M Train

As she writes, Smith thinks about time and the nature of the past, present, and future. She thinks again about her early years with Fred and how time seemed of little consequence to them. They would stay up all night, sleep all day, and wake again when the sun was setting. Fred dreamed up a television show that they would develop together, but this dream, like so many others, never materialized. Not all dreams are realized, she reflects. 

After returning from French Guiana, Fred learned to fly, and Smith wrote. He got his pilot's license but could not afford to fly planes, while Smith did not get anything published. During this time, they “held fast to the concept of the clock with no hands” (97); they lived their lives while ignoring the passing of time.

When Smith was a child, she got scarlet fever and had to spend several months in bed convalescing. Now, as an adult, she suffers from a “malaise” that encourages her to stay in bed and reminds her of her childhood illness. She reflects that if her brother were still alive, he would encourage her to get up and do something. She finds a book with an inscription from her mother and misses her, wondering why understanding a person so often only comes once they are gone. 

Smith goes to a bookstore and finds a copy of A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami. She has never read Murakami before but is drawn to the book. She spends the next few weeks reading nothing but Murakami novels, including Dance, Dance, Dance; Kafka on the Shore; and eventually The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. She contemplates the kinds of masterpieces that exist and believes that there are two types: classic masterpieces like Moby Dick and Wuthering Heights and masterpieces with “living energy” that have a great emotional impact on the reader. 

Smith calls The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle this second kind of masterpiece. She finds herself becoming obsessed with the story’s details, including a house, a well, and a mysterious bird sculpture. She wants to see the house in real life and is disturbed when it drops out of the narrative; she does not like loose ends.

She falls asleep and dreams of the cowpoke, who tells her that “[t]here are actually three kinds of masterpieces” (109). Smith goes to Café ’Ino and tries to work out the third category by writing lists of her favorite books. A girl who works at the café asks her what she is writing, and she finds she cannot answer her; she has no idea. On her way home, she realizes that “there is only one kind of masterpiece: a masterpiece” (111). 

Smith contemplates the well in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and wonders how she can possibly find it, especially since she does not know if the house in the book is real.

For a time, Smith does not dream. She plays a game to combat her insomnia, in which she utters “an uninterrupted stream of words beginning with a chosen letter” (119). Finally, she dreams again. The cowpoke tells her that people attach morals or meaning to stories by telling them; the meanings are not inherent. She wakes and reflects that the cowpoke is growing on her.

Smith receives a letter from the director of Casa Azul, the house where Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) lived and is buried. She is invited to give a talk about Kahlo and photograph some of her belongings. Smith is excited to go; she went to Mexico once in her early twenties but was disappointed to find Casa Azul closed for renovations. She went instead to Veracruz, which is known for its importance in the Mexican coffee trade. In Veracruz, she spent a lot of time at a coffee dealer, drinking perfect cups of coffee. 

Smith packs for her trip to Casa Azul. She dreams about Pat Sajak, the host of Wheel of Fortune. She arrives in Mexico City and attends an event at the American Embassy, where she learns that two journalists, a cameraman, and a child have just been murdered in Veracruz. Smith is haunted by the story and sings a song in her hotel room. That night, she wakes up and is violently ill. She manages to call the front desk for help, and a maid is sent to clean her room. Smith is deeply grateful. She sleeps again and dreams of a maid who laughs at her and calls her poems “completely devoid of poetry” (131). 

In the morning, despite still feeling ill, Smith decides not to cancel her trip to Casa Azul. She arrives at Frida Kahlo’s house and is allowed to photograph some of Kahlo’s dresses and possessions. When her hosts realize how sick she is, they invite her to lie down in the bed of Diego Rivera (1886-1957), Kahlo’s partner. After sleeping for a bit, Smith feels well enough to deliver her talk. She sings a song that came to her while she rested in Rivera’s bed. Later, she drinks tequila and sees a green metro train “with an M in a circle” (133).

The chapter closes with photographs of Frida’s crutches and dress, photographed in Casa Azul, as well as a shot of the West Fourth Street metro station in New York.

Smith receives news from Zak that his beach café is finally open. She takes the train out to Rockaway Beach, Queens, on the Memorial Day long weekend. Zak is pleased to see her and gives her the promised free coffee. Later, Smith is surprised to see her friend Klaus. He tells her he has just bought a Victorian house in the neighborhood, which is much cheaper than Manhattan. Smith reflects that she is falling in love with the neighborhood herself and wonders if it is because she loves the ocean. She never learned to swim but is nevertheless drawn to water.

She and Fred used to spend a lot of time working on restoring an old boat. Once it became obvious that the boat would never be seaworthy, she and Fred left it in their yard and sat in it while listening to baseball games on the radio. The boat was eventually destroyed when a storm hit and brought a tree down on top of it. As Smith walks back to the train station, she passes a derelict bungalow with a sign saying it is for sale. Smith is so taken by the property’s overgrown garden that she cannot stop thinking about it. 

Days later, Smith enters a café in Chinatown looking for a cup of coffee. Instead, she gets oolong tea and steamed buns. When she leaves, she feels as if she stepped into another world and if she were to try to find the café again, it would be gone. She returns to the bungalow in Rockaway Beach and gets the owner’s number. She learns that the house is not “bank-friendly” due to its condition, and if she wants to buy it, she will have to pay cash. Smith decides to spend the summer getting the money together. 

She works hard for the next few months, traveling throughout Europe writing and performing. She works on a 100-line poem for the Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño, but she is never able to get it to exactly 100 lines. She travels to Mexico again, this time with a group of women activists. They visit a canyon in La Huasteca, where Smith finds a small, white, rectangular stone. She takes it with her, thinking of it as sacred, but it is confiscated from her at the airport. Despite her protests, the security guard tells her it could be considered a weapon. She also leaves her copy of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle in an airport bathroom. She realizes that she has found a place of her own in the Rockaway Beach bungalow, so the work of the wind-up bird is done.

Smith buys the bungalow. Though the mold inside means that she cannot spend too long exploring the small house, Smith is enthusiastic about her renovation plans. She names the house the Alamo.