After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

Sinfonietta
rang like festive background music. The palm of her hand was caressing 
the curve of Tamaki’s waist. At first Tamaki just laughed as if she were being tickled, 
but soon the laughter stopped, and her breathing changed. The music had initially 
been composed as a fanfare for an athletic meet. The breeze blew gently over the 
green meadows of Bohemia in time with the music. Aomame knew when Tamaki’s 
nipples suddenly became erect. And then her own did the same. And then the timpani 
conjured up a complex musical pattern. 
Aomame halted her steps and shook her head several times. 
I should not be 
thinking such thoughts at a time like this. I have to concentrate on climbing down the 
stairs
. But the thoughts would not go away. The images came to her one after another 
and with great vividness. The summer night, the narrow bed, the faint smell of 
perspiration. The words they spoke. The feelings that would not take the form of 
words. Forgotten promises. Unrealized hopes. Frustrated longings. A gust of wind 
lifted a lock of her hair and whipped it against her cheek. The pain brought a film of 
tears to her eyes. Successive gusts soon dried the tears away. 
When did that happen, I wonder?
But time became confused in her memory, like a 
tangled string. The straight-line axis was lost, and forward and back, right and left, 
jumbled together. One drawer took the place of another. She could not recall things 
that should have come back to her easily. 
It is now April 1984. I was born in … that’s 
it … 1954. I can remember that much
. These dates were engraved in her mind, but as 
soon as she recalled them, they lost all meaning. She saw white cards imprinted with 
dates scattering in the wind, flying in all directions. She ran, trying to pick up as many 
as she could, but the wind was too strong, the sheer number of cards overwhelming. 

---

35
Away they flew: 1954, 1984, 1645, 1881, 2006, 771, 2041 … all order lost, all 
knowledge vanishing, the stairway of intellection crumbling beneath her feet. 
Aomame and Tamaki were in bed together. They were seventeen and enjoying 
their newly granted freedom. This was their first trip together as friends, just the two 
of them. That fact alone was exciting. They soaked in the hotel’s hot spring, split a 
can of beer from the refrigerator, turned out the lights, and crawled into bed. They 
were just kidding around at first, poking each other for the fun of it, but at some point 
Tamaki reached out and grabbed Aomame’s nipple through the T-shirt she wore as 
pajamas. An electric shock ran through Aomame’s body. Eventually they stripped off 
their shirts and panties and were naked in the summer night. 
Where did we go on that 
trip?
She could not recall. It didn’t matter. Soon, without either of them being the first 
to suggest it, they were examining each other’s bodies down to the smallest detail. 
Looking, touching, caressing, kissing, licking, half in jest, half seriously. Tamaki was 
small and a bit plump with large breasts. Aomame was taller, lean and muscular, with 
smaller breasts. Tamaki always talked about going on a diet, but Aomame found her 
attractive just the way she was. 
Tamaki’s skin was soft and fine. Her nipples swelled in a beautiful oval shape 
reminiscent of olives. Her pubic hair was fine and sparse, like a delicate willow tree. 
Aomame’s was hard and bristly. They laughed at the difference. They experimented 
with touching each other in different places and discussed which areas were the most 
sensitive. Some areas were the same, others were not. Each held out a finger and 
touched the other’s clitoris. Both girls had experienced masturbation—a lot. But now 
they saw how different it was to be touched by someone else. The breeze swept across 
the meadows of Bohemia. 
Aomame came to a stop and shook her head again. She released a deep sigh and 
tightened her grip on the metal pipe handrail.