After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

and
the expressway management company. So 
please, miss, give me a break …” 
“Sorry, I 
have to
get out here,” Aomame said. She took another ten-thousand-yen 
bill from her wallet, gave it a snap, and shoved it at the driver. “I know I’m asking 
you to do something you shouldn’t do. This will pay for your trouble. So please stop 
arguing and let me out.” 
The driver did not take the money, but he gave up and pulled the lever. The left-
side passenger door opened. 
“No, thanks, you’ve already paid me more than enough. But please be careful. The 
expressway doesn’t have shoulders, and no matter how backed up the traffic might be, 
it’s very dangerous for anybody to walk up here.” 
“Thank you,” Aomame said. After stepping out, she knocked on the passenger-side 
front window and had him lower the glass. Leaning inside, she thrust the ten-
thousand-yen bill into the driver’s hand. 
“Never mind, just take it. Don’t worry, I have more money than I know what to do 
with.” 
The driver looked back and forth between the bill and Aomame’s face. 
Aomame said, “If this gets you into trouble with the police or the company, just 
tell them I threatened you with a pistol. You had no choice but to let me out. That’ll 
shut them up.” 
The driver seemed unable to grasp what she was saying. More money than she 
knew what to do with? Threatened him with a pistol? Still, he took the money, 
probably fearing that she might do something even more unreasonable if he refused. 
Just as she had done before, Aomame made her way between the expressway’s 
sidewall and the cars in the left lane, heading toward Shibuya. She had some fifty 
yards to pass. People in the cars looked at her, incredulous, but Aomame did not let 
them bother her. She walked ahead with long, confident strides, her back straight, like 
a fashion model on the Paris runway. The wind stirred her hair. Trucks speeding 
along the wide-open lanes heading in the other direction shook the roadway. The Esso 
billboard grew larger as she approached, until finally she reached the familiar 
emergency turnout. 
Everything looked as it had before—the metal barrier, the yellow box next to it 
containing an emergency telephone. 
This is where the year 1Q84 started
, Aomame thought. 
One world took the place of another from the time I climbed down this emergency 
stairway to Route
246 
below. So I’m going to try climbing down again. The first time 
I did it, it was April, and I was wearing my beige coat. Now it’s early September, and 
the weather is too hot for a coat. Aside from the coat, though, I’m wearing exactly the 
same outfit I had on that day, when I killed that awful man who worked in oil—my 
Junko Shimada suit and Charles Jourdan high heels. White blouse. Stockings and 
white underwire bra. I pulled my miniskirt up to step over the barrier and climbed 
down the emergency stairway from here
. 

---

503
I’ll try doing the same thing again—purely out of curiosity. I just want to know 
what will happen if I do the same thing in the same place wearing the same outfit. I’m 
not hoping this will save me. I’m not especially afraid to die. If it comes to that, I’ll do 
it without hesitation. I can die smiling
. But Aomame did not want to die ignorant, 
failing to grasp how things worked. 
I want to push myself to my
limits, and if things 
don’t work out, then I can give up. But I will do everything I can until the bitter end. 
That is how I live
. 
Aomame leaned over the metal barrier and looked for the emergency stairway. It was 
not there. 
She looked again and again, with the same result. The emergency stairway had 
vanished. 
Aomame bit her lip and twisted her face out of shape. 
This is not the wrong place. It was definitely this turnout. Everything around here 
looks the same. The Esso billboard is right there. The emergency stairway existed in 
that place in the world of 1984
. Aomame had found it easily, exactly where the 
strange taxi driver had said it would be. She had been able to step over the barrier and 
climb down. But in the world of 1Q84, the emergency stairway no longer existed.