She released the hammer of the automatic pistol, set the safety, and put it inside her shoulder bag. She straightened up, put on her sunglasses, and walked in the opposite direction of traffic back to her taxi. People silently watched her, in her high heels, striding down the expressway. She didn’t have to walk for long. Even in the traffic jam, her taxi had managed to inch forward and had come up to where she was now standing.
Aomame knocked on the window and the driver lowered it.
“Can I get in again?”
The driver hesitated. “That thing you put in your mouth over there looked like a pistol.”
“It was.”
“A real one?”
“No way,” Aomame replied, curling her lips.
The driver opened the door, and she climbed in. She took the bag off her shoulder and laid it on the seat and wiped her mouth with her handkerchief. She could still taste the metal and the residue of gun oil.
“So, did you find an emergency stairway?” the driver asked.
Aomame shook her head.
“I’m not surprised. I never heard of an emergency stairway anywhere around here,” the driver said. “Would you still like to get off at the Ikejiri exit?”
“Yes, that would be fine,” Aomame replied.
The driver rolled down his window, stuck his hand out, and pulled over into the right lane in front of a large bus. The meter in the cab was unchanged from when she had gotten out.
Aomame leaned back against the seat, and, breathing slowly, she gazed at the familiar Esso billboard. The huge tiger was looking in her direction, smiling, with a gas hose in his paw. Put a Tiger in Your Tank, the ad read.
“Put a tiger in your tank,” she whispered.
“Excuse me?” the driver said, glancing at her in the rearview mirror.
“Nothing. Just talking to myself.”
I think I’ll stay alive here a bit longer, and see with my own eyes what’s going to happen. I can still die after that—it won’t be too late. Probably.
The day after she gave up on killing herself, Tamaru called her. So Aomame told him that the plan had changed—that she was going to stay put, and not change her name or get plastic surgery.
On the other end of the line Tamaru was silent. Several theories noiselessly aligned themselves in his mind.
“In other words, you’re saying you don’t want to move to another location?”
“Correct,” Aomame replied. “I would like to stay here for the time being.”
“That place is not set up to hide someone for an extended period.”
“If I stay inside and don’t go out, they shouldn’t find me.”
“Don’t underestimate them,” Tamaru said. “They will do everything they can to pinpoint who you are and hunt you down. And you won’t be the only one in danger. It could involve those around you. If that happens, I could be put in a difficult position.”
“I’m very sorry about that. But I need a bit more time.”
“A bit more time? That’s a little vague,” Tamaru said.
“That’s the only way I can put it.”
Tamaru was silent, in thought. He seemed to have sensed how firm her decision was.
“I have to keep my priorities straight,” he said. “Do you understand that?”
“I think so.”
Tamaru was silent again, and then continued.
“All right. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t misunderstanding. Since you insist on staying, you must have your reasons.”
“I do,” Aomame said.
Tamaru briefly cleared his throat. “As I have told you before, we have committed to take you someplace safe, and far away—to erase any trail, change your face and name. Maybe it won’t be a total transformation, but as close to total as we can manage. I thought we were agreed on this.”
“Of course I understand. I’m not saying I don’t like the plan itself. It’s just that something unexpected occurred, and I need to stay put for a while longer.”
“I am not authorized to say yes or no to this,” Tamaru said, making a faint sound in the back of his throat. “It might take a while to get an answer.”
“I’ll be here,” Aomame said.
“Glad to hear it,” Tamaru said, and hung up.
The phone rang the next morning, just before nine. Three rings, then it stopped, and rang again. It had to be Tamaru.
Tamaru launched right in without saying hello. “Madame also is concerned about you staying there for very long. It is just a safe house, and it is not totally secure. Both of us agree that it’s best to move you somewhere far away, somewhere more secure. Do you follow me?”
“I do.”
“But you are a calm, cautious person. You don’t make stupid mistakes, and I know you are committed. We trust you implicitly.”
“I appreciate that.”
“If you insist that you want to stay in that place for a bit longer then you must have your reasons. We don’t know what your rationale is, but I’m sure it’s not just a whim. So she is thinking that she would like to follow your wishes as much as she can.”
Aomame said nothing.
Tamaru continued. “You can stay there until the end of the year. But that’s the limit.”
“After the first of the year, then, I need to move to another place.”
“Please understand we are doing our very best to respect your wishes.”
“I understand,” Aomame said. “I’ll be here until the end of the year, then I will move.”
But this wasn’t her real intention. She didn’t plan to take one step out of this apartment until she saw Tengo again. If she mentioned this now, though, complications would set in. She could delay things for over three months, until the end of the year. After that she would consider what to do next.
“Fine,” Tamaru said. “We’ll deliver food and other necessities once a week. At one p.m. each Tuesday the supply masters will stop by. They have a key, so they can get in on their own. They will only go to the kitchen, nowhere else. While they are at the apartment, I want you to go into the back bedroom and lock the door. Don’t show your face, or speak. When they’re leaving, they will ring the doorbell once. Then you can come out of the bedroom. If there’s anything special you need, let me know right now and I’ll have it included in the next delivery.”
“It would be nice to have equipment so I could do some strength training,” Aomame said. “There’s only so much you can do exercising and stretching without equipment.”
“Full-scale gym equipment is out of the question, but we could supply some home equipment, the kind that doesn’t take up much space.”
“Something very basic would be fine,” Aomame said.
“A stationary bike and some auxiliary equipment for strength training. Would that do it?”
“That would be great. If possible, I’d also like to get a metal softball bat.”
Tamaru was silent for a few seconds.
“A bat has many uses,” Aomame explained. “Just having it next to me makes me calm. It’s like I grew up with a bat in my hand.”
“Okay. I’ll get one for you,” Tamaru said. “If you think of anything else you need, write it on a piece of paper and leave it on the kitchen counter. I’ll make sure you get it the next time we bring supplies.”
“Thank you. But I think I have everything I need.”
“How about books and videos and the like?”
“I can’t think of anything I particularly want.”
“How about Proust’s In Search of Lost Time?” Tamaru asked. “If you’ve never read it this would be a good opportunity to read the whole thing.”
“Have you read it?”
“No, I’ve never been in jail, or had to hide out for a long time. Someone once said unless you have those kinds of opportunities, you can’t read the whole of Proust.”
“Do you know anybody who has read the whole thing?”
“I’ve known some people who have spent a long period in jail, b
ut none were the type to be interested in Proust.”
“I’d like to give it a try,” Aomame said. “If you can get ahold of those books, bring them the next time you bring supplies.”
“Actually, I already got them for you,” Tamaru said.
The so-called supply masters came on Tuesday afternoon at one p.m. on the dot. As instructed, Aomame went into the back bedroom, locked it from the inside, and tried not to make a sound. She heard the front door being unlocked and people opening the door and coming in. Aomame had no idea what kind of people these “supply masters” were. From the sounds they made she got the feeling there were two of them, but she didn’t hear any voices. They carried in several boxes and silently went about putting things away. She heard them at the sink, rinsing off the food they had bought and then stacking it in the fridge. They must have decided beforehand who would be in charge of what. They unwrapped some boxes, and she could hear them folding up the wrapping paper and containers. It sounded like they were wrapping up the kitchen garbage as well. Aomame couldn’t take the bag of garbage downstairs to the collection spot, so she had to have somebody take it for her.
The people seemed to do their work efficiently, with no wasted effort. They tried not to make any unnecessary noise, and their footsteps, too, were quiet. They were finished in about twenty minutes. Then they opened the front door and left. She heard them lock the front door from the outside, and then the doorbell rang once as a signal. To be on the safe side, Aomame waited fifteen minutes. Then she exited the bedroom, made sure no one else was there, and locked the dead bolt on the front door.
The large fridge was crammed full of a week’s worth of food. This time it wasn’t the kind of food you popped in the microwave, but mostly fresh groceries: a variety of fruits and vegetables; fish and meat; tofu, wakame, and natto. Milk, cheese, and orange juice. A dozen eggs. So there wouldn’t be any extra garbage, they had taken everything out of their original containers and then neatly rewrapped them in plastic wrap. They had done a good job understanding the type of food she normally ate. How would they know this? she wondered. A stationary bicycle was set down next to the window, a small but high-end model. The digital display on it showed speed, distance, and calories burned. You could also monitor rpms and heart rate. There was a bench press to work on abs, deltoids, and triceps, the kind of equipment that was easy to assemble and disassemble. Aomame was quite familiar with it. It was the newest type, a very simple design yet very effective. With these two pieces of equipment she would have no trouble keeping in shape.
A metal bat in a soft case was there as well. Aomame took it out of the case and took a few swings. The shiny, new silver bat swished sharply through the air. The old familiar heft of it calmed her. The feel of the bat in her hands brought back memories of her teenage years, and the time she had spent with Tamaki Otsuka.
All seven volumes of In Search of Lost Time were piled up on the dining table. They were not new copies, but they appeared to be unread. Aomame flipped through one. There were several magazines, too—weekly and monthly magazines—and five brand-new videos, still in their plastic wrap. She had no idea who had chosen them, but they were all new movies she had never seen. She was not in the habit of going to movie theaters, so there were always a lot of new films that she missed.
There were three brand-new sweaters in a large department-store shopping bag, in different thicknesses. There were two thick flannel shirts, and four long-sleeved T-shirts. All of them were in plain fabric and simple designs. They were all the perfect size. There were also some thick socks and tights. If she was going to be here until December, she would need them. Her handlers knew what they were doing.
She took the clothes into the bedroom and folded them to store in drawers or hung them on hangers in the closet. She had gone back to the kitchen and was drinking coffee when the phone rang. It rang three times, stopped, then rang again.
“Did you get everything?” Tamaru asked.
“Yes, thank you. I think I have everything I need now. The exercise equipment is more than enough. Now I just have to crack open Proust.”
“If there is anything that we’ve overlooked, don’t hesitate to tell me.”
“I won’t,” Aomame said. “Though I don’t think it would be easy to find anything you have overlooked.”
Tamaru cleared his throat. “This might not be my business, but do you mind if I give you a warning?”
“Go right ahead.”
“Unless you have experienced it, being shut up in a small place by yourself, unable to see or talk to anyone else, is not the easiest thing in the world. No matter how tough a person might be, eventually he is going to make a sound. Especially when someone is after you.”
“I haven’t been living in very spacious places up till now.”
“That could be an advantage,” Tamaru said. “Still, I want you to be very careful. If a person remains tense for a long time he might not notice it himself, but it’s like his nerves are a piece of rubber that has been stretched out. It’s hard to go back to the original shape.”
“I’ll be careful,” Aomame said.
“As I said before, you are a very cautious person. You’re practical and patient, not overconfident. But no matter how careful a person might be, once your concentration slips, you will definitely make one or two mistakes. Loneliness becomes an acid that eats away at you.”
“I don’t think I’m lonely,” Aomame declared. She said this half to Tamaru, and half to herself. “I’m all alone, but I’m not lonely.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone, as if Tamaru were giving serious thought to the difference between being alone and being lonely.
“At any rate I’ll be more cautious than I have been,” Aomame said. “Thank you for the advice.”
“There is one thing I’d like you to understand,” Tamaru said. “We will do whatever we can to protect you. But if some emergency situation arises—what that might be, I don’t know—you may have to deal with it yourself. I can run over there as fast as possible and still might not make it in time. Depending on the situation, I may not be able to get there at all. For instance, if it is no longer desirable for us to have a connection with you.”
“I understand completely. I plan to protect myself. With the bat, and with the thing you gave me.”
“It’s a tough world.”
“Wherever there’s hope there’s a trial,” Aomame said.
Tamaru was silent again for a moment, and then spoke. “Have you heard about the final tests given to candidates to become interrogators for Stalin’s secret police?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“A candidate would be put in a square room. The only thing in the room is an ordinary small wooden chair. And the interrogator’s boss gives him an order. He says, ‘Get this chair to confess and write up a report on it. Until you do this, you can’t leave this room.’ ”
“Sounds pretty surreal.”
“No, it isn’t. It’s not surreal at all. It’s a real story. Stalin actually did create that kind of paranoia, and some ten million people died on his watch—most of them his fellow countrymen. And we actually live in that kind of world. Don’t ever forget that.”
“You’re full of heartwarming stories, aren’t you.”
“Not really. I just have a few set aside, just in case. I never received a formal education. I just learned whatever looked useful, as I experienced it. Wherever there’s hope there’s a trial. You’re exactly right. Absolutely. Hope, however, is limited, and generally abstract, while there are countless trials, and they tend to be concrete. That is also something I had to learn on my own.”
“So what kind of confession did the interrogator candidates extract from the chairs?”
“That is a question definitely worth considering,” Tamaru said. “Sort of like a Zen koan.”
“Stalinist Zen,” Aomame said.
After a short pause, Tamaru hung up.
That afternoon she worked out o
n the stationary bike and the bench press. Aomame enjoyed the moderate workout, her first in a while. Afterward she showered, then made dinner while listening to an FM station. In the evening she checked the TV news (though not a single item caught her interest). After the sun had set she went out to the balcony to watch the playground, with her usual blanket, binoculars, and pistol. And her shiny brand-new bat.
If Tengo doesn’t show up by then, she thought, I guess I will see out this enigmatic year of 1Q84 in this corner of Koenji, one monotonous day after another. I’ll cook, exercise, check the news, and work my way through Proust—and wait for Tengo to show up at the playground. Waiting for him is the central task of my life. Right now that slender thread is what is barely keeping me alive. It’s like that spider I saw when I was climbing down the emergency stairway on the Metropolitan Expressway No. 3. A tiny black spider that had spun a pathetic little web in a corner of the grimy steel frame and was silently lying in wait. The wind from under the bridge had blown the spider web, which hung there precariously, tattered and full of dust. When I first saw it, I thought it was pitiful. But right now I’m in the same situation.
I have to get ahold of a recording of Janáček’s Sinfonietta. I need it when I’m working out. It makes me feel connected. It’s as if that music is leading me to something. To what, though, I can’t say. She made a mental note to add that to the next list of supplies.
It was October now. There were less than three months left of her reprieve. The clock kept ticking away, ceaselessly. Aomame sank down into her garden chair and continued to watch the slide in the playground through the plastic blinds. The little children’s playground looked pale under the mercury-vapor lamp. The scene made Aomame think of deserted hallways in an aquarium at night. Invisible, imaginary fish were swimming noiselessly through the trees, never halting their silent movements. And two moons hung in the sky, waiting for Aomame’s acknowledgment.
“Tengo,” she whispered. “Where are you?”