After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

something else
from him, but what that something 
else was, he could not tell. 
The 
purpose
of doing so aside, the sheer 
act
of holding a beautiful seventeen-year-
old girl in his arms was by no means unpleasant. Her ear would touch his cheek now 
and then. Her warm breath grazed his neck. Her breasts were startlingly large and 
firm for a girl with such a slim body. He could feel them pressed against him in the 
area above his stomach. Her skin exuded a marvelous fragrance. It was the special 
smell of life that could only be exuded by flesh still in the process of formation, like 
the smell of dew-laden flowers in midsummer. He had often experienced that smell as 
an elementary school student on his way to early-morning radio exercises. 
I hope I don’t have an erection
, Tengo thought. If he did have an erection, she 
would know immediately, given their relative positions. If that happened, it would 
make things somewhat uncomfortable. With what words and in what context could he 
explain to a seventeen-year-old girl that erections simply happen sometimes, even 
when not directly driven by sexual desire? Fortunately, however, no erection had 
happened so far, nor did he have any sign of one. 
Let me stop thinking about smells. I 
have to concentrate my mind on things having as little to do with sex as possible
. 
He thought again of the socializing between Sonny and Cher and the two pythons. 
Would they have anything to talk about? And if so, what could it be? Finally, when 
his ability to imagine the ark in the storm gave out, he tried multiplying sets of three-
digit numbers. He would often do that when he was having sex with his older 
girlfriend. This would enable him to delay the moment of ejaculation (the moment of 
ejaculation being something about which she was particularly demanding). Tengo did 
not know if it would also work to hold off an erection, but it was better than doing 
nothing. He had to do 
something
. 
“I don’t mind if it gets hard,” Fuka-Eri said, as if she had read his mind. 
“You don’t mind?” 
“There is nothing wrong with that.” 
“There is nothing wrong with that,” Tengo said, echoing her words. 
Sounds like a 
grade school kid in sex education. “Now, boys, there is nothing shameful or bad 
about having an erection. But of course you must choose the proper time and 
occasion.”
“So, anyhow, has the purification begun?” Tengo asked in order to change the 
subject. 

---

418
Fuka-Eri did not reply. Her small, beautiful ear seemed still to be trying to catch 
something in the rumbling of the thunder. Tengo could tell that much, and so he 
decided not to say any more. He also gave up trying to multiply three-digit numbers. 
If Fuka-Eri doesn’t mind, what’s the difference if I get hard?
he thought. In any case, 
his penis showed no signs of movement. For now, it was just peacefully lying in the 
mud. 
“I like your thingy,” his older girlfriend had said. “I like its shape and color and size.” 
“I’m not so crazy about it,” Tengo said. 
“Why not?” she asked, slipping her palm under Tengo’s flaccid penis as if 
handling a sleeping pet, testing its weight. 
“I don’t know,” Tengo said. “Probably because I didn’t choose it for myself.” 
“You’re so weird,” she said. “You’ve got a weird way of thinking.” 
That had happened once upon a time. Before Noah’s flood, probably. 
Fuka-Eri’s warm, silent breath grazed Tengo’s neck in a regular rhythm. Tengo could 
see her ear in the faint green light from the electric clock or in the occasional flash of 
lightning, which had finally started. The ear looked like a soft secret cave.