A deep silence followed for some moments.
Aomame finally managed to speak. “I know I keep saying the same thing, but I can’t help thinking that the techniques at my disposal can do almost nothing for your problem—especially if it is something that has come to you as a payment for heavenly grace.”
Leader sat up straight and looked at Aomame with those small, deep-set, glacier-like eyes. Then he opened his long, thin lips.
“No, I think you can do something for me—something that only you can do.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I am right, I know it,” the man said. “I know a lot of things. If you are willing, I would like to have you start now. Do what you always do.”
“I’ll try,” Aomame said, her voice tense and hollow. What I always do, Aomame thought.
CHAPTER 10
Tengo
YOU HAVE DECLINED OUR OFFER
Tengo said good-bye to his father just before six p.m. While he waited for the taxi to come, the two of them sat across from each other by the window, saying nothing. Tengo indulged in his own unhurried thoughts while his father stared hard at the view outside the window, frowning. The sun had dropped down, and the sky’s pale blue was slowly deepening.
He had many more questions he wanted to ask, but he knew that there would be no answers coming back. The sight of his father’s tightly clenched lips told him that. His father had obviously decided to say nothing more, so Tengo decided not to ask any more. If you couldn’t understand something without an explanation, you couldn’t understand it with an explanation. As his father had said.
When the time for him to leave drew near, Tengo said, “You told me a lot today. It was indirect and often hard to grasp, but it was probably as honest and open as you could make it.”
Tengo looked at his father, but there was no change of expression.
“I still have some things I’d like to ask you, but I know they would only cause you pain. All I can do is guess the rest from what you’ve told me. You are probably not my father by blood. That is what I assume. I don’t know the details, but I have to think that in general. If I’m wrong, please tell me so.”
His father made no reply.
Tengo continued, “If my assumption is correct, that makes it easier for me. Not because I hate you, but—as I said before—because I no longer need to hate you. You seem to have raised me as your son even though we had no blood ties. I should be grateful for that. Unfortunately, we were never very good at being father and son, but that’s another problem.”
Still his father said nothing, his eyes fixed on the outdoor scene like a soldier on guard duty, determined not to miss the next signal flare sent up by the savage tribe on the distant hill. Tengo tried looking out along his father’s line of vision, but found nothing resembling a flare. The only things out there were the pine trees tinted with the coming sunset.
“I’m sorry to say it, but there is virtually nothing I can do for you—other than to hope that the process forming a vacuum inside you is a painless one. I’m sure you have suffered a lot. You must have loved my mother as deeply as you knew how. I do get that sense. But she went off somewhere. I don’t know whether the man she went with was my biological father or not, and you apparently have no intention of telling me. But in any case she left you. And me, too, an infant. Maybe you decided to raise me because you figured she would come back to you if you had me with you. But she never came back—to you or to me. That must have been hard on you, like living in an empty town. Still, you raised me in that empty town—as if to fill in the vacuum.”
His father’s expression did not change. Tengo could not tell whether he was understanding—or even hearing—what he was saying.
“My assumption may be wrong, and that might be all for the better. For both of us. But thinking about it that way helps all kinds of things to fit together nicely inside me, and my doubts are more or less resolved.”
A pack of crows cut across the sky, cawing. Tengo looked at his watch. It was time for him to leave. He stood up, went over to his father, and put his hand on his shoulder.
“Good-bye, Father. I’ll come again soon.”
Grasping the doorknob, Tengo turned around one last time and was shocked to see a single tear running down from his father’s eye. It shone a dull silver color under the ceiling’s fluorescent light. To release that tear, his father must have squeezed every bit of strength from what little emotion he still had left. The tear crept slowly down his father’s cheek and fell onto his lap. Tengo opened the door and left the room. He took the cab to the station and boarded the train that had brought him here.
The Tokyo-bound express train from Tateyama was more crowded and noisy than the outbound train had been. Most of the passengers were families returning from a stay at the beach. Looking at them, Tengo thought about being in elementary school. He had never once experienced such a family outing or trip. During the Bon Festival, or New Year’s, his father would do nothing but stretch out at home and sleep, looking like some kind of grubby machine with the electricity switched off.
Taking his seat, he thought he might read the rest of his paperback, until he realized he had left it in his father’s room. He sighed but then realized on second thought that this was probably just as well. Anything he might read now would probably not register with him. And “Town of Cats” was a story that belonged more in his father’s room than in Tengo’s possession.
The scenery moved past the window in the opposite order: the dark, deserted strip of coastline pressed in upon by mountains eventually gave way to the more open coastal industrial zone. Most of the factories were still operating even though it was nighttime. A forest of smokestacks towered in the darkness, spitting fire like snakes sticking out their long tongues. Big trucks’ strong headlights flooded the roadway. The ocean beyond looked like thick, black mud.
It was nearly ten o’clock by the time he arrived home. His mailbox was empty. Opening his apartment door, he found the place looking even emptier than usual, the same vacuum he had left behind that morning. The shirt he had thrown on the floor, the switched-off word processor, the swivel chair with the indentation his weight had left in the seat, the eraser crumbs scattered over his desk. He drank two glasses of water, undressed, and crawled straight into bed. Sleep came over him immediately—a deep sleep such as he had not had lately.
When he woke up after eight o’clock the next morning, Tengo realized that he was a brand-new person. Waking up felt good. The muscles of his arms and legs felt free of all stiffness and ready to deal with any wholesome stimulus. His physical weariness was gone. He had that feeling he remembered from childhood when he opened a new textbook at the beginning of the term, ignorant of its contents but sensing the new knowledge to come. He went into the bathroom and shaved. Drying his face and slapping on aftershave lotion, he studied himself in the mirror, confirming that he was, indeed, a new person.
Yesterday’s events all seemed as if they had happened in a dream, not in reality. While everything was quite vivid, he noticed touches of unreality around the edges. He had boarded a train, visited the “Town of Cats,” and come back. Fortunately, unlike the hero of the story, he had managed to board the train for the return trip. And his experiences in that town had changed Tengo profoundly.
Of course, nothing at all had changed about the actual situation in which he found himself, compelled to walk on dangerous, enigmatic ground. Things had developed in totally unforeseen ways, and he had no idea what was going to happen to him next. Still, Tengo had a strong sense that somehow he would be able to overcome the danger.
I’ve finally made it to the starting line, Tengo thought. Not that any decisive facts had come to light, but from the things his father had said, and his father’s attitude, he had begun to gain some vague understanding of his own origins. That “image” that had long tormented and confused him was no meaningless hallucination. How much it reflected actuality, he could not say with any precision, b
ut it was the single piece of information left him by his mother, and, for better or worse, it comprised the foundation of his life. With that much now clear, Tengo was able to feel that he had lowered a great burden from his back.
And, having set it down once and for all, he realized what a heavy load he had been carrying.
A strangely quiet and peaceful two weeks went by, like a calm sea. He taught four days a week at the cram school during summer vacation, and allocated the rest of his time to writing his novel. No one contacted him. Tengo knew nothing about how the Fuka-Eri disappearance case was progressing or whether Air Chrysalis was still selling. Nor did he want to know. Let the world move along as it pleased. If it had any business with him, it would be sure to tell him.
August ended, and September came. As he made his morning coffee, Tengo found himself silently wishing that this peaceful time could go on forever. If he said it aloud, some keen-eared demon somewhere might overhear him. And so he kept his wish for continued tranquility to himself. But things never go the way you want them to, and this was no exception. The world seemed to have a better sense of how you wanted things not to go.
The phone rang just after ten o’clock that morning. He let it ring seven times, gave up, reached out, and lifted the receiver.
“Can I come over now,” a subdued voice asked. As far as Tengo knew, there was only one person in the world who could ask questions without a question mark like that. In the background Tengo could hear some kind of announcement and the sound of car exhausts.
“Where are you now?” Tengo asked.
“At the front door of the Marusho.”
His apartment was less than two hundred yards from that supermarket. She was calling from the pay phone out front.
Tengo instinctively glanced around his apartment. “Don’t you think it’s risky? Somebody might be watching my apartment. And you’re supposed to be ‘whereabouts unknown.’ ”
“Somebody might be watching your apartment,” she asked, parroting his words.
“Right,” Tengo said. “All kinds of weird things have been going on around me, probably having to do with Air Chrysalis.”
“ ’Cause people are mad.”
“Probably. They’re mad at you, and I think they’re a little mad at me, too. Because I rewrote Air Chrysalis.”
“I don’t care,” Fuka-Eri said.
“You don’t care.” Now Tengo was parroting her words. The habit was catching. “About what?”
“Your apartment being watched. If it is.”
He was momentarily at a loss for words. “Well, maybe I do care,” he said at last.
“We should be together,” Fuka-Eri said. “Join forces.”
“Sonny and Cher,” Tengo said. “The strongest male/female duo.”
“The strongest what?”
“Never mind. My own little joke.”
“I’m coming over.”
Tengo was about to say something when he heard the connection cut. Everybody was hanging up on him. Like chopping down a rope bridge.
Fuka-Eri showed up ten minutes later with a plastic supermarket bag in each arm. She wore a blue-striped long-sleeve shirt and slim jeans. The shirt was a men’s shirt, unironed, straight from the clothesline. A canvas bag hung from one shoulder. She wore a pair of oversized sunglasses to hide her face, but it didn’t look like an effective disguise. If anything, it would attract attention.
“I thought we should have lots of food,” Fuka-Eri said, transferring the contents of the plastic bags to the refrigerator. Most of what she had bought was ready-made food that only needed heating in a microwave oven. There were also crackers and cheese, apples, tomatoes, and some canned goods.
“Where’s the microwave?” she asked, looking around the kitchen.
“I don’t have one,” Tengo said.
Fuka-Eri wrinkled her brow in thought, but had nothing to say. She seemed to have trouble imagining a world without a microwave oven.
“I want you to put me up,” she said, as if conveying an objective fact.
“How long?” Tengo asked.
Fuka-Eri shook her head. This meant she didn’t know.
“What happened to your hiding place?”
“I don’t want to be alone when something happens.”
“You think something is going to happen?”
Fuka-Eri did not reply.
“I don’t mean to keep repeating myself, but this is not a safe place,” Tengo said. “Some kind of people seem to be keeping an eye on me. I don’t know who they are yet, but …”
“There is no such thing as a safe place,” Fuka-Eri said, narrowing her eyes meaningfully and tugging on an earlobe. Tengo could not tell what this body language was supposed to mean. Probably nothing.
“So it doesn’t matter where you are,” Tengo said.
“There is no such thing as a safe place,” Fuka-Eri repeated.
“You may be right,” Tengo said with resignation. “After a certain point, there’s no difference in the level of danger. In any case, I have to go to work soon.”
“To the cram school.”
“Right.”
“I’ll stay here,” Fuka-Eri said.
“You’ll stay here,” Tengo echoed her. “You should. Just don’t go outside, and don’t answer if anybody knocks. Don’t answer the phone if it rings.”
Fuka-Eri nodded silently.
“So, anyhow, what’s happening with Professor Ebisuno?”
“They searched Sakigake yesterday”
“You mean, the police searched the Sakigake compound looking for you?” Tengo asked, surprised.
“You aren’t reading the papers.”
“I’m not reading the papers,” Tengo echoed. “I just haven’t felt like it lately. So I don’t know what’s happening. But I would think the Sakigake people would be very upset by that.”
Fuka-Eri nodded.
Tengo released a deep sigh. “They must be even angrier than before, like hornets having their nest poked.”
Fuka-Eri narrowed her eyes and went into a short silence. She was probably imagining a swarm of furious hornets pouring out of their nest.
“Probably,” Fuka-Eri said in a tiny voice.
“So, did they find out anything about your parents?”
Fuka-Eri shook her head. They still knew nothing about them.
“In any case, the organization is angry,” Tengo said. “And if the police find out that your disappearance was an act, they’ll be mad at you too. And mad at me for covering up for you even though I know the truth.”
“Which is precisely why we have to join forces,” Fuka-Eri said.
“Did you just say, ‘Which is precisely’?”
Fuka-Eri nodded. “Did I say it wrong?” she asked.
Tengo shook his head. “Not at all. The words sounded fresh, that’s all.”
“If it’s a bother for you, I can go somewhere else,” Fuka-Eri said.
“I don’t mind if you stay here,” Tengo said, resigned. “I’m sure you don’t have anyplace else in mind, right?”
Fuka-Eri answered with a curt nod.
Tengo took some cold barley tea from the refrigerator and drank it. “Angry hornets would be too much for me, but I’m sure I can manage to look after you.”
Fuka-Eri looked hard at Tengo for a few moments. Then she said, “You look different.”
“What do you mean?”
Fuka-Eri twisted her lips into a strange angle and then returned them to normal. “Can’t explain.”
“No need to explain,” Tengo said. If you can’t understand it without an explanation, you can’t understand it with an explanation.
As he left the apartment, Tengo said, “When I call, I’ll let it ring three times, hang up, and call again. Then you answer. Okay?”
“Okay,” Fuka-Eri said. “Ring three times, hang up, call again, answer.” She sounded as if she could be translating aloud from an ancient stone monument.
“It’s important, so don’t forget,”
Tengo said.
Fuka-Eri nodded twice.
Tengo finished his two classes, went back to the teachers’ lounge, and was getting ready to go home. The receptionist came to tell him that the man named Ushikawa was here to see him. She spoke with an apologetic air, like a kindhearted messenger bearing unwelcome news. Tengo flashed her a bright smile and thanked her. No sense blaming the messenger.
Ushikawa was in the cafeteria by the front lobby, drinking a café au lait as he waited for Tengo. Tengo could not imagine a drink less well suited to Ushikawa, whose strange exterior looked all the stranger amid the energetic, young students. Only the part of the room where he was sitting seemed to have different gravity and air density and light refractivity. Even from a distance, there was no mistaking that he looked like bad news. The cafeteria was crowded between classes, but not one person shared his six-person table. The students’ natural instincts led them to avoid Ushikawa, just as antelope keep away from wild dogs.
Tengo bought a coffee at the counter and carried it over to Ushikawa’s table, sitting down opposite him. Ushikawa seemed to have just finished eating a cream-filled pastry. The crumpled wrapper lay atop the table, and crumbs stuck to the corner of his mouth. Cream pastries also seemed totally unsuited to Ushikawa.
“It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it, Mr. Kawana?” Ushikawa said to Tengo, raising himself slightly from his chair. “Sorry to barge in on you again all of a sudden.”
Tengo dispensed with the polite chatter and got down to business. “I’m sure you’re here for my answer. To the offer you made the other day, that is.”
“Well, yes, that is true,” Ushikawa said. “In a word.”
“I wonder, Mr. Ushikawa, if I can get you to speak a little more concretely and directly today. What is it that you people want from me—in return for this ‘grant’ thing?”
Ushikawa cast a cautious glance around the room, but there was no one near them, and the cafeteria was so noisy with student voices that there was no danger of their conversation’s being overheard.
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