Fiction

Kaho
By Haruki Murakami
July 1, 2024

Photograph by Tobias Nicolai for The New Yorker

Save this story

ve dated all kinds of women in my life,” the man said, “but I have to
“I’ say I’ve never seen one as ugly as you.”

This came after they’d had dessert, while they were waiting for coffee to be
served.

It took a moment for his words to sink in. Three, maybe four seconds. The
statement came out of nowhere, and Kaho couldn’t immediately read his
intentions. As the man was pronouncing these blunt, alarming words, he was
smiling the whole time. A gentle, mostly friendly type of smile. There wasn’t
even a hint of humor in what he said. He wasn’t making a joke; he was
completely serious.

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The only way that Kaho could think of reacting was to take the napkin from
her lap, toss it onto the table, grab her purse from the chair beside her, stand
up, and, without a word, leave the restaurant. That would, most likely, be the
best way to deal with the situation.

Read an interview with the author for the story behind the story.

But somehow Kaho couldn’t. One reason for this—one that occurred to her
only later on—was that she was genuinely startled; a second reason was
curiosity. She was angry—of course she was. How could she not be? But,
more than that, she wanted to know what in the world this man was trying
to tell her. Was she really that ugly? And was there something beyond this
remark?

“Saying you’re the ugliest may be a bit of an overstatement,” the man added
after a pause. “But you are the plainest woman I’ve seen, no doubt about it.”

Kaho pursed her lips and silently studied the man’s face, her eyes "xed on
him.

Why did this man feel the need to say something like that? On a blind date
(which this sort of was), if you don’t like the other person that much, then
you can just not get in touch afterward. Simple enough. Why insult her to
her face?

The man was probably ten years or so older than Kaho, handsome, his
clothes spotless and impeccable. He wasn’t exactly Kaho’s type, though he
looked like he came from a good family. He had a photogenic face—that
might be a more accurate way of putting it. Add a couple of inches to his
height and he could have been an actor. The restaurant he chose, too, was
cozy and stylish, the dishes tasty and re"ned. He wasn’t what you’d call
talkative, but was decent enough at keeping a conversation moving—and
there had been no awkward silences. (Oddly, though, when she looked back
on it later, she couldn’t remember what they’d talked about.) During dinner,
she’d found herself warming to him. She had to admit it. And then, out of
nowhere—this. What was happening here?
“You might "nd this strange,” he said in a calm voice, after two espressos had
been brought to their table. It was as if he could read Kaho’s mind. He
dropped a small sugar cube into his espresso and quietly stirred it. “Why did
I have dinner to the very end with someone I "nd ugly—or maybe I should
say, whose face I don’t like? After we’d drunk the "rst glass of wine, I should
have been able to just cut the evening short. It’s a complete waste of time,
isn’t it, to take an hour and a half and eat a three-course dinner? And why, at
the very tail end of the evening, do I have to say something like that?”

Kaho remained silent, staring at the face of the man across the table. Her
hands clutched the napkin in her lap tightly.

“I think it’s because I couldn’t sti#e my curiosity,” the man said. “Probably I
wanted to know what a really homely woman like you was thinking, how
being so homely actually affects your life.”

And was your curiosity satis"ed? Kaho wondered. Of course, she didn’t ask it
out loud.

“And was my curiosity satis"ed?” the man asked, after taking a sip of coffee.
There was no mistake here: he could read her thoughts. Like an anteater
licking an anthill clean with its long, thin tongue.

The man shook his head a fraction and returned his cup to the saucer. And
answered his own question. “No, it wasn’t.”
He raised his hand, called the waiter over, and paid the bill. He turned to
Kaho, bowed slightly, and went straight out of the restaurant. He didn’t even
look back.

Truth be told, since she was little Kaho had never been that interested in her
looks. The face she saw in the mirror didn’t strike her as either beautiful or
especially ugly. It didn’t disappoint her or make her happy. Her lack of
interest in her face stemmed from the fact that she didn’t feel that her looks
were affecting her life in any way. Or perhaps it was better to say that she’d
never had an opportunity to know if they were. She was an only child, and
her parents had always showered her with an affection that was likely
unconnected to how pretty she might or might not be.

Through adolescence, Kaho remained indifferent to her looks. Most of her

girlfriends brooded over their appearance and tried every makeup trick in the
book to improve it, but she couldn’t understand this urge. She spent very
little time in front of the mirror. Her only goal was to keep her body and her
face appropriately clean and neat. And that was never a particularly difficult
task.

She attended a coed public high school and had a few boyfriends. If the boys
in her class had voted for their favorite female classmate, she would never
have won—she wasn’t that type. Still, for some reason, in every class she was
in, there were always one or two boys who were interested in her and showed
it. Kaho had no clue what it was about her that interested them.

Even after she graduated from high school and started attending an art
school in Tokyo, she seldom lacked for boyfriends. So there was no need for
her to worry about whether she was attractive or not. In that sense, you could
say she was lucky. She always found it quite odd that friends who were far
better-looking than she was agonized over their looks, in some cases
undergoing expensive plastic surgery. Kaho could never fathom this.

And so when, a little after her twenty-sixth birthday, this man she’d never
met before bluntly told her she was ugly, Kaho was deeply confused. Instead
of feeling shock at his words, she was, quite simply, unsettled and bewildered.

It was her editor, a woman named Machida, who’d introduced her to the
man. Machida worked at a small publishing company in Kanda, mainly
putting out books for children. She was four years older than Kaho, had two
children herself, and edited the children’s books that Kaho created. Kaho’s
picture books didn’t sell all that well, but between those and her freelance
work doing illustrations for magazines she made enough to get by. At the
time of the date, Kaho had just broken up with a man her own age whom
she’d gone out with for a little over two years, and was feeling unusually
down. The breakup had left a bad taste. And, partly because of this, her work
wasn’t going well. Aware of the situation, Machida set up the blind date for
her. It might be just the change of pace you need, she told her.

Three days after Kaho met the man, Machida called her.

“So how was the date?” she wasted no time in asking.

Kaho gave a vague “Hmm,” skirting a direct answer, and then asked a
question of her own. “What kind of person is he, anyway?”

Machida said, “Honestly, I don’t know that much about him. Sort of a
friend-of-a-friend kind of thing. I think he’s near forty, single, and works in
investments of some kind. He’s from a good background, and good at his job.
No criminal record, as far as I know. I met him once and we talked for a few
minutes, and I thought he was handsome and seemed pleasant enough. He’s
a little on the short side, I’ll admit. But then Tom Cruise isn’t that tall, either.
Not that I’ve ever seen Tom Cruise in person.”

“But why would a man so handsome, pleasant, and good at his job have to go
to the trouble of going on a blind date?” Kaho asked. “Wouldn’t he have
plenty of women he could go out with?”

Machida said, “I suppose so. He’s very sharp, efficient at his job, but I
happened to hear that his personality is a little quirky. I decided not to
mention that, since I didn’t want to prejudice you before you met him.”

“A little quirky,” Kaho said, repeating the words. She shook her head. Could
you really call that a little quirky?

“Did you exchange phone numbers?” Machida asked.

Kaho paused a moment before replying. Exchange phone numbers? “No, we

didn’t,” she said "nally.

Three days after this, Machida called her again.

“I’m calling about the handsome Mr. Sahara. Can you talk?” she said. Sahara
was the name of the man with whom she had the blind date. Pronounced the
same way as the desert. Kaho put down her drawing pen and shifted the
receiver from her left hand to her right. “Sure. Go ahead.”

“Last night, he called me,” Machida said. “He said he’d like to see you again,
and wondered if you two could talk. He sounded pretty serious.”

Kaho couldn’t help but gasp, and was silent for a while. He wants to see me
again so the two of us can talk? Kaho couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Kaho-chan,” Machida said, sounding concerned. “Are you listening?”

“Yes, I’m listening,” Kaho said.

“He seemed to like you. So what should I tell him?”

Common sense dictated that she say no. He had, after all, said such horrible
things right to her face. Why would she ever need to see that kind of person
again? But she couldn’t reach a decision at this point. Several doubts
converged in her brain, all jumbled together.

“Can I think about it?” she asked Machida. “Let me call you back.”

Kaho ended up seeing Sahara one more time, that Saturday afternoon. They
arranged to meet during the day, for a short time, with no meal or alcohol
involved, at a place where they could talk quietly, though there could be other
people nearby—these were Kaho’s conditions, which Machida conveyed to
him.

“Odd conditions for a second date,” Machida commented. “You’re being

extremely cautious.”

“I suppose,” Kaho said.

“You haven’t hidden a wrench in your purse or anything, right?” Machida

said, and laughed happily.

That might not be such a bad idea, Kaho thought.

The last time they’d met, Sahara had looked as if he were on his way home
from work, in a nice dark suit and tie, but this time he had on a casual
weekend out"t—a thick brown leather jacket, slim jeans, and well-worn-in
work boots. Sunglasses stuck in his breast pocket. Quite a stylish look.
Kaho arrived a little later than the set time, and when she got to the hotel
lobby Sahara was already there, texting someone. When he spotted Kaho, a
faint smile rose to his lips and he closed the leather #ap on his cell-phone
cover. There was a motorcycle helmet on the seat beside him.

“I ride an 1800cc BMW,” Sahara said. “Of all the BMWs, this one has the
highest displacement and the engine makes the nicest, boldest sound.”

Kaho didn’t say anything. I couldn’t care less what you ride—a BMW
motorcycle, a tricycle, or an oxcart—she silently muttered to herself.

“I bet you’re not at all interested in motorcycles, but I thought I’d mention it
anyway, just F.Y.I.,” Sahara added.

This guy knows how to read my feelings, Kaho thought again.

A waitress came over and she ordered coffee. Sahara ordered chamomile tea.

“By the way, have you ever been to Australia?” Sahara asked.

Kaho shook her head. She’d never been to Australia.

“Do you like spiders?” Sahara asked, forming a fan in the air with both hands.
“Arachnids? The kind with eight legs?”

Kaho didn’t reply. She hated spiders more than anything, but wasn’t about to
reveal that.

Sahara said, “When I went to Australia, I saw a spider the size of a baseball
mitt. Just looking at it gave me the creeps. Made me shudder. But the locals
actually welcome them into their homes. You know why?”
Kaho remained silent.

“Because they’re nocturnal and they eat cockroaches. They’re what you’d call
useful, bene"cial bugs. Still, imagine having spiders that eat cockroaches. I’m
always amazed by how clever and magni"cent the structure of the food chain
is.”

The coffee and the herbal tea came, and for a while the two of them sat
before their drinks without speaking.

“I imagine you "nd it kind of odd,” Sahara said after a few minutes, his tone
formal. “That I wanted to see you again like this.”

Again Kaho didn’t respond. She didn’t dare to.

“And I must say I’m truly surprised that you would agree to see me again,”
Sahara said. “I feel thankful, but I was astonished that you’d agree to it after
that rude thing I said. No—what I said went beyond rude. It was an
unforgivable insult that tramples on a woman’s dignity. When I say that to
women, most of them never agree to see me again. Which is only to be
expected, really.”

Most of them—Kaho repeated his words in her mind. That shocked her.

“Most of them?” she said, speaking for the "rst time. “You mean that you’ve
said the same thing to all the women you meet? You’re saying . . .”

“Exactly,” Sahara readily admitted. “I tell all the women I meet exactly what I
said to you: ‘I’ve never seen anyone as ugly as you.’ Usually when we’re
enjoying dinner and dessert has just been served. With this kind of thing,
timing is everything.”

“But why?” Kaho asked, her voice dry. “Why do you have to do something
like that? I don’t get it. You hurt people for no reason? You spend time and
money just to insult them?”

Sahara tilted his head a little and said, “Why—that’s the real question. It’s
too complicated to explain. Instead, why don’t we talk about the effects such a
statement has. What always surprises me is the reaction of the women I say
that to. You might think that, having those awful words said right to their
face, most people would #y into a rage, or else laugh it off. And there are
people like that. But not that many, really. The majority of women are . . .
simply hurt. Deeply, and for a long time. In some cases, they blurt out
something weird. Something hard to comprehend.”

Silence reigned for a while. After a time, Kaho broke it. “And you’re saying
you enjoy seeing those reactions?”

“No, I don’t enjoy it. I just "nd it strange. How when women who are
obviously beautiful, or at least well above average, are told to their face that
they’re ugly how amazingly #ustered or hurt they get.”

The coffee she hadn’t touched, steam rising from it, was steadily growing
cold.

“I think you’re sick,” Kaho said "rmly.

Sahara nodded. “I guess so. You’re probably right. I might be sick. Not to
excuse myself or anything, but in a sick person’s eyes it’s the world that’s even
sicker. Right? Listen—nowadays people severely attack lookism. Most people
loudly denounce beauty contests. Say the words ‘ugly woman’ in public and
you’ll get beaten up. But check out TV. And magazines. They’re full of ads
for cosmetics, plastic surgery, and spa treatments. No matter how you look at
it, it’s a ridiculous, meaningless double standard. A farce, really.”

“But that doesn’t justify hurting other people for no reason, does it?” Kaho
countered.

“Yes, you’re right,” Sahara said. “I am sick. That’s an undeniable fact. But,
depending on how you look at it, being sick can also be enjoyable. Sick
people have their own special place that only sick people can enjoy. Like a
Disneyland for the disturbed. And, fortunately for me, I have the time and
money to enjoy that place.”

Without a word, Kaho stood up. Time to put an end to this. She couldn’t talk
to this man anymore.

“Hold on a sec,” Sahara said to Kaho as she stood there. “Could you give me
just a bit more of your time? It won’t take long. Five minutes is enough. I’d
like you to stay and hear me out.”

Kaho hesitated for a few seconds, then took her seat again. She didn’t want
to, but there was something in the man’s voice she found hard to resist.

“What I wanted to say to you was that the reaction you had was different
from anyone else’s,” Sahara said. “When you were assaulted by those awful
words, you didn’t panic, didn’t respond in anger, didn’t laugh it off, and didn’t
look so hurt by it. Without letting any of these trite emotions take over, you
just gazed at me. As if you were studying some bacteria under a microscope.
You’re the only one who’s ever reacted that way. I was impressed. And I
thought, Why doesn’t this woman feel hurt? If there is something that would
deeply wound her, well, then, what is it?”

“So you’re doing this,” Kaho said, “setting up these elaborate meetings, over
and over, just to see women’s reactions? That’s it?”

The man inclined his head. “There haven’t been all that many. Just when the
opportunity presents itself. I never use a dating app or anything. Things that
are too simple are boring. People I know introduce me, and I meet only
women whose backgrounds I know about. Old-fashioned, omiai-type
arranged meetings are the best. The old-school approach. I "nd that
exciting.”

“And then you insult the woman?” Kaho said.

Sahara didn’t respond. He merely gave a smile that soon subsided. He held
his hands out in front of his chest, studying them for a while. As if checking
whether there had been any changes in the lines in his palms.

“I was wondering if you’d go riding with me on my motorcycle,” he said,

looking up. “I brought along an extra helmet for you. The weather’s good
today, and we can enjoy tooling around. I just passed "ve thousand kilometres
on the odometer, and the horizontally opposed engine BMW’s so proud of is
tuned to perfection.”

An undeniable rage boiled up inside Kaho. It had been some time since she’d
felt this angry. Or perhaps it was the "rst time ever. We can enjoy tooling
around? What the hell was he thinking?

“I’ll pass,” Kaho said, keeping her emotions under wraps, her voice as calm as
she could manage. “Do you know the No. 1 thing I want to do right now?”

Sahara shook his head. “What would that be?”

“To put some distance between me and you, even a little distance. And scrub
off this "lth that’s on me.”

“I see,” Sahara said. “Indeed. Well. I guess I’ll have to unfortunately give up
on tooling around this time. But what do you think? You think wanting to
get some distance from me will work out?”

“What does that mean?”

Somewhere a baby cried. The man glanced in that direction, then looked
right at Kaho.

“Before long, I think you’ll understand,” he said. “Once I’m interested in

people, I don’t let them go that easily. And you might "nd this surprising,
but, in terms of distance, we’re not that far apart, you and I. See, people can’t
escape the structure of the chain. No matter how much they don’t want to see
it, even if they want to have nothing to do with it. Swallowing something and
being swallowed are two sides of the same coin. Front and back, credit and
debit. That’s the way the world is. We will probably, I think, meet again
somewhere.”

I should never have seen this man again, Kaho thought. She was sure of this
as she strode quickly toward the exit. When Machida called me that time, I
should have made that clear. “No, thanks,” I should have said. “I never want
to see that person again.”

It was curiosity. Curiosity that led me here. I think I wanted to "nd out what
in the world this man was aiming at, what he wanted. I think I wanted to
know that. But that was a mistake. He used curiosity as bait to skillfully lure
me in, just as a spider would. A chill ran up her spine. I want to go
somewhere warm, she thought. The desire couldn’t be stronger. A southern
island, with a white beach. Lie down there, close my eyes, shut off my mind,
and let the sunlight wash over me.

•
Several weeks went by. Kaho, of course, wanted to drive any thoughts of that
man, Sahara, from her mind as soon as she could. Shove this pointless
episode, one that had nothing to do with her life, somewhere she’d never see
it again. And yet, as she worked at her desk at night, the man’s face suddenly,
unexpectedly, rose up in her mind. Smiling faintly, gazing, for no particular
reason, at his long, delicate "ngers.

She started spending more time in front of the mirror, much more than she
ever had. She’d stand in front of the bathroom mirror, carefully checking
every detail of her face, as if recon"rming who she was. And it occurred to
her that she wasn’t much interested in any of it. This was de"nitely her face,
yet she could "nd nothing that dictated that it had to be her face. She even
started to envy her friends who’d had plastic surgery. They knew—or at least
believed they knew—which part of their face, surgically altered, would make
them more beautiful, more satis"ed with their looks.

My own life may be taking a clever revenge on me: she couldn’t help thinking
this. When the right time comes, my life may simply take away what I owe.
Credit and debit. Kaho understood that, if she’d never met that guy, Sahara,
she never would have thought this way. He may have been patiently waiting,
for the longest time, for me to show up in front of him, she thought. Like an
enormous spider waiting for its prey in the dark.

Occasionally, a large motorcycle would speed by on the street outside her

apartment late at night, when everyone was asleep. Whenever she heard the
low, dry throbbing, the drumbeat of the engine, her body trembled ever so
slightly. Her breathing grew ragged, and cold sweat oozed from her armpits.

“I brought along an extra helmet for you,” the man had said.

She pictured herself riding on the back of that BMW motorcycle. And she
imagined where that powerful machine would take her. What kind of place
would it take me to?

“In terms of distance, we’re not that far apart, you and I,” the man had said.

Six months after that strange blind date, Kaho wrote a new children’s book.
One night, she was dreaming she was at the bottom of a deep sea, and when
she woke up she felt as if she were suddenly being tossed to the surface,
#oating up from the sea bottom. She went right to her desk and wrote the
story. It didn’t take long to "nish.

The story was about a girl who goes in search of her face. At a certain point,
the girl had lost her face; someone had stolen it while she was asleep. So she
had to do something to get it back.

But she couldn’t remember at all what her face had looked like. She didn’t
even know if it was a beautiful face or an ugly one, round or thin. She asked
her parents, her siblings, but for some reason no one could recall what sort of
face it was. Or else no one was willing to tell her.

So the girl decided to set out alone on a face-seeking journey. For the time
being, she found a face that would "t her, and pasted it on where her own
face should be. Without a face of some kind, people she met along the way
would "nd her strange.

The girl walked all over the world. Climbed high mountains, crossed deep
rivers, walked across vast deserts, managed to make her way through savage
jungles. She was sure that if she came across her face she’d recognize it right
away. Since this is a very important part of my existence, she told herself. As
she travelled, she met many people, and had all kinds of odd experiences. She
was nearly trampled by a herd of elephants, was attacked by a huge black
spider, was almost kicked by wild horses.

A long time passed as she walked everywhere, examining countless faces as

she went, yet she never found her own face. What she saw were always the
faces of others. She didn’t know what to do. And before she knew it she was
no longer a girl but an adult woman. Would she never be able to "nd her
own face again? She fell into despair.

As she was sitting at the tip of a cape in a northern land, crying in utter
hopelessness, a tall young man in a fur coat appeared and sat down beside
her. His long hair gently waved in the wind from the sea. The young man
gazed into her face and, smiling broadly, said this: “I’ve never seen a woman
with such a lovely face as yours.”

By then, the face she’d pasted on had become her true face. All sorts of
experiences, all kinds of emotions and thoughts, had joined together to create
her face. This was her face, and her face alone. She and the young man were
married, and lived happily in this northern land.

For some reason—and Kaho herself wasn’t at all sure why—this book seemed
to spark something in the hearts of children, especially girls in their early
teens. These young readers excitedly followed the girl’s adventures and trials
as she set off into the wide world in search of her face. And when, in the end,
the girl found her face and discovered inner peace, readers breathed a sigh of
relief. The writing was simple, Kaho’s illustrations symbolic, monochrome
line drawings.

And that tale—the work of writing and illustrating it—brought a kind of

emotional healing to Kaho as well. I can live in this world as me, just as I am,
she realized. There’s nothing to fear. The dream she’d seen at the bottom of
the sea had taught her that. The anxiety she’d felt in the middle of the night
grew fainter. Though she couldn’t say it was gone completely.
The book sold steadily, through word of mouth, and got a good review in a
newspaper. Machida was thrilled.

“I’m thinking this children’s book may become a long-term best-seller. I just
get that feeling,” Machida said. “It’s a completely different style from your
other books, which surprised me at "rst. But I wonder, where did you get the
idea for it?”

After thinking about it for a moment, Kaho replied. “In a very dark, deep
place,” she said. ♦

(Translated, from the Japanese, by Philip Gabriel.)

Published in the print edition of the July 8 & 15, 2024, issue, with the headline
“Kaho.”

Haruki Murakami has published more than a dozen novels, including “1Q84” and
“Norwegian Wood.” His latest, “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” is due out in
English in November.

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