1Q84 (156 page)

I have no regrets about leaving here. I lived here for seven years, taught three days a week at the cram school, but never once felt it was home. Like a floating island bobbing along in the flow, it was just a temporary place to rest, and nothing more. My girlfriend is no longer here. Fuka-Eri, too, who shared the place briefly—gone
. Tengo had no idea where these two women were now, or what they were doing. They had simply, and quietly, vanished from his life. If he left the cram school, someone else would surely take over. The world would keep on turning, even without him. If Aomame wanted to
move on somewhere
with him, there was nothing to keep him from going.

What could be the important thing he should take with him? Fifty thousand yen in cash and a plastic debit card—that was the extent of the assets he had at hand. There was also one million yen in a savings account. No—there was more. His share of the royalties from
Air Chrysalis
was in the account as well. He had been meaning to return it to Komatsu but hadn’t gotten around to it. Then there was the printout of the novel he had begun. He couldn’t leave that behind. It had no real value to anyone else, but to Tengo it was precious. He put the manuscript in a paper bag, then stuffed it into the hard, russet nylon shoulder bag he used when he went to the cram school. The bag was really heavy now. He crammed floppy disks into the pocket of his leather jacket. He couldn’t very well take his word processor along with him, but he did add his notebooks and fountain pen to his luggage.
What else?
he wondered.

He remembered the envelope the lawyer had given him in Chikura. Inside were his father’s savings book and seal, a copy of their family record, and the mysterious family photo (if indeed that was what it was). It was probably best to take that with him. His elementary school report cards and the
NHK
commendations he would leave behind. He decided against taking a change of clothes or toiletries. They wouldn’t fit in the now-bulging bag, and besides, he could buy them as needed.

Once he had packed everything in the bag, he had nothing left to do. There were no dishes to wash, no shirts left to iron. He looked at the wall clock again. Ten thirty. He thought he should call his friend to take over his classes at the cram school, but then remembered that his friend was always in a terrible mood if you phoned before noon.

Tengo lay down on his bed, fully clothed, and let his mind wander through various possibilities. The last time he saw Aomame was when he was ten. Now they were both thirty. They had both gone through a lot of experiences in the interim. Good things, things that weren’t so good (probably slightly more of the latter).
Our looks, our personalities, the environment where we live have all gone through changes
, he thought.
We’re no longer a young boy and a young girl
. Is the Aomame over there really the Aomame he had been searching for? And was he the Tengo Kawana she had been looking for? Tengo pictured them on the slide tonight looking at each other, disappointed at what they saw. Maybe they wouldn’t find anything to talk about. That was a real possibility. Actually, it would be kind of strange if it didn’t turn out that way.

Maybe we shouldn’t meet again
. Tengo stared up at the ceiling.
Wasn’t it better if they kept this desire to see each other hidden within them, and never actually got together? That way, there would always be hope in their hearts. That hope would be a small, yet vital flame that warmed them to their core—a tiny flame to cup one’s hands around and protect from the wind, a flame that the violent winds of reality might easily extinguish
.

Tengo stared at the ceiling for a good hour, two conflicting emotions surging through him. More than anything, he wanted to meet Aomame. At the same time, he was afraid to see her. The cold disappointment and uncomfortable silence that might ensue made him shudder. His body felt like it was going to be torn in half. But he
had
to see her. This is what he had been wanting, what he had been hoping for with all his might, for the last twenty years. No matter what disappointment might come of it, he knew he couldn’t just turn his back on it and run away.

Tired of staring at the ceiling, he fell asleep on the bed, still lying faceup. A quiet, dreamless sleep of some forty or forty-five minutes—the deep, satisfying sleep you get after concentrating hard, after mental exhaustion. He realized that for the last few days he had only slept in fits and starts and hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep. Before it got dark, he needed to rid himself of the fatigue that had built up. He had to be rested and relaxed when he left here and headed for the playground. He knew this instinctively.

As he was falling asleep, he heard Kumi Adachi’s voice—or he felt like he heard it.
When morning comes you’ll be leaving here, Tengo. Before the exit is blocked
.

This was Kumi’s voice, and at the same time it was the voice of the owl at night. In his memory the voices were mixed, and hard to distinguish from each other. What Tengo needed then more than anything was wisdom—the wisdom of the night that had put down roots into the soil. A wisdom that might only be found in the depths of sleep.

At six thirty Tengo slung his bag diagonally across his shoulders and left his apartment. He had on the same clothes as the last time he went to the slide: gray windbreaker and old leather jacket, jeans, and brown work boots. All of them were worn but they fit well, like an extension of his body.
I probably won’t ever be back here again
, he thought. As a precaution he took the typed cards with his name on them out of the door slot and the mailbox.
What would happen to everything else?
He decided not to worry about it for now.

As he stood at the entrance to the apartment building, he peered around cautiously. If he believed Fuka-Eri, he was being watched. But just as before, there was no sign of surveillance. Everything was the same as always. Now that the sun had set, the road in front of him was deserted. He set off for the station, at a slow pace. He glanced back from time to time to make sure he wasn’t being followed. He turned down several narrow streets he didn’t need to take, then came to a stop and checked again to see if anyone was tailing him.
You have to be careful
, the man on the phone had cautioned.
For yourself, and for Aomame, who’s in a
tense situation.

But does the man on the phone really know Aomame?
Tengo suddenly wondered.
Couldn’t this be some kind of clever trap?
Once this thought took hold, he couldn’t shake off a sense of unease. If this really was a trap, then Sakigake had to be behind it. As the ghostwriter of
Air Chrysalis
he was probably—no, make that
definitely
—on their blacklist. Which is why that weird guy, Ushikawa, came to him with that suspicious story about a grant. On top of that, Tengo had let Fuka-Eri hide out in his apartment for three months. There were more than enough reasons for the cult to be upset with him.

Be that as it may
, Tengo thought, inclining his head,
why would they go to the trouble of using Aomame as bait to lure me into a trap? They already know where I am. It’s not like I’m running away and hiding. If they have some business with me, they should approach me directly. There’s no need to lure me out to that slide in the playground. Things would be different if the opposite were true—if they were using me as bait to get Aomame
.

But why lure her out?

He couldn’t understand it. Was there, by chance, some connection between Aomame and Sakigake? Tengo’s deductive reasoning hit a dead end. The only thing he could do was to ask Aomame herself—assuming he could meet her.

At any rate, as the man on the phone said, he would have to be cautious. Tengo scrupulously took a roundabout route and made sure no one was following him. Once certain of that, he hurried off in the direction of the playground.

He arrived at the playground at seven minutes to seven. It was dark out already, and the mercury-vapor lamp shone its even, artificial illumination into every nook and cranny of the tiny park. The afternoon had been lovely and warm, but now that the sun had set the temperature had dropped sharply, and a cold wind was blowing. The pleasant Indian summer weather they had had for a few days had vanished, and real winter, cold and severe, had settled in for the duration. The tips of the zelkova tree’s branches trembled, like the fingers of some ancient person shaking out a warning, with a desiccated, raspy sound.

Lights were on in several of the windows in the buildings nearby, but the playground was deserted. Tengo’s heart under the leather jacket beat out a slow but heavy rhythm. He rubbed his hands together repeatedly, to see if they had normal sensation.
Everything’s fine
, he told himself.
I’m all set. Nothing to be afraid of
. He made up his mind and started climbing up the ladder of the slide.

Once on top, he sat down as he had before. The bottom of the slide was cold and slightly damp. With his hands in his pockets, he leaned against the railing and looked up at the sky. There were clouds of all sizes—several large ones, several small ones. Tengo squinted and looked for the moons, but at the moment they weren’t visible, hidden behind the clouds. These weren’t dense, heavy clouds, but rather smooth white ones. Still, they were thick and substantial enough to hide the moons from his gaze. The clouds were gliding slowly from north to south. The wind didn’t seem too strong. Or maybe the clouds were actually higher up than they looked? At any rate, they weren’t in much of a hurry.

Tengo glanced at his watch. The hands showed three past seven, ticking away the time ever more accurately. Still no Aomame. Tengo spent several minutes gazing at the hands of his watch as if they were something extraordinary. Then he shut his eyes. Like the clouds on the wind, he was in no hurry. If things took time, he didn’t mind. He stopped thinking and gave himself over to the flow of time. At this moment, time’s natural, even flow was the most important thing.

With his eyes closed, he carefully listened to the sounds around him, as if searching for stations on a radio. He could hear the ceaseless hum of traffic on the expressway. It reminded him of the Pacific surf at the sanatorium in Chikura. A few seagull calls must have been mixed in as well. He could hear the intermittent beep as a large truck backed up, and a huge dog barking a short, sharp warning. Far away someone was shouting out a person’s name. He couldn’t tell where all these sounds were coming from. With his eyes closed for this long, each and every sound lost its sense of direction and distance. The freezing wind swirled up from time to time, but he didn’t feel the cold.

Tengo had temporarily forgotten how to feel or react to all stimulations and sensations.

He was suddenly aware of someone sitting beside him, holding his right hand. Like a small creature seeking warmth, a hand slipped inside the pocket of his leather jacket and clasped his large hand. By the time he became fully aware, it had already happened. Without any preface, the situation had jumped to the next stage.
How strange
, Tengo thought, his eyes still closed.
How did this happen?
At one point time was flowing along so slowly that he could barely stand it. Then suddenly it had leapt ahead, skipping whatever lay between.

This person held his big hand even tighter, as if to make sure he was
really there
. Long smooth fingers, with an underlying strength.

Aomame
. But he didn’t say it aloud. He didn’t open his eyes. He just squeezed her hand in return. He remembered this hand. Never once in twenty years had he forgotten the feeling. Of course, it was no longer the tiny hand of a ten-year-old girl. Over the past twenty years her hand had touched many things. It had clasped untold numbers of objects in every possible shape. And the strength within it had grown. Yet Tengo knew right away: this was the very same hand. The way it squeezed his own hand and the feeling it was trying to convey were exactly the same.

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. Once again they were a ten-year-old boy and girl. A lonely boy, and a lonely girl. A classroom, just after school let out, at the beginning of winter. They had neither the power nor the knowledge to know what they should offer to each other, what they should be seeking. They had never, ever, been truly loved, or truly loved someone else. They had never held anyone, never been held. They had no idea, either, where this action would take them. What they entered then was a doorless room. They couldn’t get out, nor could anyone else come in. The two of them didn’t know it at the time, but this was the only truly complete place in the entire world. Totally isolated, yet the one place not tainted with loneliness.

How much time had passed? Five minutes, perhaps, or was it an hour? Or a whole day? Or maybe time had stood still. What did Tengo understand about time? He knew he could stay like this forever, the two of them silent on top of the slide, holding hands. He had felt that way at age ten, and now, twenty years on, he felt the same.

He knew, too, that it would take time for him to acclimate himself to this new world that had come upon him. His entire way of thinking, his way of seeing things, the way he breathed, the way he moved his body—he would need to adjust and rethink every single element of life. And to do that, he needed to gather together all the time that existed in this world. No—maybe the whole world wouldn’t be enough.

“Tengo,” Aomame whispered, a voice neither low or high—a voice holding out a promise. “Open your eyes.”