1Q84 (49 page)

It didn’t work this way when he had sex with younger women. He would have to think from beginning to end, making choices and judgments. This made Tengo uncomfortable. All the responsibilities fell on his shoulders. He felt like the captain of a small boat on a stormy sea, having to take the rudder, inspect the setting of the sails, keep in mind the barometric pressure and the wind direction, and modulate his own behavior so as to boost the crew’s trust in him. The slightest mistake or accident could lead to tragedy. This felt less like sex than the discharging of a duty. As a result he would tense up and miss the timing of an ejaculation or fail to become erect when necessary. This would only increase his doubts about himself.

Such mistakes never happened with his older girlfriend. She fully appreciated him. She always praised and encouraged him. After the one time he ejaculated prematurely, she was careful never to wear a white slip again. And not just slips: she stopped wearing any white lingerie at all.

That day she was wearing black lingerie—a matching top and bottom—as she performed fellatio on him, fully enjoying the hardness of his penis and the softness of his testicles. Tengo could see her breasts moving up and down, enfolded in the black lace of her bra, as she moved her mouth. To keep himself from coming too soon, he closed his eyes and thought about the Gilyaks.

One often sees them, their families and their dogs, picking their way in Indian file across a quagmire right by the roadway.

Tengo imagined the scene: the shabbily dressed Gilyaks walking through the thick forest in line beside the road with their dogs and women, hardly speaking. In their concepts of time, space, and possibility, roads did not exist. Rather than walk on a road, they probably gained a clearer grasp of their own raison d’etre by making their way quietly through the forest, in spite of the inconvenience.

The poor Gilyaks!
Fuka-Eri had said.

Tengo thought of Fuka-Eri’s face as she slept. She had fallen asleep wearing Tengo’s too-large pajamas, the sleeves and cuffs rolled up. He had lifted them from the washing machine, held them to his nose, and smelled them.

I can’t let myself think about that!
Tengo told himself, but it was already too late.

The semen surged out of him in multiple violent convulsions and into his girlfriend’s mouth. She took it in until he finished, then stepped out of bed and went to the bathroom. He heard her open the spigot, run the water, and rinse her mouth. Then, as if it had been nothing at all, she came back to the bed.

“Sorry,” Tengo said.

“I guess you couldn’t stop yourself,” she said, caressing his nose with her fingertip. “That’s okay, it’s no big deal. Did it feel
that
good?”

“Fantastic,” he said. “I think I can do it again in a few minutes.”

“I can hardly wait,” she said, pressing her cheek against Tengo’s bare chest. She closed her eyes, keeping very still. Tengo could feel the soft breath from her nose against his nipple.

“Can you guess what your chest reminds me of when I see it?” she asked Tengo.

“No idea.”

“A castle gate in a Kurosawa samurai movie.”

“A castle gate,” Tengo said, caressing her back.

“You know, like in
Throne of Blood
or
Hidden Fortress
. There’s always a big, sturdy castle gate in those old black-and-white movies of his, all covered with these huge iron rivets. That’s what I think of. Thick, solid …”

“I don’t have any rivets, though.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” she said.

Fuka-Eri’s
Air Chrysalis
placed on the bestseller lists the second week after it went on sale, rising to number one on the fiction list in the third week. Tengo traced the process of the book’s ascent through the newspapers they kept in the cram school’s teachers’ lounge. Two ads for the book also appeared in the papers, featuring a photo of the book’s cover and a smaller shot of Fuka-Eri wearing the familiar tight-fitting summer sweater that showed off her breasts so beautifully (taken, no doubt, at the time of the press conference). Long, straight hair falling to her shoulders. Dark, enigmatic eyes looking straight at the camera. Those eyes seemed to peer through the lens and focus directly on something the viewer kept hidden deep in his heart, of which he was normally unaware. They did so neutrally but gently. This seventeen-year-old girl’s unwavering gaze was disconcerting. It was just a small black-and-white photograph, but the mere sight of it almost certainly prompted many people to buy the book.

Komatsu had sent two copies of the book to Tengo a few days after it went on sale, but Tengo opened only the package, not the vinyl around the books themselves. True, the text inside the book was something he himself had written, and this was the first time his writing had taken the shape of a book, but he had no desire to open it and read it—or even glance at its pages. The sight of it gave him no joy. The sentences and paragraphs may have been his, but the story they comprised belonged entirely to Fuka-Eri. Her mind had given birth to it. His minor role as a secret technician had ended long before, and the work’s fate from this point onward had nothing to do with him. Nor should it. He shoved the two volumes into the back of his bookcase, out of sight, still wrapped in vinyl.

For a while after the one night Fuka-Eri slept in his apartment, Tengo’s life flowed along uneventfully. It rained a lot, but Tengo paid almost no attention to the weather, which ranked far down on his list of priorities. From Fuka-Eri herself, he heard nothing. The lack of contact probably meant that she had no particular problems for him to solve.

In addition to writing his novel every day, Tengo wrote a number of short pieces for magazines—anonymous jobs that anyone could do. They were a welcome change of pace, though, and the pay was good for the minimal effort involved. Three times a week, as usual, Tengo taught math at the cram school. He burrowed more deeply than ever into the world of mathematics in order to forget his concerns—issues involving
Air Chrysalis
and Fuka-Eri, mainly. Once he entered the mathematical world, his brain switched circuits (with a little click), his mouth emitted different kinds of words, his body began to use different kinds of muscles, and both the tone of his voice and the look on his face changed. Tengo liked the way this change of gears felt. It was like moving from one room into another or changing from one pair of shoes into another.

In contrast to the time he spent performing daily tasks or writing fiction, Tengo was able to attain a new level of relaxation—and even to become more eloquent—when he entered the world of mathematics. At the same time, however, he also felt he had become a somewhat more practical person. He could not decide who might be the real Tengo, but the switch was both natural and almost unconscious. He also knew that it was something he more or less needed.

As a teacher, Tengo pounded into his students’ heads how voraciously mathematics demanded logic. Here things that could not be proven had no meaning, but once you had succeeded in proving something, the world’s riddles settled into the palm of your hand like a tender oyster. Tengo’s lectures took on uncommon warmth, and the students found themselves swept up in his eloquence. He taught them how to practically and effectively solve mathematical problems while simultaneously presenting a spectacular display of the romance concealed in the questions it posed. Tengo saw admiration in the eyes of several of his female students, and he realized that he was seducing these seventeen- or eighteen-year-olds through mathematics. His eloquence was a kind of intellectual foreplay. Mathematical functions stroked their backs; theorems sent warm breath into their ears. Since meeting Fuka-Eri, however, Tengo no longer felt sexual interest in such girls, nor did he have any urge to smell their pajamas.

Fuka-Eri is surely a special being
, Tengo realized.
She can’t be compared with other girls. She is undoubtedly someone of special significance to me. She is—how should I put it?—an all-encompassing image projected straight at me, but an image I find it impossible to decipher
.

Still, I’d better end any involvement with Fuka-Eri
. Tengo’s rational mind reached this lucid conclusion.
I should also put as much distance as possible between myself and the piles of
Air Chrysalis
displayed in the front of all the bookstores, and the inscrutable Professor Ebisuno, and that ominously mysterious religious organization. I’d also better keep away from Komatsu, at least for the time being. Otherwise, I’m likely to be carried into even more chaotic territory, pushed into a dangerous corner without a shred of logic, driven into a situation from which I can never extricate myself
.

But Tengo was also well aware that he could not easily withdraw from the twisted conspiracy in which he was now fully involved. He was no Hitchcockian protagonist, embroiled in a conspiracy before he knew what was happening. He had embroiled himself, knowing full well that it contained an element of risk. The machine was already in motion, gaining too much forward momentum for him to stop it. Tengo himself was one of its gears—and an important one at that. He could hear the machine’s low groaning, and feel its implacable motion.

Komatsu called Tengo a few days after
Air Chrysalis
topped the bestseller list for the second week in a row. The phone rang after eleven o’clock at night. Tengo was already in bed in his pajamas. He had been reading a book for a while, lying on his stomach, and was just about to turn off the bedside light. Judging from the ring, he knew it was Komatsu. Exactly how, he could not explain, but he could always tell when the call was from Komatsu. The phone rang in a special way. Just as writing had a particular style, Komatsu’s calls had a particular ring.

Tengo got out of bed, went to the kitchen, and picked up the receiver. He did not really want to answer the call and would have preferred to go quietly to sleep, to dream of Iriomote cats or the Panama Canal, or the ozone layer, or Basho—anything, as long as it was as far from here as possible. If he didn’t answer the phone now, though, it would just ring again in another fifteen minutes or half an hour. Better to take the call now.

“Hey, Tengo, were you sleeping?” Komatsu asked, easygoing as usual.

“I was trying,” Tengo said.

“Sorry about that,” Komatsu said, sounding not the least bit sorry. “I just wanted to let you know that
Air Chrysalis
is selling well.”

“That’s great.”

“Like hotcakes. They can’t keep up. The poor guys at the printer are working through the night. Anyhow, I figured the numbers would be pretty good, of course. The author is a beautiful seventeen-year-old girl. People are talking about it. All the elements are in place for a bestseller.”

“Unlike novels written by a thirty-year-old cram school teacher who looks like a bear, you mean.”

“Exactly. But still, you couldn’t call this a commercial novel. It’s got no sex scenes, it’s not a tearjerker. Not even I imagined it would sell so spectacularly.”

Komatsu paused as if he expected a response from Tengo. When Tengo said nothing, he went on:

“It’s not just selling a lot, either. The critical reception is wonderful, too. This is no lightweight drama slapped together on a whim by some youngster. The story itself is outstanding. Of course your superb revision made this possible, Tengo. That was an absolutely perfect piece of work you did.”

Made this possible
. Ignoring Komatsu’s praise, Tengo pressed his fingertips against his temples. Whenever Komatsu openly praised Tengo, it was bound to be followed by something unpleasant.

Tengo asked Komatsu, “So tell me, what’s the bad news?”

“How do you know there’s bad news?”

“Look what time you’re phoning me! There has to be some bad news.”

“True,” Komatsu said, in apparent admiration. “You’ve got that special sensitivity, Tengo. I should have known.”

Sensitivity’s got nothing to do with it
, Tengo thought.
It’s just plain old experience
. But he said nothing and waited to see what Komatsu was getting at.

“Unfortunately, you’re right, I do have a piece of unpleasant news,” Komatsu said. He paused meaningfully. Tengo imagined Komatsu at the other end, his eyes gleaming like a mongoose’s in the dark.

“It probably has something to do with the author of
Air Chrysalis
, am I right?”

“Exactly. It is about Fuka-Eri. And it’s not good. She’s been missing for a while.”

Tengo’s fingers kept pressing against his temples. ” ‘A while’? Since when?”

“Three days ago, on Wednesday morning, she left her house in Okutama for Tokyo. Professor Ebisuno saw her off. She didn’t say where she was going. Later in the day she phoned to say she wouldn’t be coming back to the house in the hills, that she was going to spend the night in their Shinano-machi condo. Professor Ebisuno’s daughter was also supposed to spend the night there, but Fuka-Eri never showed up. They haven’t heard from her since.”

Tengo traced his memory back three days, but could think of nothing relevant.

“They have absolutely no idea where she is. I thought she might have contacted you.”

“I haven’t heard a thing,” Tengo said. More than four weeks must have gone by since she spent the night in his apartment.

Tengo momentarily wondered whether he ought to tell Komatsu what she had said back then—that she had better not go back to the Shinano-machi condo. She might have been sensing something ominous about the place. But he decided not to mention it. He didn’t want to have to tell Komatsu that Fuka-Eri had stayed at his apartment.

“She’s an odd girl,” Tengo said. “She might have just gone off somewhere by herself without telling anybody”

“No, I don’t think so. She may not look it, but Fuka-Eri is a very conscientious person. She’s always very clear about her whereabouts, always phoning to say where she is or where she’s going and when. That’s what Professor Ebisuno tells me. For her to be out of touch for three full days is not at all usual for her. Something bad might have happened.”