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Tengo did not know, of course, if he would be granted such a
dramatic revelation
sometime in the future. It might never come. But what he needed was something so
enormous, on such an overwhelming scale, that it could rival and even surpass the
striking images of the “waking dream” that had disoriented and jolted and tormented
him over these many years. He needed something that would totally purge him of this
image. Fragmentary information would do him no good at all.
These were the thoughts that ran through Tengo’s mind as he climbed three flights
of stairs.
Tengo stood in front of his apartment door, pulled his
key from his pocket, inserted
the key in the lock, and turned it. Then, before opening the door, he knocked three
times, paused, and knocked twice more. Finally, he eased the door open.
Fuka-Eri was sitting at the table, drinking tomato juice from a tall glass. She was
dressed in the same clothes she had been wearing when she arrived—a striped men’s
shirt and slim blue jeans. But the impression she made
on Tengo was very different
from the one she had given him that morning. It took Tengo a while to realize why:
she had her hair tied up, revealing her ears and the back of her neck. Those small,
pink ears of hers looked as though they had been daubed with powder using a soft
brush and had just been made a short time ago for purely aesthetic reasons, not for the
practical purpose of hearing sounds. Or at least they looked that way to Tengo. The
slim, well-shaped neck below the ears had a lustrous glow, like vegetables raised in
abundant sunshine, immaculate and well suited to morning dew and ladybugs. This
was the first time he had seen her with her hair up, and it
was a miraculously intimate
and beautiful sight.
Tengo had closed the door by reaching around behind himself, but he went on
standing there in the entrance. Her bared ears and neck disoriented him as much as
another woman’s total nakedness. Like an explorer who has discovered the secret
spring at the source of the Nile, Tengo stared at Fuka-Eri with narrowed eyes,
speechless, hand still clutching the doorknob.
“I took a shower,” she said to Tengo as he stood there transfixed. She spoke in
grave tones, as though she had just recalled a major event. “I
used your shampoo and
rinse.”
Tengo nodded. Then, exhaling, he finally wrenched his hand from the doorknob
and locked the door.
Shampoo and rinse?
He stepped forward, away from the door.
“Did the phone ring after I called?” Tengo asked.
“Not at all,” Fuka-Eri said. She gave her head a little shake.
Tengo went to the window, parted the curtains slightly, and looked outside. The
view from the third floor had nothing unusual about it—no suspicious people lurking
there or suspicious cars parked out front, just the usual drab expanse of
this drab
residential neighborhood. The misshapen trees lining the street wore a layer of gray
dust. The pedestrian guardrail was full of dents. Rusty bicycles lay abandoned by the
side of the road. A wall bore the police slogan “Driving Drunk: A One-Way Street to
a Ruined Life.” (Did the police have slogan-writing specialists in their ranks?) A
nasty-looking old man was walking a stupid-looking mutt. A stupid-looking woman
drove by in an ugly subcompact. Nasty-looking wires stretched from one ugly utility
398
pole to another. The scene outside the window suggested that the world had settled in
a place somewhere midway between “being miserable” and “lacking in joy,” and
consisted of an infinite agglomeration of variously shaped microcosms.
On
the other hand, there also existed in the world such unexceptionably beautiful
views as Fuka-Eri’s ears and neck. In which should he place the greater faith? It was
not easy for him to decide. Like a big, confused dog, Tengo made a soft growling
noise in his throat, closed the curtains, and returned to his own little world.
“Does Professor Ebisuno know that you’re here?” Tengo asked.
Fuka-Eri shook her head. The professor did not know.
“Don’t you plan to tell him?”
Fuka-Eri shook her head. “I can’t contact him.”
“Because it would be dangerous to contact him?”
“The phone may be tapped. Mail might not get through.”
“I’m the only one who knows you’re here?”
Fuka-Eri nodded.
“Did you bring a change of clothing and stuff?”
“A little,” Fuka-Eri said, glancing at her canvas shoulder bag. Certainly “a little”
was all it could hold.
“I don’t mind,” the girl said.
“If you don’t mind, of course I don’t mind,” Tengo said.
Tengo went into the kitchen, put the kettle on to boil,
and spooned some tea leaves
into the teapot.
“Does your lady friend come here,” Fuka-Eri asked.
“Not anymore,” Tengo gave her a short answer.
Fuka-Eri stared at Tengo in silence.
“For now,” Tengo added.
“Is it my fault,” Fuka-Eri asked.
Tengo shook his head. “I don’t know whose fault it is. But I don’t think it’s yours.
It’s probably my fault. And maybe hers to some extent.”
“But anyhow, she won’t come here anymore.”
“Right, she won’t come here anymore. Probably. So it’s okay for you to stay.”
Fuka-Eri spent a few moments thinking about that. “Was she married,” she asked.
“Yes, and she had two kids.”
“Not yours.”
“No, of course not. She had them before she met me.”
“Did you love her.”
“Probably,” Tengo said.
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