After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

The Professor has big power and deep wisdom. But the Little People have just as 
deep wisdom and big power as he does. Better be careful in the forest. Important 
things are in the forest, and the Little People are in the forest, too. To make sure 
the Little People don’t harm you, you have to find something the Little People 
don’t have. If you do that, you can get through the forest safely
. 
. . . 
Tengo played that part back one more time. Fuka-Eri narrated this section somewhat 
more rapidly than the others. The intervals between sentences were a touch shorter. 
The Little People were beings who possessed the potential for harming both Tengo 
and Professor Ebisuno, but he could not discern in Fuka-Eri’s tone of voice any 
suggestion that she had written them off as evil. Judging from the way she spoke of 
them, they seemed like neutral beings who could go either way. Tengo had 
misgivings about another passage: 
The Little People may be mad that they were put into writing
. 
If the Little People were, in fact, angry, it stood to reason that Tengo himself would 
be one of the objects of their anger. He was, after all, one of those most responsible 
for having publicized their existence in print. Even if he were to beg their forgiveness 
on the grounds that he had done so without malice, they were not likely to listen to 
him. 
What kind of harm did the Little People inflict on others? Tengo could hardly be 
expected to know the answer. He rewound the tape again, returned it to the envelope, 
and stuffed it in a drawer. Putting his raincoat and hat on again, he set out for the 
market once more in the pouring rain. 
Komatsu telephoned after nine o’clock that night. Once again, Tengo knew it was 
Komatsu before he lifted the receiver. He was in bed, reading. He let the phone ring 
three times, eased himself out of bed, and sat at the kitchen table to answer the call. 
“Hey, Tengo,” Komatsu said. “Having a drink?” 
“No, I’m sober.” 
“You may want to take a drink after this call,” Komatsu said. 

---

267
“Must be about something enjoyable.” 
“I wonder. I don’t think it’s all that enjoyable. It might have a certain amount of 
paradoxical humor about it, though.” 
“Like a Chekhov short story.” 
“Exactly,” Komatsu said. “ ‘Like a Chekhov short story.’ Well said! Your 
expressions are always concise and to the point, Tengo.” 
Tengo remained silent. Komatsu went on. 
“Things have taken a somewhat problematic turn. The police have responded to 
Professor Ebisuno’s search request by formally initiating a search for Fuka-Eri. I 
don’t think they’ll go so far as to actually mount a full-scale search, though, 
especially since there’s been no ransom demand or anything. They’ll probably just go 
through the motions so it won’t be too embarrassing for them if something really does 
come up. Otherwise, it’ll look as if they stood by with their arms folded. The media 
are not going to let it go so easily, though. I’ve already gotten several inquiries from 
the papers. I pretended to know nothing, of course. I mean, there’s nothing to say at 
this point. By now they’ve probably uncovered the relationship between Fuka-Eri and 
Professor Ebisuno, as well as her parents’ background as revolutionaries. Lots of facts 
like that are going to start coming out. The problem is with the weekly magazines. 
Their freelancers or journalists or whatever you call them will start circling like 
sharks smelling blood. They’re all good at what they do, and once they latch on, they 
don’t let go. Their livelihood depends on it, after all. They can’t afford to have little 
things like good taste or people’s privacy stand in their way. They may be ‘writers’ 
like you, Tengo, but they’re a different breed, they don’t live in your literary ivory 
tower.” 
“So I’d better be careful too, I suppose.” 
“Absolutely. Get ready to protect yourself. There’s no telling what they’ll sniff 
out.” 
Tengo imagined a small boat surrounded by sharks, but only as a single cartoon 
frame without a clever twist. “You have to find something the Little People don’t 
have,” Fuka-Eri had said. What kind of “something” could that possibly be? 
Tengo said to Komatsu, “But isn’t this working out the way Professor Ebisuno 
planned it from the beginning?” 
“Well, maybe so,” Komatsu said. “Maybe it’ll turn out that he was just discreetly 
using us. But to some extent we knew what he was up to right from the start. He 
wasn’t hiding his plan from us. In that sense, it was a fair transaction. We 
could
have 
said, ‘Sorry, Professor, too dangerous, we can’t get involved.’ That’s what any normal 
editor would have done. But as you know, Tengo, I’m no normal editor. Besides, 
things were already moving forward by then, and there was a little greed at work on 
my part, too. Maybe that’s why I had let my defenses down somewhat.” 
There was silence on the telephone—a short but dense silence. 
Tengo spoke first. “In other words,