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I will not cry
, she thought.
It is not the time to cry yet
.
“Is Tengo really longing for me? Can you swear to that without deception?”
“To this day, Tengo has never loved anyone but you with his whole heart. It is a
fact. There is not the slightest room for doubt.”
“But still, he never looked for me.”
“Well, you never looked for him. Isn’t that true?”
Aomame closed her eyes and, in a split second, reviewed the long span of years as
if standing on the edge of a sheer cliff, surveying an ocean channel far below. She
could smell the sea. She could hear the deep sighing of the wind.
She said, “We should have had the courage to search for each other long ago, I
suppose. Then we could have been united in the original world.”
“Theoretically, perhaps,” the man said. “But you would never have even
thought
such a thing in the world of 1984. Cause and effect are linked that way in a twisted
form. You can pile up all the worlds you like and the twisting will never be undone.”
Tears poured from Aomame’s eyes. She cried for everything she had lost. She
cried for everything she was about to lose. And eventually—how long had she been
crying?—she arrived at a point where she could cry no longer. Her tears dried up, as
if her emotions had run into an invisible wall.
“All right, then,” Aomame said. “There is no firm basis. Nothing has been proved.
I can’t understand all the details. But still, it seems I have to accept your offer. In
keeping with your wishes, I will obliterate you from this world. I will give you a
painless, instantaneous death so that Tengo can go on living.”
“This means that you will agree to my bargain, then?”
“Yes. We have a bargain.”
“You will probably die as a result, you know,” the man said. “You will be chased
down and punished. And the punishment may be terrible. They are fanatics.”
“I don’t care.”
“Because you have love.”
Aomame nodded.
The man said, “ ‘Without your love, it’s a honky-tonk parade.’ Like in the song.”
“You are sure that Tengo will be able to go on living if I kill you?”
The man remained silent for a while. Then he said, “Tengo will go on living. You
can take me at my word. I can give you that much without fail in exchange for my
life.”
“And my life, too,” Aomame said.
“Some things can only be done in exchange for life,” the man said.
Aomame clenched her fists. “To tell the truth, though, I would have preferred to
stay alive and be united with Tengo.”
A short silence came over the room. Even the thunder stopped. Everything was
hushed.
“I wish I could make that happen,” the man said softly. “Unfortunately, however,
that is not one of the options. It was not available in 1984 nor is it in 1Q84, in a
different sense in each case.”
“Our paths would never have crossed—Tengo’s and mine—in 1984? Is that what
you are saying?”
414
“Exactly. You would have had no connection whatever, but you likely would have
kept on thinking about each other as each of you entered a lonely old age.”
“But in 1Q84 I can at least know that I am going to die for him.”
The man took a deep breath, saying nothing.
“There is one thing I want you to tell me,” Aomame said.
“If I can,” the man said, lying on his stomach.
“Will Tengo find out in some form or other that I died for him? Or will he never
know anything about it?”
The man thought about the question for a long time. “That is probably up to you.”
“Up to me?” Aomame asked with a slight frown. “What do you mean by that?”
The man quietly shook his head. “You are fated to pass through great hardships
and trials. Once you have done that, you should be able to see things as they are
supposed to be. That is all I can say. No one knows for certain what it means to die
until they actually do it.”
Aomame picked up a towel and carefully dried the tears still clinging to her face.
Then she examined the slender ice pick in her hand again to be certain that its fine
point had not been broken off. With her right index finger, she searched again for the
fatal point on the back of the man’s neck as she had done before. She was able to find
it right away, so vividly was it etched into her brain. She pressed the point softly with
her fingertip, gauged its resilience, and made sure once again that her intuition was
not mistaken. Taking several slow, deep breaths, she calmed the beating of her heart
and steadied her heightened nerves. Her head would have to be perfectly clear. She
swept away all thoughts of Tengo for the moment. Hatred, anger, confusion, pity: all
these she sealed off in a separate space. Error was unacceptable. She had to
concentrate her attention on
death itself
, as if focusing a narrow beam of light.
“Let us complete our work,” Aomame said calmly. “I must remove you from this
world.”
“Then I can leave behind all the pain that I have been given.”
“Leave behind all the pain, the Little People, a transformed world, those
hypotheses … and love.”
“And love. You are right,” the man said as if speaking to himself. “I used to have
people I loved. All right, then, let each of us finish our work. You are a terribly
capable person, Aomame. I can tell that.”
“You, too,” Aomame said. Her voice had taken on the strange transparency of one
who will deliver death. “You, too, are surely a very capable, superior person. I am
sure there must have been a world in which there was no need for me to kill you.”
“That world no longer exists,” the man said. These were the last words he spoke.
That world no longer exists
.
Aomame placed the sharp point against that delicate spot on the back of his neck.
Concentrating all her attention, she adjusted the angle of the ice pick. Then she raised
her right fist in the air. Holding her breath, she waited for a signal.
No more thinking
,
she said to herself.
Let each of us complete our work. That is all. There is no need to
think, no need for explanations. Just wait for the signal
. Her fist was as hard as a rock,
devoid of feeling.
415
Outside the window, the thunder-without-lightning rumbled with increased force.
Raindrops pelted the glass. The two of them were in an ancient cave—a dark, damp,
low-ceilinged cave. Dark beasts and spirits surrounded the entrance. For the briefest
instant around her, light and shadow became one. A nameless gust of wind blew
through the distant channel. That was the signal. Aomame brought her fist down in
one short, precise movement.
Everything ended in silence. The beasts and spirits heaved a deep breath, broke up
their encirclement, and returned to the depths of a forest that had lost its heart.
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