The New Yorker: PRINTABLES
A SHINAGAWA MONKEY
by HARUKI MURAKAMI
Issue of 2006-02-13 and 20
Posted 2006-02-06
She sometimes had trouble remembering her own name. Usually this happened when someone
unexpectedly asked what it was. She’d be at a boutique, getting the sleeves of a dress altered, and
the saleswoman would say, “Your name, Ma’am?,” and her mind would go blank. The only way
she could remember it was to pull out her driver’s license, which was bound to seem weird to the
person she was talking to. Even if she was on the phone when it happened, the awkward silence as
she rummaged through her purse inevitably made the person at the other end wonder what was
going on.
She could remember everything else. She never forgot the names of the people around her. Her
address, phone number, birthday, and passport number were no problem at all. She could rattle off
her friends’ phone numbers, and the numbers of important clients. And when she was the one who
brought up her name she never had any trouble remembering it. As long as she knew in advance
what to expect, her memory was fine. But when she was in a hurry or unprepared, it was as if a
circuit had been broken. The more she struggled, the clearer it became that she couldn’t, for the
life of her, remember what she was called.
Her married name was Mizuki Ando; her maiden name was Ozawa. Neither name was unique or
particularly dramatic, though that still didn’t explain how they could, in the course of her busy
schedule, vanish from her memory. She had been Mizuki Ando for three years, since she married
a man named Takashi Ando. At first she hadn’t been able to get used to her new name. The way it
looked and sounded just didn’t seem right to her. But, gradually, after she had repeated it and
signed it a number of times, she began to feel more comfortable with it. Compared with other
possibilities—Mizuki Mizuki, for instance, or Mizuki Miki (she’d actually dated a guy named
Miki for a while)—Mizuki Ando wasn’t bad.
She’d been married for a couple of years when the name started to slip away from her. At first it
happened only once a month or so, but over time it became more frequent. Now she was
forgetting her name at least once a week. If she had her purse with her she was fine. If she ever
lost her purse, though, she’d be lost, too. She wouldn’t entirely disappear, of course—she still
remembered her address and phone number. This wasn’t like those cases of total amnesia in the
movies. Still, the fact remained that forgetting her name was upsetting. A life without a name, she
felt, was like a dream you never wake up from.
Mizuki went to a jewelry store, bought a thin, simple bracelet, and had her name engraved on it:
“
Mizuki (Ozawa) Ando.”
She felt like a cat or a dog, but still she was careful to wear the bracelet
every time she left home. If she forgot her name, all she had to do was glance down at her wrist.