After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

Maybe I should be more patient, stay with him longer
, Tengo thought once. 
Maybe 
visiting him for the day and then leaving isn’t enough. What’s needed, perhaps, is a 
deeper commitment
. He had no concrete evidence that this was true. He just felt that 
way. 
After the middle of November he took the vacation leave he had accumulated, 
telling the cram school that his father was in critical condition and he needed to look 
after him. This in itself wasn’t a lie. He asked a classmate from college to take over 
his classes. He was one of the relatively few people with whom Tengo had kept in 
touch, albeit just once or twice a year. Even in the math department, which had more 
than its share of oddballs, this guy was particularly odd, as well as smart beyond 
compare. After graduating, though, he didn’t get a job or go on to grad school. 
Instead, when he felt like it, he taught math at a private cram school for junior high 
students. Other than that, he read, went fly fishing, and did whatever he wanted. 
Tengo happened to know, however, that he was a very capable teacher. The thing 
was, he was tired of being so capable. Plus, he was from a wealthy family and there 
was no need for him to force himself to work. He had substituted for Tengo once 
before and the students had liked him. Tengo called him and explained the situation, 
and he immediately agreed to step in. 
There was also the question of what to do about Fuka-Eri. Tengo couldn’t decide if 
leaving this naive girl behind in his apartment for a long time was the right thing to 
do. And besides, she was trying to hide out, to stay out of sight. So he asked her 
directly. “Are you okay on your own here for a while? Or would you like to go 
someplace else, temporarily?” 
“Where are you going,” Fuka-Eri asked, a serious look in her eyes. 
“To the cat town,” Tengo explained. “My father won’t regain consciousness. He’s 
been in a deep sleep for a while. They say he might not last long.” 

---

543
He didn’t say a word about the air chrysalis appearing in the hospital room bed one 
evening. Or how Aomame appeared inside as a young girl, asleep. Or how the air 
chrysalis was exactly as Fuka-Eri had described it in her novel, down to the last detail. 
Or how he was secretly hoping that it would again appear before him. 
Fuka-Eri narrowed her eyes, pursed her lips, and stared straight at Tengo, as if 
trying to make out a message written in tiny letters. Almost unconsciously he touched 
his face, but it didn’t feel as though something was written on it. 
“That’s fine,” Fuka-Eri said after a while, and she nodded several times. “Do not 
worry about me. I will stay at home.” After thinking for a moment she added, “Right 
now there is no danger.” 
“Right now there is no danger,” Tengo repeated. 
“Do not worry about me,” she said again. 
“I’ll call you every day.” 
“Do not get abandoned in the cat town.” 
“I’ll be careful,” Tengo said. 
Tengo went to the supermarket and bought enough food so Fuka-Eri wouldn’t have 
to go shopping, all things that would be simple to prepare. Tengo was well aware that 
she had neither the ability nor the desire to do much cooking. He wanted to avoid 
coming back in two weeks to a fridge full of mushy, spoiled food. 
He stuffed a vinyl bag full of clothes and toiletries, a few books, pens, and paper. 
As usual he took the express train from Tokyo Station, changed to a local train at 
Tateyama, and got off at Chikura. He went to the tourist information booth in front of 
the station to look for a fairly inexpensive hotel. It was the off-season, so he had no 
trouble finding a room in a simple Japanese-style inn that catered mainly to people 
coming to fish. The cramped but clean room smelled of fresh tatami. The fishing 
harbor was visible from the second-floor window. The charge for the room, which 
included breakfast, was cheaper than he had expected. 
“I don’t know yet how long I’ll be staying,” Tengo said, “but I’ll go ahead and pay 
for three days.” The proprietress of the inn had no objection. The doors shut at eleven, 
and bringing a woman to his room would be problematic, she explained in a 
roundabout way. All this sounded fine to him. Once he settled into his room, he 
phoned the sanatorium. He told the nurse (the same middle-aged nurse he had met 
before) that he would like to visit his father at three p.m. and asked if that would be 
convenient. That would be fine, she replied. “Mr. Kawana just sleeps all the time,” 
she said. 
Thus began Tengo’s days at the cat town beside the sea. He would get up early, take a 
walk along the shore, watch the fishing boats go in and out of the harbor, then return 
to the inn for breakfast. Breakfast was exactly the same every day—dried horse 
mackerel and fried eggs, a quartered tomato, seasoned dried seaweed, miso soup with 
shijimi clams, and rice—but for some reason it tasted wonderful every morning. After 
breakfast he would sit at a small desk and write. He hadn’t written in some time and 
found the act of writing with his fountain pen enjoyable. Working in an unfamiliar 
place, away from your daily routine, was invigorating. The engines of the fishing 
boats chugged monotonously as they pulled into the harbor. Tengo liked the sound. 

---

544
The story he was writing began with a world where there were two moons in the 
sky. A world of Little People and air chrysalises. He had borrowed this world from 
Fuka-Eri’s