602
But where and how should he seek this wisdom? The owl was everywhere, and
nowhere. “I can’t think of a question to ask him,” Tengo said.
Kumi Adachi held his hand. “There’s no need for questions. All you need to do is
go into the woods yourself. That way is much simpler.”
He could hear laughter again from the comedy next door. Applause as well. The
show’s assistant, off camera, was probably holding up cue cards to the audience that
said
Laugh
and
Applaud
. Tengo closed his
eyes and thought of the woods, of himself
going into the woods. Deep in the dark forest was the realm of the Little People. But
the owl was still there too. The owl knows all and gives us the wisdom of the night.
Suddenly all sound vanished, as if someone had come up behind him stealthily and
stuck corks in his ears. Someone had closed one lid, while someone else, somewhere,
had opened another lid. Entrance and exit had switched.
Tengo found himself in an elementary school classroom.
The window was wide open and children’s voices filtered in from the schoolyard.
The wind blew, almost as an afterthought, and the white curtains waved in the breeze.
Aomame was beside him, holding his hand tightly. It was the same scene as always—
but something was different. Everything he could see was crystal clear, almost
painfully clear, fresh and focused down to the texture.
He could make out each and
every detail of the forms and shapes of things around him. If he reached out his hand,
he could actually touch them. The smell of the early-winter afternoon hit him
strongly, as if what had been covering up those smells until then had been yanked
away. Real smells. The set smells of the season: of the blackboard erasers, the floor
cleaner, the fallen leaves burning in the incinerator in a corner of the schoolyard—all
these were mixed inseparably together. When he
breathed in these scents, he felt them
spread out deep and wide within his mind. The structure of his body was being
reassembled. His heartbeat was no longer just a heartbeat.
For an instant, he could push the door of time inward. Old light mixed with the
new light, the two becoming one. The old air mixed in with the new to become one.
It
is this light, and this air
, Tengo thought. He understood everything now. Almost
everything.
Why couldn’t I remember this smell until now? It’s so simple. It’s such a
straightforward world, yet I didn’t get it
.
“I
wanted to see you,” Tengo said to Aomame. His voice was far away and
faltering, but it was definitely his voice.
“I wanted to see you, too,” the girl said. The voice sounded like Kumi Adachi’s.
He couldn’t make out the boundary between reality and imagination. If he tried to pin
it down, the bowl slipped sideways and his brains sloshed around.
Tengo spoke. “I should have started searching for you long ago. But I couldn’t.”
“It’s not too late. You can still find me,” the girl said.
“But how can I find you?”
No response. The answer was not put into words.
“But I know I can find you,” Tengo said.
The girl spoke. “Because I could find
you.
”
“You found me?”
“Find me,” the girl said. “While there’s still time.”
Like a departed soul that had failed
to leave in time, the white curtain soundlessly
and gently wavered. That was the last thing Tengo saw.
603
When he came to, he was lying in a narrow bed. The lights were out, the room faintly
lit by the streetlights filtering in through a gap in the curtains. He was wearing a T-
shirt and boxers. Kumi wore only her smiley-face shirt. Underneath the long shirt, she
was nude. Her soft breasts lay against his arm. The owl was still hooting in Tengo’s
head. The woods lingered inside him—he was still clinging to the nighttime woods.
Even in bed like
this with the young nurse, he felt no desire. Kumi seemed to feel
the same way. She wrapped her arms around his body and giggled. What was so
funny? Tengo had no idea. Maybe somebody, somewhere, was holding out a sign that
said
Laugh
.
What time could it be? He lifted his head to look for a clock but couldn’t see any.
Kumi suddenly stopped laughing and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“I was reborn,” she said, her hot breath brushing his ear.
“You were reborn,” Tengo said.
“Because I died once.”
“You died once,” Tengo repeated.
“On a night when there was
a cold rain falling,” she said.
“Why did you die?”
“So I would be reborn like this.”
“You would be reborn,” Tengo said.
“More or less,” she whispered very quietly. “In all sorts of forms.”
Tengo pondered this statement. What did it mean to
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