After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

CHAPTER 7 
Aomame 
WHERE YOU ARE ABOUT TO SET FOOT 
With its high ceiling and muted lighting, the capacious lobby of the Hotel Okura’s 
main building seemed like a huge, stylish cave. Against the cave walls, like the 
sighing of a disemboweled animal, bounced the muted conversations of people seated 
on the lobby’s sofas. The floor’s thick, soft carpeting could have been primeval moss 
on a far northern island. It absorbed the sound of footsteps into its endless span of 
accumulated time. The men and women crossing and recrossing the lobby looked like 
ghosts tied in place by some ancient curse, doomed to the endless repetition of their 
assigned roles. Men were armored in tight-fitting business suits. Slim young women 
were swathed in chic black dresses, here to attend a ceremony in one of the hotel’s 
many reception rooms. They wore small but expensive accessories, like vampire 
finches in search of blood, longing for a hint of light they could reflect. A large 
foreign couple loomed like an old king and queen past their prime, resting their tired 
bodies on thrones in the corner. 
In this place so full of legend and suggestion, Aomame was truly out of place, with 
her pale blue cotton pants, simple white blouse, white sneakers, and blue Nike gym 
bag. She probably looked like a babysitter sent by her agency to work for a hotel 
guest, she thought, as she killed time sitting in a big easy chair. 
Oh well, I’m not here 
for socializing
. Sitting there, she sensed that someone was watching her, but, try as 
she might to scan the area, she could not find anyone who seemed to be focused on 
her. 
Never mind
, she told herself. 
Let them look all they want
. 
When the hands of her watch hit 6:50, Aomame stood up and went to the ladies’ 
room, carrying her gym bag. She washed her hands with soap and water and checked 
once more to make sure there were no problems with her appearance. Then, facing the 
large, clear mirror, she took several deep breaths. This was a spacious restroom, and 
she was the only one in it. It might be even bigger than her whole apartment. “This is 
going to be my last job,” she said in a low voice to the mirror. 
Once I carry this off, I 
disappear. Poof! Like a ghost. I’m here
now, but not tomorrow. In a few days, I’ll 
have a different name and a different face
. 
She returned to the lobby and took her seat again, setting the gym bag on the table 
next to her. In the bag was a small automatic pistol with seven bullets and a sharp 
needle made for thrusting into the back of a man’s neck. 
I’ve got to calm down
, she 
told herself. 
This job is important, and it’s my last. I have to be the usual cool, tough 
Aomame
. 

---

344
But she could not shake off the awareness that she was not in a normal state. Her 
breathing was strangely labored, and the heightened speed of her heartbeat concerned 
her. A film of sweat moistened her armpits. Her skin was tingling. 
I’m not just tense, 
though. I’m having a premonition of something. And the premonition is giving me a 
warning. It keeps knocking on the door of my mind. It’s telling me, “It’s still not too 
late. Get out of here now and forget all this.”
Aomame wanted to heed the warning if she could, abandon everything and turn her 
back on this hotel lobby. There was something ominous here, the lingering presence 
of circuitous death—a slow, quiet, but inescapable death. 
But I can’t just run away 
with my tail between my legs. That’s not the Aomame way to live
. 
It was a long ten minutes. Time refused to move ahead. She stayed on the sofa, 
trying to get her breathing under control. The lobby ghosts kept spouting their hollow 
reverberations. People drifted silently over the thick carpet like souls groping for their 
eternal resting places. The only actual noise to reach her ears now and then was the 
clinking of a coffee set on a tray whenever a waitress passed by. But even that sound 
contained a dubious secondary sound within it. Things were not heading in a good 
direction.