After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

CHAPTER 24 
Tengo 
WHAT’S THE POINT OF ITS BEING 
A WORLD THAT ISN’T HERE?
It rained all Thursday morning, not a heavy downpour, but persistent rain. There had 
been no letup since the previous afternoon. Whenever it seemed about to stop it would 
start pouring again. June was half gone without a sign the rainy season would ever 
end. The sky remained dark, as if covered with a lid, and the world wore a heavy 
dampness. 
Just before noon, Tengo put on a raincoat and hat and was headed out to the local 
market when he noticed a brown padded envelope in his mailbox. It bore no 
postmark, stamps, or address, and no return address, either. His name had been 
written with a ballpoint pen in the middle of the front in small, stiff characters that 
might have been scratched into dry clay with a nail—Fuka-Eri’s writing, without 
question. He tore it open to find a single bare sixty-minute TDK audiotape cassette. 
No letter or memo accompanied it. It was not in a plastic case, and the cassette bore 
no label. 
After a moment of uncertainty, Tengo decided to forget about shopping and listen 
to the tape. Back in his apartment, he held the cassette in the air and gave it several 
shakes. For all the mystery surrounding its arrival, it was obviously just an ordinary 
mass-produced object. There was nothing suggesting that it would explode after he 
played it. 
Taking off his raincoat, he set a radio cassette player on the kitchen table. He 
removed the cassette from the padded envelope and inserted it into the player, next to 
which he placed memo paper and a ballpoint pen in case he wanted to take notes. 
After looking around to make certain there was no one else present, he pressed the 
“play” button. 
There was no sound at first. This lasted for some time. Just as he was beginning to 
suspect that it was nothing but a blank tape, there were some sudden bumping sounds 
like the moving of a chair. Then a light clearing of the throat (it seemed). Then, 
without warning, Fuka-Eri began to speak. 
“Tengo,” she said, as if in a sound test. As far as he could recall, this was probably 
the first time she had actually called him by name. 
She cleared her throat again. She seemed tense. 
I should write you a letter, but I’m bad at that, so I’ll record a tape. It’s easier for me 
to talk this way than on the phone. Somebody might be listening on the phone. Wait, I 
need water. 

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Tengo heard what he thought were the sounds of Fuka-Eri picking up a glass, 
taking a drink, and setting the glass back down on a table. Recorded on tape, her 
uniquely unaccented manner of speech without question marks or other punctuation 
sounded even stranger than in conversation. It was almost unreal. On tape, however, 
as opposed to conversation, she was able to speak several sentences in a row. 
I hear you don’t know where I am. You might be worried. But you don’t have to be. 
This is not a dangerous place. I wanted to tell you that. I really shouldn’t do this, but I 
felt like I ought to. 
[Ten seconds of silence.] 
They told me not to tell anyone. That I’m here. The Professor filed a search request 
with the police to look for me. But they’re not doing anything. Kids run away all the 
time. So I will just stay still here a while. 
[Fifteen seconds of silence.] 
This place is far away. No one will find me if I don’t go out walking. Very far 
away. Azami will bring this tape to you. Better not send it in the mail. Gotta be 
careful. Wait, I’ll make sure it’s recording. 
[A click. An empty interval. Another click.] 
Good, it’s recording. 
Children shouting in the distance. Faint sounds of music. These were probably 
coming through an open window. There might have been a kindergarten nearby. 
Thanks for putting me up that time. I needed you to do that. I also needed to get to 
know you. Thanks for reading the book to me. I felt close to the Gilyaks. Why do the 
Gilyaks walk through the forest swamps and not on the wide roads. 
[Tengo secretly added a question mark at the end.] 
Even if the roads are convenient, it’s easier for the Gilyaks to keep away from the 
roads and walk through the forest. To walk on the roads, they would have to 
completely remake the way they walk. If they remade the way they walk, they would 
have to remake other things. I couldn’t live like the Gilyaks. I would hate for men to 
hit me all the time. I would hate to live with a lot of maggots around—so dirty! But I 
don’t like to walk on wide roads, either. I need more water. 
Fuka-Eri took another drink of water. After a short silence, her glass came back to 
the table with a clunk. Then there was an interval while she wiped her lips with her 
fingertips. Didn’t this girl realize that tape recorders have pause buttons? 
I think it might be trouble for you that I went away. But I don’t want to be a novelist, 
and I don’t plan to write anymore. I asked Azami to look up stuff about the Gilyaks 
for me. She went to the library. The Gilyaks live in Sakhalin and are like the Ainu and 
American Indians: they don’t have writing. They don’t leave records. I’m the same. 
Once it gets written down, the story is not mine anymore. You did a good job of 
writing my story. I don’t think anybody else could do that. But it’s not my story 
anymore. But don’t worry. It’s not your fault. I’m just walking in a place away from 
the road. 
Here Fuka-Eri inserted another pause. Tengo imagined her trudging along silently, 
alone, off to the side, away from a road. 

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The Professor has big power and deep wisdom. But the Little People have just as deep 
wisdom and big power as he does. Better be careful in the forest. Important things are 
in the forest, and the Little People are in the forest, too. To make sure the Little 
People don’t harm you, you have to find something the Little People don’t have. If 
you do that, you can get through the forest safely. 
Having managed to say all this in one go, Fuka-Eri paused to take a deep breath. 
She did this without averting her face from the microphone, thereby recording what 
sounded like a huge gust of wind blowing between buildings. When that quieted 
down, there came the deep, foghorn-like sound of a large truck honking in the 
distance. Two short blasts. Apparently Fuka-Eri was in a place not far from a major 
highway. 
[Clearing of throat.] I’m getting hoarse. Thanks for worrying about me. Thanks for 
liking my chest shape and putting me up in your apartment and lending me your 
pajamas. We probably can’t see each other for a while. The Little People may be mad 
that they were put into writing. But don’t worry. I’m used to the forest. Bye. 
There was a click, and the recording ended. 
Tengo stopped the tape and rewound to the beginning. Listening to the rain 
dripping from the eaves, he took several deep breaths and twirled the plastic ballpoint 
pen in his fingers. Then he set the pen down. He had not taken a single note. He had 
merely listened in fascination to Fuka-Eri’s normally peculiar narrative style. Without 
resorting to note taking, he had grasped the three main points of her message: 
1 She had not been abducted, but was merely in temporary hiding. There was no need 
to worry about her. 
2 She had no intention of publishing any more books. Her story was meant for oral 
transmission, not print. 
3 The Little People possessed no less wisdom and power than Professor Ebisuno. 
Tengo should be careful. 
These were the points she hoped to convey. She also spoke of the Gilyaks, the 
people who had to stay off broad roads when they walked. 
Tengo went to the kitchen and made himself some coffee. While drinking his 
coffee, he stared aimlessly at the cassette tape. Then he listened to it again from the 
beginning. This time, just to make sure, he occasionally pushed the pause button and 
took brief notes. Then he let his eyes make their way through the notes. This led to no 
new discoveries. 
Had Fuka-Eri made her own simple notes at first and followed them as she spoke 
into the recorder? Tengo could not believe she had done that. She wasn’t the type to 
do such a thing. She had undoubtedly spoken her thoughts into the mike as they came 
to her in real time (without even pushing the pause button). 
What kind of place could she be in? The recorded background noises provided 
Tengo with few hints. The distant sound of a door slamming. Children’s shouts 
apparently coming in through an open window. A kindergarten? A truck horn. She 
was obviously not deep in the woods but somewhere in a city. The time of the 

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recording was probably late morning or early afternoon. The sound of the door might 
suggest that she was not alone. 
One thing was clear: Fuka-Eri had gone into hiding on her own initiative. No one 
had forced her to make the tape: that much was obvious from the sound of her voice 
and the way she spoke. There was some perceptible nervousness at the beginning, but 
otherwise it sounded as if she had freely spoken her own thoughts into the 
microphone.