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There are some things you can’t buy no matter how much you pay
, Aomame
thought.
For example, the moon
.
Aomame changed the subject. “Are you really planning to raise Tsubasa yourself?”
“Of course, I am quite serious about that. I intend to adopt her legally.”
“I’m sure you are aware that the formalities will not be simple, especially given the
situation.”
“Yes, I am prepared for that,” the dowager said. “I will use every means at my
disposal, do everything I can. I will not give her up to anyone.”
The dowager’s voice trembled with emotion. This was the very first time she had
displayed such feeling in Aomame’s presence. Aomame found this somewhat
worrisome, and the dowager seemed to read this in her expression.
“I have never told this to anyone,” the dowager said, lowering her voice as if
preparing to reveal a long-hidden truth. “I have kept it to myself because it was too
painful to speak about. The fact is, when my daughter committed suicide, she was
pregnant. Six months pregnant. She probably did not want to give birth to the boy she
was carrying. And so she took him with her when she ended her own life. If she had
delivered the child, he would have been about the same age as Tsubasa here. I lost
two precious lives at the same time.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Aomame said.
219
“Don’t worry, though. I am not allowing such personal matters to cloud my
judgment. I will not expose you to needless danger. You, too, are a precious daughter
to me. We are already part of the same family”
Aomame nodded silently.
“We have ties more important than blood,” the dowager said softly.
Aomame nodded again.
“Whatever it takes, we must liquidate that man,” the dowager said, as if trying to
convince herself. Then she looked at Aomame. “At the earliest possible opportunity,
we must move him to another world—before he injures someone else.”
Aomame looked across the table at Tsubasa. The girl’s eyes had no focus. She was
staring at nothing more than an imaginary point in space. To Aomame, the girl looked
like an empty cicada shell.
“But at the same time, we mustn’t rush things along,” the dowager said. “We have
to be careful and patient.”
Aomame left the dowager and the girl Tsubasa behind in the apartment when she
walked out of the safe house. The dowager had said she would stay with Tsubasa until
the girl fell asleep. The four women in the first-floor common room were gathered
around a circular table, leaning in closely, engaged in a hushed conversation. To
Aomame, the scene did not look real. The women seemed to be part of an imaginary
painting, perhaps with the title
Women Sharing a Secret
. The composition exhibited
no change when Aomame passed by.
Outside, Aomame knelt down to pet the German shepherd for a while. The dog
wagged her tail with happy abandon. Whenever she encountered a dog, Aomame
would wonder how dogs could become so unconditionally happy. She had never once
in her life had a pet—neither dog nor cat nor bird. She had never even bought herself
a potted plant. Aomame suddenly remembered to look up at the sky, which was
covered by a featureless gray layer of clouds that hinted at the coming of the rainy
season. She could not see the moon. The night was quiet and windless. There was a
hint of moonlight filtering through the overcast, but no way to tell how many moons
were up there.
Walking to the subway, Aomame kept thinking about the strangeness of the world.
If, as the dowager had said, we are nothing but gene carriers, why do so many of us
have to lead such strangely shaped lives? Wouldn’t our genetic purpose—to transmit
DNA—be served just as well if we lived simple lives, not bothering our heads with a
lot of extraneous thoughts, devoted entirely to preserving life and procreating? Did it
benefit the genes in any way for us to lead such intricately warped, even bizarre,
lives?
A man who finds joy in raping prepubescent girls, a powerfully built gay
bodyguard, people who choose death over transfusion, a woman who kills herself
with sleeping pills while six months pregnant, a woman who kills problematic men
with a needle thrust to the back of the neck, men who hate women, women who hate
men: how could it possibly profit the genes to have such people existing in this
world? Did the genes merely enjoy such deformed episodes as colorful entertainment,
or were these episodes utilized by them for some greater purpose?
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Aomame didn’t know the answers to these questions. All she knew was that it was
too late to choose any other life for herself.
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