After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

CHAPTER 3 
Tengo 
THE ANIMALS ALL WORE CLOTHES 
In the afternoons Tengo would visit his father in the hospital, sit next to his bed, open 
the book he brought, and read aloud. After reading five pages he would take a short 
break, then read five more pages. He read whatever book he happened to be reading 
on his own at the time. Sometimes it was a novel, or a biography, or a book on the 
natural sciences. What was most important was the act of reading the sentences aloud, 
not the contents. 
Tengo didn’t know if his father actually heard his voice. His face never showed 
any reaction. This thin, shabby-looking old man had his eyes closed, and he was 
asleep. He didn’t move at all, and his breathing wasn’t audible. He was breathing, but 
unless you brought your ear very close, or held a mirror up to his nose to see if it 
clouded, you couldn’t really tell. The liquid in the IV drip went into his body, and a 
tiny amount of urine oozed out the catheter. The only thing that revealed that he was 
alive was this silent, slow movement in and out. Occasionally a nurse would shave his 
beard with an electric razor and use a tiny pair of scissors with rounded-off tips to clip 
the white hairs growing out of his ears and nose. She would trim his eyebrows as 
well. Even though he was unconscious, these continued to grow. As he watched his 
father, Tengo started to have doubts about the difference between a person being alive 
and being dead. 
Maybe there really wasn’t much of a difference to begin with
, he 
thought. 
Maybe we just decided, for convenience’s sake, to insist on a difference
. 
At three the doctor came and gave Tengo an update on his father’s condition. The 
explanation was always concise, and it was nearly the same from one day to the next. 
There was no change. The old man was simply asleep, his life gradually fading away. 
In other words, death was approaching, slowly but certainly, and there was nothing 
medically speaking that could be done. Just let him lie here, quietly sleeping. That’s 
about all the doctor could say. 
In the evenings two male nurses would come and take his father to an examination 
room. The male nurses differed depending on the day, but both of them were taciturn. 
Perhaps the masks they wore had something to do with it, but they never said a word. 
One of them looked foreign. He was short and dark skinned, and was always smiling 
at Tengo through his mask. Tengo could tell he was smiling by his eyes. Tengo 
smiled back and nodded. 
Anywhere from a half hour to an hour later, his father would be brought back to 
his room. Tengo had no idea what kind of examinations they were conducting. While 
his father was gone he would go to the cafeteria, have some hot green tea, and stay 

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about fifteen minutes before going back to the hospital room. All the while he held on 
to the hope that when he returned an air chrysalis would once again materialize, with 
Aomame as a young girl lying inside. But all that greeted him in the gloomy hospital 
room was the smell of a sick person and the depressions left behind in the empty bed. 
Tengo stood by the window and looked at the scene outside. Beyond the garden 
and lawn was the dark line of the pine windbreak, through which came the sound of 
waves. The rough waves of the Pacific. It was a thick, darkish sound, as if many souls 
were gathered, each whispering his story. They seemed to be seeking more souls to 
join them, seeking even more stories to be told. 
Before this, in October, Tengo had twice taken day trips, on his days off, to the 
sanatorium in Chikura. He would take the early-morning express train. Once there, he 
would sit beside his father’s bed, and talk to him sometimes. There was nothing even 
close to a response. His father just lay there, faceup, sound asleep. Tengo spent most 
of his time gazing out the window. As evening approached he waited for something to 
happen, but nothing ever did. The sun would silently sink, and the room would be 
wrapped in the gathering gloom. He would ultimately give up, leave, and take the last 
express train back to Tokyo.