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deal with
it.”
“Which means you will give birth.”
“If things go smoothly, the due date will be between June and July of next year.”
Tamaru did the math in his head. “Which means we will have to make some
changes in our plans.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“No need to apologize,” Tamaru said. “All women have the right to give birth. We
have to protect that right as much as we can.”
“Sounds like a Declaration of Human Rights,” Aomame said.
“I’m asking this again just to make sure, but you have no idea who the father is?”
“Since June I haven’t had a sexual relationship with anyone.”
“So this is a kind of immaculate conception?”
624
“I imagine religious people would get upset if you put it that way.”
“If you do anything out of the ordinary, you can be sure someone, somewhere, will
get upset,” Tamaru said. “But when you’re dealing with a pregnancy, it’s important to
get a specialist to check you over. You can’t just stay shut up in that room waiting it
out.”
Aomame sighed. “Let me stay here until the end of the year. I promise I won’t be
any trouble.”
Tamaru was silent for a while. Then he spoke. “You can stay there until the end of
the year, like we promised. But once the new year comes, we have to move you to a
less dangerous place, where you can easily get medical attention. You understand this,
right?”
“I do,” Aomame said. She wasn’t fully convinced, though.
If I don’t see Tengo
, she
thought,
will I really be able to leave here?
“I got a woman pregnant once,” Tamaru said.
Aomame didn’t say anything for a time. “You? But I thought you were—”
“Gay? I am. A card-carrying homosexual. I have always been that way, and I
imagine I always will be.”
“But still you got a woman pregnant.”
“Everybody makes mistakes,” Tamaru said, with no hint of humor. “I don’t want
to go into the details, but it was when I was young. I did it once, but
bang!
A bull’s-
eye.”
“What happened to the woman?”
“I don’t know,” Tamaru said.
“You don’t know?”
“I know how she was up to her sixth month. But after that I have no idea.”
“If you get to the sixth month, abortion is not an option.”
“That’s my understanding.”
“So there’s a high possibility she had the baby,” Aomame said.
“Most likely.”
“If she really did have the baby, don’t you want to see it?”
“I’m not that interested,” Tamaru said without missing a beat. “That’s not the kind
of life I lead. What about you? Would you want to see your child?”
Aomame gave it some thought. “I am someone whose parents threw her away
when she was small, so it’s hard for me to imagine what it would be like to have my
own child. I have no good model to follow.”
“Still, you’re going to be bringing that child into the world—into this violent,
mixed-up world.”
“It’s because I’m looking for love,” Aomame said. “Not love between me and the
child, though. I haven’t reached that stage yet.”
“But the child is part of that love.”
“I think so, in one way or another.”
“But if things don’t turn out like you expect, and that child isn’t part of the love
you’re looking for, then he’ll end up hurt. Just like the two of us.”
“It’s possible. But I don’t sense that will happen. Call it intuition.”
“I respect intuition,” Tamaru said. “But once the ego is born into this world, it has
to shoulder morality. You would do well to remember that.”
625
“Who said that?”
“Wittgenstein.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Aomame said. “If your child was born, how old would it
be?”
Tamaru did the math in his head. “Seventeen.”
“Seventeen.” Aomame imagined a seventeen-year-old boy, or girl, shouldering
morality.
“I’ll let Madame know about this,” Tamaru said. “She has been wanting to talk
with you directly. As I have said a number of times, however, from a security
standpoint I am none too happy about the idea. On a technical level I’m taking all
necessary precautions, but the telephone is still a risky means of communication.”
“Understood.”
“But she is very concerned about what has happened, and is worried about you.”
“I understand that, too. And I’m grateful for her concern.”
“It would be the smart thing to trust her, and follow her advice. She is a very wise
person.”
“Of course,” Aomame said.
But apart from that
, Aomame told herself,
I need to hone my own mind and protect
myself. The dowager is certainly a very wise person. And she wields a considerable
amount of power. But there are some things she has no way of knowing. I doubt she
knows what principles the year 1Q84 is operating on. I mean—has she even noticed
that there are two moons in the sky?
After she hung up, Aomame lay on the sofa and dozed for a half hour. It was a short,
deep sleep. She dreamed, but her dream was like a big, blank space. Inside that space
she was thinking about things. And she was writing, with invisible ink, in that pure
white notebook. When she woke up, she had an indistinct yet strangely clear image in
her mind.
I will give birth to this child. This little life will be safely born into the
world
. Like Tamaru had put it, as an unavoidable bearer of morality.
She laid her palm on her abdomen and listened. She couldn’t hear a thing. For
now.
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