After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

BOOK 2 JULY-SEPTEMBER 

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CHAPTER 1 
Aomame 
IT WAS THE MOST BORING TOWN IN THE WORLD 
Although the rainy season had not been declared officially over, the Tokyo sky was 
intensely blue and the midsummer sun beat down on the earth. With their newly 
thickened burden of green leaves, the willows once again cast dense, trembling 
shadows on the street. 
Tamaru met Aomame at the front door, wearing a dark summer suit, white shirt, 
and solid-color tie. There was not a drop of sweat on him. Aomame always found it 
mysterious that such a big man did not sweat on even the hottest summer days. 
He gave her a slight nod, and, after uttering a short greeting that she found barely 
audible, he said nothing further. Today there was none of their usual banter. He 
walked ahead of her down a long corridor and did not look back, instead guiding her 
to where the dowager waited. Aomame guessed that he was in no mood for small talk. 
Maybe the death of the dog was still bothering him. “We need a new guard dog,” he 
had said on the phone, as if commenting on the weather, though Aomame knew this 
was no indication of how he actually felt. The female German shepherd had been 
important to him: they had been close for many years. He had taken her sudden, 
baffling death as both a personal insult and a challenge. As she looked at silent 
Tamaru’s back, as broad as a classroom blackboard, Aomame could imagine the quiet 
anger he was feeling. 
Tamaru opened the living-room door to let Aomame in, and stood in the doorway 
awaiting instructions from the dowager. 
“We won’t be needing anything to drink now,” she said. 
Tamaru gave her a silent nod and quietly closed the door, leaving the two women 
alone. A round goldfish bowl, with two goldfish inside, had been placed on the table 
beside the armchair in which the dowager was sitting—an utterly ordinary goldfish 
bowl with utterly ordinary goldfish and the requisite green strip of seaweed. Aomame 
had been in this large, handsome living room any number of times, but had never seen 
the goldfish before. She felt an occasional puff of cool air against her skin and 
guessed that the air conditioner must be running on low. On a table behind the 
dowager stood a vase containing three white lilies. The flowers were large and fleshy 
white, like little animals from an alien land that were deep in meditation. 
The dowager waved Aomame over to the sofa beside her. White lace curtains 
covered the windows facing the garden, but still the summer afternoon sun was 
strong. In its light the dowager looked tired, which was unusual for her. Slumped in 

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the big chair, she rested her chin on her hand, eyes sunken, neck more wrinkled than 
before, lips drained of color. The outer tips of her long eyebrows had dropped a notch, 
as if they had given up the struggle against gravity. Perhaps the efficiency of her 
circulatory system had declined: her skin appeared to have white, powdery blotches. 
She had aged at least five or six years since their last meeting. And today, for a 
change, it didn’t seem to bother her to show such obvious fatigue. This was not 
normal for her. As far as Aomame had observed, the dowager always tried—with 
much success—to keep her appearance smart, her inner strength fully mobilized, her 
posture perfectly erect, her expression focused, and all signs of aging hidden. 
Aomame noticed that many things in the house were different today. Even the light 
had taken on a different color. And the bowl of goldfish, such a common object, did 
not fit in with the elegant high-ceilinged room full of antique furniture. 
The dowager remained silent for a time, chin in hand, staring into the space 
adjacent to Aomame, where, Aomame knew, there was nothing special to be seen. 
The dowager simply needed a spot where she could temporarily park her vision. 
“Do you need something to drink?” the dowager asked softly. 
“No, thanks, I’m not thirsty,” Aomame answered. 
“There’s iced tea over there. Pour yourself a glass if you like.” 
The dowager pointed toward a side table set next to the door. On it was a pitcher of 
tea containing ice and lemon slices, and, next to that, three cut-glass tumblers of 
different colors. 
“Thank you,” Aomame said, remaining seated and waiting for the dowager’s next 
words. 
For a time, however, the dowager maintained her silence. She had something she 
needed to talk to Aomame about, but if she actually put it into words, the facts 
contained in the “something” might irretrievably become more definite 
as
facts, so 
she wanted to postpone that moment, if only briefly. Such was the apparent 
significance of her silence. She glanced at the goldfish bowl next to her chair. Then, 
as if resigning herself to the inevitable, she finally focused her gaze directly on 
Aomame. Her lips were clenched in a straight line, the ends of which she had 
deliberately turned up. 
“You heard from Tamaru that the safe house guard dog died, didn’t you—in that 
inexplicable way?” 
“Yes, I did.” 
“After that, Tsubasa disappeared.” 
Aomame frowned slightly. “Disappeared?” 
“She just vanished. Probably during the night. This morning she was gone.” 
Aomame pursed her lips, searching for something she could say, but the words did 
not come to her immediately. “But … from what you told me last time … I thought 
Tsubasa always had somebody nearby when she slept … in the same room … as a 
precaution.” 
“Yes, that is true, but the woman fell into an unusually deep sleep and was totally 
unaware that Tsubasa had left. When the sun came up, there was no sign of Tsubasa 
in the bed.” 
“So the German shepherd died, and the next day Tsubasa disappeared,” Aomame 
said, as if to verify the accuracy of her understanding. 

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The dowager nodded. “So far, we don’t know for sure if the two events are related, 
but I think that they are.” 
Aomame glanced at the goldfish bowl on the table for no particular reason. The 
dowager followed Aomame’s glance. The two goldfish swam coolly back and forth in 
their glass pond, barely moving their fins. The summer sunlight refracted strangely in 
the bowl, creating the illusion that one was peering into a mysterious ocean cave. 
“I bought these goldfish for Tsubasa,” the dowager said by way of explanation, 
looking at Aomame. “There was a little festival at one of the Azabu shopping streets, 
so I took her for a walk there. I thought it wasn’t healthy for her to be locked up in her 
room all the time. Tamaru came with us, of course. I bought her the fish at one of the 
stands. She seemed fascinated by them. She put them in her room and spent the rest of 
the day staring at them. When we realized she was gone, I brought them here. Now 
I’m spending a lot of time watching the fish. Just staring at them, doing nothing. 
Strangely enough, you really don’t get tired of watching them. I’ve never done this 
before—stared at goldfish so intently.” 
“Do you have any idea where Tsubasa might have gone?” Aomame asked. 
“None whatsoever,” the dowager answered. “She doesn’t have any relatives. As far 
as I know, the child has nowhere to go in this world.” 
“What is the chance that someone took her away by force?” 
The dowager gave a nervous little shake of the head, as if she were chasing away 
an invisible fly. “No, she just left. No one came and forced her to go. If that had 
happened, it would have awakened someone around her. Those women are all light 
sleepers. No, I’m sure she made up her mind and left on her own. She tiptoed 
downstairs, quietly unlocked the front door, and went out. I can see it happening. She 
didn’t make the dog bark—it had died the night before. She didn’t even change her 
clothes. The next day’s clothing was all nicely folded nearby, but she went out in her 
pajamas. I don’t think she has any money, either.” 
Aomame’s grimace deepened. “All by herself—in pajamas?” 
The dowager nodded. “Yes, where could a ten-year-old girl—all alone, in pajamas, 
with no money—possibly go in the middle of the night? It’s inconceivable, using 
ordinary common sense. But for some reason, I don’t find it all that strange. Far from 
it. I even get the feeling that it was something that had to happen. We’re not even 
looking for her. I’m not doing anything, just watching the goldfish like this.” 
She glanced toward the goldfish bowl as she spoke. Then she turned back toward 
Aomame. 
“I know that it would be pointless to search for her. She has gone somewhere out 
of our reach.” 
The dowager stopped resting her chin on her hand and, with her hands on her 
knees, she slowly released a breath that she had held inside for a very long time. 
“But why would she have done such a thing?” Aomame asked. “Why would she 
have left the safe house? She was protected as long as she stayed, and she had 
nowhere else to go.” 
“I don’t know why. But I feel that the dog’s death was the trigger. She loved the 
dog, and the dog loved her. They were like best friends. The fact that the dog died—
and died in such a bloody, incomprehensible way—was a great shock to her. Of 

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course. It was a shock to everyone in the house. Now that I think of it, however, the 
killing of the dog might have been a kind of message to Tsubasa.” 
“A message?” 
“That she should not stay here. That they knew she was hiding here. That she had 
to leave. That even worse things might happen to the people around her if she didn’t 
go.” 
The dowager’s fingers ticked off an imaginary interval on her lap. Aomame waited 
for the rest of what the dowager had to say. 
“She probably understood the message and left on her own. I’m sure she didn’t 
leave because she wanted to. She 
had
to go, even knowing that she had no place to 
go. I can hardly stand the thought—that a ten-year-old girl was forced to make such a 
decision.” 
Aomame wanted to reach out and hold the dowager’s hand, but she stopped 
herself. There was still more to tell. 
The dowager continued, “It was a great shock to me, of course. I feel as if a part of 
me has been physically torn out. I was planning to formally adopt her, as you know. I 
knew that things would not work out so easily, but even recognizing all the 
difficulties involved, it was something I wanted to do. I was in no position to 
complain to anyone if it did not work out, but, to tell you the truth, at my age, these 
things take an enormous toll.” 
Aomame said, “But Tsubasa might suddenly come back one day soon. She has no 
money, and there’s no place she can go …” 
“I’d like to think you’re right, but that is not going to happen,” the dowager said, 
her voice completely flat. “She’s only ten years old, but she has ideas of her own. She 
made up her mind and left. I doubt she would ever decide to come back.” 
“Excuse me a moment,” Aomame said, walking over to the table by the door, 
where she poured herself some iced tea into a green cut-glass tumbler. She was not 
particularly thirsty, but she wanted to introduce a pause into the conversation by 
leaving her seat. She then returned to the sofa, took a sip of tea, and set the tumbler 
down on the glass tabletop. 
The dowager waited for Aomame to settle onto the sofa again and said, “That’s 
enough about Tsubasa for now,” stretching her neck and clasping her hands together 
to give herself an emotional pause. “Let’s talk about Sakigake and its Leader. I’ll tell 
you what we have been able to find out. This is the main reason I called you here 
today. Of course, it also has to do with Tsubasa.” 
Aomame nodded. She had been expecting this. 
“As I told you last time, we absolutely must ‘take care of’ this Leader. We must 
transport him into