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Air Chrysalis
into a bestseller,
but that was something he could never mention to anyone.
Tengo’s thoughts had reached this point when the cashier picked up his grocery
basket.
He went back to his apartment with a bag of groceries in his arms. Changing into
shorts, he took a cold can of beer from the refrigerator and drank it, standing, while he
heated a large pot of water. Before the water boiled, he stripped all the leathery
edamame pods from the branch, spread them on a cutting board, and rubbed them all
over with salt. When the water boiled, he threw them into the pot.
Tengo wondered,
Why has that skinny little ten-year-old girl stayed in my heart all
these years? She came over to me after class and squeezed my hand without saying a
word. That was all
. But in that time, Aomame seemed to have taken part of him with
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her—part of his heart or body. And in its place, she had left part of her heart or body
inside him. This important exchange had taken place in a matter of seconds.
Tengo chopped a lot of ginger to a fine consistency. Then he sliced some celery
and mushrooms into nice-sized pieces. The Chinese parsley, too, he chopped up
finely. He peeled the shrimp and washed them at the sink. Spreading a paper towel, he
laid the shrimp out in neat rows, like troops in formation. When the edamame were
finished boiling, he drained them in a colander and left them to cool. Next he warmed
a large frying pan and dribbled in some sesame oil and spread it over the bottom. He
slowly fried the chopped ginger over a low flame.
I wish I could meet Aomame right now
, Tengo started thinking again. Even if she
turned out to be disappointed in him or he was a little disappointed in her, he didn’t
care. He wanted to see her in any case. All he wanted was to find out what kind of life
she had led since then, what kind of place she was in now, what kinds of things gave
her joy, and what kinds of things made her sad. No matter how much the two of them
had changed, or whether all possibility of their getting together had already been lost,
this in no way altered the fact that they had exchanged something important in that
empty elementary school classroom so long ago.
He put the sliced celery and mushrooms into the frying pan. Turning the gas flame
up to high and lightly jogging the pan, he carefully stirred the contents with a bamboo
spatula, adding a sprinkle of salt and pepper. When the vegetables were just beginning
to cook, he tossed the drained shrimp into the pan. After adding another dose of salt
and pepper to the whole thing, he poured in a small glass of sake. Then a dash of soy
sauce and finally a scattering of Chinese parsley. Tengo performed all these
operations on automatic pilot. This was not a dish that required complicated
procedures: his hands moved on their own with precision, but his mind stayed focused
on Aomame the whole time.
When the stir-fried shrimp and vegetables were ready, Tengo transferred the food
from the frying pan to a large platter along with the edamame. He took a fresh beer
from the refrigerator, sat at the kitchen table, and, still lost in thought, proceeded to
eat the steaming food.
I’ve obviously been changing a lot over the past several months. Maybe you could
say I’m growing up mentally and emotionally … at last … on the verge of turning
thirty. Well, isn’t that something!
With his partially drunk beer in hand, Tengo shook
his head in self-derision.
Really, isn’t that something! How many years will it take me
to reach full maturity at this rate?
In any case, though, it seemed clear that
Air Chrysalis
had been the catalyst for the
changes going on inside him. The act of rewriting Fuka-Eri’s story in his own words
had produced in Tengo a strong new desire to give literary form to the story inside
himself. And part of that strong new desire was a need for Aomame. Something was
making him think about Aomame all the time now. At every opportunity, his thoughts
would be drawn back to that classroom on an afternoon twenty years earlier the way a
strong riptide could sweep the feet out from under a person standing on the shore.
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Tengo drank only half his beer and ate only half his shrimp and vegetables. He
poured the leftover beer into the sink, and the food he transferred to a small plate,
covered it with plastic wrap, and put it in the refrigerator.
After the meal, Tengo sat at his desk, switched on his word processor, and opened his
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