1Q84 (59 page)

Finally he stood up and made several attempts to smooth out the tiny wrinkles in his suit but succeeded only in making them more obvious.

“If you should change your mind about the grant, please call the number on my card whenever you feel like it. There is still plenty of time. If this year is no good for you, well, there’s always next year.” With raised index fingers, Ushikawa mimed the earth revolving around the sun. “We are in no hurry. At least I succeeded in meeting you and having this little talk with you, and I believe that you have gotten our message.”

After one more smile, all but flaunting his ruined dentition, Ushikawa turned and left the reception room.

Tengo used the time until his next class to think through Ushikawa’s remarks in his head. The man seemed to know that Tengo had participated in the rewrite of
Air Chrysalis
. There were hints of it everywhere in his speech.
All I am trying to say is that selling off one’s talents and time in dribs and drabs to make ends meet never produces good results
, Ushikawa had said pointedly.

“We know”—surely, that was the message.

I succeeded in meeting you and having this little talk with you, and I believe that you have gotten
our
message
.

Could they have dispatched Ushikawa to see Tengo and offer him the three-million-yen grant for no other purpose than to deliver this message? No, it didn’t make sense. There was no need for them to devise such an elaborate plot. They already knew where he was weakest. If they had wanted to threaten Tengo, all they had to do was bring out the facts. Or were they trying to buy him off with the grant? It was all too dramatic. And who were “they” after all? Was the New Japan Foundation for the Advancement of Scholarship and the Arts connected with Sakigake? Did it even exist?

Tengo went to see the secretary, carrying Ushikawa’s business card. “I need to ask you to do me another favor,” he said.

“What would that be?” she asked, remaining seated at her desk and looking up at Tengo.

“I’d like you to call this number and ask if they’re the New Japan Foundation for the Advancement of Scholarship and the Arts. Also, ask whether this director, Mr. Ushikawa, is in. They’ll probably say he’s not there, so ask when he’s due back in the office. If they ask your name, just make something up. I’d do it myself, except it might be a problem if they recognize my voice.”

The secretary dialed the numbers and a standard back-and-forth ensued—a concise exchange between two professionals. When it ended, the secretary reported to Tengo, “The New Japan Foundation for the Advancement of Scholarship and the Arts does exist. A woman answered, probably in her early twenties, a normal receptionist. Mr. Ushikawa actually works there. He’s supposed to be back around three thirty. She didn’t ask my name—which
I
certainly would have done.”

“Of course,” Tengo said. “Anyhow, thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, handing Ushikawa’s card back to Tengo. “Is this Mr. Ushikawa the person who came to see you?”

“That’s him.”

“I barely looked at him, but he seemed kind of creepy.”

Tengo put the card into his wallet. “I suspect that impression wouldn’t change even if you had more time to look at him,” he said.

“I always tell myself not to judge people by their appearance. I’ve been wrong in the past and had some serious regrets. But the minute I saw this man, I got the feeling he couldn’t be trusted. I still feel that way.”

“You’re not alone,” Tengo said.

“I’m not alone,” she echoed, as if to confirm the grammatical accuracy of Tengo’s sentence.

“That’s a beautiful jacket you’re wearing,” Tengo said, meaning it quite honestly. He wasn’t just flattering her. After Ushikawa’s crumpled heap of a suit, her stylishly cut linen jacket looked like a lovely piece of fabric that had descended from heaven on a windless afternoon.

“Thank you,” she said.

“But just because somebody answered the phone, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the New Japan Foundation for the Advancement of Scholarship and the Arts actually exists.”

“That’s true. It could be an elaborate ruse. You just have to put in a phone line and hire somebody to answer it. Like in
The Sting
. But why would they go to all that trouble? Forgive me, Tengo, but you don’t look like somebody who’d have enough money to squeeze out of you.”

“I don’t have a thing,” Tengo said, “except my soul.”

“Sounds like a job for Mephistopheles,” she said.

“Maybe I should walk over to this address and see if there’s really an office there.”

“Tell me what you find out,” she said, inspecting her manicure with narrowed eyes.

The New Japan Foundation for the Advancement of Scholarship and the Arts actually existed. After class, Tengo took the subway to Yotsuya and walked to Kojimachi. At the address on Ushikawa’s card he found a four-story building with a metal nameplate by the front entrance: “New Japan Foundation for the Advancement of Scholarship and the Arts.” The office was on the third floor. Also on that floor were Mikimoto Music Publishers and Koda Accountants. Judging from the scale of the building, none of them could be very big offices. None appeared to be flourishing, either, though their true condition was impossible to judge from outside. Tengo considered taking the elevator to the third floor. He wanted to see what kind of office it was, or at least what its door looked like. But things could prove awkward if he ran into Ushikawa in the hallway.

Tengo took another subway home and called Komatsu’s office. For a change, Komatsu was in, and he came to the phone right away.

“I can’t talk now,” Komatsu said, speaking more quickly than usual, his tone of voice somewhat higher than normal. “Sorry, but I don’t think I can talk about anything here right now.”

“This is very important,” Tengo said. “A very strange guy came to see me at school today. He seemed to know something about my connection with
Air Chrysalis
.”

Komatsu went silent for a few seconds at his end. “I think I can call you in twenty minutes. Are you at home?”

Tengo said that he was. Komatsu hung up. While he waited for Komatsu to call, Tengo sharpened two kitchen knives on a whetstone, boiled water, and poured himself some tea. The phone rang exactly twenty minutes later, which was again unusual for Komatsu.

This time Komatsu sounded far calmer than he had before. He seemed to be phoning from a quieter place. Tengo gave him a condensed account of what Ushikawa had said in the reception room.

“The New Japan Foundation for the Advancement of Scholarship and the Arts? Never heard of it. And that three-million-yen grant for you is hard to figure, too. I agree, of course, that you have a great future as a writer, but you still haven’t published anything. It’s kind of incredible. They’ve got some ulterior motive.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Give me a little time. I’ll find out what I can about this New Japan Foundation for the Advancement of Scholarship and the Arts. I’ll get in touch with you if I learn anything. But this Ushikawa guy knows you’re connected with Fuka-Eri, huh?”

“Looks that way.”

“That’s a bit of a problem.”

“Something’s starting to happen,” Tengo said. “It’s fine that Professor Ebisuno managed to pry up his rock, but some kind of monster seems to have crawled out from underneath.”

Komatsu sighed into the phone. “It’s coming after me, too. The weekly magazines are going crazy. And the TV guys are poking around. This morning the cops came to the office to question me. They’ve already latched on to the connection between Fuka-Eri and Sakigake. And of course the disappearance of her parents. The media will start blowing up that angle soon.”

“What’s Professor Ebisuno doing?”

“Nobody’s been able to get in touch with him for a while. Phone calls don’t go through, and he doesn’t get in touch with anybody. He may be having a tough time too. Or he could be working on another secret plan.”

“Oh, by the way, to change the subject a bit, have you told anybody that I’m writing a long novel?” Tengo asked Komatsu.

“No, nobody,” Komatsu responded immediately. “Why would I tell anyone about that?”

“That’s okay, then. Just asking.”

Komatsu fell silent for a moment, and then he said, “It’s kind of late for me to be saying this, but we might have gotten ourselves into nasty territory.”

“Whatever we’ve gotten ourselves into, there’s no backing out now, that’s for sure.”

“And if we can’t back out, all we can do is keep going forward, even if you’re right about that monster.”

“Better fasten your seat belt,” Tengo said.

“You said it,” Komatsu said, and hung up.

It had been a long day. Tengo sat at the kitchen table, drinking his cold tea and thinking about Fuka-Eri. What could she be doing all day, locked up alone in her hiding place? Of course, no one ever knew what Fuka-Eri was doing.

In her recorded message, Fuka-Eri had said that the Little People’s wisdom and power might cause harm to the Professor and to Tengo.
Better be careful in the forest
. Tengo found himself looking at his surroundings. True, the forest was
their world
.

One night near the end of July, the thick clouds that had long covered the sky finally cleared, revealing two moons. Aomame stood on her apartment’s small balcony, looking at the sky. She wanted to call someone right away and say, “Can you do me a favor? Stick your head out the window and look at the sky. Okay, how many moons do you see up there? Where I am, I can see two very clearly. How about where you are?”

But she had no one to whom she could make such a call. Ayumi was one possibility, but Aomame preferred not to further deepen their personal relationship. She was a policewoman, after all. Aomame would more than likely be killing another man before long, after which she would change her face, change her name, move to a different area, and disappear. Obviously, she wouldn’t be able to see or contact Ayumi anymore. Once you let yourself grow close to someone, cutting the ties could be painful.

She went back inside, closed the balcony door, and turned on the air conditioner. Then she drew the curtains to place a barrier between herself and the moons. The two moons in the sky were disturbing to her. They subtly disrupted the balance of the earth’s gravity, and they seemed to be affecting her physically as well. Her period was not due for a while, but her body felt strangely listless and heavy. Her skin was dry, and her pulse abnormal. She told herself not to think about the moons anymore—even if they were something that she
ought to
think about.

To combat the listlessness, Aomame lay on the carpet to stretch her muscles, systematically engaging one muscle after another that she had little chance to use on a daily basis, and stretching it as far as it would go. Each muscle responded with wordless screams, and her sweat rained down on the floor. She had devised this stretching program herself and modified it each day, making it increasingly radical and effective. It was strictly for her own use. She could not have introduced it into her sports club classes. Ordinary people could never bear that much pain. Most of her fellow instructors screamed for mercy when she tried it on them.

While going through her program, she played a recording of Janacek’s
Sinfonietta
conducted by George Szell. The music took twenty-five minutes to play, which was the right amount of time to effectively torture every muscle in her body—neither too short nor too long. By the time the music ended, the turntable stopped, and the automatic tonearm returned to its rest, both her mind and her body felt like rags that had been thoroughly wrung out.

By now, Aomame had memorized every note of
Sinfonietta
. Listening to the music while stretching her body close to its limit, she was able to attain a mysterious calm. She was simultaneously the torturer and the tortured, the forcer and the forced. This sense of inner-directed self-sufficiency was what she wanted most of all. It gave her deep solace. Janacek’s
Sinfonietta
was effective background music for that purpose.

Just before ten o’clock that night, the phone rang. Lifting the receiver, she heard Tamaru’s voice.

“Any plans for tomorrow?”

“I get out of work at six thirty.”

“Think you can stop by after that?”

“I’m sure I can,” Aomame said.

“Good,” Tamaru said. She could hear his ballpoint pen writing on his calendar.

“Have you found a new dog yet?” Aomame asked.

“Dog? Uh-huh. Another female German shepherd. I still don’t know everything about her disposition, but she’s been trained in the basics and she seems to obey commands. She arrived about ten days ago and is pretty well settled in. The women are relieved to have a dog again.”

“That’s good.”

“This one’s satisfied with ordinary dog food. Less bother.”

“Ordinary German shepherds don’t eat spinach.”

“That was one strange dog. And depending on the season, spinach can be expensive,” Tamaru complained nostalgically. After a few seconds’ pause, he added, “It’s a nice night for moon viewing.”

Aomame frowned slightly into the phone. “Where did that come from all of a sudden?”

“Even I am not unaware of natural beauty, I’ll have you know.”

“No, of course not,” Aomame said.
But you’re not the type to discuss poetic subjects on the phone without some particular reason, either
.

After another short silence at his end, Tamaru said, “You’re the one who brought up moon viewing the last time we talked on the phone, remember? I’ve been thinking about it ever since, especially when I looked up at the sky a little while ago and it was so clear—not a cloud anywhere.”