After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

you are not an NHK fee collector anymore
. So 
you shouldn’t pretend to be one. It’s pointless.” 
Tengo sat down on the windowsill and searched for his next words in the air of the 
cramped hospital room. 
“I don’t know what kind of life you had, what sorts of joys and sorrows you 
experienced. But even if there was something that left you unfulfilled, you can’t go 
around seeking it at other people’s doors. Even if it is at the place you’re most 
familiar with, and the sort of act that is your forte.” 
Tengo gazed silently at his father’s face. 
“I don’t want you to knock on anybody’s door anymore. That’s all I ask of you, 
Father. I have to be going. I came here every day talking to you in your coma, reading 

---

630
to you. And I think at least a part of us has reconciled, and I think that reconciliation 
has actually taken place in the real world. Maybe you won’t like it, but you need to 
come back here again, to 
this
side. This is where you belong.” 
Tengo lifted his shoulder bag and slung it across his shoulder. “Well, I’ll be off, 
then.” 
His father said nothing. He didn’t stir and his eyes remained shut—the same as 
always. But somehow it seemed like he was thinking about something. Tengo was 
quiet and paid careful attention. It felt to him like his father might pop open his eyes 
at any moment and abruptly sit up in bed. But none of that happened. 
The nurse with the spidery limbs was still at the reception desk as he left. A plastic 
name tag on her chest said 
Tamaki
. 
“I’m going back to Tokyo now,” Tengo told her. 
“It’s too bad your father didn’t regain consciousness while you were here,” she 
said, consolingly. “But I’m sure he was happy you could stay so long.” 
Tengo couldn’t think of a decent response. “Please tell the other nurses good-bye 
for me. You have all been so helpful.” 
He never did see bespectacled Nurse Tamura or busty Nurse Omura and her ever-
present ballpoint pen. It made him a little sad. They were outstanding nurses, and had 
always been kind to him. But perhaps it was for the best that he didn’t see them. After 
all, he was slipping out of the cat town alone. 
As the train pulled out of Chikura Station, he recalled spending the night at Kumi 
Adachi’s apartment. It had only just happened yesterday. The gaudy Tiffany lamp, the 
uncomfortable love seat, the TV comedy show he could hear from next door. The 
hooting of the owl in the woods. The hashish smoke, the smiley-face shirt, the thick 
pubic hair pressed against his leg. It had been less than a day, but it felt like long ago. 
His mind felt unstable. Like an unbalanced set of scales, the core of his memories 
wouldn’t settle down in one spot. 
Suddenly anxious, Tengo looked around him. Was this reality actually real? Or had 
he once again boarded the wrong reality? He asked a passenger nearby and made sure 
this train was indeed headed to Tateyama. 
It’s okay, don’t worry
, he told himself. 
At 
Tateyama I can change to the express train to Tokyo
. He was drawing farther and 
farther away from the cat town by the sea. 
As soon as he changed trains and took his seat, as if it could barely wait, sleep 
claimed him. A deep sleep, like he had lost his footing and fallen into a bottomless 
hole. His eyelids closed, and in the next instant his consciousness had vanished. When 
he opened his eyes again, the train had passed Makuhari. The train wasn’t particularly 
hot inside, yet he was sweating under his arms and down his back. His mouth had an 
awful smell, like the stagnant air he had breathed in his father’s sick room. He took a 
stick of gum out of his pocket and popped it in his mouth. 
Tengo was sure he would never visit that town again—at least not while his father 
was alive. While there was nothing in this world that he could state with one hundred 
percent certainty, he knew there was probably nothing more he could do in that 
seaside town. 

---

631
When he got back to the apartment, Fuka-Eri wasn’t there. He knocked on the door 
three times, paused, then knocked two more times. Then he unlocked the door. Inside, 
the apartment was dead silent. He was immediately struck by how neat and clean 
everything was. The dishes were neatly stacked away in the cupboard, everything on 
the table and desk was neatly arranged, and the trash can had been emptied. There 
were signs that the place had been vacuumed as well. The bed was made, and no 
books or records lay scattered about. Dried laundry lay neatly folded on top of the 
bed. 
The oversized shoulder bag that Fuka-Eri used was also gone. It didn’t appear, 
however, that she had remembered something she had to do or that something had 
suddenly come up and she had hurriedly left. Nor did it look like she had just gone 
out for a short time. Instead, all indications were that she had decided to leave for 
good, that she had taken her time cleaning the apartment and then left. Tengo tried 
picturing her pushing around the vacuum cleaner and wiping here and there with a 
wet cloth. It just didn’t fit her image at all. 
He opened the mail slot inside the front door and found the spare key. From the 
amount of mail, she must have left yesterday or the day before. The last time he had 
called her had been in the morning two days earlier, and she had still been in the 
apartment. Last night he had had dinner with the three nurses and had gone back to 
Kumi’s place. What with one thing and another, he had forgotten to call her. 
Normally she would have left a note behind in her unique cuneiform-like script, 
but there was no sign of one. She had left without a word. Tengo wasn’t particularly 
surprised or disappointed. No one could predict what the girl was thinking or what she 
would do. She just showed up when she wanted to, and left when she felt like it—like 
a capricious, independent-minded cat. In fact, it was unusual for her to have stayed 
put this long in one place. 
The refrigerator was more full of food than he had expected. He guessed that a few 
days earlier, Fuka-Eri must have gone out and done some shopping on her own. There 
was a pile of steamed cauliflower as well, which seemed to have been cooked 
recently. Had she known that Tengo would be back in Tokyo in a day or two? Tengo 
was hungry, so he fried some eggs and ate them with the cauliflower. He made some 
toast and drank two mugs of coffee. 
Next he phoned his friend who had covered for him at school and told him he 
expected to be back at work at the beginning of the week. His friend updated him on 
how much they had covered in the textbook. 
“You really helped me out. I owe you one.” 
“I don’t mind teaching,” the friend said. “I even enjoy it at times. But I found that 
the longer you teach, the more you feel like a total stranger to yourself.” 
Tengo had often had an inkling of the same thing. 
“Anything out of the ordinary happen while I was gone?” 
“Not really. Oh, you did get a letter. I put it in a drawer in your desk.” 
“A letter?” Tengo asked. “From whom?” 
“A thin young girl brought it by. She had straight hair down to her shoulders. She 
came up to me and said she had a letter to give to you. She spoke sort of strangely. I 
think she might be a foreigner.” 
“Did she have a large shoulder bag?” 

---

632
“She did. A green shoulder bag. Stuffed full of things.” 
Fuka-Eri may have been afraid to leave the letter behind in his apartment, scared 
that someone else might read it, or take it away. So she went directly to the cram 
school and gave it to his friend. 
Tengo thanked his friend again and hung up. It was already evening, and he didn’t 
feel like taking the train all the way to Yoyogi to pick up the letter. He would leave it 
for tomorrow. 
Right afterward he realized he had forgotten to ask his friend about the moon. He 
started to dial again but decided against it. Most likely his friend had forgotten all 
about it. This was something he would have to resolve on his own. 
Tengo went out and aimlessly sauntered down the twilight streets. With Fuka-Eri 
gone, his apartment was too quiet and he couldn’t settle down. When they had been 
living together he didn’t really sense her presence all that much. He followed his daily 
routine, and she followed hers. But without her there, Tengo noticed a human-shaped 
void she had left behind. 
It wasn’t because he was attracted to her. She was a beautiful, attractive young girl, 
for sure, but since Tengo first met her he had never felt anything like desire for her. 
Even after sharing the same apartment for so long, he never felt anything stirring 
within his heart.