|
CHAPTER 9
Aomame
WHAT COMES AS A PAYMENT
FOR HEAVENLY GRACE
When Aomame walked into the adjoining room, Buzzcut followed and swiftly closed
the door. The room was totally dark. Thick curtains covered the window, and all
lights had been extinguished. A few rays of light seeped in through a gap between the
curtains, serving only to emphasize the darkness of everything else.
It took time for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, as in a movie theater or
planetarium. The first thing she saw was the display of an electric clock on a low
table. Its green figures read 7:20 p.m. When a few more seconds passed, she could tell
that there was a large bed against the back wall. The clock was near the head of the
bed. This room was somewhat smaller than the spacious adjoining room, but it was
still larger than an ordinary hotel room.
On the bed was a deep black object, like a small mountain. Still more time had to
go by before Aomame could tell that its irregular outline indicated the presence of a
human body. During this interval, the outline remained perfectly unbroken. She could
detect no signs of life. There was no breathing to be heard. The only sound was the
soft rush of air from the air conditioner near the ceiling. Still, the body was not dead.
Buzzcut’s actions were based on the premise that this was a living human being.
This was a very large person, most likely a man. She could not be sure, but the
person did not seem to be facing in this direction and did not seem to be under the
covers but rather was lying facedown on the made-up bed, like a large animal at the
back of a cave, trying not to expend its physical energy while it allows its wounds to
heal.
“It is time,” Buzzcut announced in the direction of the shadow. There was a new
tension in his voice.
Whether or not the man heard Buzzcut’s voice was unclear. The dark mound on
the bed remained perfectly still. Buzzcut stood stiffly by the door, waiting. The room
was enveloped in a silence so deep Aomame could hear someone swallow, and then
she realized that the sound of swallowing had come from her. Gripping her gym bag
in her right hand, Aomame, like Buzzcut, was waiting for something to happen. The
clock display changed to 7:21, then 7:22, then 7:23.
Eventually the outline on the bed began to show a slight degree of motion—a faint
shudder that soon became a clear movement. The person must have been in a deep
sleep or a state resembling sleep. The muscles awoke, the upper body began to rise,
and, in time, the consciousness was regained. The shadow sat straight up on the bed,
legs folded.
It’s definitely a man
, thought Aomame.
364
“It is time,” Buzzcut said again.
Aomame heard the man release a long breath. It was like a heavy sigh slowly
rising from the bottom of a deep well. Next came the sound of a large inhalation. It
was as wild and unsettling as a gale tearing through a forest. Then the cycle started
again, the two utterly different types of sound repeated, separated by a long silence.
This made Aomame feel uneasy. She sensed that she had found her way into a region
that was completely foreign to her—a deep ocean trench, say, or the surface of an
unknown asteroid: the kind of place it might be possible to reach with great effort, but
from which return was impossible.
Her eyes refused to adapt fully to the darkness. She could now see to a certain
point but no farther. All that her eyes could reach was the man’s dark silhouette. She
could not tell which way he was facing or what he was looking at. All she could see
was that he was an extremely large man and that his shoulders seemed to rise and fall
quietly—but enormously—with each breath. This was not normal breathing. Rather, it
was breathing that had a special purpose and function and that was performed with
the entire body. She pictured the large movements of his shoulder blades and
diaphragm expanding and contracting. No ordinary human being could breathe with
such fierce intensity. It was a distinctive method of breathing that could only be
mastered through long, intense training.
Buzzcut stood next to her at full attention, back straight, chin in. His breathing was
shallow and quick, in contrast to that of the man on the bed. He was trying to
minimize his presence as he waited for the intense deep breathing sequence to end:
apparently it was an activity the man practiced routinely. Like Buzzcut, Aomame
could do nothing but wait for it to end. It was probably a process the man needed to
go through to become fully awake.
Finally, the special breathing ended in stages, the way a large machine stops
running. The intervals between breaths grew gradually longer, concluding with one
long breath that seemed to squeeze everything out. A deep silence fell over the room
once again.
“It is time,” Buzzcut said a third time.
The man’s head moved slowly. He now seemed to be facing Buzzcut.
“You may leave the room,” the man said. His voice was a deep, clear baritone—
decisive and unambiguous. His body had apparently attained complete wakefulness.
Buzzcut gave one shallow bow in the darkness and left the room the way he had
entered it, with no unnecessary movements. The door closed, leaving Aomame alone
in the room with the man.
“I’m sorry it’s so dark,” the man said, most likely to Aomame.
“I don’t mind,” Aomame said.
“We had to make it dark,” the man said softly. “But don’t worry. You will not be
hurt.”
Aomame nodded. Then, recalling that she was in darkness, she said aloud, “I see.”
Her voice was somewhat harder and higher than normal.
For a time, the man stared at Aomame in the darkness. She felt herself being stared
at intensely. His gaze was precise and attentive to detail. He was not so much
“looking” at her as “viewing” her. He seemed able to survey every inch of her body.
She felt as if he had, in an instant, stripped off every piece of clothing and left her
365
stark naked. But his gaze didn’t stop with the skin; it pierced through to her muscles
and organs and uterus.
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
