After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

CHAPTER 6 
Tengo 
BY THE PRICKING OF MY THUMBS 
Tengo led a very orderly life in the small town by the sea. Once his days fell into a 
pattern, he tried his best to keep them that way. He wasn’t sure why he did so, but it 
seemed important. In the morning he would take a walk, work on his novel, then go to 
see his father in the sanatorium and read whatever he had at hand. Then he would go 
back to his room and sleep. One day followed the next like the monotonous rhythm of 
the work songs farmers sing as they plant their rice paddies. 
There were several warm nights, followed by surprisingly cold ones. Autumn 
advanced a step, then retreated, but was steadily deepening. The change in seasons 
didn’t bring any change to Tengo’s life, however—he simply modeled each day on 
the one preceding it. He tried his best to become an invisible observer, staying quiet, 
keeping the effect of his presence to a minimum, silently waiting for 
that time
to 
come. As the days passed, the difference between one day and the next grew fainter. 
A week passed, then ten days. But the air chrysalis never materialized. In the 
afternoon when his father was at the examination room, the only thing on his bed was 
the small, pitiful, person-shaped depression. 
Was that just a one-time event?
Tengo thought, biting his lip as he sat in the small 
room in the gathering twilight. 
A special revelation never to appear again? Or did I 
just see an illusion?
No one answered him. The only sound that reached him was the 
roar of the far-off sea, and the wind blowing through the pine windbreak. 
Tengo wasn’t certain that he was doing the right thing. Maybe the time he was 
spending here, in this room in a sanatorium in a town far from Tokyo, was 
meaningless. Even if it was, though, he didn’t think he could leave. Here in this room, 
he had seen the air chrysalis, and inside, in a faint light, the small sleeping figure of 
Aomame. He had 
touched
it. Even if this was a one-time event, even if it was nothing 
more than a fleeting illusion, he wanted to stay as long as he possibly could, tracing 
with his mind’s eye the scene as he had witnessed it. 
. . . 
Once they discovered that he was not going back to Tokyo, the nurses began to act 
more friendly. They would take a short break between tasks and stop to chat. If they 
had a free moment they came to his father’s room to talk with him. They brought him 
tea and cakes. Two nurses alternated in caring for Tengo’s father—Nurse Omura, 
who was in her mid-thirties (she was the one who wore her hair up with a ballpoint 

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pen stuck through her bun), and Nurse Adachi, who had rosy cheeks and wore her 
hair in a ponytail. Nurse Tamura, a middle-aged nurse with metal-framed glasses, 
usually staffed the reception desk, but if they happened to be shorthanded she would 
pitch in and care for his father too. All three of them seemed to take a personal 
interest in Tengo. 
Except for his special hour at twilight, Tengo had plenty of time on his hands and 
talked with them about all kinds of things. It was more like a question-and-answer 
session, though, with the nurses asking questions about his life and Tengo responding 
as honestly as he could. 
The nurses talked about their own lives as well. All three had been born in this 
area, had entered nursing school after high school, and had become nurses. They all 
found work at the sanatorium monotonous and boring, the working hours long and 
irregular, but they were happy to be able to work in their hometown. The work was 
much less stressful than being at a general hospital, where they would face life-and-
death situations on a daily basis. The old people in the sanatorium gradually lost their 
memory and died, not really understanding their situation. There was little blood, and 
the staff minimized any pain. No one was brought there by ambulance in the middle 
of the night, and there were no distraught, sobbing families to deal with. The cost of 
living was low in the area, so even with a salary that wasn’t the most generous they 
were able to comfortably get by. Nurse Tamura, the one with glasses, had lost her 
husband five years earlier in an accident, and lived in a nearby town with her mother. 
Nurse Omura, who wore the ballpoint pen in her hair, had two little boys and a 
husband who drove a cab. Young Miss Adachi lived in an apartment on the outskirts 
of town with her sister, who was three years older and worked as a hair stylist. 
“You are such a kind person, Tengo,” Nurse Omura said as she changed an IV bag. 
“There’s no one else I know who comes here to read aloud to an unconscious 
patient.” 
The praise made Tengo uncomfortable. “I just happen to have some vacation 
days,” he said. “But I won’t be here all that long.” 
“No matter how much free time someone might have, they don’t come to a place 
like this because they want to,” she said. “Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but these are 
patients who will never recover. As time passes it makes people get more and more 
depressed.” 
“My father asked me to read to him. He said he didn’t mind what I read. This was 
a long time ago, when he was still conscious. Besides, I don’t have anything else to 
do, so I might as well come here.” 
“What do you read to him?” 
“All kinds of things. I just pick whatever book I’m in the midst of reading, and 
read aloud from wherever I’ve left off.” 
“What are you reading right now?” 
“Isak Dinesen’s