After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

CHAPTER 17 
Aomame 
I ONLY HAVE ONE PAIR OF EYES 
It was a windy Saturday, nearly eight p.m., when the phone rang. Aomame was 
wearing a down jacket, a blanket on her lap, sitting on the balcony. Through a gap in 
the screen, she kept an eye on the slide in the playground, which was illuminated by 
the mercury-vapor lamp. Her hands were under the blanket so they wouldn’t get 
numb. The deserted slide looked like the skeleton of some huge animal that had died 
in the Ice Age. 
Sitting outside on a cold night might not be good for the baby, but Aomame 
decided it wasn’t cold enough to present a problem. No matter how cold you may be 
on the outside, amniotic fluid maintained nearly the same temperature as blood. There 
are plenty of places in the world way colder and harsher, she concluded. And women 
keep on having babies, even there. But above all, this cold was something she felt she 
had to endure if she wanted to see Tengo again. 
As always, the large yellow moon and its smaller green companion floated in the 
winter sky. Clouds of assorted sizes and shapes scudded swiftly across the sky. The 
clouds were white and dense, their outlines sharply etched, and they looked to her like 
hard blocks of ice floating down a snowmelt river to the sea. As she watched the 
clouds, appearing from somewhere only to disappear again, Aomame felt she had 
been transported to a spot near the edge of the world. This was the northern frontier of 
reason. There was nothing north of here—only the chaos of nothingness. 
The sliding glass door was open just a crack, so the ringing phone sounded faint, 
and Aomame was lost in thought, but she didn’t miss the sound. The phone rang three 
times, stopped, then twenty seconds later rang one more time. It had to be Tamaru. 
She threw aside the blanket, slid open the cloudy glass door, and went inside. It was 
dark inside and the heat was at a comfortable level. Her fingers still cold, she lifted 
the receiver. 
“Still reading Proust?” 
“But not making much progress,” Aomame replied. It was like an exchange of 
passwords. 
“You don’t like it?” 
“It’s not that. How should I put it—it’s a story about a different place, somewhere 
totally unlike here.” 
Tamaru was silent, waiting for her to go on. He was in no hurry. 
“By different place, I mean it’s like reading a detailed report from a small planet 
light-years away from 
this world
I’m living in. I can picture all the scenes described 

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and understand them. It’s described very vividly, minutely, even. But I can’t connect 
the scenes in that book with where I am now. We are physically too far apart. I’ll be 
reading it, and I find myself having to go back and reread the same passage over 
again.” 
Aomame searched for the next words. Tamaru waited as she did. 
“It’s not boring, though,” she said. “It’s so detailed and beautifully written, and I 
feel like I can grasp the structure of that lonely little planet. But I can’t seem to go 
forward. It’s like I’m in a boat, paddling upstream. I row for a while, but then when I 
take a rest and am thinking about something, I find myself back where I started. 
Maybe that way of reading suits me now, rather than the kind of reading where you 
forge ahead to find out what happens. I don’t know how to put it exactly, but there is 
a sense of time wavering irregularly when you try to forge ahead. If what is in front is 
behind, and what is behind is in front, it doesn’t really matter, does it. Either way is 
fine.” 
Aomame searched for a more precise way of expressing herself. 
“It feels like I’m experiencing someone else’s dream. Like we’re simultaneously 
sharing feelings. But I can’t really grasp what it means to be simultaneous. Our 
feelings seem extremely close, but in reality there’s a considerable gap between us.” 
“I wonder if Proust was aiming for that sort of sensation.” 
Aomame had no idea. 
“Still, on the other hand,” Tamaru said, “time in this real world goes ever onward. 
It never stands still, and never reverses course.” 
“Of course. In the real world time goes forward.” 
As she said this Aomame glanced at the glass door. But was it really true? That 
time was always flowing forward? 
“The seasons have changed, and we are getting close to the end of 1984,” Tamaru 
said. 
“I doubt I’ll finish 
In Search of Lost Time
by the end of the year.” 
“It doesn’t matter,” Tamaru said. “Take your time. It was written over fifty years 
ago. It’s not like it’s crammed with hot-off-the-press information or anything.” 
You might be right
, Aomame thought. 
But maybe not
. She no longer had much 
trust in time. 
“Is that 
thing inside you
doing all right?” Tamaru asked. 
“So far, so good.” 
“I’m glad to hear it,” Tamaru said. “By the way, you heard about the short balding 
guy who has been loitering outside the Willow House, right?” 
“I did. Is he still hanging around?” 
“No. Not recently. He did for a couple of days and then he disappeared. But he 
went to the rental agencies in the area, pretending to be looking for an apartment, 
gathering information about the safe house. This guy really stands out. As if that 
weren’t bad enough, his clothes are awful. So everyone who talked with him 
remembers him. It was easy to track his movements.” 
“He doesn’t sound like the right type to be doing investigations or 
reconnaissance.” 
“Exactly. With looks like those, he’s definitely not cut out for that kind of work. 
He has a huge head, too, like one of those Fukusuke good-luck dolls. But he does 

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seem to be good at what he does. He knows how to pound the pavement and dig up 
information. And he seems quite sharp. He doesn’t skip what is important, and he 
ignores what isn’t.” 
“And he was able to gather a certain amount of information on the safe house.” 
“He knows it’s a refuge for women fleeing domestic violence, and that the 
dowager has provided it free of charge. I think he must also have discovered that the 
dowager is a member of the sports club where you worked, and that you often visited 
her mansion to do private training sessions with her. If I were him, I would have been 
able to find out that much.” 
“You’re saying he’s as good as you are?” 
“As long as you don’t mind the effort involved, you can learn how to best gather 
information and train yourself to think logically. Anyone can do that much.” 
“I can’t believe there would be that many people like that in the world.” 
“Well, there are a few. Professionals.” 
Aomame sat down and touched the tip of her nose. It was still cold from being 
outside. 
“And that man isn’t hanging around outside the mansion anymore?” Aomame 
asked. 
“I think he recognizes that he stands out too much. And he knows about the 
security cameras. So he gathered as much information as he could in a short time and 
then moved on.” 
“So he knows about the connection between me and the dowager, that this is more 
than just a relationship between a sports club trainer and a wealthy client, and that the 
safe house is connected, too. And that we were involved in some sort of project 
together.” 
“Most likely,” Tamaru said. “As far as I can tell, the guy is getting close to the 
heart of things. Step by step.” 
“From what you’re saying, though, it sounds like he’s working on his own, not as