After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

Why is she 
calling me by my name all of a sudden?
Tengo wondered. Fuka-Eri then leaned 
forward slowly, bringing her face close to his. Her partially open lips now opened 
wide, and her soft, fragrant tongue entered his mouth, where it began a relentless 
search for unformed words, for a secret code engraved there. Tengo’s own tongue 
responded unconsciously to this movement and soon their tongues were like two 
young snakes in a spring meadow, newly wakened from their hibernation and 
hungrily intertwining, each led on by the other’s scent. 
Fuka-Eri then stretched out her right hand and grasped Tengo’s left hand. She took 
it powerfully, as if to envelope his hand in hers. Her small fingernails dug into his 
palm. Then, bringing their intense kiss to an end, she righted herself. “Close your 
eyes.” 
Tengo did as he was told. Inside his closed eyes he found a deep, gloomy space—
so deep that it appeared to extend to the center of the earth. Then a light evocative of 
dusk broke into this space, the kind of sweet, nostalgic dusk that comes at the end of a 
long, long day. He could see, suspended in the light, numberless fine-grained cross-
section-like particles—dust, perhaps, or pollen, or something else entirely. Eventually 
the depths began to contract, the light began to grow brighter, and the surrounding 
objects came into view. 
The next thing he knew he was ten years old and in an elementary school 
classroom. This was real time and a real place. The light was real, and so was his ten-
year-old self. He was really breathing the air of the room, smelling its varnished 
woodwork and the chalk dust permeating its erasers. Only he and the girl were in the 
room. There was no sign of other children. She was quick to seize the opportunity and 
she did so boldly. Or perhaps she had been waiting for this to happen. In any case, 
standing there, she stretched out her right hand and grasped Tengo’s left hand, her 
eyes looking straight into his. 
His mouth felt parched. It all happened so suddenly, he had no idea what he should 
do or say. He simply stood there, letting his hand be squeezed by the girl. Eventually, 
deep in his loins, he felt a faint but deep throbbing. This was nothing he had ever 
experienced before, a throbbing like the distant roar of the sea. At the same time 
actual sounds reached his ears—the shouts of children resounding through the open 
window, a soccer ball being kicked, a bat connecting with a softball, the high-pitched 
complaints of a girl in one of the younger classes, the uncertain notes of a recorder 
ensemble practicing “The Last Rose of Summer.” After-school activities. 
He wanted to return the girl’s grasp with equal force, but the strength would not 
come into his hand. Part of it was that the girl’s grip was too strong. But Tengo 
realized, too, that he could not make his body move. Why should that be? He couldn’t 
move a finger, as if he were totally paralyzed. 
Time seems to have stopped
, Tengo thought. He breathed quietly, listening to his 
own inhalations and exhalations. The sea went on roaring. Suddenly he realized that 
all actual sounds had ceased. The throbbing in his loins had transformed into 
something different, something more limited, and soon he felt a particular kind of 

---

422
tingling. The tingling in turn became a fine, dust-like substance that mixed with his 
hot, red blood, coursing through his veins to all parts of his body, by the power of his 
hardworking heart. A dense, little, cloud-like thing formed in his chest, changing the 
rhythm of his breathing and stiffening the beating of his heart. 
I’m sure I’ll be able to understand the meaning and purpose of this incident 
sometime in the future
, Tengo thought. 
What I have to do now, in order to make that 
happen, is to record this moment in my mind as clearly and accurately as possible
. 
Now Tengo again was nothing more than a ten-year-old boy who happened to be 
good at math. A new door stood before him, but he did not know what awaited him on 
the other side. He felt powerless and ignorant, emotionally confused, and not a little 
afraid. This much he knew. And the girl, for her part, had no hope of being 
understood at that moment. All she wanted was to make sure that her feelings were 
delivered to Tengo, stuffed into a small, sturdy box, wrapped in a spotless sheet of 
paper, and tied with a narrow cord. She was placing such a package in his hands. 
You don’t have to open the package right now
, the girl was telling him wordlessly. 
Open it when the time comes. All you have to do is take it now
. 
She already knows all kinds of things
, Tengo thought. They were things that he did 
not know yet. She was the leader in this new arena. There were new rules here, new 
goals and new dynamics. Tengo knew nothing. 
But she knows
. 
At length she released the grip of her right hand on Tengo’s left hand, and, without 
saying anything or looking back, she hurried from the big classroom. Tengo stood 
there all alone. Children’s voices resounded through the open window. 
In the next second, Tengo realized that he was ejaculating. The violent spasm went 
on for several seconds, releasing a great deal of semen in a powerful surge. 
Where is 
my semen going?
Tengo’s garbled mind wondered. Ejaculating like this after school 
in a grade school classroom was not an appropriate thing to do. He could be in trouble 
if someone saw him. But this was not a grade school classroom anymore. Now he 
realized that he was inside Fuka-Eri, ejaculating toward her uterus. This was not 
something that he wanted to be doing. But he could not stop himself. Everything was 
happening beyond his control. 
“Don’t worry,” Fuka-Eri said a short time afterward in her usual flat voice. “
I
will not 
get pregnant. I haven’t started my periods yet.” 
Tengo opened his eyes and looked at Fuka-Eri. She was still mounted on him, 
looking down. Her perfect breasts were there in front of him, moving with each calm, 
regular breath. 
Tengo wanted to ask her if this was what “going to the town of cats” meant. What 
kind of a place 
was
the town of cats? He tried to put the question into actual words, 
but the muscles of his mouth would not budge. 
“This was necessary,” Fuka-Eri said, as if reading Tengo’s mind. It was a concise 
answer and no answer at all, as usual. 
Tengo closed his eyes again. He had gone 
there
, ejaculated, and come back 
here
again. It had been a real ejaculation discharging real semen. If Fuka-Eri said it was 
necessary, it had surely been necessary. Tengo’s flesh was still paralyzed and had no 

---

423
feeling. And the lassitude that follows ejaculation enveloped his body like a thin 
membrane. 
Fuka-Eri maintained her position for a long time, effectively squeezing out the last 
drop of semen from Tengo, like an insect sucking nectar from a flower. She literally 
left not a drop behind. Then, sliding off of Tengo’s penis, without a word, she left the 
bed and went into the bathroom. Tengo realized now that the thunder had stopped. 
The violent rain had also cleared before he knew it. The thunderclouds, which had 
stayed so stubbornly fixed above them, had now vanished without a trace. The silence 
was almost unreal. All he could hear was the faint sound of Fuka-Eri showering in the 
bathroom. Tengo stared at the ceiling, waiting for the feeling to come back to his 
flesh. Even after ejaculating, he was still erect, though at least the hardness had abated 
somewhat.