The Elephant Vanishes: Stories

One Sunday, the narrator notices the wind is blowing very strongly while recording the events of the past week in his diary. He is surprised by how suddenly the wind began when the morning had been so calm and when the probability of rainfall should have been 0%—a day he describes as “a peaceful Sunday afternoon like the heyday of the Roman Empire” (113). In the afternoon, the narrator’s phone rings. He is expecting a call from his girlfriend, but when he picks up, he can hear only the sound of the wind, which sounds to him like “A rummmmmble full of fury, like the Indians all rising on the warpath in 1881” (114).

The man returns to his diary and thinks of Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939, which reminds him to record that he had seen Sophie’s Choice on Saturday. A little later, once the narrator finishes updating his diary, he receives a phone call from his girlfriend, who suggests coming over to fix dinner. The narrator asks her if she called him earlier, and she confirms that she did, but that the wind was too loud in Nakano, so he could not hear her.