After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

Maybe he 
had already left while I was sleeping. What was wrong with me? I slept so long I 
missed him
. 
At any rate, Tengo is now all alone in the world
, thought Ushikawa. A lonely man 
to begin with, he was now even lonelier. Utterly alone. Before he was even two, his 
mother had been strangled to death at a hot springs resort in Nagano Prefecture. The 
man who murdered her was never caught. She had left her husband and, with Tengo 
in tow, had absconded with a young man. 
Absconded
—a quite old-fashioned term. 
Nobody uses it anymore, but for a certain kind of action it’s the perfect term. Why the 
man killed her wasn’t clear. It wasn’t even clear if that man had been the one who 
murdered her. She had been strangled at night with the belt from her robe, in a room 

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737
at an inn. The man she had been with was gone. It was hard not to suspect him. When 
Tengo’s father got the news, he came from Ichikawa and took back his infant son. 
Maybe I should have told Tengo about this
, Ushikawa thought. 
He has a right to 
know. But he told me he didn’t want to hear anything about his mother from the likes 
of me, so I didn’t say anything. Well, what are you going to do? That’s not my 
problem, it’s his
. 
At any rate, whether Tengo is here or not, I have to keep up my surveillance of this 
place
, Ushikawa told himself. 
Last night was that mysterious woman who looked a lot 
like Aomame. I have no proof it’s her, but there’s a strong possibility it is. That’s 
what my misshapen head is telling me. And if that woman is Aomame, she’ll be back 
to visit Tengo before long. She doesn’t know yet that his father has died
. These were 
Ushikawa’s deductions as he mulled over the situation. Tengo must have gotten the 
news about his father during the night and set off early this morning. And there must 
be some reason why the two of them couldn’t get in touch by phone. Which means 
she would definitely be coming back here. Something was so important to her that she 
would come here, despite the danger. This time he was going to find out where she 
was going. 
Doing so might also begin to explain why there were two moons. This was a 
fascinating question that Ushikawa was dying to solve. But really it was of secondary 
importance. His job was to find out where Aomame was hiding, and hand her over, 
nice and neat, to the creepy Sakigake duo. 
Until I do so, whether there are two moons 
or only one
, he decided, 
I have to be realistic. That has always been my strong point. 
It’s what defines me
. 
Ushikawa went to the photo store near the station and handed over five thirty-six-
exposure rolls of film. Once the film had been processed and printed, he went to a 
nearby chain restaurant and looked through them in chronological order while eating 
a meal of chicken curry. Most were photos of people he was now familiar with. There 
were three people he was most interested in: Fuka-Eri and Tengo, and last night’s 
mystery woman. 
Fuka-Eri’s eyes made him nervous. Even in the photo she was staring straight into 
his face. 
No doubt about it
, Ushikawa thought. She 
knew
she was being observed. She 
probably knew about the hidden camera, too, and that he was taking photos. Her clear 
eyes saw through everything, and they didn’t like what Ushikawa was up to. That 
unwavering gaze stabbed mercilessly to the depths of his heart. There was no excuse 
whatsoever for the activities he was engaged in. At the same time, though, she wasn’t 
condemning him, or despising him. In a sense, those gorgeous eyes forgave him.