After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

Air Chrysalis
is marvelous, really 
wonderful, far exceeding my expectations. It’s almost perfect. I have no doubt that 
it’s going to take the new writers’ prize and cause a big sensation. It’s too late now for 
us to bury it. If you ask me, burying a work like that would be a crime. And as I said 
before, things are moving full speed ahead.” 
“A crime?!” Tengo exclaimed, looking straight at Komatsu. 
“Well, take these words, for example,” Komatsu said. “ ‘Every art and every 
inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and 
for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.’ ” 
“What is 
that
?” 
“Aristotle. 
Nicomachean Ethics
. Have you ever read Aristotle?” 
“Almost nothing.” 
“You ought to. I’m sure you’d like it. Whenever I run out of things to read, I read 
Greek philosophy. I never get tired of the stuff. There’s always something new to 
learn.” 
“So what’s the point of the quotation?” 

---

157
“The conclusion of things is the good. The good is, in other words, the conclusion 
at which all things arrive. Let’s leave doubt for tomorrow,” Komatsu said. “That is the 
point.” 
“What does Aristotle have to say about the Holocaust?” 
Komatsu’s crescent-moon smile further deepened. “Here, Aristotle is mainly 
talking about things like art and scholarship and crafts.” 
Tengo had far more than a passing acquaintance with Komatsu. He knew the man’s 
public face, and he had seen his private face as well. Komatsu appeared to be a lone 
wolf in the literary industry who had always survived by doing as he pleased. Most 
people were taken in by that image. But if you observed him closely, taking into 
account the full context of his actions, you could tell that his moves were highly 
calculated. He was like a player of chess or 
shogi
who could see several moves ahead. 
It was true that he liked to plot outlandish schemes, but he was also careful to draw a 
line beyond which he would not stray. He was, if anything, a high-strung man whose 
more outrageous gestures were mostly for show. 
Komatsu was careful to protect himself with various kinds of insurance. For 
example, he wrote a literary column once a week in the evening edition of a major 
newspaper. In it, he would shower writers with praise or blame. The blame was 
always expressed in highly acerbic prose, which was a specialty of his. The column 
appeared under a made-up name, but everyone in the industry knew who was writing 
it. No one liked being criticized in the newspaper, of course, so writers tried their best 
not to ruffle his feathers. When asked by him to write something, they avoided 
turning him down whenever possible. Otherwise, there was no telling what might be 
said about them in the column. 
Tengo was not fond of Komatsu’s more calculating side, the way he displayed 
contempt for the literary world while exploiting its system to his best advantage. 
Komatsu possessed outstanding editorial instincts, and he had been enormously 
helpful to Tengo. His advice on the writing of fiction was almost always valuable. But 
Tengo was careful to keep a certain distance between them. He was determined not to 
draw too close to Komatsu and then have the ladder pulled out from under him for 
overstepping certain boundaries. In that sense, Tengo, too, was a cautious individual. 
“As I said a minute ago, your rewrite of 
Air Chrysalis
is close to perfect. A great 
job,” Komatsu continued. “There’s just one part—really, just one—that I’d like to 
have you redo if possible. Not now, of course. It’s fine at the ‘new writer’ level. But 
after the committee picks it to win the prize and just before the magazine prints it, at 
that stage I’d like you to fix it.” 
“What part?” Tengo asked. 
“When the Little People finish making the air chrysalis, there are two moons. The 
girl looks up to find two moons in the sky. Remember that part?” 
“Of course I remember it.” 
“In my opinion, you haven’t written enough about the two moons. I’d like you to 
give it more concrete detail. That’s my only request.” 
“It 
is
a little terse, maybe. I just didn’t want to overdo it with detail and destroy the 
flow of Fuka-Eri’s original.” 

---

158
Komatsu raised the hand that had a cigarette tucked between the fingers. “Think of 
it this way, Tengo. Your readers have seen the sky with one moon in it any number of 
times, right? But I doubt they’ve seen a sky with two moons in it side by side. When 
you introduce things that most readers have 
never
seen before into a piece of fiction, 
you have to describe them with as much precision and in as much detail as possible. 
What you can eliminate from fiction is the description of things that most readers 
have
seen.” 
“I get it,” Tengo said. Komatsu’s request made a lot of sense. “I’ll fill out the part 
where the two moons appear.” 
“Good. Then it 
will
be perfect,” Komatsu said. He crushed out his cigarette. 
“I’m always glad to have you praise my work,” Tengo said, “but it’s not so simple 
for me this time.” 
“You have suddenly matured,” Komatsu said slowly, as if pausing for emphasis. 
“You have matured both as a manipulator of language and as an author. It should be 
simple enough for you to be glad about that. I’m sure rewriting