After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

happened to cross, our eyes met for an instant, then we moved off in different 
directions once more. I probably won’t ever run across Eriko Fukada again
. 
Leaning against the wall, Ushikawa looked through the gap in the curtain and 
watched people coming and going. Maybe Fuka-Eri would come back. Maybe she 
would remember something important she had left back in the apartment. But she 
didn’t. She had made up her mind to move on to somewhere else, and she would 
never return. 
Ushikawa spent the afternoon feeling deeply powerless. This sense of impotence 
was formless, weightless. His blood moved slowly, sluggishly, through his veins. It 
was as if his vision were covered by a fine mist, while the joints in his arms and legs 
felt creaky and dull. When he shut his eyes, the ache of her gaze stabbed at his ribs, 
the ache rolling in and out like gentle waves at the shore, rolling in again, then 
receding. Sometimes the pain was so great it made him wince. At the same time, 
though, Ushikawa realized it gave him a warm feeling, like nothing he had ever 
experienced. 
His wife and two daughters, his snug little house with a lawn in Chuorinkan—they 
had never made him feel this warm. He had always had something like a clod of 
frozen dirt stuck in his heart—a hard, cold core he had always lived with. He had 
never even felt it as cold. For him this was the 
normal temperature
. Even so, Fuka-
Eri’s gaze had, if even for a moment, melted that icy core. And it brought on the dull 
ache. The warmth and the pain came as a pair, and unless he accepted the pain, he 
wouldn’t feel the warmth. It was a kind of trade-off. 

---

699
In a little sunny spot, Ushikawa experienced the pain and the warmth 
simultaneously. Quietly, without moving a muscle. It was a calm, peaceful winter’s 
day. People on the street passed through the delicate sunshine as they strolled by, but 
the sun was steadily moving west, hidden in the shadow of the building, and the little 
pool of sunlight he was in soon disappeared. The warmth of the afternoon was gone, 
and the cold of the night was gathering around him. 
Ushikawa sighed deeply and reluctantly peeled himself away from the wall. His 
body still had a lingering numbness, but not enough to stop him from moving about 
the room. He finally rose to his feet, stretched his limbs, and moved his short, thick 
neck around to work out the kinks. He balled his fists, then stretched out his fingers, 
again and again. Then he got down on the tatami and did his usual stretching 
exercises. All his joints crackled dully, and his muscles slowly regained their normal 
suppleness. 
It was now the time of day when people came back from work and school. 
I need 
to continue to keep a watch over them
, he told himself. 
This isn’t a question of 
whether I want to or not, or whether it’s the right thing to do. Once I start something, 
I have to see it through
. 
Ushikawa sat down again behind the camera. It was completely dark outside now, 
and the light at the entrance had come on. 
It must be on a timer
, he thought. Like 
nameless birds returning to their shabby nests, people stepped into the entrance. 
Tengo Kawana wasn’t among them, but Ushikawa figured he would be back before 
long. He couldn’t take care of his sick father forever. Most likely he would be back in 
Tokyo before the new week started, so he could return to work. Within a few days—
or maybe even today or tomorrow. 
I may well be just a cheerless, grubby little creature, a bug on the damp underside 
of a rock. So be it—I’ll be the first to admit it. But I’m a relentlessly capable, patient,