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“Thanks very much,” he said. “Be careful, it looks windy out there. Don’t slip.” “I’ll be careful,” Aomame said. “And also,” the driver said, facing the mirror, “please remember: things are not what they seem.”
He did not engage in pointless intellectual display, but it was clear that he had read an enormous amount and that his knowledge was both wide-ranging and deep. Nor was it simply a matter of factual knowledge: he had an intuitive eye both for people and for books. His biases played a large role here, but for Komatsu bias was an important element of truth.
“What is this work of yours?” “Look, I told you before. I don’t want to discuss my job here. I can say this much, though: it’s not that easy being a woman.” “Well, it’s not that easy being a man, either.” “Maybe not, but you never have to put on a lacy bra when you don’t want to.”
“Where did you ever fire such a thing?” “You know, the usual story. Once upon a time I was playing my harp by a spring when a fairy appeared out of nowhere, handed me a Beretta Model 92, and told me to shoot the white rabbit over there for target practice.” “Get serious.” The creases by Tamaru’s mouth deepened slightly. “I’m always serious,” he said.
Another reason, he said, was that it was important for a father to show his son the type of work he did. A child should learn from early on what kind of activity supported his daily life, and he should appreciate the importance of labor.
Aomame continued tapping on her teeth with the top end of her ballpoint pen as her mind spun furiously. She kept this up for a long time until finally, the thought struck her: Maybe I can look at it this way—the problem is not with me but with the world around me. It’s not that my consciousness or mind has given rise to some abnormality, but rather that some kind of incomprehensible power has caused the world around me to change.
Fukada was supposedly looking for a utopia in the Takashima system,” the Professor said with a frown. “But utopias don’t exist, of course, anywhere in any world. Like alchemy or perpetual motion. What Takashima is doing, if you ask me, is making mindless robots. They take the circuits out of people’s brains that make it possible for them to think for themselves. Their world is like the one that George Orwell depicted in his novel. I’m sure you realize that there are plenty of people who are looking for exactly that kind of brain death. It makes life a lot easier. You don’t have to think about
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Maintaining a neutral stance became increasingly difficult with each passing day. Eventually, Fukada found himself trapped between the two factions.
Generally speaking, there was no other way for a woman to take down a bigger, stronger man one-on-one.
“Age has nothing to do with it,” Aomame snapped back. “It’s a question of how you live your life. The important thing is to adopt a stance of always being deadly serious about protecting yourself. You can’t go anywhere if you just resign yourself to being attacked. A state of chronic powerlessness eats away at a person.”
“Are you a feminist, or a lesbian?” Aomame blushed slightly and shook her head. “I don’t think so. My thoughts on such matters are strictly my own. I’m not a doctrinaire feminist, and I’m not a lesbian.”
Tengo sympathized with her. On Sundays, children should be allowed to play with other children to their heart’s content, not made to go around threatening people until they paid their fees or frightening people with warnings about the impending end of the world. Such work—to the extent that it is necessary at all—should be done by adults.
This was not about the mere loss of her virginity but rather the sanctity of an individual human being’s soul. No one had the right to invade such sacred precincts with muddy feet. And once it happened, that sense of powerlessness could only keep gnawing away at a person.
‘Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.’ ” “What is that?” “Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Have you ever read Aristotle?”
Once she became an adult, however, Aomame discovered that she was most comfortable living a life of self-denial and moderation. What she wanted most of all was not to go out with someone all dressed up, but to spend time alone in her room dressed in a jersey top and bottom.
What did it mean for a person to be free? she would often ask herself. Even if you managed to escape from one cage, weren’t you just in another, larger one?
Think of the money you get as the outward form of the women’s gratitude. Without a doubt, you have done the right thing. But your act must not go uncompensated. Do you understand why?” “No, not really,” Aomame replied honestly. “Because you are neither an angel nor a god. I am quite aware that your actions have been prompted by your pure feelings, and I understand perfectly well that, for that very reason, you do not wish to receive money for what you have done. But pure, unadulterated feelings are dangerous in their own way. It is no easy feat for a flesh-and-blood human being to go on living
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Some time had to pass before she was able to grasp what the difference was. And even after she had grasped it, she had to work hard to accept it. What her vision had seized upon, her mind could not easily confirm. There were two moons in the sky—a small moon and a large one. They were floating there side by side. The large one was the usual moon that she had always seen. It was nearly full, and yellow. But there was another moon right next to it.
“The Tale of the Heike.”
The dowager went on, “I am not saying that a woman’s only purpose in life is to bear children. Each individual is free to choose the kind of life she wants to lead. It is simply not permissible for someone to rob her by force of her innate right as a woman before she has the opportunity to exercise it.”
The “brothers and sisters” around her were all mild-mannered, sincere people. They thought seriously about their faith, and they lived with reverence for their doctrines—to the point of staking their lives on them. But decent motives don’t always produce decent results. And the body is not the only target of rape. Violence does not always take visible form, and not all wounds gush blood.
“Robbing people of their actual history is the same as robbing them of part of themselves. It’s a crime.” Fuka-Eri thought about that for a moment. Tengo went on, “Our memory is made up of our individual memories and our collective memories. The two are intimately linked. And history is our collective memory. If our collective memory is taken from us—is rewritten—we lose the ability to sustain our true selves.”
Thirdly, Mr. Ushikawa, I personally don’t want to have anything to do with you. Fourthly, no matter how you look at it, there’s something fishy about this grant. It just sounds too good to be true. There’s something going on behind the scenes. I certainly don’t have the best intuition in the world, but I can tell that much from the smell. Tengo, of course, said none of this.
The article reported that Ayumi had been found dead in a Shibuya hotel room. She had been strangled with a bathrobe sash. Stark naked, she was handcuffed to the bed, a piece of clothing stuffed in her mouth. A hotel staff person had found the body when inspecting the room before noon. Ayumi and a man had taken the room before eleven o’clock the night before, and the man had left alone at dawn.
My wife is irretrievably lost. She can no longer visit your home in any form. That was what Kyoko Yasuda’s husband had said. If I may use a classical analogy here, you people might have opened Pandora’s box and let loose all kinds of things in the world. The two of you may have joined forces by accident, but you turned out to be a far more powerful team than you ever imagined. Each of you was able to make up for what the other lacked. So said Ushikawa.
“It is not that the meaning cannot be explained. But there are certain meanings that are lost forever the moment they are explained in words.”
The girl realizes that this is a message from the Little People. Apparently they cannot do anything to the girl, a maza, directly. What they can do instead is harm and even destroy the people around her. But they cannot do this to just anyone—they cannot touch her guardian, the painter, or his daughter, Kurumi. Instead they choose the weakest ones for their prey.
Just then Aomame noticed something: she was not the only person looking up at the moons. She could see a young man in the playground across the street. He was sitting on top of the slide and looking in the same direction that she was. He is seeing two moons, just like me, she knew intuitively.
Then Aomame suddenly knew: It was Tengo. No, she thought, that couldn’t possibly be. She gave her head several short, sharp shakes. No way. I must be wrong. Things don’t work out like that. She found it impossible to breathe normally. Her body wasn’t working right. Thought and action refused to sync. I’ve got to take another good look at him, she thought, but for some reason she couldn’t get her eyes to focus.
What was right? What was wrong? She knew only one thing for sure: she wanted those thick arms of his to be holding her right now. What happened after that would happen: let God or the devil decide.
She slipped on a pair of sneakers and ran down three floors on the condo building’s emergency stairway, crossed the street, entered the empty playground, and walked to the slide, where there was no sign of Tengo. Bathed in the artificial light of the mercury-vapor lamp, the top of the slide was deserted—darker, colder, and emptier than the far side of the moon.
“Ho ho,” said the keeper of the beat. “Ho ho,” the six other Little People joined in. “Tengo!” said Aomame, and started to squeeze the trigger.
“Is everything okay?” Tengo asked her. “Yes, everything is okay,” she said. “Just like always.” “Everything’s fine with me, too. Doing the same thing every day.” “But time is moving forward.” “That’s right,” Tengo said. “Every day time moves forward one day’s worth.” And what has gone forward can’t go back to where it came from.
Nobody’s easier to fool, Ushikawa thought, than the person who is convinced that he is right.
She was not very social to begin with, and never had a problem going long stretches without seeing or talking with other people. Even when she was in elementary school, she seldom talked with her classmates. More accurately, unless it was absolutely necessary, no one else ever spoke to her.
“So how is Mr. Komatsu feeling?” Tengo asked the editor. “He seems fine,” the man replied. “Though he seems less talkative than before.” “Less talkative?” Tengo asked, a bit surprised. “How should I put it—he’s less sociable than before.” “Was he really quite sick?” “How should I know?”
Tengo thanked him and hung up. If he remembers. This was one of the problems with math department graduates. When it came to areas they weren’t interested in, their memory was surprisingly short-lived.
The fee collector continued. “No, I don’t want to ring the bell. If I do, all you hear is the bell ringing, that’s all. No matter who pushes the bell, it makes the same harmless little sound. Now, a knock—that has personality. You use your physical body to knock on something and there’s a flesh-and-blood emotion behind it.
She brought her hand down to her abdomen, shut her eyes, and listened carefully, trying to pick up the voice. Something was definitely alive inside her. A small, living something. She knew it. Dohta, she whispered. Maza, something replied.
It was time to go back to Tokyo—before the exit was blocked, while the train still stopped at this station. But before that he needed to go to the sanatorium again, and say good-bye to his father. There were things he still needed to clarify.
“If you do anything out of the ordinary, you can be sure someone, somewhere, will get upset,” Tamaru said.
“There is a girl staying in my apartment in Tokyo. Not a girlfriend or anything—something happened and she’s taking shelter there temporarily. A few days ago she told me on the phone about an NHK collector who came by, how he knocked on the door, and what he did and said out in the corridor. It was strange how closely it resembled the methods you used to use. The words she heard were exactly the same lines I remember, the expressions I was hoping I could totally erase from my memory. And I’m thinking now that that fee collector might actually have been you. Am I wrong?”
At any rate, the circle was drawing in tighter. But Tengo and Aomame weren’t aware that the circle around them was closing in.
Kumi lightly tapped the wooden bed frame with her fist. “Don’t you think it sounds like a signal?” “That’s not a signal.” “Then what is it?” “He’s knocking on a door,” Tengo said, his voice dry. “The front door of a house.” “I guess that makes sense. It does sound like someone knocking on a door.” She narrowed her eyes to slits. “So are you saying that even after he lost consciousness he was still making his rounds to collect fees?” “Probably,” Tengo said. “Somewhere inside his head.”
“It’s a terrible thing when a person dies, whatever the circumstances. A hole opens up in the world, and we need to pay the proper respects. If we don’t, the hole will never be filled in again.” Tengo nodded. “The hole can’t be left open,” Kumi went on, “or somebody might fall in.” “But in some cases the dead person has secrets,” Tengo said. “And when the hole’s filled in, those secrets are never known.” “I think that’s necessary too.” “How come?” “Certain secrets can’t be left behind.” “Why not?” Kumi let go of his hand and looked at him right in the face. “There’s something about those
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“Bobblehead is no longer in that apartment,” Tamaru said, as always omitting any sort of greeting. No hellos for him. “He’s not there anymore?” “No, he’s not. He was persuaded.” “Persuaded,” Aomame repeated. She imagined this meant that Tamaru had, through some means, forcibly removed Bobblehead.
“I don’t know what you plan to do from now on,” Tamaru said, “but if you do go somewhere far away, and I never see you again, I know I’ll feel a little sad. You’re a rare sort of character, a type I’ve seldom come across before.”
Inside him, twenty years dissolved and mixed into one complex, swirling whole. Everything that had accumulated over the years—all he had seen, all the words he had spoken, all the values he had held—all of it coalesced into one solid, thick pillar in his heart, the core of which was spinning like a potter’s wheel. Wordlessly, Tengo observed the scene, as if watching the destruction and rebirth of a planet. Aomame kept silent as well. The two of them on top of the freezing slide, wordlessly holding hands.
“We came into this world so that we could meet. We didn’t realize it ourselves, but that was the purpose of us coming here. We faced all kinds of complications—things that didn’t make sense, things that defied explanation. Weird things, gory things, sad things. And sometimes, even beautiful things. We were asked to make a vow, and we did. We were forced to go through hard times, and we made it.
The clouds finally broke and the moon came into view. There was just one moon. That familiar, yellow, solitary moon.
