After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

The owl is the guardian deity of the woods, knows all, and gives us the wisdom 
of the night
. 
“Is that owl still hooting in the woods?” 
“The owl’s not going anywhere,” Kumi replied. “He’ll be there for a long time.” 
Kumi saw him off on the train to Tateyama—as though she needed to make sure, 
with her own eyes, that he had boarded the train and left town. She stood on the 
platform and kept waving to him, until he couldn’t see her anymore. 
It was seven p.m. on Tuesday when he got back to his apartment in Koenji. Tengo 
turned on the lights, sat down at his dining table, and looked around the room. The 
place looked the same as when he had left early the previous morning. The curtains 
were closed tight, and there was a printout of the story he was writing on top of his 
desk. Six neatly sharpened pencils in a pencil holder, clean dishes still in the rack in 
the sink. Time was silently ticking by, the calendar on the wall indicating that this was 
the final month of the year. The room seemed even more 
silent
than ever. A little 
too
silent. Something excessive seemed included in that silence. Though maybe he was 
imagining it. Maybe it was because he had just witnessed a person vanishing right 
before his eyes. The hole in the world might not yet be fully closed up. 
He drank a glass of water and took a hot shower. He shampooed his hair 
thoroughly, cleaned his ears, clipped his nails. He took a new pair of underwear and a 
shirt from his drawer and put them on. He had to get rid of all the smells that clung to 
him, the smells of the cat town. 
We all like you a lot here, but this isn’t a place you 
should stay for long
, Kumi Adachi had told him. 
He had no appetite. He didn’t feel like working or opening a book. Listening to 
music held no appeal. His body was exhausted, but his nerves were on edge, so he 
knew that even if he lay down he wouldn’t get any sleep. Something about the silence 
seemed contrived. 
It would be nice if Fuka-Eri were here
, Tengo thought. 
I don’t care what silly, 
meaningless things she might talk about. Her fateful lack of intonation, the way her 
voice rose at the end of questions—it’s all fine by me. I haven’t heard her voice in a 
while and I miss it
. But Tengo knew that she wouldn’t be coming back to his 
apartment again. Why he knew this, he couldn’t say exactly. But he knew she would 
never be there again. Probably. 
He wanted to talk with someone. 
Anyone
. His older girlfriend would be nice, but 
he couldn’t reach her. She was 
irretrievably lost
. 

---

749
He dialed Komatsu’s office number, his direct extension, but nobody answered. 
After fifteen rings he gave up. 
He tried to think of other people he could call, but there wasn’t anyone. He thought 
of calling Kumi, but realized he didn’t have her number. 
His mind turned to a dark hole somewhere in the world, not yet filled in. Not such 
a big hole, but very deep. 
If I look in that hole and speak loudly enough, would I be 
able to talk with my father? Will the dead tell me what the truth is?
“If you do that, you’ll never go anywhere,” Kumi Adachi had told him. “Better to 
think about the future.” 
I don’t agree. That’s not all there is to it. Knowing the secret may not take me 
anywhere, but still, I have to know the reason why it won’t. If I truly understand the 
reason, maybe I will be able to go somewhere
. 
Whether you are my real father or not doesn’t matter anymore
, Tengo said to the 
dark hole. 
Either one is fine with me. Either way, you took a part of me with you to the 
grave, and I remain here with a part of you. That fact won’t change, whether we are 
related by blood or not. Enough time has passed for that to be the case, and the world 
has moved on
. 
He thought he heard an owl hooting outside, but it was only his ears playing tricks 
on him. 

---

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