1Q84 (77 page)

The man turned his neck several times before continuing.

“If a certain belief—call it ‘Belief A’—makes the life of that man or this woman appear to be something of deep meaning, then for them Belief A is the truth. If Belief B makes their lives appear to be powerless and puny, then Belief B turns out to be a falsehood. The distinction is quite clear. If someone insists that Belief B is the truth, people will probably hate him, ignore him, or, in some cases, attack him. It means nothing to them that Belief B might be logical or provable. Most people barely manage to preserve their sanity by denying and rejecting images of themselves as powerless and puny.”

“But people’s flesh—all flesh, with only minor differences—is a powerless and puny thing. This is self-evident, don’t you think?”

“I do,” the man said. “All flesh, with only minor differences, is a powerless and puny thing doomed soon to disintegrate and disappear. That is an unmistakable truth. But what, then, of a person’s spirit?”

“I try my best not to think about the spirit.”

“And why is that?”

“Because there is no particular need to think about it.”

“Why is there no particular need to think about the spirit? Setting aside the question of whether it has any practical value to do so, thinking about one’s own spirit is one of the most indispensable of all human tasks, is it not?”

“I have love,” Aomame declared.

Oh, no, what am I doing?
she thought.
Talking about love to this man I’m about to kill!

As a breeze sends ripples over the surface of a quiet pond, a faint smile spread across the man’s face, conveying a natural and even friendly emotion.

“Do you think that love is all a person needs?” he asked.

“I do.”

“Now, this ‘love’ of yours—does it have a particular individual as its object?”

“It does,” Aomame said. “It is directed toward a specific man.”

“Powerless, puny flesh and an absolute love free of shadows …,” he murmured. Then, after a brief pause, he added, “You don’t seem to have any need for religion.”

“Maybe I don’t have any need.”

“Because your attitude is itself the very essence of religion, as it were.”

“You said before that religion offers not so much truth as beautiful hypotheses. Where does that leave the religion that you head?”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t consider what I do to be a religious activity,” the man said. “What I am doing is listening to the voices and transmitting them to people. I am the only one who can hear the voices. That I can hear them is an unmistakable truth, but I can’t prove that their messages
are
the truth. All I can do is to embody their accompanying traces of heavenly grace.”

Lightly biting her lip, Aomame set down her towel. She wanted to ask what kinds of grace he was talking about, but she stopped herself. This could go on forever. She still had an important task she had to complete.

“Can you lie facedown again? I’m going to work on loosening up your neck muscles,” Aomame said.

The man stretched out his huge frame again on the yoga mat and presented the back of his thick neck to Aomame.

“In any case, you have a
magic touch
,” he said, using the English expression.

“
Magic touch?
”

“Fingers that give off extraordinary power. An acute sense for locating those special points on the body. A special capacity that is granted to very few individuals. This is not something you can learn through study and practice. I have something—a very different kind of something—that came to me in the same way. But as with all forms of heavenly grace, people have to pay a price for the gifts they are given.”

“I’ve never thought of it that way,” Aomame said. “I simply developed my techniques through study and a lot of practice. They were not ‘granted’ to me by anybody.”

“I’m not going to get involved in a debate with you. Just remember this: the gods give, and the gods take away. Even if you are not aware of having been granted what you possess, the gods remember what they gave you. They don’t forget a thing. You should use the abilities you have been granted with the utmost care.”

Aomame looked at her ten fingers. Then she placed them on the back of the man’s neck, concentrating all her awareness into her fingertips. The gods give, and the gods take away.

“I’ll be through soon. This is the finishing touch,” she announced drily to the man’s back.

She seemed to hear thunder in the distance. She raised her face and looked out the window. There was nothing to see but the dark sky. Again the sound came, reverberating hollowly in the quiet room.

“It is going to rain any time now,” the man declared in a voice without feeling.

Hands on the back of the man’s thick neck, Aomame searched for the special spot. This required unusual powers of concentration. She closed her eyes, held her breath, and listened for the flow of his blood there. Her fingertips strained to read detailed information from the elasticity of his skin and the conduction of his body heat. There was only one special spot, and it was exceptionally small. On some people, it was easy to find, but much more difficult on others. This man they called “Leader” was clearly the latter type. This was like trying to find a single coin in a pitch-dark room entirely by feel, while taking care not to make any sound. At last, however, she found it. She placed her fingertip on it and engraved the feel and its precise position into her mind as though marking a map, a special ability that had been imparted to her.

“Please stay in that exact position,” Aomame said to the man as he lay there prone. She reached out for the gym bag lying next to them and from it took out the hard case holding the little ice pick.

“One spot is left on the back of your neck where the flow is still blocked,” Aomame said calmly, “and I can’t seem to resolve it with only the strength of my fingers. If I can remove the blockage in this one place, it should give you great relief from your pain. I want to place one simple acupuncture needle there. Don’t worry, I’ve done this any number of times. Do you mind?”

The man released a deep breath. “I am leaving it entirely up to you. I will accept anything from you that will erase the pain I am feeling.”

She took the ice pick from the case and slipped the cork from its tip. The point had its usual deadly sharpness. She held the ice pick in her left hand and used the index finger of her right hand to locate the point she had found earlier. This was the spot, without the slightest doubt. She placed the point against the spot and took a deep breath. Now all she needed to do was bring her right hand down on the handle like a hammer and drive the needle’s exceedingly fine point deep into the spot. Then it would all be over.

But
something
held her back. For some reason, she was unable to bring down the fist she was holding aloft.
With this, it will be all over
, Aomame thought.
With one stroke, I can send this man to the “other side.” Then I leave the room looking cool, change my face and name, and take on a new personality. I can do it. Without fear, without pangs of conscience. This man has repeatedly committed loathsome acts that deserve death, there can be no doubt
. But, for some reason, she could not bring herself to do it. What held her right hand back was an incoherent yet persistent doubt.
This is all happening too easily
, her instincts were warning her.

Reason had nothing to do with it. She simply knew: something was wrong. Something was not natural. All her powers and abilities were clashing inside her, their disparate elements engaged in a fierce struggle. Her face performed deep contortions in the darkness.

“What is it?” the man called out. “I’m waiting. I’m waiting for you to finish once and for all.”

When she heard this, Aomame finally realized what was holding her back.
This man knows. He knows what I am about to do to him
.

“There is no need for you to hesitate,” the man said calmly. “It’s all right. What you want is also what I want.”

The thunder continued to rumble, but there was no lightning to be seen, just a roar like distant cannons. The battlefield was still far off. The man continued.

“If there were ever a perfect
treatment
, that is it. You did a careful job of stretching out my muscles. I have only the purest respect for your skill. But as you pointed out yourself, it is, ultimately, nothing but a symptomatic treatment. My pain has advanced to the point where it can only be resolved by severing my life at the roots, by going down to the basement and cutting the main switch. You are about to do that for me.”

Aomame maintained her pose, the left hand holding the needle against the special spot on the back of his neck, the right hand held aloft. She could move neither forward nor back.

“If you want to put a stop to what you are about to do, there are any number of ways you can do that. It’s simple,” he said. “Try bringing your right hand down.”

As directed, Aomame tried to lower her right hand. But it would not budge. It was frozen in midair, like the hand of a stone statue.

“I have the power to do that—not that it was something I ever hoped to obtain. All right, you can move your right hand now. Now you are in complete control of my life.”

Aomame became aware that she could now move her right hand freely. She clenched her fist and opened it. It felt entirely normal. He must have employed something like hypnotism. Whatever it was, it was very powerful.

“They have granted me these special powers, but in return they have impressed certain demands upon me. Their desires have become my desires—implacable desires that I have been unable to defy.”

“
They?
” Aomame asked. “Do you mean the Little People?”

“So you know about them. Good. That will save time explaining.”

“All I know is that name. I don’t know who or what the Little People are.”

“Probably no one knows for sure who the Little People are,” the man said. “All that people are able to learn is that they exist. Have you read Frazer’s
The Golden Bough
?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“It is a very interesting book that has much to teach us. In certain periods of history in several parts of the world—in ancient times, of course—the king was often killed at the end of his reign, usually after a fixed period of ten to twelve years. When the term ended, the people would gather together and slaughter him. This was deemed necessary for the community, and the kings themselves willingly accepted it. The killing had to be cruel and bloody, and it was considered a great honor bestowed upon the one who was king. Now, why did the king have to be killed? It was because in those days the king was the
one who listened to the voices
, as the representative of the people. Such a person would take it upon himself to become the circuit connecting ‘us’ with ‘them.’ And slaughtering the
one who listened to the voices
was the indispensable task of the community in order to maintain a balance between the minds of those who lived on the earth and the power manifested by the Little People. In the ancient world, ‘to rule’ was synonymous with ‘listening to the voices of the gods.’ Such a system was at some point abandoned, of course. Kings were no longer killed, and kingship became secular and hereditary. In this way, people stopped hearing the voices.”

Unconsciously opening and closing her elevated right hand, Aomame listened to what the man was saying.

“
They
have been called by many different names, but in most cases have not been called anything at all.
They were simply there
. The expression ‘Little People’ is just an expedient. My daughter called them that when she was very young and brought them with her.”

“Then you became a king.”

The man drew a strong breath in through his nose and held it in his lungs for a time before releasing it slowly. “I am no king. I became
one who listens to the voices
.”

“And now you are seeking to be slaughtered.”

“No, it need not be a slaughter. This is 1984, and we are in the middle of the big city. There is no need for a brutal, bloody killing. All you have to do is take my life. It can be neat and simple.”

Aomame shook her head and relaxed the muscles of her body. The point of the needle was still pressed against the spot on the back of his neck, but she found it impossible to summon the will to kill this man.

Aomame said, “You have raped many young girls—girls barely ten years old, some perhaps even younger.”

“That is true,” the man said. “There are aspects to what I did, I must admit, that can be viewed that way in the light of commonly held concepts. In the eyes of earthly law, I am a criminal. I did have physical relations with girls who had still not reached maturity—even if it was something that I myself did not seek.”

All that Aomame could do was inhale and exhale deeply. She had no idea how to go about quieting the intense emotional currents streaming through her body. Her face was greatly distorted, and her right and left hands seemed to be longing for entirely different things.

“I would like you to take my life,” the man said. “It makes no sense for me to go on living in this world. I should be obliterated in order to maintain the world’s balance.”

“What would happen after I killed you?”

“The Little People would lose one who listens to their voices. I still have no successor.”

“How is it possible to believe this?” Aomame practically spit the words out between her taut lips. “You may just be a sexual pervert trying to justify your despicable actions with convenient rationalizations. There never were any ‘Little People,’ no voices of the gods, no heavenly grace. You may be just another phony claiming to be a prophet or religious leader.”

“See the clock over there?” the man said without lifting his head. “On the right-hand chest of drawers.”

Aomame looked to the right. There was a rounded, waist-high chest, on top of which sat a clock embedded in a marble frame—obviously, a heavy object.

“Keep your eyes on it. Don’t look away.”