“Great! Something tells me that together, we can do anything!”
Aomame was drinking a daiquiri, Ayumi a Tom Collins.
“Oh, by the way,” Aomame said, “on the phone the other day you said we were doing lesbian stuff. What kind of stuff?”
“Oh, that,” Ayumi said. “It was nothing special. We just faked it a bit to liven things up. You really don’t remember anything? You were pretty hot.”
“Not a thing. My memory is wiped clean.”
“We were naked and touching each other’s breasts and kissing down there and—”
“Kissing down there?!” Aomame exclaimed. After the words escaped her lips, she nervously glanced around. She had spoken too loudly in the quiet bar, but fortunately no one seemed to have heard what she said.
“Don’t worry, like I said, we were faking it. No tongues.”
“Oh, man,” Aomame sighed, pressing her temples. “What the hell was that all about?”
“I’m sorry,” Ayumi said.
“It’s not your fault. I should never have let myself get so drunk.”
“But really, Aomame, you were so sweet and clean down there. Like new.”
“Well, of course, I really am almost new down there.”
“You mean you don’t use it all that often?”
Aomame nodded. “That’s exactly what I mean. So, tell me: are you interested in women?”
Ayumi shook her head. “No, I never did anything like that before. Really. But I was pretty drunk, too, and I figured I wouldn’t mind doing a little of that stuff as long as it was with you. Faking it. Just for fun. How about you?”
“No, I don’t have those kinds of feelings, either. Once, though, when I was in high school, I kind of did stuff like that with a good friend of mine. Neither of us had been planning it. It just sort of happened.”
“It’s probably not that unusual. Did you feel anything that time?”
“I did, I think,” Aomame answered honestly. “But only that once. I also felt it was wrong and never did anything like it again.”
“You mean you think lesbian sex is wrong?”
“No, not at all. I’m not saying lesbian sex is wrong or dirty or anything. I mean I just felt I shouldn’t get into that kind of a relationship with that particular friend. I didn’t want to change an important friendship into anything so physical.”
“I see,” Ayumi said. “You know, if it’s okay with you, would you mind putting me up tonight? I don’t feel like going back to the dorm. The minute I walk in there it will just ruin the elegant mood we’ve managed to create this evening.”
Aomame took her last sip of daiquiri and set her glass on the bar. “I don’t mind putting you up, but no fooling around.”
“No, no, that’s fine, I’m not looking for that. I just want to stay with you a little longer. I don’t care where you put me to bed. I can sleep anywhere—even on the floor. And I’m off duty tomorrow, so we can hang out in the morning, too.”
They took the subway back to Aomame’s apartment in Jiyugaoka, arriving just before eleven. Both were pleasantly drunk and sleepy. Aomame put bedding on the sofa and lent Ayumi a pair of pajamas.
“Can I get in bed with you for a minute or two?” Ayumi asked. “I want to stay close to you just a little bit longer. No funny business, I promise.”
“I don’t mind,” Aomame said, struck by the fact that a woman who had killed three men would be lying in bed with an active-duty policewoman. Life was so strange!
Ayumi crawled under the covers and wrapped her arms around Aomame, her firm breasts pressing against Aomame’s arm, her breath smelling of alcohol and toothpaste. “Don’t you think my breasts are too big?” she asked Aomame.
“Not at all. They’re beautiful.”
“Sure, but, I don’t know, big boobs make you look stupid, don’t you think? Mine bounce when I run, and I’m too embarrassed to hang my bras out to dry—they’re like two big salad bowls.”
“Men seem to like them like that.”
“And even my nipples are too big.” Ayumi unbuttoned her pajama top and pulled out a breast. “Look. This is a big nipple! Don’t you think it’s odd?”
Aomame looked at Ayumi’s nipple. It was certainly not small, but not so big as to cause concern, maybe a little bit bigger than Tamaki’s. “It’s nice. Did somebody tell you your nipples are too big?”
“Yeah, one guy. He said they’re the biggest he’s ever seen in his life.”
“I’m sure he hadn’t seen very many. Yours are ordinary. Mine are too small.”
“No, I like your breasts. They’re very elegantly shaped, and they give this intellectual impression.”
“That’s ridiculous. They’re too small, and they’re different sizes. I have trouble buying bras because one side is bigger than the other.”
“Really? I guess we all have our issues.”
“Exactly. Now go to sleep,” Aomame said.
Ayumi stretched her arm down and started to put a finger into Aomame’s pajamas. Aomame grabbed her hand.
“No, you promised.”
“Sorry,” Ayumi said, pulling her hand back. “You’re right, I did promise, didn’t I? I must be drunk. But I’m crazy about you. Like some mousy little high school girl.”
Aomame said nothing.
Almost whispering, Ayumi said, “What I think is that you’re saving the one thing that’s most important to you for that boy. It’s true, isn’t it? I envy you. That you’ve got somebody to save yourself for.”
She could be right, Aomame thought. But what is the one thing that’s most important to me?
“Now go to sleep,” Aomame said. “I’ll hold you until you fall asleep.”
“Thank you,” Ayumi said. “Sorry for putting you to so much trouble.”
“Don’t apologize. This is no trouble.”
Aomame continued to feel Ayumi’s warm breath against her side. A dog howled in the distance, and someone slammed a window shut. All the while, Aomame kept stroking Ayumi’s hair.
Aomame slipped out of bed after Ayumi was sound asleep. She would be the one sleeping on the sofa tonight, it seemed. She took a bottle of mineral water from the refrigerator and drank two glasses from it. Then she stepped out onto her small balcony and sat in an aluminum chair, looking at the neighborhood stretched out below. It was a soft spring night. The breeze carried the roar of distant streets like a man-made ocean. The glitter of neon had diminished somewhat now that midnight had passed.
I’m fond of this girl Ayumi, no doubt about it. I want to be as good to her as I can. After Tamaki died, I made up my mind to live without deep ties to anyone. I never once felt that I wanted a new friend. But for some reason I feel my heart opening to Ayumi. I can even confess my true feelings to her with a certain degree of honesty. She is totally different from you, of course, Aomame said to the Tamaki inside. You are special. I grew up with you. No one else can compare.
Aomame leaned her head back and looked up at the sky for a time. Even as her eyes took in the sky, her mind wandered through distant memories. The time she spent with Tamaki, the talking they did, and the touching.… Soon, she began to sense that the night sky she saw above her was somehow different from the sky she was used to seeing. The strangeness of it was subtle but undeniable.
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. It had an unfamiliar shape. It was somewhat lopsided, and greenish, as though thinly covered with moss. This was what her vision had seized upon.
Aomame stared at the two moons with narrowed eyes. Then she closed her eyes, let a moment pass, took a deep breath, and opened her eyes again, expecting
to find that everything had returned to normal and there was only one moon. But nothing had changed. The light was not playing tricks on her, nor had her eyesight gone strange. There could be no doubt that two moons were clearly floating in the sky side by side—a yellow one and a green one.
She thought of waking Ayumi to ask if there really were two moons up there, but she decided against it. Ayumi might say, “Of course there are two moons in the sky. They increased in number last year.” Or then again, she might say, “What are you talking about? There’s only one moon up there. Something must be wrong with your eyes.” Neither response would solve the problem now facing her. Both would only deepen it.
Aomame raised her hands to cover the lower half of her face, and she continued staring at the two moons. Something is happening, for sure, she thought. Her heartbeat sped up. Something’s wrong with the world, or something’s wrong with me: one or the other. The bottle and the cap don’t fit: is the problem with the bottle or the cap?
She went back inside, locked the balcony door, and drew the curtain. She took a bottle of brandy from the cabinet and poured herself a glassful. Ayumi was sleeping nicely in bed, her breathing deep and even. Aomame kept watch over her and took a sip of brandy now and then. Planting her elbows on the kitchen table, she struggled not to think about what lay beyond the curtain.
Maybe the world really is ending, she thought.
“And the kingdom is coming,” Aomame muttered to herself.
“I can hardly wait,” somebody said somewhere.
CHAPTER 16
Tengo
I’M GLAD YOU LIKED IT
Tengo had spent ten days reworking Air Chrysalis before handing it over to Komatsu as a newly finished work, following which he was visited by a string of calm, tranquil days. He taught three days a week at the cram school, and got together once a week with his married girlfriend. The rest of his time he spent doing housework, taking walks, and writing his own novel. April passed like this. The cherry blossoms scattered, new buds appeared on the trees, the magnolias reached full bloom, and the seasons moved along in stages. The days flowed by smoothly, regularly, uneventfully. This was the life that Tengo most wanted, each week linking automatically and seamlessly with the next.
Amid all the sameness, however, one change became evident. A good change. Tengo was aware that, as he went on writing his novel, a new wellspring was forming inside him. Not that its water was gushing forth: it was more like a tiny spring among the rocks. The flow may have been limited, but it was continuous, welling up drop by drop. He was in no hurry. He felt no pressure. All he had to do was wait patiently for the water to collect in the rocky basin until he could scoop it up. Then he would sit at his desk, turning what he had scooped into words, and the story would advance quite naturally.
The concentrated work of rewriting Air Chrysalis might have dislodged a rock that had been blocking his wellspring until now. Tengo had no idea why that should be so, but he had a definite sense that a heavy lid had finally come off. He felt as though his body had become lighter, that he had emerged from a cramped space and could now stretch his arms and legs freely. Air Chrysalis had probably stimulated something that had been deep inside him all along.
Tengo sensed, too, that something very like desire was growing inside him. This was the first time in his life he had ever experienced such a feeling. All through high school and college, his judo coach and older teammates would often say to him, “You have the talent and the strength, and you practice enough, but you just don’t have the desire.” They were probably right. He lacked that drive to win at all costs, which is why he would often make it to the semifinals and the finals but lose the all-important championship match. He exhibited these tendencies in everything, not just judo. He was more placid than determined. It was the same with his fiction. He could write with some style and make up reasonably interesting stories, but his work lacked the strength to grab the reader by the throat. Something was missing. And so he would always make it to the short list but never take the new writers’ prize, as Komatsu had said.
After he finished rewriting Air Chrysalis, however, Tengo was truly chagrined for the first time in his life. While engaged in the rewrite, he had been totally absorbed in the process, moving his hands without thinking. Once he had completed the work and handed it to Komatsu, however, Tengo was assaulted by a profound sense of powerlessness. Once the powerlessness began to abate, a kind of rage surged up from deep inside him. The rage was directed at Tengo himself. I used another person’s story to create a rewrite that amounts to a literary fraud, and I did it with far more passion than I bring to my own work. Isn’t a writer someone who finds the story hidden inside and uses the proper words to express it? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? You should be able to write something as good as Air Chrysalis if you make up your mind to do it. Isn’t that true?
But he had to prove it to himself.
Tengo decided to discard the manuscript he had written thus far and start a brand-new story from scratch. He closed his eyes and, for a long time, listened closely to the dripping of the little spring inside him. Eventually the words began to come naturally to him. Little by little, taking all the time he needed, he began to form them into sentences.
In early May Komatsu called him for the first time in quite a while. The phone rang just before nine o’clock at night.
“It’s all set,” Komatsu said, with a note of excitement in his voice. This was rare for him.
Tengo could not tell at first what Komatsu was talking about. “What’s all set?”
“What else? Air Chrysalis took the new writers’ award a few minutes ago. The committee reached a unanimous decision, with none of the usual debate. I guess you could say it was inevitable, it’s such a powerful work. In any case, things have started to move. We’re in this together from now on, Tengo. Let’s give it our best shot.”
Tengo glanced at the calendar on the wall. Come to think of it, today was the day the screening committee was going to pick the winner. Tengo had been so absorbed in writing his own novel, he had lost all sense of time.
“So what happens now?” Tengo asked. “In terms of the prize schedule, I mean.”
“Tomorrow the newspapers announce it—every paper in the country. They’ll probably have photos, too. A pretty seventeen-year-old girl wins: that alone will cause a sensation. Don’t take this the wrong way, but that has a lot more news value than if the new writers’ prize had gone to some thirty-year-old cram school teacher who looks like a bear coming out of hibernation.”
“Way more,” Tengo said.
“Then comes the award ceremony on May 16 in a Shinbashi hotel. The press conference is all arranged.”
“Will Fuka-Eri be there?”
“I’m sure she will, this time at least. There’s no way the winner of a new writers’ prize wouldn’t be present at the award ceremony. If we can get through that without any major mishaps, we can then adopt a policy of total secrecy. ‘Sorry, but the author does not wish to make public appearances.’ We can hold them at bay like that, and the truth will never come out.”
Tengo tried to imagine Fuka-Eri holding a press conference in a hotel ballroom. A row of microphones, cameras flashing. He couldn’t picture it.
“Do you really need to have a press conference?” he asked Komatsu.
“We’ll have to, at least once, to keep up appearances.”
“It’s bound to be a disaster!”
“Which is why it’s your job, Tengo, to make sure it doesn’t turn into a disaster.”
Tengo went silent. Ominous dark clouds appeared on the horizon.
“Hey, are you still there?” Komatsu asked.
“I’m here,” Tengo said. “What does that mean—it’s my job?”
“You have to drill Fuka-Eri on how a press conference works and how to deal with it. Pretty much the same sorts of questions come up every time, so you should prepare answers for questions they’re likely to ask, and have her memorize them wor
d for word. You teach at a cram school. You must know how to do stuff like that.”
“You want me to do it?”
“Of course. She trusts you, for some reason. She’ll listen to you. There’s no way I can do it. She hasn’t even agreed to meet me.”
Tengo sighed. He wished he could cut all ties with Air Chrysalis. He had done everything asked of him, and now he just wanted to concentrate on his own work. Something told him, however, that it was not going to be that simple, and he knew that bad premonitions have a far higher accuracy rate than good ones.
“Are you free in the evening the day after tomorrow?” Komatsu asked.
“I am.”
“Six o’clock at the usual café in Shinjuku. Fuka-Eri will be there.”
“I can’t do what you’re asking me to do,” Tengo said to Komatsu. “I don’t know anything about press conferences. I’ve never even seen one.”
“You want to be a novelist, right? So imagine it. Isn’t that the job of the novelist—to imagine things he’s never seen?”
“Yes, but aren’t you the one who told me all I had to do was rewrite Air Chrysalis, that you’d take care of everything else after that, that I could just sit on the sidelines and watch the rest of the game?”
“Look, I’d gladly do it if I could. I’m not crazy about asking people to do things for me, but that’s exactly what I’m doing now, pleading with you to do this job because I can’t do it. Don’t you see? It’s as if we’re in a boat shooting the rapids. I’ve got my hands full steering the rudder, so I’m letting you take the oar. If you tell me you can’t do it, the boat’s going to capsize and we all might go under, including Fuka-Eri. You don’t want that to happen, do you?”
Tengo sighed again. Why did he always get himself backed into a corner where he couldn’t refuse? “Okay, I’ll do my best. But I can’t promise it’s going to work.”
“That’s all I’m asking,” Komatsu said. “I’ll owe you big for this. I mean, Fuka-Eri seems to have made up her mind not to talk to anyone but you. And there’s one more thing. You and I have to set up a new company.”
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