After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

CHAPTER 26 
Aomame 
VERY ROMANTIC 
The phone rang at just past noon on Tuesday. Aomame was seated on her yoga mat, 
legs wide apart, stretching her iliopsoas muscles. It was a much more strenuous 
exercise than it looked. A light sheen of perspiration was starting to seep through her 
shirt. She stopped, wiped her face with a towel, and answered the phone. 
“Bobblehead is no longer in that apartment,” Tamaru said, as always omitting any 
sort of greeting. No 
hello
s for him. 
“He’s not there anymore?” 
“No, he’s not. He was persuaded.” 
“Persuaded,” Aomame repeated. She imagined this meant that Tamaru had, 
through some means, forcibly removed Bobblehead. 
“Also, the person named Kawana who lives in that building is the Tengo Kawana 
you have been looking for.” 
The world around Aomame expanded, then contracted, as if it were her own heart. 
“Are you listening?” Tamaru asked. 
“I am.” 
“But Tengo Kawana isn’t in his apartment right now. He has been gone for a 
couple of days.” 
“Is he all right?” 
“He’s not in Tokyo now, but he’s definitely all right. Bobblehead rented an 
apartment in Tengo’s building, and was waiting there for you to come see Tengo. He 
had set up a hidden camera and was keeping watch over the entrance.” 
“Did he take my picture?” 
“He took three photos of you. It was nighttime, and you had on a hat, glasses, and 
a muffler, so you can’t see any facial details in the photos. But it’s you. If you had 
gone there one more time, things could have gotten sticky.” 
“So I made the right choice leaving things up to you?” 
“If there is such a thing as a right choice here.” 
“Anyway,” Aomame said, “I don’t have to worry about him.” 
“That man won’t be trying to do you any harm anymore.” 
“Because you 
persuaded
him.” 
“I had to adjust some things as we went, but in the end, yes,” Tamaru said. “I got 
all the photos. Bobblehead’s aim was to wait until you showed up, and Tengo 
Kawana was merely the bait he was using to reel you in. So I can’t see that they 
would have any reason now to harm Tengo. He should be fine.” 

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“That’s a relief,” Aomame said. 
“Tengo teaches math at a cram school in Yoyogi. He is apparently an excellent 
teacher, but he only works a few days a week, so he doesn’t make much money. He’s 
still single, and he lives modestly in that simple apartment.” 
When Aomame closed her eyes she could hear her heartbeat inside her ears. The 
boundary between herself and the world seemed blurred. 
“Besides teaching math at the cram school, he is writing a novel. A long one. 
Ghostwriting 
Air Chrysalis
was just a side job. He has his own literary ambitions, 
which is a good thing. A certain amount of ambition helps a person grow.” 
“How did you find all this out?” 
“He’s gone now, so I let myself into his apartment. It was locked, not that I would 
count that as a lock. I feel bad about invading his privacy, but I needed to do a basic 
check. For a man living alone, he keeps his place clean. He had even scrubbed the gas 
stove. The inside of his fridge was very neat, no rotten cabbage or anything tucked 
away in the back. I could see he had done some ironing as well. Not a bad partner for 
you to have. As long as he isn’t gay, I mean.” 
“What else did you find out?” 
“I called the cram school and asked about his teaching schedule. The girl who 
answered the phone said that Tengo’s father passed away late Sunday night in a 
hospital somewhere in Chiba Prefecture. He had to leave Tokyo for the funeral, and 
his Monday classes were canceled. She didn’t know when or where the funeral would 
take place. His next class is on Thursday, so it seems he will be back by then.” 
Aomame remembered that Tengo’s father was an NHK fee collector. On Sundays 
Tengo had made the rounds of his father’s collection route with him. She and Tengo 
had run across each other a number of times on the streets of Ichikawa. She couldn’t 
remember his father’s face very well. He was a small, thin man who wore a fee 
collector’s uniform. He didn’t look at all like Tengo. 
“Since there’s no more Bobblehead, is it all right if I go see Tengo?” 
“That’s not a good idea,” Tamaru shot back. “Bobblehead was