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Why did you do that?
He couldn’t believe that Fuka-Eri had any sexual
desire for him. It must have been an act that somehow took shape unconnected with
sex. If so, what possible meaning could it have had?
Even if he asked her about it outright, though, he doubted he would receive a
straight answer. And Tengo couldn’t quite bring himself to broach a subject like that
directly on such a peaceful, quiet September evening. It was an act that had been
performed in hiding at a dark hour in a dark place in the midst of a raging
thunderstorm. Brought out into everyday circumstances, the nature of its meaning
might change.
So Tengo approached the question from a different angle, one that admitted a
simple yes-or-no answer. “You don’t have periods?”
“No” was Fuka-Eri’s curt reply.
“You’ve never had even one?”
“No, not even one.”
“This may be none of my business, but you’re seventeen years old. It’s probably
not normal that you’ve never had a period.”
Fuka-Eri gave a little shrug.
“Have you seen a doctor about it?”
Fuka-Eri shook her head. “It wouldn’t do any good.”
“Why wouldn’t it do any good?”
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Fuka-Eri did not answer. She gave no sign that she had even heard the question.
Maybe her ears had a special valve that sensed a question’s appropriateness or
inappropriateness, opening and closing as needed, like a mermaid’s gills.
“Are the Little People involved in this, too?” Tengo asked.
Again no answer.
Tengo sighed. He couldn’t think of anything else to ask that would enable him to
approach a clarification of last night’s events. The narrow, uncertain path gave out at
that point, and only a deep forest lay ahead. He checked his footing, scanned his
surroundings, and looked up to the heavens. This was always the problem with talking
to Fuka-Eri. All roads inevitably gave out. A Gilyak might be able to continue on
even after the road ended, but for Tengo it was impossible.
Instead he brought up a new subject. “I’m looking for a certain person,” he said.
“A woman.”
There was no point in talking about this to Fuka-Eri. Tengo was fully aware of
that. But he wanted to talk about it to someone. He wanted to hear himself telling
someone—anyone—what he was thinking about Aomame. Unless he did so, he felt
Aomame would grow even more distant from him.
“I haven’t seen her for twenty years. I was ten when I last saw her. She and I are
the same age. We were in the same class in elementary school. I’ve tried different
ways of finding her without any luck.”
The record ended. Fuka-Eri lifted it from the turntable, narrowed her eyes, and
sniffed the vinyl a few times. Then, handling it carefully by the edges so as not to
leave fingerprints on it, she slipped it into its paper envelope and slid the envelope
into the record jacket—gently, lovingly, like transferring a sleeping kitten to its bed.
“You want to see this person,” Fuka-Eri asked without a question mark.
“Yes, she is very important to me.”
“Have you been looking for her for twenty years,” Fuka-Eri asked.
“No, I haven’t,” Tengo said. While searching for the proper words to continue,
Tengo folded his hands on the table. “To tell you the truth, I just started looking for
her today.”
“Today,” she said.
“If she’s so important to you, why have you never looked for her until today?”
Tengo asked for Fuka-Eri. “Good question.”
Fuka-Eri looked at him in silence.
Tengo put his thoughts into some kind of order. Then he said, “I’ve probably been
taking a long detour. This girl named Aomame has been—how should I put this?—at
the center of my consciousness all this time without a break. She has functioned as an
important anchor to my very existence. In spite of that fact—is it?—I guess I haven’t
been able to fully grasp her significance to me
precisely
because she has been all too
close to the center.”
Fuka-Eri stared at Tengo. It was impossible to tell from her expression whether
this young girl had the slightest comprehension of what he was saying. But that hardly
mattered. Tengo was half talking to himself.
“But it has finally hit me: she is neither a concept nor a symbol nor a metaphor.
She actually exists: she has warm flesh and a spirit that moves. I never should have
lost sight of that warmth and that movement. It took me twenty years to understand
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something so obvious. It always takes me a while to think of things, but this is a little
too much. It may already be too late. But one way or another, I want to find her.”
With her knees on the floor, Fuka-Eri straightened up, the shape of her nipples
showing through the Jeff Beck T-shirt.
“Ah-oh-mah-meh,” Fuka-Eri said slowly, as if pondering each syllable.
“Yes. Green Peas. It’s an unusual name.”
“You want to meet her,” Fuka-Eri asked without a question mark.
“Yes, of course I want to meet her,” Tengo said.
Fuka-Eri chewed her lower lip as she took a moment to think about something.
Then she looked up as if she had hit upon a new idea and said, “She might be very
close by.”
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