“First of all, I don’t like the idea of taking money from people I hardly know. Secondly, as things stand now, I don’t really need the money. I have managed well enough so far by teaching three days a week at the cram school and using the other days to concentrate on my writing. I’m not ready to change that lifestyle.”
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.
“I see,” Ushikawa said, filling his lungs with cigarette smoke and exhaling with a look of deep satisfaction. “I see. I think, in my own way, I understand your view of the matter. What you say is quite logical. But really, Mr. Kawana, there is no need for you to give me your answer right now. Why don’t you go home and take a good two or three days to think it over? Take more time to reach your conclusion. We’re not in any hurry. It’s not a bad offer.”
Tengo gave his head a decisive shake. “Thank you, that’s very kind, but it will save us both a lot of time and trouble if we reach a final decision today. I am honored to have been nominated for a grant, and I’m sorry to have put you to the trouble of making a special trip here, but I’m afraid I will have to decline. This is my final conclusion, and there is no possibility that I would reconsider.”
Ushikawa nodded a few times and regretfully used the ashtray to crush out the cigarette, from which he had taken only two puffs.
“That’s fine, Mr. Kawana. I see where you are coming from, and I want to respect your wishes. I am sorry for having taken up your time. It’s unfortunate, but I will have to resign myself to it. I will be going now.”
But Ushikawa showed no sign of standing up. He simply treated the back of his head to a thorough scratching and looked at Tengo with narrowed eyes.
“However, Mr. Kawana, you yourself may not be aware of it, but people are expecting great things from you as a writer. You have talent. Mathematics and literature probably have no direct connection, but listening to you lecture on mathematics is like listening to someone tell a story. This is not something that any ordinary person can do. You have something special that needs to be told. That is clear even to the likes of me. So be sure to take care of yourself. Forgive me if I am being oversolicitous, but please try not to become embroiled in extraneous matters, and make up your mind to walk straight down your own path in life.”
“Extraneous matters?” Tengo asked.
“For example, you seem to have—how should I put this?—some sort of connection with Miss Eriko Fukada, the author of Air Chrysalis. Or at least you have met her a few times, am I correct? By coincidence, I just happened to read in today’s paper that she has apparently disappeared. The media will have a field day with this delicious item, I’m sure.”
“Assuming I have met Eriko Fukada, is that supposed to mean something?”
Again Ushikawa raised his hand to stop Tengo. It was a small hand, but the fingers were short and stubby. “Now, now, please don’t get worked up over this. I don’t mean any harm. All I am trying to say is that selling off one’s talents and time in dribs and drabs to make ends meet never produces good results. It may sound presumptuous of me to say this, but your talent is a genuine diamond in the rough, and I don’t want to see it wasted and ruined on pointless things. If the relationship between you and Miss Fukada becomes public knowledge, Mr. Kawana, someone is bound to seek you out at home. They’ll start stalking you, and they’ll turn up all kinds of half-truths. They’re a persistent bunch.”
Tengo stared at Ushikawa, saying nothing. Ushikawa narrowed his eyes and started scratching one of his big earlobes. The ears themselves were small, but Ushikawa’s earlobes were strangely big. Ushikawa’s physical oddities were an unending source of fascination.
“Now, don’t get the wrong idea. My lips are sealed,” Ushikawa said, gesturing as if zipping his mouth closed. “I promise you that. I may not look it, but I know how to keep a secret. People say I must have been a clam in a previous life. I’ll keep this matter locked up inside as a sign of my personal regard for you. No one else will know.”
Finally he stood up and made several attempts to smooth out the tiny wrinkles in his suit but succeeded only in making them more obvious.
“If you should change your mind about the grant, please call the number on my card whenever you feel like it. There is still plenty of time. If this year is no good for you, well, there’s always next year.” With raised index fingers, Ushikawa mimed the earth revolving around the sun. “We are in no hurry. At least I succeeded in meeting you and having this little talk with you, and I believe that you have gotten our message.”
After one more smile, all but flaunting his ruined dentition, Ushikawa turned and left the reception room.
Tengo used the time until his next class to think through Ushikawa’s remarks in his head. The man seemed to know that Tengo had participated in the rewrite of Air Chrysalis. There were hints of it everywhere in his speech. All I am trying to say is that selling off one’s talents and time in dribs and drabs to make ends meet never produces good results, Ushikawa had said pointedly.
“We know”—surely, that was the message.
I succeeded in meeting you and having this little talk with you, and I believe that you have gotten our message.
Could they have dispatched Ushikawa to see Tengo and offer him the three-million-yen grant for no other purpose than to deliver this message? No, it didn’t make sense. There was no need for them to devise such an elaborate plot. They already knew where he was weakest. If they had wanted to threaten Tengo, all they had to do was bring out the facts. Or were they trying to buy him off with the grant? It was all too dramatic. And who were “they” after all? Was the New Japan Foundation for the Advancement of Scholarship and the Arts connected with Sakigake? Did it even exist?
Tengo went to see the secretary, carrying Ushikawa’s business card. “I need to ask you to do me another favor,” he said.
“What would that be?” she asked, remaining seated at her desk and looking up at Tengo.
“I’d like you to call this number and ask if they’re the New Japan Foundation for the Advancement of Scholarship and the Arts. Also, ask whether this director, Mr. Ushikawa, is in. They’ll probably say he’s not there, so ask when he’s due back in the office. If they ask your name, just make something up. I’d do it myself, except it might be a problem if they recognize my voice.”
The secretary dialed the numbers and a standard back-and-forth ensued—a concise exchange between two professionals. When it ended, the secretary reported to Tengo, “The New Japan Foundation for the Advancement of Scholarship and the Arts does exist. A woman answered, probably in her early twenties, a normal receptionist. Mr. Ushikawa actually works there. He’s supposed to be back around three thirty. She didn’t ask my name—which I certainly would have done.”
“Of course,” Tengo said. “Anyhow, thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, handing Ushikawa’s card back to Tengo. “Is this Mr. Ushikawa the person who came to see you?”
“That’s him.”
“I barely looked at him, but he seemed kind of creepy.”
Tengo put the card into his wallet. “I suspect that impression wouldn’t change even if you had more time to look at him,” he said.
“I always tell myself not to judge people by their appearance. I’ve been wrong in the past and had some serious regrets. But the minute I saw this man, I got the feeling he couldn’t be trusted. I still feel that way.”
“You’re not alone,” Tengo said.
“I’m not alone,” she echoed, as if to confirm the grammatical accuracy of Tengo’s sentence.
“That’s a beautiful jacket you’re wearing,” Tengo said, meaning it quite honestly. He wasn’t just flattering h
er. After Ushikawa’s crumpled heap of a suit, her stylishly cut linen jacket looked like a lovely piece of fabric that had descended from heaven on a windless afternoon.
“Thank you,” she said.
“But just because somebody answered the phone, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the New Japan Foundation for the Advancement of Scholarship and the Arts actually exists.”
“That’s true. It could be an elaborate ruse. You just have to put in a phone line and hire somebody to answer it. Like in The Sting. But why would they go to all that trouble? Forgive me, Tengo, but you don’t look like somebody who’d have enough money to squeeze out of you.”
“I don’t have a thing,” Tengo said, “except my soul.”
“Sounds like a job for Mephistopheles,” she said.
“Maybe I should walk over to this address and see if there’s really an office there.”
“Tell me what you find out,” she said, inspecting her manicure with narrowed eyes.
The New Japan Foundation for the Advancement of Scholarship and the Arts actually existed. After class, Tengo took the subway to Yotsuya and walked to Kojimachi. At the address on Ushikawa’s card he found a four-story building with a metal nameplate by the front entrance: “New Japan Foundation for the Advancement of Scholarship and the Arts.” The office was on the third floor. Also on that floor were Mikimoto Music Publishers and Koda Accountants. Judging from the scale of the building, none of them could be very big offices. None appeared to be flourishing, either, though their true condition was impossible to judge from outside. Tengo considered taking the elevator to the third floor. He wanted to see what kind of office it was, or at least what its door looked like. But things could prove awkward if he ran into Ushikawa in the hallway.
Tengo took another subway home and called Komatsu’s office. For a change, Komatsu was in, and he came to the phone right away.
“I can’t talk now,” Komatsu said, speaking more quickly than usual, his tone of voice somewhat higher than normal. “Sorry, but I don’t think I can talk about anything here right now.”
“This is very important,” Tengo said. “A very strange guy came to see me at school today. He seemed to know something about my connection with Air Chrysalis.”
Komatsu went silent for a few seconds at his end. “I think I can call you in twenty minutes. Are you at home?”
Tengo said that he was. Komatsu hung up. While he waited for Komatsu to call, Tengo sharpened two kitchen knives on a whetstone, boiled water, and poured himself some tea. The phone rang exactly twenty minutes later, which was again unusual for Komatsu.
This time Komatsu sounded far calmer than he had before. He seemed to be phoning from a quieter place. Tengo gave him a condensed account of what Ushikawa had said in the reception room.
“The New Japan Foundation for the Advancement of Scholarship and the Arts? Never heard of it. And that three-million-yen grant for you is hard to figure, too. I agree, of course, that you have a great future as a writer, but you still haven’t published anything. It’s kind of incredible. They’ve got some ulterior motive.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Give me a little time. I’ll find out what I can about this New Japan Foundation for the Advancement of Scholarship and the Arts. I’ll get in touch with you if I learn anything. But this Ushikawa guy knows you’re connected with Fuka-Eri, huh?”
“Looks that way.”
“That’s a bit of a problem.”
“Something’s starting to happen,” Tengo said. “It’s fine that Professor Ebisuno managed to pry up his rock, but some kind of monster seems to have crawled out from underneath.”
Komatsu sighed into the phone. “It’s coming after me, too. The weekly magazines are going crazy. And the TV guys are poking around. This morning the cops came to the office to question me. They’ve already latched on to the connection between Fuka-Eri and Sakigake. And of course the disappearance of her parents. The media will start blowing up that angle soon.”
“What’s Professor Ebisuno doing?”
“Nobody’s been able to get in touch with him for a while. Phone calls don’t go through, and he doesn’t get in touch with anybody. He may be having a tough time too. Or he could be working on another secret plan.”
“Oh, by the way, to change the subject a bit, have you told anybody that I’m writing a long novel?” Tengo asked Komatsu.
“No, nobody,” Komatsu responded immediately. “Why would I tell anyone about that?”
“That’s okay, then. Just asking.”
Komatsu fell silent for a moment, and then he said, “It’s kind of late for me to be saying this, but we might have gotten ourselves into nasty territory.”
“Whatever we’ve gotten ourselves into, there’s no backing out now, that’s for sure.”
“And if we can’t back out, all we can do is keep going forward, even if you’re right about that monster.”
“Better fasten your seat belt,” Tengo said.
“You said it,” Komatsu said, and hung up.
It had been a long day. Tengo sat at the kitchen table, drinking his cold tea and thinking about Fuka-Eri. What could she be doing all day, locked up alone in her hiding place? Of course, no one ever knew what Fuka-Eri was doing.
In her recorded message, Fuka-Eri had said that the Little People’s wisdom and power might cause harm to the Professor and to Tengo. Better be careful in the forest. Tengo found himself looking at his surroundings. True, the forest was their world.
CHAPTER 3
Aomame
YOU CAN’T CHOOSE HOW YOU’RE BORN,
BUT YOU CAN CHOOSE HOW YOU DIE
One night near the end of July, the thick clouds that had long covered the sky finally cleared, revealing two moons. Aomame stood on her apartment’s small balcony, looking at the sky. She wanted to call someone right away and say, “Can you do me a favor? Stick your head out the window and look at the sky. Okay, how many moons do you see up there? Where I am, I can see two very clearly. How about where you are?”
But she had no one to whom she could make such a call. Ayumi was one possibility, but Aomame preferred not to further deepen their personal relationship. She was a policewoman, after all. Aomame would more than likely be killing another man before long, after which she would change her face, change her name, move to a different area, and disappear. Obviously, she wouldn’t be able to see or contact Ayumi anymore. Once you let yourself grow close to someone, cutting the ties could be painful.
She went back inside, closed the balcony door, and turned on the air conditioner. Then she drew the curtains to place a barrier between herself and the moons. The two moons in the sky were disturbing to her. They subtly disrupted the balance of the earth’s gravity, and they seemed to be affecting her physically as well. Her period was not due for a while, but her body felt strangely listless and heavy. Her skin was dry, and her pulse abnormal. She told herself not to think about the moons anymore—even if they were something that she ought to think about.
To combat the listlessness, Aomame lay on the carpet to stretch her muscles, systematically engaging one muscle after another that she had little chance to use on a daily basis, and stretching it as far as it would go. Each muscle responded with wordless screams, and her sweat rained down on the floor. She had devised this stretching program herself and modified it each day, making it increasingly radical and effective. It was strictly for her own use. She could not have introduced it into her sports club classes. Ordinary people could never bear that much pain. Most of her fellow instructors screamed for mercy when she tried it on them.
While going through her program, she played a recording of Janáček’s Sinfonietta conducted by George Szell. The music took twenty-five minutes to play, which was the right amount of time to effectively torture every muscle in her body—neither too short nor too long. By the time the music ended, the turntable stopped, and the automatic tonearm returned to its rest, both her mind and her body felt like rags that h
ad been thoroughly wrung out.
By now, Aomame had memorized every note of Sinfonietta. Listening to the music while stretching her body close to its limit, she was able to attain a mysterious calm. She was simultaneously the torturer and the tortured, the forcer and the forced. This sense of inner-directed self-sufficiency was what she wanted most of all. It gave her deep solace. Janáček’s Sinfonietta was effective background music for that purpose.
Just before ten o’clock that night, the phone rang. Lifting the receiver, she heard Tamaru’s voice.
“Any plans for tomorrow?”
“I get out of work at six thirty.”
“Think you can stop by after that?”
“I’m sure I can,” Aomame said.
“Good,” Tamaru said. She could hear his ballpoint pen writing on his calendar.
“Have you found a new dog yet?” Aomame asked.
“Dog? Uh-huh. Another female German shepherd. I still don’t know everything about her disposition, but she’s been trained in the basics and she seems to obey commands. She arrived about ten days ago and is pretty well settled in. The women are relieved to have a dog again.”
“That’s good.”
“This one’s satisfied with ordinary dog food. Less bother.”
“Ordinary German shepherds don’t eat spinach.”
“That was one strange dog. And depending on the season, spinach can be expensive,” Tamaru complained nostalgically. After a few seconds’ pause, he added, “It’s a nice night for moon viewing.”
Aomame frowned slightly into the phone. “Where did that come from all of a sudden?”
“Even I am not unaware of natural beauty, I’ll have you know.”
“No, of course not,” Aomame said. But you’re not the type to discuss poetic subjects on the phone without some particular reason, either.
After another short silence at his end, Tamaru said, “You’re the one who brought up moon viewing the last time we talked on the phone, remember? I’ve been thinking about it ever since, especially when I looked up at the sky a little while ago and it was so clear—not a cloud anywhere.”
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