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  Aomame hung up and finished stir-frying her vegetables. Then she made some miso soup with bean sprouts and had that with brown rice. She drank half a can of beer and poured the rest down the drain. She had washed the dishes and was resting on the sofa when Ayumi called again.

  “I thought it might be nice to have dinner together sometime,” she said. “I get tired of eating alone.”

  “Do you always eat alone?”

  “I live in a dormitory, with meals included, so I usually eat in a big, noisy crowd. Sometimes, though, I want to have a nice, quiet meal, maybe go someplace a little fancy. But not alone. You know what I mean?”

  “Of course I do,” Aomame said.

  “I just don’t have anybody—man or woman—to eat with at times like that. They all like to hang out in cheap bars. With you, though, I thought just maybe, if you wouldn’t mind …”

  “No, I wouldn’t mind at all,” Aomame said. “Let’s do it. Let’s go have a fancy meal together. I haven’t done something like that for a long time.”

  “Really? I’m thrilled!”

  “You said the day after tomorrow is good for you?”

  “Right. I’m off duty the day after that. Do you know a nice place?”

  Aomame mentioned a certain French restaurant in the Nogizaka neighborhood.

  Ayumi gasped. “Are you kidding? It’s only the most famous French restaurant in the city. I read in a magazine it’s insanely expensive, and you have to wait two months for a reservation. That’s no place for anybody on my salary!”

  “Don’t worry, the owner-chef is a member of my gym. I’m his personal trainer, and I kind of advise him on his menus’ nutritional values. If I ask him, I’m sure he’ll save us a table—and knock the bill way down, too. I can’t guarantee we’d get great seats, of course.”

  “I’d be happy to sit in a closet in that place,” Ayumi said.

  “You’d better wear your best dress,” Aomame advised her.

  When she had hung up, Aomame was somewhat shocked to realize that she had grown fond of the young policewoman. She hadn’t felt like this about anyone since Tamaki Otsuka died. And though the feelings were utterly different from what she had felt for Tamaki, this was the first time in a very long time that she would share a meal with a friend—or even want to do such a thing. To add to which, this other person was a police officer! Aomame sighed. Life was so strange.

  Aomame wore a small white cardigan over a blue-gray short-sleeve dress, and she had on her Ferragamo heels. She added earrings and a narrow gold bracelet. Leaving her usual shoulder bag at home (along with the ice pick), she carried a small Bagagerie purse. Ayumi wore a simple black jacket by Comme des Garçons over a scoop-necked brown T-shirt, a flower-patterned flared skirt, the Gucci bag she carried before, small pearl pierced earrings, and brown low-heeled shoes. She looked far lovelier and more elegant than last time—and certainly not like a police officer.

  They met at the bar, sipped mimosas, and then were shown to their table, which turned out to be a rather good one. The chef stepped out of the kitchen for a chat with Aomame and noted that the wine would be on the house.

  “Sorry, it’s already been uncorked, and one tasting’s worth is gone. A customer complained about the taste yesterday and we gave him a new bottle, but in fact there is absolutely nothing wrong with this wine. The man is a famous politician who likes to think he’s a wine connoisseur, but he doesn’t know a damn thing about wine. He did it to show off. ‘I’m afraid this might have a slight edge,’ he says. We had to humor him. ‘Oh, yes, you may be right about that, sir. I’m sure the importer’s warehouse is at fault. I’ll bring another bottle right away. But bravo, sir! I don’t think another person in the country could have caught this!’ That was the best way to make everybody happy, as you can imagine. Now, I can’t say this too loudly, but we had to inflate the bill a little to cover our loss. He was on an expense account, after all. In any case, there’s no way a restaurant with our reputation could serve a returned bottle.”

  “Except to us, you mean.”

  The chef winked. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Of course not,” Aomame said.

  “Not at all,” Ayumi chimed in.

  “Is this lovely lady your younger sister, by any chance?” the chef asked Aomame.

  “Does she look it?” Aomame asked back.

  “I don’t see a physical resemblance, but there’s a certain atmosphere …”

  “She’s my friend,” Aomame said. “My police officer friend.”

  “Really?” He looked again at Ayumi with an expression of disbelief. “You mean, with a pistol and everything?”

  “I’ve never shot anyone,” Ayumi said.

  “I don’t think I said anything incriminating, did I?”

  Ayumi shook her head. “Not a thing.”

  The chef smiled and clasped his hands across his chest. “In any case, this is a highly respected Burgundy that we can serve to anyone with confidence. From a noble domain, a good year. I won’t say how many ten-thousand-yen bills we’d ordinarily have to charge for this one.”

  The chef withdrew and the waiter approached to pour their wine. Aomame and Ayumi toasted each other, the clink of their glasses a distant echo of heavenly bells.

  “Oh! I’ve never tasted such delicious wine before!” Ayumi said, her eyes narrowed after her first sip. “Who could possibly object to a wine like this?”

  “You can always find somebody to complain about anything,” Aomame said.

  The two women studied the menu. Ayumi went through every item twice with the sharp gaze of a smart lawyer reading a major contract: was she missing something important, a clever loophole? She mentally scrutinized all the provisos and stipulations and pondered their likely repercussions, carefully weighing profit and loss.

  Aomame enjoyed watching this spectacle from across the table. “Have you decided?” she asked.

  “Pretty much,” Ayumi said.

  “So, what are you going to order?”

  “I’ll have the mussels, the three-onion salad, and the Bordeaux-braised Iwate veal stew. How about you?”

  “I’d like the lentil soup, the warm spring green salad, and the parchment-baked monkfish with polenta. Not much of a match for a red wine, but it’s free, so I can’t complain.”

  “Mind sharing a little?”

  “Not at all,” Aomame said. “And if you don’t mind, let’s share the deep-fried shrimp to start.”

  “Marvelous!”

  “If we’re through choosing, we’d better close the menus,” Aomame said. “Otherwise the waiter will never come.”

  “True,” Ayumi said, closing her menu with apparent regret and setting it on the table. The waiter came over immediately and took their order.

  “Whenever I finish ordering in a restaurant, I feel like I got the wrong thing,” Ayumi said when the waiter was gone. “How about you?”

  “Even if you do order the wrong thing, it’s just food. It’s no big deal compared with mistakes in life.”

  “No, of course not,” Ayumi said. “But still, it’s important to me. It’s been that way ever since I was little. Always after I’ve ordered I start having regrets—‘Oh, if only I had ordered the fried shrimp instead of a hamburger!’ Have you always been so cool?”

  “Well, for various reasons, my family never ate out. Ever. As far back as I can remember, I never set foot in a restaurant, and I never had the experience until much later of choosing food from a menu and ordering what I wanted to eat. I just had to shut up and eat what I was served day after day. I wasn’t allowed to complain if the food was tasteless or if it didn’t fill me up or if I hated it. To tell you the truth, even now, I really don’t care what I eat, as long as it’s healthy”

  “Really? Can that be true? I don’t know much about your situation, but you sure don’t look it. To me, you look like somebody who’s been used to coming to places like this since you were little.”

  This Aomame owed entirely to the
guidance of Tamaki Otsuka. How to behave in an elegant restaurant, how to choose your food without making a fool of yourself, how to order wine, how to request dessert, how to deal with your waiter, how to use your cutlery properly: Tamaki knew about all these things, and she taught them all in great detail to Aomame. She also taught Aomame how to choose her clothing, how to wear accessories, and how to use makeup. These were all new discoveries for Aomame. Tamaki grew up in an affluent Yamanote household. A socialite, her mother was exceedingly particular about manners and clothing, as a result of which Tamaki had internalized all that knowledge as early as her high school days. She could socialize comfortably with grown-ups. Aomame absorbed this knowledge voraciously; she would have been a far different person if she had never met an excellent teacher like Tamaki. She often felt that Tamaki was still alive and lurking inside of her.

  Ayumi seemed a little anxious at first, but each sip of wine relaxed her.

  “Uh, I want to ask you something,” Ayumi said. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but I just feel like asking. You won’t get mad, will you?”

  “No, I won’t get mad.”

  “It’s kind of a strange question, but I don’t have any ulterior motive in asking it. I want you to understand that. I’m just a curious person. But some people get really angry about these things.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t get angry.”

  “Are you sure? That’s what everybody says, and then they blow up.”

  “I’m special, so don’t worry.”

  “Did you ever have the experience of having a man do funny things to you when you were little?”

  Aomame shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. Why?”

  “I just wanted to ask. If it never happened to you, fine,” Ayumi said. Then she changed the subject. “Tell me, have you ever had a lover? I mean, someone you were seriously involved with?”

  “Never.”

  “Not even once?”

  “Not even once,” Aomame said. Then, after some hesitation, she added, “To tell you the truth, I was a virgin until I turned twenty-six.”

  Ayumi was at a loss for words. She put down her knife and fork, dabbed at her mouth with her napkin, and stared at Aomame with narrowed eyes.

  “A beautiful woman like you? I can’t believe it.”

  “I just wasn’t interested.”

  “Not interested in men?”

  “I did have one person I fell in love with,” Aomame said. “It happened when I was ten. I held his hand.”

  “You fell in love with a boy when you were ten? That’s all?”

  “That’s all.”

  Ayumi picked up her knife and fork and seemed deep in thought as she sliced one of her shrimp. “So, where is the boy now? What’s he doing?”

  Aomame shook her head. “I don’t know. We were in the same third- and fourth-grade classes in Ichikawa in Chiba, but I moved to a school in Tokyo in the fifth grade, and I never saw him again, never heard anything about him. All I know is that, if he’s still alive, he should be twenty-nine years old now. He’ll probably turn thirty this fall.”

  “Are you telling me you never thought about trying to find out where he is or what he’s doing? It wouldn’t be that hard, you know.”

  Aomame gave another firm shake of her head. “I never felt like taking the initiative to find out.”

  “That’s so strange. If it were me, I’d do everything I could to locate him. If you love him that much, you should track him down and tell him so to his face.”

  “I don’t want to do that,” Aomame said. “What I want is for the two of us to meet somewhere by chance one day, like, passing on the street, or getting on the same bus.”

  “Destiny. A chance encounter.”

  “More or less,” Aomame said, taking a sip of wine. “That’s when I’ll open up to him. ‘The only one I’ve ever loved in this life is you.’ ”

  “How romantic!” Ayumi said, astonished. “But the odds of a meeting like that are pretty low, I’d say. And besides, you haven’t seen him for twenty years. He might look completely different. You could pass him on the street and never know.”

  Aomame shook her head. “I’d know. His face might have changed, but I’d know him at a glance. I couldn’t miss him.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “So you go on waiting, believing that this chance encounter is bound to happen.”

  “Which is why I always pay attention when I walk down the street.”

  “Incredible,” Ayumi said. “But as much as you love him, you don’t mind having sex with other men—at least after you turned twenty-six.”

  Aomame thought about this for a moment. Then she said, “That’s all just in passing. It doesn’t last.”

  A short silence ensued, during which both women concentrated on their food. Then Ayumi said, “Sorry if this is getting too personal, but did something happen to you when you were twenty-six?”

  Aomame nodded. “Something did happen. And it changed me completely. But I can’t talk about it here and now. Sorry.”

  “That’s perfectly okay,” Ayumi said. “Did I put you in a bad mood asking all these questions?”

  “Not in the least,” Aomame said.

  The waiter brought the starters, and they ate for a while in silence. Their conversation picked up again after they had put their spoons down and the waiter cleared their bowls from the table.

  “Aren’t you afraid, though?” Ayumi asked Aomame.

  “Afraid of what?”

  “Don’t you see? You and he might never cross paths again. Of course, a chance meeting could occur, and I hope it happens. I really do, for your sake. But realistically speaking, you have to see there’s a huge possibility you’ll never be able to meet him again. And even if you do meet, he might already be married to somebody else. He might have two kids. Isn’t that so? And in that case, you may have to live the rest of your life alone, never being joined with the one person you love in all the world. Don’t you find that scary?”

  Aomame stared at the red wine in her glass. “Maybe I do,” she said. “But at least I have someone I love.”

  “Even if he never loved you?”

  “If you can love someone with your whole heart, even one person, then there’s salvation in life. Even if you can’t get together with that person.”

  Ayumi thought this over for a while. The waiter approached and refilled their wineglasses. Taking a sip, Aomame thought, Ayumi is right. Who could possibly object to a wine like this?

  “You’re amazing,” Ayumi said, “the way you can put this in such a philosophical perspective.”

  “I’m not being philosophical. I’m just telling you what I honestly think.”

  “I was in love with somebody once,” Ayumi said with a confidential air. “Right after I graduated from high school. The boy I first had sex with. He was three years older than me. But he dumped me for somebody else right away. I went kind of wild after that. It was really hard on me. I got over him, but I still haven’t recovered from the wild part. He was a real two-timing bastard, a smooth talker. But I really loved him.”

  Aomame nodded, and Ayumi picked up her wineglass and took a drink.

  “He still calls me once in a while, says he wants to get together. All he wants is my body, of course. I know that. So I don’t see him. I know it would just be another mess if I did. Or should I say my brain knows it, but my body always reacts. It wants him so badly! When these things build up, I let myself go crazy again. I wonder if you know what I mean.”

  “I certainly do,” Aomame said.

  “He’s really an awful guy, pretty nasty, and he’s not that good in bed, either. But at least he’s not scared of me, and while I’m with him he treats me well.”

  “Feelings like that don’t give you any choice, do they?” Aomame said. “They come at you whenever they want to. It’s not like choosing food from a menu.”

  “It is in one way: you have
regrets after you make a mistake.”

  They shared a laugh.

  Aomame said, “It’s the same with menus and men and just about anything else: we think we’re choosing things for ourselves, but in fact we may not be choosing anything. It could be that everything’s decided in advance and we pretend we’re making choices. Free will may be an illusion. I often think that.”

  “If that’s true, life is pretty dark.”

  “Maybe so.”

  “But if you can love someone with your whole heart—even if he’s a terrible person and even if he doesn’t love you back—life is not a hell, at least, though it might be kind of dark. Is that what you’re saying?” Ayumi asked.

  “Exactly.”

  “But still,” Ayumi said, “it seems to me that this world has a serious shortage of both logic and kindness.”

  “You may be right,” Aomame said. “But it’s too late to trade it in for another one.”

  “The exchange window expired a long time ago,” Ayumi said.

  “And the receipt’s been thrown away.”

  “You said it.”

  “Oh, well, no problem,” Aomame said. “The world’s going to end before we know it.”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  “And the kingdom is going to come.”

  “I can hardly wait,” Ayumi said.

  They ate dessert, drank espresso, and split the bill (which was amazingly cheap). Then they dropped into a neighborhood bar for cocktails.

  “Oh, look at him over there,” Ayumi said. “He’s your type, isn’t he?”

  Aomame swung her gaze in that direction. A tall, middle-aged man was drinking a martini alone at the end of the bar. He looked like a high school scholar-athlete who had entered middle age virtually unchanged. His hair was beginning to thin, but he still had a youthful face.

  “He may be, but we’re not having anything to do with men today,” Aomame declared. “And besides, this is a classy bar.”

  “I know. I just wanted to see what you’d say.”

  “We’ll do that next time.”

  Ayumi looked at Aomame. “Does that mean you’ll go with me next time? Searching for men, I mean.”

  “For sure,” Aomame said. “Let’s do it.”