After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

CHAPTER 5 
Aomame 
A PROFESSION REQUIRING 
SPECIALIZED TECHNIQUES AND TRAINING
After finishing her job and exiting the hotel, Aomame walked a short distance before 
catching a cab to yet another hotel, in the Akasaka District. She needed to calm her 
nerves with alcohol before going home to bed. After all, she had just sent a man to the 
other side. True, he was a loathsome rat who had no right to complain about being 
killed, but he was, ultimately, a human being. Her hands still retained the sensation of 
the life draining out of him. He had expelled his last breath, and the spirit had left his 
body. Aomame had been to the bar in this Akasaka hotel any number of times. It was 
the top floor of a high-rise building, had a great view, and a comfortable counter. 
She entered the bar a little after seven. A young piano and guitar duo were playing 
“Sweet Lorraine.” Their version was a copy of an old Nat King Cole record, but they 
weren’t bad. As always, she sat at the bar and ordered a gin and tonic and a plate of 
pistachios. The place was still not crowded—a young couple drinking cocktails as 
they took in the view, four men in suits who seemed to be discussing a business deal, 
a middle-aged foreign couple holding martini glasses. She took her time drinking the 
gin and tonic. She didn’t want the alcohol to take effect too quickly. The night ahead 
was long. 
She pulled a book from her shoulder bag and started reading. It was a history of the 
South Manchurian Railway Company of the 1930s. The line and right-of-way had 
been ceded to Japan by Russia after the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, after 
which the company had rapidly expanded its operations, becoming fundamental in 
Japan’s invasion of China. It was broken up by the Soviet army in 1945. Until the 
outbreak of the Russo-German War in 1941, one could travel between Shimonoseki 
and Paris in thirteen days via this line and the Trans-Siberian Railway. 
Aomame figured that a young woman drinking alone in a hotel bar could not be 
mistaken for a high-class hooker on the prowl if she was wearing a business suit, had 
a big shoulder bag parked next to her, and sat there absorbed in a book about the 
South Manchurian Railway (a hardcover, no less). In fact, Aomame had no idea what 
kind of outfit a real high-class hooker would wear. If she herself were a prostitute 
looking for wealthy businessmen, she would probably try her best not to look like a 
prostitute so as to avoid either making potential clients nervous or having herself 
ejected from the bar. One way to accomplish that might be to wear a Junko Shimada 
business suit and white blouse, keep her makeup to a minimum, carry a big, practical 
shoulder bag, and have a book on the South Manchurian Railway open in front of her. 

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Come to think of it, what she was doing now was not substantially different from a 
prostitute on the prowl. 
As the time passed, the place gradually filled up. Before she knew it, Aomame was 
surrounded by the buzz of conversation. But none of the customers had what she was 
looking for. She drank another gin and tonic, ordered some crudités (she hadn’t eaten 
dinner yet), and continued reading. Eventually a man came and sat a few seats away 
from her at the bar. He was alone. Nicely tanned, he wore an expensively tailored 
blue-gray suit. His taste in neckties was not bad, either—neither flashy nor plain. He 
must have been around fifty, and his hair was more than a little thin. He wore no 
glasses. She guessed he was in Tokyo on business and, having finished the day’s 
work, wanted a drink before going to bed. Like Aomame herself. The idea was to 
calm the nerves by introducing a moderate amount of alcohol into the body. 
Few men in Tokyo on business stayed in this kind of expensive hotel. Most chose a 
cheap business hotel, one near a train station, where the bed nearly filled the room, 
the only view from the window was the wall of the next building, and you couldn’t 
take a shower without bumping your elbows twenty times. The corridor of each floor 
had vending machines for drinks and toiletries. Either the company wouldn’t pay for 
anything better, or the men were pocketing the travel money left over from staying in 
such a cheap place. They would drink a beer from the local liquor store before going 
to bed, and wolf down a bowl of rice and beef for breakfast at the eatery next door. 
A different class of people stayed at this hotel. When these men came to Tokyo on 
business, they never took anything but the bullet train’s luxury “green cars,” and they 
stayed only in certain elite hotels. Finishing a job, they would relax in the hotel bar 
and drink expensive whiskey. Most held management positions in first-rank 
corporations, or else they were independent businessmen or professionals such as 
doctors or lawyers. They had reached middle age, and money was no problem for 
them. They also knew more or less how to have a good time. This was the type that 
Aomame had in mind. 
Aomame herself did not know why, but ever since the time she was twenty, she 
had been attracted to men with thinning hair. They should not be completely bald but 
have something left on top. And thin hair was not all it took to please her. They had to 
have well-shaped heads. Her ideal type was Sean Connery. His beautifully shaped 
head was sexy. Looking at him was all it took to set her heart racing. The man now 
sitting at the bar two seats away from her had a very well-shaped head—not as perfect 
as Sean Connery’s, of course, but attractive in its own way. His hairline had receded 
from the forehead and his sparse remaining hair recalled a frosty meadow in late 
autumn. Aomame raised her eyes a little from the pages of her book and admired his 
head shape for a while. His facial features were nothing special. Though not fat, his 
jowls were just beginning to sag, and he had a hint of bags under his eyes. He was the 
kind of middle-aged man you see everywhere. But that head shape of his she found 
very much to her liking. 
When the bartender brought him a menu and a warm towel, the man ordered a 
Scotch highball without looking at the menu. “Do you prefer a certain brand?” the 
bartender asked. “Not really,” the man said. “Anything will be fine.” He had a calm, 
quiet voice and spoke with a soft Kansai accent. Then, as if it had just occurred to 
him, he asked if they had Cutty Sark. The bartender said they did. 
Not bad
, thought 

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Aomame. She liked the fact that he had not chosen Chivas Regal or some 
sophisticated single malt. It was her personal view that people who are overly choosy 
about the drinks they order in a bar tend to be sexually bland. She had no idea why 
this should be so. 
Aomame also had a taste for Kansai accents. She especially enjoyed the mismatch 
between vocabulary and intonation when people born and raised in Kansai came up to 
Tokyo and tried to use Tokyo words with Kansai pronunciation. She found that 
special sound to be strangely calming. So now she made up her mind: she would go 
for this man. She was dying to run her fingers through the few strands of hair he had 
left. So when the bartender brought him his Cutty Sark highball, she said to the 
bartender loudly enough so the man was sure to hear her, “Cutty Sark on the rocks, 
please.” “Yes, ma’am, right away,” the bartender replied, his face a blank. 
The man undid the top button of his shirt and loosened his tie, which was a dark 
blue with a fine-grained pattern. His suit was also dark blue. He wore a pale blue shirt 
with a standard collar. She went on reading her book as she waited for her Cutty Sark 
to come. Discreetly, she undid the top button of her blouse. The jazz duo played “It’s 
Only a Paper Moon.” The pianist sang a single chorus. Her drink arrived, and she 
took a sip. She sensed the man glancing in her direction. She raised her head and 
looked at him. Casually, as if by chance. When their eyes met, she gave him a faint, 
almost nonexistent smile, and then immediately faced forward again, pretending to 
look at the nighttime view. 
It was the perfect moment for a man to approach a woman, and she had created it. 
But this man said nothing.