After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

Despite all that happened, I 
never lost myself
, she thought. 
Thank goodness I can be here, as me. Wherever
here 
is
. 
May Thy kingdom come
, Aomame intoned once more, like she had done in 
elementary school before lunch, so many years ago. Whatever that might mean, she 
wished it. 
May Thy kingdom come
. 
Tengo stroked her hair, as if combing it. 
Ten minutes later Tengo was able to flag down a passing taxi. At first they couldn’t 
believe their eyes. A single taxi, absent of any passengers, was slowly making its way 
along the traffic jam on the expressway. Tengo raised a skeptical hand, the back door 
swung open right away, and they climbed aboard, quickly, hurriedly, afraid that this 
phantom would vanish. The young driver, wearing glasses, turned to face them. 
“Because of the traffic jam I would like to get off at the Ikejiri exit coming up, if 
that’s all right with you?” the driver asked. He had a rather high-pitched voice for a 
man, but it wasn’t irritating. 
“That would be fine,” Aomame replied. 
“It’s actually against the law to pick up passengers on the expressway.” 
“Which law would that be?” Aomame asked. Her face, reflected in the rearview 
mirror, wore a slight frown. 
The driver couldn’t come up with the name of the law that prohibits picking up 
passengers on highways. Plus, Aomame’s face in the rearview mirror was starting to 
frighten him a little. 
“Well, whatever,” the driver said, abandoning the topic. “Anyway, where would 
you like to go?” 
“You can let us off near Shibuya Station,” Aomame said. 

---

801
“I haven’t set the meter,” the driver said. “I’ll just charge you for the distance after 
we get off the expressway.” 
“Why were you on the expressway with no passenger?” Tengo asked him. 
“It’s sort of a long story,” the driver said, his voice etched with fatigue. “Would 
you like to hear it?” 
“I would,” Aomame said. Long and boring was fine by her. She wanted to hear 
people’s stories in this new world. There might be new secrets there, new hints. 
“I picked up a fare, a middle-aged man, near Kinuta Park, and he asked me to take 
him near Aoyama Gakuin University. He wanted me to take the expressway since 
there would be too much traffic around Shibuya. At this point, there wasn’t any 
bulletin about a traffic jam on the expressway. Traffic was supposed to be moving 
along just fine. So I did what he asked and got on the expressway at Yoga. But then 
there was an accident around Tani, apparently, and you can see the result. Once we 
were stuck, we couldn’t even get to the Ikejiri exit to get off. Meanwhile, the 
passenger spied a friend of his. Around Komazawa, when we weren’t moving an inch, 
there was a silver Mercedes coupe next to us that just happened to be driven by a 
woman who was a friend of his. They rolled down the windows and chatted and she 
wound up inviting him to ride with her. The man apologized and asked if he could 
pay up and go over to her car. Letting a passenger out in the middle of a highway is 
unheard of, but since we actually weren’t moving, I couldn’t say no. So the man got 
into the Mercedes. He felt bad about it, so he added a little extra to what he paid to 
sweeten the deal. But still it was annoying. I mean, I couldn’t move at all. Anyway, 
bit by bit I made my way here, nearly to the Ikejiri exit. And then I saw you raising 
your hand. Pretty hard to believe, don’t you think?” 
“I can believe it,” Aomame said concisely. 
That night the two of them stayed in a high-rise hotel in Akasaka. They turned the 
lights out, undressed, got into bed, and held each other. There was a lot they needed to 
talk about, but that could wait till morning. They had other priorities. Without a word 
passing between them, they leisurely explored each other’s bodies in the dark. With 
their fingers and palms, one by one, they checked where everything was, what they 
were shaped like. They felt excited, like little children on a treasure hunt in a secret 
room. Once they found each part, they kissed it with a seal of approval. 
After they had leisurely finished this process, Aomame held Tengo’s hard penis in 
her hand—just like years before, when she had held his hand in the classroom after 
school. It felt harder than anything she had ever known, miraculously hard. Aomame 
spread her legs, moved close, and slowly inserted him inside of her. Straight in, deep 
inside. She closed her eyes in the darkness and gulped a deep and dark intake of 
breath. Then, ever so slowly, she exhaled. Tengo felt her hot breath on his chest. 
“I’ve always imagined being held by you like this,” Aomame said, whispering in 
his ear as she stopped moving. 
“Having sex with me?” 
“Yes.” 
“Since you were ten you’ve been imagining this?” Tengo asked. 
Aomame laughed. “No, that came when I was a little older.” 

---

802
“I’ve been imagining the same thing.” 
“Being inside me?” 
“That’s right,” Tengo said. 
“Is it like you imagined?” 
“I still can’t believe it’s real,” Tengo admitted. “I feel like I’m imagining things.” 
“But this is real.” 
“It feels too good to be real.” 
In the darkness Aomame smiled. And she kissed him. They explored each other’s 
tongues. 
“My breasts are kind of small, don’t you think?” Aomame said. 
“They’re just right,” Tengo said, cupping them. 
“You really think so?” 
“Of course,” he said. “If they were any bigger then it wouldn’t be you.” 
“Thank you,” Aomame said. “They’re not just small,” she added, “but the right 
and left are also different sizes.” 
“They’re fine the way they are,” Tengo said. “The right one’s the right one, the left 
one’s the left. No need to change a thing.” 
Aomame pressed an ear against his chest. “I’ve been lonely for so long. And I’ve 
been hurt so deeply. If only I could have met you again a long time ago, then I 
wouldn’t have had to take all these detours to get here.” 
Tengo shook his head. “I don’t think so. This way is just fine. This is exactly the 
right time. For both of us.” 
Aomame started to cry. The tears she had been holding back spilled down her 
cheeks and there was nothing she could do to stop them. Large teardrops fell audibly 
onto the sheets like rain. With Tengo buried deep inside her, she trembled slightly as 
she went on crying. Tengo put his arms around her and held her. He would be holding 
her close from now on, a thought that made him happier than he could imagine. 
“We needed that much time,” Tengo said, “to understand how lonely we really 
were.” 
“Start moving,” Aomame breathed in his ear. “Take your time, and do it slowly.” 
Tengo did as he was told. He began pumping slowly. Breathing quietly, listening 
to his heartbeat. Aomame clung to him like she was drowning. She gave up crying, 
gave up thinking, distanced herself from the past, from the future, and became one 
with his movements. 
Near dawn they slipped on hotel bathrobes, stood next to the large window, and 
sipped the red wine they had ordered from room service. Aomame took just a token 
sip. They didn’t need to sleep yet. From their room on the seventeenth floor they 
could enjoy watching the moon to their hearts’ content. The clouds had drifted away, 
and nothing impeded their view. The dawn moon had moved quite a distance, though 
it still hovered just above the city skyline. The moon was an ashy white, and looked 
about ready to fall to earth, its job complete. 
At the front desk Aomame had asked for a room high up with a view of the moon, 
even if it cost more. “That’s the most important thing—having a nice view of the 
moon,” she said. 

---

803
The clerk was kind to this young couple who had shown up without a reservation. 
It also helped that the hotel wasn’t busy. She felt kindly toward the couple from the 
moment she set eyes on them. She had the bellboy go up to look at the room to make 
sure it had the view they wanted, and only then handed Aomame the key to the junior 
suite. She gave them a special discount, too. 
“Is it a full moon or something tonight?” the woman clerk asked Aomame, her 
interest aroused. Over the years she had heard every kind of demand, hope, and desire 
from guests you could imagine. But this was a first, having guests who were looking 
for a room with a good view of the moon. 
“No,” Aomame replied. “The moon’s past full. It’s about two-thirds full. But that 
doesn’t matter. As long as we can see it.” 
“You enjoy watching the moon, then?” 
“It’s important to us,” Aomame smiled. “More important than you can know.” 
Even as dawn approached, the number of moons didn’t increase. It was just the same 
old familiar moon. The one and only satellite that has faithfully circled the earth, at 
the same speed, from before human memory. As she stared at the moon, Aomame 
softly touched her abdomen, checking one more time that the