“Never mind, just take it. Don’t worry, I have more money than I know what to do with.”
The driver looked back and forth between the bill and Aomame’s face.
Aomame said, “If this gets you into trouble with the police or the company, just tell them I threatened you with a pistol. You had no choice but to let me out. That’ll shut them up.”
The driver seemed unable to grasp what she was saying. More money than she knew what to do with? Threatened him with a pistol? Still, he took the money, probably fearing that she might do something even more unreasonable if he refused.
Just as she had done before, Aomame made her way between the expressway’s sidewall and the cars in the left lane, heading toward Shibuya. She had some fifty yards to pass. People in the cars looked at her, incredulous, but Aomame did not let them bother her. She walked ahead with long, confident strides, her back straight, like a fashion model on the Paris runway. The wind stirred her hair. Trucks speeding along the wide-open lanes heading in the other direction shook the roadway. The Esso billboard grew larger as she approached, until finally she reached the familiar emergency turnout.
Everything looked as it had before—the metal barrier, the yellow box next to it containing an emergency telephone.
This is where the year 1Q84 started, Aomame thought.
One world took the place of another from the time I climbed down this emergency stairway to Route 246 below. So I’m going to try climbing down again. The first time I did it, it was April, and I was wearing my beige coat. Now it’s early September, and the weather is too hot for a coat. Aside from the coat, though, I’m wearing exactly the same outfit I had on that day, when I killed that awful man who worked in oil—my Junko Shimada suit and Charles Jourdan high heels. White blouse. Stockings and white underwire bra. I pulled my miniskirt up to step over the barrier and climbed down the emergency stairway from here.
I’ll try doing the same thing again—purely out of curiosity. I just want to know what will happen if I do the same thing in the same place wearing the same outfit. I’m not hoping this will save me. I’m not especially afraid to die. If it comes to that, I’ll do it without hesitation. I can die smiling. But Aomame did not want to die ignorant, failing to grasp how things worked. I want to push myself to my limits, and if things don’t work out, then I can give up. But I will do everything I can until the bitter end. That is how I live.
Aomame leaned over the metal barrier and looked for the emergency stairway. It was not there.
She looked again and again, with the same result. The emergency stairway had vanished.
Aomame bit her lip and twisted her face out of shape.
This is not the wrong place. It was definitely this turnout. Everything around here looks the same. The Esso billboard is right there. The emergency stairway existed in that place in the world of 1984. Aomame had found it easily, exactly where the strange taxi driver had said it would be. She had been able to step over the barrier and climb down. But in the world of 1Q84, the emergency stairway no longer existed.
Her exit was blocked.
Aomame untwisted her face and carefully observed her surroundings. She looked up at the Esso billboard again. Gas hose in hand, curly tail held high, the tiger looked out from the frame with a sly, knowing glance and a happy smile—a smile so utterly joyful it seemed to say that any greater satisfaction was an impossibility.
Yes, of course, Aomame thought.
She had known it from the start. Leader had said so before she killed him in the Hotel Okura suite: there was no way to return from 1Q84 to 1984. The door to this world only opened in one direction.
Even so, Aomame needed to confirm this fact with her own two eyes. It was her nature. And now she had confirmed it. It was all over. The proof was finished. QED.
Aomame leaned against the metal barrier and looked up at the sky. The weather was perfect. Several long, narrow clouds traced straight lines across a deep blue background. She could view the sky far into the distance. It didn’t seem like a city’s sky. But there were no moons to be seen. Where could the moons have gone? Oh well, a moon is a moon, and I am me. Each of us has a different way to live. We each have our own plans.
If she had been Faye Dunaway, at this point Aomame would have taken out a slim cigarette and coolly lit it with a cigarette lighter, elegantly narrowing her eyes. But Aomame did not smoke, and she had neither cigarettes nor a lighter with her. About all she had in her bag was a box of lemon cough drops. That plus a steel 9mm automatic pistol and a specially made ice pick she had used to stab a number of men in the back of the neck. Both might be somewhat more lethal than cigarettes.
She looked at the backed-up line of cars. Inside their vehicles, people were staring intently at her. Of course. Not often did people have the chance to see an ordinary citizen walking along the Metropolitan Expressway, and especially not a young woman, wearing a miniskirt and spike heels, with green sunglasses and a smile on her lips. Anyone who did not look must have something wrong with them.
The majority of vehicles stuck on the roadway were large trucks. They were bringing all sorts of goods from all sorts of places to Tokyo. The drivers had probably been at the wheel all night. And now they were stuck in this fated morning traffic jam. They were bored, fed up, and tired. All they wanted was to take a bath, shave, lie down, and go to sleep. They stared blankly at Aomame, as if they were looking at some unfamiliar animal. They were too tired to engage with her positively.
Wedged between these many trucks, like a graceful antelope caught in a herd of clumsy rhinoceros, was a silver Mercedes-Benz coupe. Its beautiful body, looking fresh from the factory, reflected the newly risen morning sun. Its hubcaps had been color coordinated with the body. The car was an import, with its steering wheel on the left side. The driver’s window was down, and a well-dressed middle-aged woman was looking straight at Aomame. Givenchy sunglasses. Hands visible on the steering wheel. Rings glittering.
The woman had a kind face, and she seemed to be worried about Aomame. She was obviously wondering what a well-dressed young woman was doing out on the roadway of the Metropolitan Expressway and what could have caused her to be there. She looked ready to call out to Aomame. If asked, she might drive her anywhere she wanted to go.
Aomame took off her Ray-Bans and put them in the pocket of her suit top. Squinting in the bright morning light, she spent some time rubbing the dents left on either side of her nose by the glasses. She ran her tongue across her dry lips and caught the faint taste of lipstick. She looked up at the clear sky and checked the ground under her feet once.
She opened her shoulder bag and slowly drew out the Heckler & Koch, dropping the bag at her feet to free up her hands. With her left hand, she released the safety catch and pulled back the slide, sending a round into the chamber. She performed the sequence of movements rapidly and precisely with a few satisfying clicks. She lightly shook the gun in her hand, testing its weight. The gun itself weighed 480 grams, to which the weight of seven bullets was added. No question, it’s loaded. She could tell by the difference in weight.
A smile still played around Aomame’s straight lips. People were focused on her actions. No one was surprised to see her pull a gun out of her bag—or at least they did not show surprise on their faces. Maybe they didn’t believe it was a real gun. It is, though, Aomame told them mentally.
Next she turned the gun upward and thrust the muzzle into her mouth. Now it was aimed directly at her cerebrum—the gray labyrinth where consciousness resided.
The words of a prayer came to her automatically, with no need to think. She intoned them quickly with the muzzle of the gun still in her mouth. Nobody can hear what I am saying, I’m sure. But so what? As long as God can hear me. When a little girl, Aomame could hardly understand the phrases she was reciting, but the words had permeated her to the core. She had to be sure to recite them before her school lunches, all by herself, but in a loud voice, unconcerned about the curious stares and scornful laughter
of the other children. The important thing is that God is watching you. No one can avoid his gaze.
Big Brother is watching you.
O Lord in Heaven, may Thy name be praised in utmost purity for ever and ever, and may Thy kingdom come to us. Please forgive our many sins, and bestow Thy blessings upon our humble pathways. Amen.
The nice-looking middle-aged lady at the wheel of the brand-new Mercedes-Benz was still looking straight at Aomame. Like the other people watching, she seemed unable to grasp the meaning of the gun that Aomame was holding. If she understood, she would have to look away from me, Aomame thought. If she sees my brain splatter in all directions, she probably won’t be able to eat her lunch today—or her dinner. I won’t blame you if you look the other way, Aomame said to her wordlessly. I’m not over here brushing my teeth. I’ve got this German-made automatic pistol, a Heckler & Koch, shoved in my mouth. I’ve said my prayers. You should know what that means.
Here is my advice to you—important advice. Don’t look at anything. Just drive your brand-new Mercedes-Benz straight home—your beautiful home, where your precious husband and children are waiting—and go on living your peaceful life. This is not something that someone like you should see. This is an ugly pistol, a real gun, loaded with seven ugly 9mm bullets. And, as Anton Chekhov said, once a gun appears in a story, it has to be fired at some point. That is what we mean by “a story.”
But the middle-aged lady would not look away from Aomame. Resigned, Aomame gave her head a little shake. Sorry, but I can’t wait any longer. My time is up. Let’s get the show on the road.
Put a tiger in your tank.
“Ho ho,” said the keeper of the beat.
“Ho ho,” the six other Little People joined in.
“Tengo!” said Aomame, and started to squeeze the trigger.
CHAPTER 24
Tengo
AS LONG AS THIS WARMTH REMAINS
Tengo took a morning special express train from Tokyo Station to Tateyama, changed there to a local, and rode it as far as Chikura. The morning was clear and beautiful. There was no wind, and there was hardly a wave to be seen on the ocean. Summer was long gone. He wore a thin cotton jacket over a short-sleeved shirt, which turned out to be exactly right for the weather. Without bathers, the seaside town was surprisingly deserted and quiet. Like a real town of cats, Tengo thought.
He had a simple lunch by the station and took a taxi to the sanatorium, arriving just after one o’clock. The same middle-aged nurse greeted him at the reception desk—the woman who had taken his phone call the night before. Nurse Tamura. She remembered Tengo and was somewhat friendlier than she had been the first time, even managing a little smile, perhaps influenced by Tengo’s nicer outfit.
She guided Tengo first to the lunchroom and poured him a cup of coffee. “Please wait here. The doctor will come to see you,” she said. Ten minutes later, his father’s doctor appeared, drying his hands with a towel. Flecks of white were beginning to appear among the stiff hairs of his head. He was probably around fifty. He was not wearing a white jacket, as if he had just completed some task. Instead he wore a gray sweatshirt, matching gray sweatpants, and an old pair of jogging shoes. He was well built and looked less like a doctor than a college sports coach who had never been able to rise past Division II.
The doctor told Tengo pretty much the same thing he had said on the phone the night before. Judging from his expression and his words, he seemed genuinely saddened when he said, “I’m sorry to say there is almost nothing we can do for him medically at this point. The only thing left to do is let him hear his son’s voice. It might enhance his will to live.”
“Do you think he can hear what people say?” Tengo asked.
The doctor frowned thoughtfully as he sipped his lukewarm green tea. “To tell you the truth, not even I know the answer to that. Your father is in a coma. He shows absolutely no physical response when we speak to him. There have been cases, though, where someone in a deep coma has been able to hear people talking and sometimes even understand what was being said.”
“But you can’t tell by looking at them.”
“No, we can’t.”
“I can stay here until six thirty tonight,” Tengo said. “I’ll sit with him all day and talk to him as much as possible. Let’s see if it does any good.”
“Please let me know if he shows any kind of reaction,” the doctor said. “I’ll be around here somewhere.”
A young nurse showed Tengo to his father’s room. She wore a name badge that read “Adachi.” His father had been moved to a private room in the new wing, the wing for more serious patients. In other words, the gears had advanced one more notch. There was nowhere else to move after this. It was a drab little room, long and narrow, and more than half filled by the bed. Beyond the window stretched the pine woods that acted as a windbreak. The dense grove looked like a wall, separating the sanatorium from the vitality of the real world. The nurse went out, leaving Tengo alone with his father, who lay on his back, sound asleep. Tengo sat on a small wooden stool by the bed and looked at his father.
Near the head of the bed stood an intravenous feeding device, the liquid in its plastic bag being sent into a vein in his father’s arm through a tube. A catheter had been inserted to catch urine, surprisingly little of which had been collected. His father seemed to have shrunk another size or two since the month before. His emaciated cheeks and chin wore perhaps two days’ growth of white beard. His father had always had sunken eyes, but now they were more deeply set than ever. Tengo couldn’t help wondering if it might be necessary to pull the eyeballs up from their holes with some kind of medical device. His eyelids were tightly shut at the bottoms of those caverns like lowered shutters, and his mouth was slightly open. Tengo couldn’t hear his father’s breathing, but, bringing his ear close, he could feel the slight movement of air. Life was being quietly maintained there at a minimal level.
The doctor’s words on the phone last night—“like a train, dropping its speed little by little as it begins to stop”—began to feel terribly real to Tengo. This “father” train was gradually lowering its speed, waiting for its momentum to run down, and preparing to come to a quiet stop in the middle of an empty prairie. At least there was no longer a single passenger aboard, no one to raise a complaint even if the train came to a halt. That was the only salvation.
Tengo felt he ought to start talking to his father, but he did not know what he should say, how he should say it, or what tone of voice to use. All right, say something, he told himself, but no meaningful words came to mind.
“Father,” he ventured in a whisper, but no other words followed.
He got up from the stool, approached the window, and looked at the well-tended lawn and garden and the sky stretching high above the pine woods. A solitary crow sat perched on a large antenna, glaring at the area with disdain as it caught the sunlight. A combination transistor radio/alarm clock had been placed near the head of the bed, but his father required neither of its functions.
“It’s me—Tengo. I just came from Tokyo. Can you hear me?” he said, standing at the window, looking down at his father, who did not respond at all. After vibrating in the air for a moment, the sound of his voice was absorbed without a trace by the void that had come to occupy the room.
This man is trying to die, Tengo thought. He could tell by looking at the deeply sunken eyes. He made up his mind to end his life, and then he closed his eyes and went into a deep sleep. No matter what I say to him, no matter how much I try to rouse him, it will be impossible to overturn his resolution. Medically speaking, he was still alive, but life had already ended for this man. He no longer had the reason or the will to continue to struggle. All that Tengo could do was respect his father’s wishes and let him die in peace. The look on his face was utterly tranquil. He did not seem to be suffering at all. As the doctor had said on the phone, that was the one salvation.
Still, Tengo had to speak to his father, if only because he had promised the do
ctor that he would do so. The doctor seemed to be caring for his father with genuine warmth. Secondly, there was the question of what he thought of as “courtesy.” Tengo had not had a full-fledged conversation with his father for a very long time, not even small talk. The truth was that Tengo had probably been in middle school the last time they had had a real conversation. Tengo hardly ever went near their home after that, and even when he had some business that required him to go to the house, he did his best to avoid seeing his father.
Now, having made a de facto confession to Tengo that he was not his real father, the man could lay down his burden at last. He looked in some way relieved. That means that each of us was able to lay down his burden—at the last possible moment.
Here was the man who had raised Tengo as his own son, listing him as such in the family register despite the absence of blood ties, and raising him until he was old enough to fend for himself. I owe him that much. I have some obligation to tell him how I have lived my life thus far, as well as some of the thoughts I have had in the course of living that life, Tengo thought. No, it’s not so much an obligation as a courtesy. It doesn’t matter if the things I am saying reach his ears or whether telling him serves any purpose.
Tengo sat on the stool by the bed once again and began to narrate a summary of his life to date, beginning from the time he left the house and started living in the judo dorm when he entered high school. From that time onward, he and his father had lost nearly all points of contact, creating a situation in which neither had the least concern for what the other was doing. Tengo felt he should probably fill in such a large vacuum as best he could.
Ultimately, however, there was almost nothing for Tengo to tell about his life in high school. He had entered a private high school in Chiba Prefecture that had a strong reputation for its judo program. He could easily have gotten into a better school, but the conditions offered him by that school were the best. They waived his tuition and allowed him to live in the dormitory, providing him with three meals a day. Tengo became a star member of the judo team, studied between practice sessions (he could maintain some of the highest grades in his class without having to study too hard), and he earned extra money during vacations by doing assorted manual labor with his teammates. With so much to do, he found himself pressed for time day after day. There was little to say about his three years of high school other than that it was a busy time for him. It had not been especially enjoyable, nor had he made any close friends. He never liked the school, which had a lot of rules. He did what he had to do in order to get along with his teammates, but they weren’t really on the same wavelength. In all honesty, Tengo never once felt totally committed to judo as a sport. He needed to win in order to support himself, so he devoted a lot of energy to practice in order not to betray others’ expectations. It was less a sport to him than a practical means of survival—a job. He spent the three years of high school wanting to graduate so that he could begin living a more serious life as soon as possible.