That’s how I came to open an upscale jazz bar in the basement of a brand-new building in Aoyama…The bar was more successful than my wildest dreams.

There, at the counter of the Robin’s Nest, she sat, quietly sipping a daiquiri…A woman this beautiful would not be out drinking alone. A woman like this wasn’t the type to be thrilled by men making advances. She’d just find it a pain.

Her beauty took your breath away, but I didn’t figure her for a movie star or a model. Those types did frequent my bar, but you could always tell they were conscious of being on public display, the unbearable meness of being clinging to the air around them. But this woman was different. She was completely relaxed, totally at ease with her surroundings. She rested her chin in her hands on the counter, absorbed in the piano trio’s music, all the while sipping her cocktail as if lingering over a particularly well-turned phrase.

Every few minutes, she glanced in my direction. I could sense it, physically. Though I was positive she wasn’t really looking at me.

All quotes, slightly abridged, appear in Haruki Murakami’s South Of The Border, West Of the Sun.