands." "I'll take care of everything." "She liked music, but never told me of any group or any singer, or how many versions of "Someone to Watch Over Me"" "she had in her ipod." "I know she went to work at seven p. m." "and was out to five-thirty am." "But she knew nothing that I thought at that time." "She never told me if at any time through those long nights, if at about four o'clock in the morning, in some strange cold moment, she felt sick at heart and did she wonder if it made sense that she would feel so." "Listening close to her footsteps and the sound of her breathing in the solitude of my room" "I also wondered." "Hello?" "Murakami-san gave me this number." "Yes" "I have a photograph and address." "Yes, the first half in advance." "At seven?" "Where?" "Agreed." "I'll be there." "With the first half?" "Yes, of course." "Yes" "Are we going somewhere else?" "Another site?" "Why?" "Excuse me." " It's my first time..." " I have the tickets." "Welcome." "Thank you very much." "Is this everything." "The money and information." "Agreed." "Do you not want to know why?" " Well, circumstances." " Circumstances?" "Yes" "Why do we want that man..." "I'm not interested in the circumstances." "No?" "How would that change things?" "Would I work better if I knew the details?" "No." "I guess not." "There's nothing I want to know." "The only thing that interests me is whether the picture is recent, if the address is correct and if the money has been counted correctly." "I was wrong." "Well." "When?" "When will you do the job?" "When possible." "Will you tell me when?" "And the other half?" "I'll call." "Thank you." "Thank you very much." "Welcome." "Welcome." "Can I help?" "Pardon?" "When did it happen?" "When did Ryu begin to see something special in him?" "When he said he knew what she was looking for?" "Or when he said..." "Your money is no good here." "And she felt the heat of his hand against hers, which was always cold." "Yes" "I wonder what it was that made Ryu cross the street that night with a man whose picture lay in pieces in her pocket." "Now I know when it was." "It was the first time that they had laughed together." "That's when it all really began." "You want sticky rice cakes?" "Are you sure?" "I do not mind going to buy it for you next door." "Seeing her there so close to me yet with her thoughts so far" "hurt me in a way difficult to describe." "I never wanted so desparately to be somebody else." "Hungry?" "What would you like?" "Splints hung at the temple say..." "Give me a son, a husband, a bride, a car, money, fame, happiness, health." "None of this appealed to Ryu that day." "Yoshida-san?" "I want to talk with Nagara-san, if possible." "What happened?" "Will he be long in the hospital?" "I understand." "Pass on my respects." "Please." "See you soon." "Dad!" "Dad!" "Dad, look at Midori!" "Look at Midori!" "Ryu has never told me about the man, the man in the wine shop." "But since I knew her" "I could see another sparkle in her eyes." "Only silence was the same." "We are ignoring the elephant in the room:" "The dollar is in free fall and the world is collapsing before our eyes." "We can not ignore we made a mistake in commissioning these reports from an American multinational, reports which, incidentally, are obscenely expensive." "I require the board offer some explanation." "Gondo-san, was at this same table where, six months ago, all voted in favor of the proposal." "The company preparing the report, Waterholmes has been doing so for over ten years without there having been complaints." "Another important point is that this company still has Mr Nagara, as I imagine Gondo-san knows, 80% of the opinion" "in the Waterholmes report, is entirely formed by Japanese nationals." "Not to be disrespectful, but if we spend a fortune on a report because we believe what experts in the market tell us. then..." "Excuse me." "Nagara-san." "She must have been about seven when we went to Ocean Dome in Miyazaki." "Midori was so happy entering the water," "splashing in her new bathing suit." "She was happy." "Screaming as the waves came." "And suddenly her face changed completely, she ran from the water" "and sought refuge in her towel." "The trustees are waiting." "On the return trip I asked:" "Midori, why are you crying?" "were you afraid of the water?" "She said:" ""No, Dad." "I cried... because I was too happy and could not stand it. "" "Nagara-san, must rest." "I'll take you home." "If you had told her that you loved her, everything could have been different." "I've never seen a smile like that smile." "Like that?" "How?" "I don't quite know." "I've never seen a drawing of a koala in soy sauce." "People change." "We all change." "Things change." "No." "People do not change." "Things might." "But people do not." "No?" "No." "Yes?" "I told you not to call me." "I know we had a deal." "But deals can be undone." "I'll return all the money with an extra fifty percent." "These are the rules." "Do not call again." "I told you not to call back." "Today is the day of wrath!" "Liberate all your stress and anger!" "3, 2, 1..." "Enrage!" "Enough!" "Finish!" "I will refund you." "I said I would take the job but now I'm saying no." "Will you go to the police?" "Listen, I'm offering to return the money plus 50 per cent for breach of contract." "Nobody will force me to do something that I will not do." "Do you hear?" "Nobody." "Why don't you shut up?" "Shut the hell up!" "He called me stupid." "Idiot?" "Asshole." "I loved her." "She loved no one." "That's because we will never know, right?" "No." "I guess not." "Sometimes I wonder if Ryu would have liked if I did something for her." "If, eventually she would have asked have asked for something more than" "my silent company." "I know there are voices lingering from the Edo period trapped in the dark spots between buildings in Tokyo." "Perhaps the words are different, but Ryu was right when she said that people never change." "Nagara-San, it's David." "I just want to say I'm going to leave Japan." "I know that you do not want to hear from me anymore," "I blame myself for" "Midori's death, but I want you to know" "I loved your daughter." "Bye." "Days after the death of Ryu, the market reopened to tourists." "For its part, the workers forgot little by little what had happened," "although no one really knew what had actually happened." "I try not to think about how different things could have been the things between us all," "because now it is too late." "Maybe it was too late from the beginning." "I know Ryu would have liked to know that David, when he returned to Barcelona, spent some time without knowing" "who he was or where he was, thinking only about the long-haired girl who liked strawberry sticky rice cakes." "Later, he opened a store for Japanese products where every Friday he had tastings of sake." " David, you coming?" " Be right there." "David longed for another life." "But he kept in his heart a secret room shaped like a train carriage where Ryu always waited for him."