After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

I guess I’ll never be able to detach myself
from 
her
. And he would kick himself again, now that it was too late, for never having 
spoken to her in the hallway. 
If only I had made myself do it! If only I had said 
something to her, my life might be very different
. 
What reminded him of Aomame was buying edamame in the supermarket. He was 
choosing among the branches of fresh edamame in the refrigerator case when the 
thought of Aomame came to him quite naturally. Before he knew it, he was standing 
there, lost in a daydream. How long this went on, he had no idea, but a woman’s voice 
saying, “Excuse me” brought him back. He was blocking access to the edamame 
section with his large frame. 
Tengo stopped daydreaming, apologized to the woman, dropped the edamame 
branch into his shopping basket, and brought it to the cashier along with his other 
groceries—shrimp, milk, tofu, lettuce, and crackers. There, he waited in line with the 
housewives of the neighborhood. It was the crowded evening shopping hour and the 
cashier was a slow-moving trainee, which made for a long line, but this didn’t bother 
Tengo. 
Assuming she was in this line at the cash register, would I know it was Aomame 
just by looking at her? I wonder. We haven’t seen each other in twenty years. The 
possibility of our recognizing each other must be pretty slim. Or, say we pass on the 
street and I think, “Could that be Aomame?,” would I be able to call out to her on the 
spot? I can’t be sure of that, either. I might just lose heart and let her go without 
doing a thing. And then I’d be filled with regret again—“Why couldn’t I have said 
something to her—just one word?”
Komatsu often said to Tengo, “What’s missing in you is desire and a positive 
attitude.” And maybe he was right. When Tengo had trouble making up his mind, he 
would think, 
Oh well
, and resign himself. That was his nature. 
But if, by chance, we were to come face-to-face and were fortunate enough to 
recognize each other, I would probably open up and tell her everything honestly. 
We’d go into some nearby café (assuming she had the time and accepted my 

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invitation) and sit across from each other, drinking something, while I told her 
everything
. 
There were so many things he wanted to tell her! “I still remember when you 
squeezed my hand in that classroom. After that, I wanted to be your friend. I wanted 
to get to know you better. But I just couldn’t do it. There were lots of reasons for that, 
but the main problem was that I was a coward. I regretted it for years. I still regret it. 
And I think of you all the time.” Of course he would not tell her that he had 
masturbated while picturing her. That would be in a whole different dimension than 
sheer honesty. 
It might be better not to wish for such a thing, though. It might be better never to 
see her again. 
I might be disappointed if I actually met her
, Tengo thought. Maybe she 
had turned into some boring, tired-looking office worker. Maybe she had become a 
frustrated mother shrieking at her kids. Maybe the two of them would have nothing in 
common to talk about. Yes, that was a very real possibility. Then Tengo would lose 
something precious that he had cherished all these years. It would be gone forever. 
But no, Tengo felt almost certain it wouldn’t be like that. In that ten-year-old girl’s 
resolute eyes and strong-willed profile he had discovered a decisiveness that time 
could not have worn down. 
By comparison, what about Tengo himself? 
Such thoughts made him uneasy. 
Wasn’t Aomame the one who would be disappointed if they met again? In 
elementary school, Tengo had been recognized by everyone as a math prodigy and 
received the top grades in almost every subject. He was also an outstanding athlete. 
Even the teachers treated him with respect and expected great things from him in the 
future. Aomame might have idolized him. Now, though, he was just a part-time cram 
school instructor. True, it was an easy job that put no constraints on his solitary 
lifestyle, but he was far from being a pillar of society. While teaching at the cram 
school, he wrote fiction on the side, but he was still unpublished. For extra income, he 
wrote a made-up astrology column for a women’s magazine. It was popular, but it 
was, quite simply, a pack of lies. He had no friends worth mentioning, nor anyone he 
was in love with. His weekly trysts with a married woman ten years his senior were 
virtually his sole human contact. So far, the only accomplishment of which he could 
be proud was his role as the ghostwriter who turned