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Maybe I should be more patient, stay with him longer
, Tengo thought once.
Maybe
visiting him for the day and then leaving isn’t enough. What’s needed, perhaps, is a
deeper commitment
. He had no concrete evidence that this was true. He just felt that
way.
After the middle of November he took the vacation leave he had accumulated,
telling the cram school that his father was in critical condition and he needed to look
after him. This in itself wasn’t a lie. He asked a classmate from college to take over
his classes. He was one of the relatively few people with whom Tengo had kept in
touch, albeit just once or twice a year. Even in the math department, which had more
than its share of oddballs, this guy was particularly odd, as well as smart beyond
compare. After graduating, though, he didn’t get a job or go on to grad school.
Instead, when he felt like it, he taught math at a private cram school for junior high
students. Other than that, he read, went fly fishing, and did whatever he wanted.
Tengo happened to know, however, that he was a very capable teacher. The thing
was, he was tired of being so capable. Plus, he was from a wealthy family and there
was no need for him to force himself to work. He had substituted for Tengo once
before and the students had liked him. Tengo called him and explained the situation,
and he immediately agreed to step in.
There was also the question of what to do about Fuka-Eri. Tengo couldn’t decide if
leaving this naive girl behind in his apartment for a long time was the right thing to
do. And besides, she was trying to hide out, to stay out of sight. So he asked her
directly. “Are you okay on your own here for a while? Or would you like to go
someplace else, temporarily?”
“Where are you going,” Fuka-Eri asked, a serious look in her eyes.
“To the cat town,” Tengo explained. “My father won’t regain consciousness. He’s
been in a deep sleep for a while. They say he might not last long.”
543
He didn’t say a word about the air chrysalis appearing in the hospital room bed one
evening. Or how Aomame appeared inside as a young girl, asleep. Or how the air
chrysalis was exactly as Fuka-Eri had described it in her novel, down to the last detail.
Or how he was secretly hoping that it would again appear before him.
Fuka-Eri narrowed her eyes, pursed her lips, and stared straight at Tengo, as if
trying to make out a message written in tiny letters. Almost unconsciously he touched
his face, but it didn’t feel as though something was written on it.
“That’s fine,” Fuka-Eri said after a while, and she nodded several times. “Do not
worry about me. I will stay at home.” After thinking for a moment she added, “Right
now there is no danger.”
“Right now there is no danger,” Tengo repeated.
“Do not worry about me,” she said again.
“I’ll call you every day.”
“Do not get abandoned in the cat town.”
“I’ll be careful,” Tengo said.
Tengo went to the supermarket and bought enough food so Fuka-Eri wouldn’t have
to go shopping, all things that would be simple to prepare. Tengo was well aware that
she had neither the ability nor the desire to do much cooking. He wanted to avoid
coming back in two weeks to a fridge full of mushy, spoiled food.
He stuffed a vinyl bag full of clothes and toiletries, a few books, pens, and paper.
As usual he took the express train from Tokyo Station, changed to a local train at
Tateyama, and got off at Chikura. He went to the tourist information booth in front of
the station to look for a fairly inexpensive hotel. It was the off-season, so he had no
trouble finding a room in a simple Japanese-style inn that catered mainly to people
coming to fish. The cramped but clean room smelled of fresh tatami. The fishing
harbor was visible from the second-floor window. The charge for the room, which
included breakfast, was cheaper than he had expected.
“I don’t know yet how long I’ll be staying,” Tengo said, “but I’ll go ahead and pay
for three days.” The proprietress of the inn had no objection. The doors shut at eleven,
and bringing a woman to his room would be problematic, she explained in a
roundabout way. All this sounded fine to him. Once he settled into his room, he
phoned the sanatorium. He told the nurse (the same middle-aged nurse he had met
before) that he would like to visit his father at three p.m. and asked if that would be
convenient. That would be fine, she replied. “Mr. Kawana just sleeps all the time,”
she said.
Thus began Tengo’s days at the cat town beside the sea. He would get up early, take a
walk along the shore, watch the fishing boats go in and out of the harbor, then return
to the inn for breakfast. Breakfast was exactly the same every day—dried horse
mackerel and fried eggs, a quartered tomato, seasoned dried seaweed, miso soup with
shijimi clams, and rice—but for some reason it tasted wonderful every morning. After
breakfast he would sit at a small desk and write. He hadn’t written in some time and
found the act of writing with his fountain pen enjoyable. Working in an unfamiliar
place, away from your daily routine, was invigorating. The engines of the fishing
boats chugged monotonously as they pulled into the harbor. Tengo liked the sound.
544
The story he was writing began with a world where there were two moons in the
sky. A world of Little People and air chrysalises. He had borrowed this world from
Fuka-Eri’s
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