“So then—” Aomame said, her voice dry. She cleared her throat. By now she had overcome her confusion. This is no time to cry, she thought. “So then comes your proposition, is that it? I give you a painless death, in return for which you can give me something—a different choice.”
“You’re very quick on the uptake,” the man said, still lying facedown. “That is correct. My proposition is a choice having to do with you and Tengo. It may not be the most pleasant choice. But at least it does give you room to choose.”
. . .
“The Little People are afraid of losing me,” the man said. “They still need me. I am useful to them as their human agent. Finding my replacement will not be easy for them. And at this point in time, they have not prepared my successor. Many difficult conditions have to be met in order to become their agent, and I happen to meet all of them, which makes me a rare find. They are afraid of losing me. If that were to happen, it would give rise to a temporary vacuum. This is why they are trying to prevent you from taking my life. They want to keep me alive a little while longer. The thunder you hear outside is a sign of their anger. But they can’t raise a hand against you directly. All they can do is warn you of their anger. For the same reason, they drove your friend to her death using possibly devious methods. And if things go on like this they will almost surely inflict some kind of harm upon Tengo.”
“Inflict harm on Tengo?”
“Tengo wrote a story about the Little People and their deeds. Eriko furnished the basic story, and Tengo converted it into an effective piece of writing. It was their collaborative effort, and it acted as an antibody, countering the momentum of the Little People. It was published as a book and became a bestseller, as a result of which, if only temporarily, the Little People found that many potential avenues had been closed for them, and limits were placed on several of their actions. You have probably heard of the book: it is called Air Chrysalis.”
Aomame nodded. “I’ve seen articles about the book in the newspaper. And the publisher’s advertisements. I haven’t read the book, though.”
“The one who did the actual writing of Air Chrysalis was Tengo. And now he is writing a new story of his own. In Air Chrysalis—which is to say, in its world with two moons—he discovered his own story. A superior Perceiver, Eriko inspired the story as an antibody inside him. Tengo seems to have possessed superior ability as a Receiver. That ability may be what brought you here—in other words, what put you onto that train.”
Aomame severely distorted her face in the gloom. She had to try her best to follow what this man was saying. “Are you telling me that I was transported into this other world of 1Q84 by Tengo’s storytelling ability—or, as you put it, by his power as a Receiver?”
“That is, at least, what I surmise,” the man said.
Aomame stared at her hands. Her fingers were wet with tears.
“If things go on as they are now, Tengo will in all likelihood be liquidated. At the moment, he is the number one threat to the so-called Little People. And, after all, this is the real world, where real blood is shed and real deaths occur. Death, of course, lasts forever.”
Aomame bit her lip.
“I would like you to think about it this way,” the man said. “If you kill me here and eliminate me from this world, the Little People will no longer have any reason to harm Tengo. If I cease to exist as a channel, Tengo and my daughter can obstruct that channel all they want without presenting any threat to them. The Little People will just forget about the two of them and look for a channel somewhere else—a channel with another origin. That will become their first priority. Do you see what I mean?”
“In theory, at least,” Aomame said.
“On the other hand, if I am killed, the organization that I have created will never leave you alone. True, it might take them some time to find you because you will surely change your name, change where you live, and maybe even change your face. Still, they will track you down and punish you severely. That is the kind of system that we have created: close-knit, violent, and irreversible. That is one choice you have.”
Aomame took time to organize her thoughts about what he had told her. The man waited for his logic to permeate her mind.
Then he went on. “Conversely, if you do not kill me here and now, what will happen? You will simply withdraw from this place and I will go on living. So then the Little People will use all their powers to eliminate Tengo in order to protect me, their agent. The protective cloak he wears is not yet strong enough. They will find his weak point and do everything they can to destroy him because they cannot tolerate any further dissemination of the antibody. Meanwhile, you cease to be a threat, and they no longer have any reason to punish you. That is your other choice.”
“In that case,” Aomame said, summarizing what the man had told her, “Tengo dies and I go on living—here, in this world of 1Q84.”
“Probably,” he said.
“But there is no point in my living in a world where Tengo no longer exists. All possibility of our meeting would be lost forever.”
“That may be the case from your point of view.”
Aomame bit down hard on her lip, imagining such a state of affairs.
“But all I have to go on is what you are saying,” she pointed out. “Why do I have to take you at your word? Is there some basis or backing for that?”
The man shook his head. “You are right. There is no basis or backing. It’s just what I tell you. But you saw my special powers a little while ago. There are no strings attached to that clock, and it’s very heavy. Go look at it yourself. Do you accept what I am saying or don’t you? Decide one way or the other. We don’t have much time left.”
Aomame looked over at the clock on the chest of drawers. Its hands were showing just before nine. The clock was slightly out of place, facing at an odd angle, having been lifted into the air and dropped back again.
The man said, “At this point in this year of 1Q84, there seems to be no way to rescue you both at the same time. You have two possibilities to choose from. In one, you probably die and Tengo lives. In the other, he probably dies and you live. As I said before, it is not a pleasant choice.”
“But no other possibilities exist to choose between.”
The man shook his head. “At this point in time, you can only choose between those two.”
Aomame filled her lungs with air and slowly exhaled.
“It’s too bad for you,” the man said. “If you had stayed in the year 1984, you would not have been faced with this choice. But at the same time, if you had stayed in 1984, you would almost surely never have learned that Tengo has continued to long for you all this time. It is precisely because you were transported to 1Q84 that you were able to learn this fact—the fact that your hearts are, in a sense, intertwined.”
Aomame closed her eyes. I will not cry, she thought. It is not the time to cry yet.
“Is Tengo really longing for me? Can you swear to that without deception?”
“To this day, Tengo has never loved anyone but you with his whole heart. It is a fact. There is not the slightest room for doubt.”
“But still, he never looked for me.”
“Well, you never looked for him. Isn’t that true?”
Aomame closed her eyes and, in a split second, reviewed the long span of years as if standing on the edge of a sheer cliff, surveying an ocean channel far below. She could smell the sea. She could hear the deep sighing of the wind.
She said, “We should have had the courage to search for each other long ago, I suppose. Then we could have been united in the original world.”
“Theoretically, perhaps,” the man said. “But you would never have even thought such a thing in the world of 1984. Cause and effect are linked that way in a twisted form. You can pile up all the worlds you like and the twisting will never be undone.”
Tears poured from Aomame’s eyes. She cried for everything she had lost. She cried for everything she was about to lose. And eve
ntually—how long had she been crying?—she arrived at a point where she could cry no longer. Her tears dried up, as if her emotions had run into an invisible wall.
“All right, then,” Aomame said. “There is no firm basis. Nothing has been proved. I can’t understand all the details. But still, it seems I have to accept your offer. In keeping with your wishes, I will obliterate you from this world. I will give you a painless, instantaneous death so that Tengo can go on living.”
“This means that you will agree to my bargain, then?”
“Yes. We have a bargain.”
“You will probably die as a result, you know,” the man said. “You will be chased down and punished. And the punishment may be terrible. They are fanatics.”
“I don’t care.”
“Because you have love.”
Aomame nodded.
The man said, “ ‘Without your love, it’s a honky-tonk parade.’ Like in the song.”
“You are sure that Tengo will be able to go on living if I kill you?”
The man remained silent for a while. Then he said, “Tengo will go on living. You can take me at my word. I can give you that much without fail in exchange for my life.”
“And my life, too,” Aomame said.
“Some things can only be done in exchange for life,” the man said.
Aomame clenched her fists. “To tell the truth, though, I would have preferred to stay alive and be united with Tengo.”
A short silence came over the room. Even the thunder stopped. Everything was hushed.
“I wish I could make that happen,” the man said softly. “Unfortunately, however, that is not one of the options. It was not available in 1984 nor is it in 1Q84, in a different sense in each case.”
“Our paths would never have crossed—Tengo’s and mine—in 1984? Is that what you are saying?”
“Exactly. You would have had no connection whatever, but you likely would have kept on thinking about each other as each of you entered a lonely old age.”
“But in 1Q84 I can at least know that I am going to die for him.”
The man took a deep breath, saying nothing.
“There is one thing I want you to tell me,” Aomame said.
“If I can,” the man said, lying on his stomach.
“Will Tengo find out in some form or other that I died for him? Or will he never know anything about it?”
The man thought about the question for a long time. “That is probably up to you.”
“Up to me?” Aomame asked with a slight frown. “What do you mean by that?”
The man quietly shook his head. “You are fated to pass through great hardships and trials. Once you have done that, you should be able to see things as they are supposed to be. That is all I can say. No one knows for certain what it means to die until they actually do it.”
Aomame picked up a towel and carefully dried the tears still clinging to her face. Then she examined the slender ice pick in her hand again to be certain that its fine point had not been broken off. With her right index finger, she searched again for the fatal point on the back of the man’s neck as she had done before. She was able to find it right away, so vividly was it etched into her brain. She pressed the point softly with her fingertip, gauged its resilience, and made sure once again that her intuition was not mistaken. Taking several slow, deep breaths, she calmed the beating of her heart and steadied her heightened nerves. Her head would have to be perfectly clear. She swept away all thoughts of Tengo for the moment. Hatred, anger, confusion, pity: all these she sealed off in a separate space. Error was unacceptable. She had to concentrate her attention on death itself, as if focusing a narrow beam of light.
“Let us complete our work,” Aomame said calmly. “I must remove you from this world.”
“Then I can leave behind all the pain that I have been given.”
“Leave behind all the pain, the Little People, a transformed world, those hypotheses … and love.”
“And love. You are right,” the man said as if speaking to himself. “I used to have people I loved. All right, then, let each of us finish our work. You are a terribly capable person, Aomame. I can tell that.”
“You, too,” Aomame said. Her voice had taken on the strange transparency of one who will deliver death. “You, too, are surely a very capable, superior person. I am sure there must have been a world in which there was no need for me to kill you.”
“That world no longer exists,” the man said. These were the last words he spoke.
That world no longer exists.
Aomame placed the sharp point against that delicate spot on the back of his neck. Concentrating all her attention, she adjusted the angle of the ice pick. Then she raised her right fist in the air. Holding her breath, she waited for a signal. No more thinking, she said to herself. Let each of us complete our work. That is all. There is no need to think, no need for explanations. Just wait for the signal. Her fist was as hard as a rock, devoid of feeling.
Outside the window, the thunder-without-lightning rumbled with increased force. Raindrops pelted the glass. The two of them were in an ancient cave—a dark, damp, low-ceilinged cave. Dark beasts and spirits surrounded the entrance. For the briefest instant around her, light and shadow became one. A nameless gust of wind blew through the distant channel. That was the signal. Aomame brought her fist down in one short, precise movement.
Everything ended in silence. The beasts and spirits heaved a deep breath, broke up their encirclement, and returned to the depths of a forest that had lost its heart.
CHAPTER 14
Tengo
A PACKAGE IN HIS HANDS
“Come here and hold me,” Fuka-Eri said. “The two of us have to go to the town of cats together one more time.”
“Hold you?” Tengo asked.
“You don’t want to hold me,” Fuka-Eri asked without a question mark.
“No, that’s not it. It’s just that—I didn’t quite get what you were saying.”
“This will be a purification,” she informed him in uninflected tones. “Come here and hold me. You put on pajamas, too, and turn out the light.”
As instructed, Tengo turned out the bedroom ceiling light. He undressed, took out his pajamas, and put them on. When was the last time I washed these? he wondered as he slipped into his pajamas. Judging from the fact that he could not remember, it must have been quite some time ago. Fortunately, they did not smell of sweat. Tengo had never sweated very much, and he did not have a strong body odor. But still, he reflected, I ought to wash my pajamas more often. Life is so uncertain: you never know what could happen. One way to deal with that is to keep your pajamas washed.
He got into bed and gingerly wrapped his arms around Fuka-Eri, who laid her head on Tengo’s right arm. She lay very still, like a creature about to enter hibernation. Her body was warm, and so soft as to feel utterly defenseless. But she was not sweating.
The thunder increased in intensity, and now it was beginning to rain. As though crazed with anger, the raindrops slammed sideways against the window glass. The air was damp and sticky, and the world felt as if it might be oozing its way toward its dark finale. The time of Noah’s flood might have felt like this. If so, it must have been quite depressing in the violent thunderstorm to have the narrow ark filled with the rhinoceroses, the lions, the pythons, and so forth, all in pairs, all used to different modes of living, with limited communication skills, and the stink something special.
The word “pair” made Tengo think of Sonny and Cher, but Sonny and Cher might not be the most appropriate pair to put aboard Noah’s ark to represent humanity. Though they might not be entirely inappropriate, either. There must be some other couple who would be a more appropriate human sample.
Embracing Fuka-Eri in bed like this, with her wearing his own pajamas, Tengo had a strange feeling. He even felt as if he might be embracing a part of himself, as if he were holding someone with whom he shared flesh and body odor and whose mind was linked with his.
Tengo imagined the two of them having been chosen as a pair to board Noah’s ark instead of Sonny and Cher. But even they could hardly be said to be the most appropriate sample of humanity. The very fact of our embracing each other in bed like this is far from appropriate, no matter how you look at it. The thought kept Tengo from being able to relax. He decided instead to imagine Sonny and Cher becoming good friends with the python pair on the ark. It was an utterly pointless thing to imagine, but at least it enabled him to relax the tension in his body.
Lying in Tengo’s arms, Fuka-Eri said nothing. Nor did she move or open her mouth. Tengo didn’t say anything either. Even embracing Fuka-Eri in bed, he felt almost nothing that could be called sexual desire. To Tengo, sexual desire was fundamentally an extension of a means of communication. And so, to look for sexual desire in a place where there was no possibility of communication seemed inappropriate to him. He realized, too, that what Fuka-Eri was looking for was not his sexual desire. She was looking for something else from him, but what that something else was, he could not tell.
The purpose of doing so aside, the sheer act of holding a beautiful seventeen-year-old girl in his arms was by no means unpleasant. Her ear would touch his cheek now and then. Her warm breath grazed his neck. Her breasts were startlingly large and firm for a girl with such a slim body. He could feel them pressed against him in the area above his stomach. Her skin exuded a marvelous fragrance. It was the special smell of life that could only be exuded by flesh still in the process of formation, like the smell of dew-laden flowers in midsummer. He had often experienced that smell as an elementary school student on his way to early-morning radio exercises.
I hope I don’t have an erection, Tengo thought. If he did have an erection, she would know immediately, given their relative positions. If that happened, it would make things somewhat uncomfortable. With what words and in what context could he explain to a seventeen-year-old girl that erections simply happen sometimes, even when not directly driven by sexual desire? Fortunately, however, no erection had happened so far, nor did he have any sign of one. Let me stop thinking about smells. I have to concentrate my mind on things having as little to do with sex as possible.
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