After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

be reborn more or less, in all 
sorts of forms
? His brain was heavy, and was brimming with the germs of life, like 
some primeval sea. Not that these led him anywhere. 
“Where do air chrysalises come from, anyway?” 
“That’s the wrong question,” Kumi said, and chuckled. 
She twisted her body on top of his and Tengo could feel her pubic hair against his 
thighs. Thick, rich hair. It was like her pubic hair was a part of her thinking process. 
“What is necessary in order to be reborn?” Tengo asked. 
“The biggest problem when it comes to being reborn,” the small nurse said, as if 
revealing a secret, “is that people aren’t reborn for their own sakes. They can only do 
it for someone else.” 
“Which is what you mean by 
more or less, in all sorts of forms
.” 
“When morning comes you will be leaving here, Tengo. Before the exit is 
blocked.” 
“When morning comes I’ll be leaving here,” Tengo repeated the nurse’s words. 
Once more she rubbed her rich pubic hair against his thigh, as if to leave behind 
some sort of 
sign
. “Air chrysalises don’t come from somewhere. They won’t come no 
matter how long you wait.” 
“You know that.” 
“Because I died once,” she said. “It’s painful to die. Much more painful than you 
imagine, Tengo. You are utterly lonely. It’s amazing how completely lonely a person 
can be. You had better remember that. But you know, unless you die once, you won’t 
be reborn.” 
“Unless you die once, you won’t be reborn,” Tengo confirmed. 
“But people face death while they’re still alive.” 

---

604
“People face death while they’re still alive,” Tengo repeated, unsure of what it 
meant. 
The white curtain continued to flutter in the breeze. The air in the classroom 
smelled of a mixture of blackboard erasers and cleaner. There was the scent of 
burning leaves. Someone was practicing the recorder. The girl was squeezing his hand 
tightly. In his lower half he felt a sweet ache, but he didn’t have an erection. That 
would come later on. The words 
later on
promised him eternity. Eternity was a single 
long pole that stretched out without end. The bowl tipped a bit again, and again his 
brains sloshed to one side. 
When he woke up, it took Tengo a while to figure out where he was, and to piece 
together the events of the previous night. Bright sunlight shone in through the gap 
between the flowery curtains, while birds whistled away noisily outside. He had been 
sleeping in an uncomfortable, cramped position in the narrow bed. He found it hard to 
believe he could have slept the whole night in such a position. Kumi was lying beside 
him, her face pressed into the pillow, sound asleep. Her hair was plastered against her 
cheeks, like lush summer grass wet with dew. 
Kumi Adachi
, Tengo thought. A young 
nurse who just turned twenty-three. His wristwatch had fallen to the floor. The hands 
showed 7:20—7:20 in the morning. 
Tengo slipped quietly out of bed, careful not to wake Kumi, and looked out the 
window through a crack in the curtains. There was a cabbage field. Rows of cabbages 
crouched stolidly on the dark soil. Beyond the field was the woods. Tengo 
remembered the hoot of the owl. Last night it had definitely been hooting. The 
wisdom of the night. Tengo and the nurse had listened to it as they smoked hashish. 
He could still feel her stiff pubic hair on his thigh. 
Tengo went to the kitchen, scooped up water from the faucet with his hands, and 
drank. He was so thirsty he drank and drank, and still wanted more. Other than that, 
nothing else had changed. His head didn’t hurt, and his body wasn’t listless. His mind 
was clear. But somehow, inside him, things seemed to flow a bit too well—as if pipes 
had been carefully, and professionally, cleaned. In his T-shirt and boxers he padded 
over to the toilet and took a good long pee. In the unfamiliar mirror, his face didn’t 
look like his own. Tufts of hair stood up here and there on his head, and he needed a 
shave. 
He went back to the bedroom and gathered up his clothes. His discarded clothes 
lay mixed in with Kumi’s, scattered on the floor. He had no memory of when, or how, 
he had undressed. He located both socks, tugged on his jeans, buttoned up his shirt. 
As he did, he stepped on a large, cheap ring. He picked it up and put it on the 
nightstand next to the bed. He tugged on his crew-neck sweater and picked up his 
windbreaker. He checked that his wallet and keys were in his pocket. The young 
nurse was sleeping soundly, the blanket pulled up to just below her ears. Her 
breathing was quiet. Should he wake her up? Even though they hadn’t—he was pretty 
sure—
done
anything, they had spent the night in bed together. It seemed rude to leave 
without saying good-bye. But she was sleeping so soundly, and she had said this was 
her day off. Even if he did wake her, what were they supposed to do then? 

---

605
He found a memo pad and ballpoint pen next to the telephone. 
Thanks for last 
night
, he wrote. 
I had a good time. I’m going back to my inn. Tengo
. He wrote down 
the time. He placed the memo on the nightstand, and put the ring he had picked up on 
top, as a paperweight. He then slipped on his worn-out sneakers and left. 
He walked down the road for a while, until he came across a bus stop. He waited 
there for five minutes and soon a bus heading for the station arrived. The bus was full 
of noisy high school boys and girls, and he rode with them to the end of the line. The 
people at the inn took his unshaven eight a.m. arrival in stride. It didn’t seem to be 
that out of the ordinary for them. Without a word, they briskly prepared his breakfast. 
As he ate his hot breakfast and drank tea, Tengo went over the events of the 
previous night. The three nurses had invited him out and they went to have 
yakiniku
. 
Then on to a bar, where they sang karaoke. Then he went to Kumi Adachi’s 
apartment, where they smoked Indian hashish, while an owl hooted outside. Then his 
brain felt like it had changed into hot, thick porridge. And suddenly he was in his 
elementary school classroom in winter, he could smell the air, and he was talking with 
Aomame. Then Kumi, in bed, was talking about death and resurrection. There were 
wrong questions, ambiguous answers. The owl in the woods went on hooting, people 
on a TV show went on laughing. 
His memory was patchy and there were definitely several 
gaps
. But the parts he 
did recall were amazingly vivid and clear. He could retrace each and every word they 
spoke. Tengo recalled the last thing Kumi said. It was both advice and a warning. 
When morning comes you will be leaving here, Tengo. Before the exit is blocked
. 
Maybe this was the right time to leave. He had taken off from his job and come to 
this town hoping to see ten-year-old Aomame inside the air chrysalis once more. And 
he had spent nearly two weeks going every day to the sanatorium, reading aloud to his 
father. But the air chrysalis had never appeared. Instead, when he was about to give 
up, Kumi Adachi had prepared a different kind of vision just for him. And in it he was 
able once more to see Aomame as a girl, and speak with her. 
Find me
, Aomame had 
said. 
While there’s still time
. Actually, it may have been Kumi who said that. Tengo 
couldn’t tell. Not that it mattered. Kumi had died once, and been reborn. Not for 
herself, but for someone else. For the time being, Tengo decided to believe what he 
had heard from her. It was important to do so. At least, he was pretty sure it was. 
This was the cat town. There was something specific that could only be found here. 
That’s why he had taken the train all the way to this far-off place. But everything he 
found here held an inherent risk. If he believed Kumi’s hints, these risks could be 
fatal. 
By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes
. 
It was time to go back to Tokyo—before the exit was blocked, while the train still 
stopped at this station. But before that he needed to go to the sanatorium again, and 
say good-bye to his father. There were things he still needed to clarify. 

---

606