After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

not matter one way or the other
. Maybe the scene in front of him 
didn’t exist in the first place. Maybe 
he
was the one being deceived, by cutout people 
who didn’t really exist. Ushikawa grew uneasy. Being locked up in this empty 
apartment, day after day, spying on people, must be getting to him—something that 
would definitely get on a person’s nerves. He decided to verbalize his thoughts, to 
pull himself out of this funk. 
“G’morning, there, Long Ears,” he said, looking through the viewfinder and 
addressing a tall, thin old man. The tips of the old man’s ears stuck out like horns 
from beneath his white hair. “Out for a walk? Walking’s good for you. It’s nice out 
today, so have a good time. I would love to take a walk and stretch my limbs a bit, but 
I’m stuck here keeping watch over this crummy entrance day after day.” 
The old man had on a cardigan and wool trousers, and had excellent posture. He 
would look perfect taking a faithful white dog out for a walk, but pets weren’t 

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701
allowed in the building. Once the old man was gone, Ushikawa was suddenly struck 
by a sense of impotence. 
This surveillance is going to end up being a waste of time
, he 
decided. 
My intuition is worthless, and all the hours I’ve spent in this vacant room are 
leading me exactly nowhere. All I have to show for it is a set of frayed nerves, worn 
away like the bald head of a Jizo statue that passing children rub for good luck
. 
After twelve Ushikawa ate an apple and some cheese and crackers, and a rice ball 
with pickled plum inside. He then leaned back against the wall and fell asleep. It was 
a short, dreamless sleep, yet when he awoke he couldn’t remember where he was. His 
memory was a perfectly square, perfectly empty box. The only thing in the box was 
empty space. Ushikawa gazed around the space. He found it wasn’t just a void, but a 
dim room—empty, cold, without a stick of furniture. He didn’t recognize the place. 
There was an apple core on an unfolded newspaper next to him. Ushikawa felt 
confused. 
Why am I in such a weird place?
Finally it came to him, and he remembered what he had been doing: staking out the 
entrance to Tengo’s apartment. 
That’s right. That’s why I have this single-lens reflex 
Minolta with a telephoto lens
. He remembered the old man with white hair and long 
ears out for a walk alone. Like birds flying home to their nests at twilight, memories 
gradually returned to the empty box. And two solid facts emerged: 
1 Eriko Fukada has left. 
2 Tengo Kawana hasn’t come back yet.
No one was in Tengo Kawana’s third-floor apartment. The curtains were drawn, 
and silence enveloped the deserted space. Other than the compressor of the fridge 
switching on from time to time, nothing disturbed the silence. Ushikawa let his 
imagination wander over the scene. Imagining a deserted room was a lot like 
imagining the world after death. Suddenly he remembered the NHK fee collector and 
his obsessive knocking. He had kept constant watch but never saw any trace that this 
mysterious man had left the building. 
Could he be a resident here? Or was it someone 
who lived here who liked to pretend to be a fee collector to harass the other 
residents? If the latter, what would possibly be the point?
This was a very morbid 
theory, but what else could explain such a strange situation? Ushikawa had no idea. 
Tengo Kawana showed up at the entrance to the apartment building just before four 
that afternoon. He wore an old windbreaker with the collar turned up, a navy-blue 
baseball cap, and a travel bag slung over his shoulder. He didn’t pause at the entrance, 
didn’t glance around, and went straight inside. Ushikawa’s mind was still a bit foggy, 
but he couldn’t miss that large figure. 
“Welcome back, Mr. Kawana,” Ushikawa muttered aloud, and snapped three 
photos with the motor-drive camera. “How’s your father doing? You must be 
exhausted. Please rest up. Nice to come home, isn’t it, even to a miserable place like 
this. By the way, Eriko Fukada moved out, with all her belongings, while you were 
gone.” 
But his voice didn’t reach Tengo. He was just muttering to himself. Ushikawa 
glanced at his watch and wrote a memo in his notebook.