After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

than Tengo?
In November she had begun putting on weight. She couldn’t go outside, but she 
more than made up for it by continuing to work out and strictly watching her diet. 
After age twenty she never weighed more than 115 pounds. But one day the scale 
showed she weighed 119, and after that her weight never dropped below it. She felt 
like her face, too, had rounded out. No doubt this 
little one
wanted its mother to 
plump up. 
Together with this 
little one
she continued to keep watch over the playground at 
night, hoping to spot the silhouette of a large young man sitting alone on the slide. As 

---

646
she gazed at the two moons, lined up side by side in the early-winter sky, Aomame 
rubbed her belly through the blanket. Occasionally tears would well up for no reason. 
She would find a tear rolling down her cheek and falling to the blanket on her lap. 
Maybe it was because she was lonely, or because she was anxious. Or maybe 
pregnancy had made her more sensitive. Or maybe it was merely the cold wind 
stimulating the tear ducts to produce tears. Whatever the reason, Aomame let the tears 
flow without wiping them away. 
Once she had cried for a while, at a certain point the tears would stop, and she 
would continue her lonely vigil. 
No
, she thought, 
I’m not that lonely. I have this
little 
one 
with me. There are two of us—two of us looking up at the two moons, waiting for 
Tengo to appear
. From time to time she would pick up her binoculars and focus on 
the deserted slide. Then she would pick up the automatic pistol to check its heft and 
what it felt like. 
Protecting myself, searching for Tengo, and providing this
little one 
with nourishment. Those are my duties now
. 
One time, as the cold wind blew and she kept watch over the playground, Aomame 
realized she believed in God. It was a sudden discovery, like finding, with the soles of 
your feet, solid ground beneath the mud. It was a mysterious sensation, an unexpected 
awareness. Ever since she could remember, she had always hated this thing called 
God. More precisely, she rejected the people and the system that intervened between 
her and God. For years she had equated those people and that system with God. 
Hating them meant hating God. 
Since the moment she was born 
they
had been near her, controlling her, ordering 
her around, all in the name of God, driving her into a corner. In the name of God, they 
stole her time and her freedom, putting shackles on her heart. They preached about 
God’s kindness, but preached twice as much about his wrath and intolerance. At age 
eleven, Aomame made up her mind and was ultimately able to break free from that 
world. In doing so, though, much had been sacrificed. 
If God didn’t exist, then how much brighter my life would be, how much richer
. 
Aomame often thought this. Then she should be able to share all the beautiful 
memories that normal children had, without the constant anger and fear that 
tormented her. And then how much more positive, peaceful, and fulfilling her life 
might be. 
Despite all this, as she sat there, her palm resting on her belly, peeking through the 
slats of the plastic boards at the deserted playground, she couldn’t help but come to 
the realization that she believed in God. When she had mechanically repeated the 
words of the prayer, when she brought her hands together, she had believed in a God 
outside the conscious realm. It was a feeling that had seeped into her marrow, 
something that could not be driven away by logic or emotion. Even hatred and anger 
couldn’t erase it.