Coming out of the powder room, Aomame found Buzzcut standing at attention with his back to her, speaking at low volume into a telephone. When he saw her, he cut his call short, quietly hung up the receiver, and gave her a once-over in her jersey outfit.

“All set?” he asked.

“Whenever you are,” Aomame said.

“First I have a request to make,” Buzzcut said.

Aomame gave him a token smile.

“That you not say a word about tonight to anyone,” Buzzcut said. He paused a moment so that his message could sink in. It was as if he had scattered water on dry earth and was waiting for it to be absorbed and disappear. She watched him the whole time without saying anything.

Buzzcut continued, “Pardon me if this sounds crass, but we are planning to offer you generous remuneration, and we may be requesting your services from time to time in the future. So we would like to ask you to forget anything and everything that happens here tonight. Whatever you see or hear. Everything.”

“As you know,” Aomame said, adopting a somewhat frosty tone, “my work involves people’s bodies, so I believe I am well versed in the ways of professional confidentiality. No information of any kind regarding an individual’s body will leave this room. If that is what concerns you, I can assure you there is no need to worry.”

“Excellent. That is what we wanted to hear,” Buzzcut said. “But let me just add that we would appreciate it if you would view this as a case that goes beyond professional confidentiality in the most general sense. Where you are about to set foot is, so to speak, a sacred space.”

“A sacred space?”

“It may sound a bit much, but, believe me, it is no exaggeration. The one you are about to lay eyes on, and to place your hands upon, is a sacred person. There is no other appropriate way to put it.”

Aomame nodded, saying nothing. This was no time for remarks from her.

Buzzcut said, “We took the liberty of running a background check on you. I hope you’re not offended, but it was something we had to do. We have our reasons for taking every precaution.”

Aomame stole a glance at Ponytail as she listened. He was sitting motionless in a chair beside the door, his back perfectly straight, hands on his knees, chin pulled back. He could have been posing for a photo. His eyes were locked on her the whole time.

Buzzcut looked down at his feet as if to check how worn out his black shoes might be, then raised his face and looked at Aomame again. “In short, we found no problems, which is why we have asked you to come today. You have a reputation as a talented instructor, and in fact people think very highly of you.”

“Thank you very much,” Aomame said.

“I understand you used to be a Society of Witnesses believer. Is that true?”

“Yes, it is. Both of my parents were believers, and they naturally made me one, too, from the time I was born. I didn’t choose it for myself, and I left the religion a long time ago.”

I wonder if their investigation turned up the fact that Ayumi and I used to go out man hunting in Roppongi? Oh well, it doesn’t make any difference. If they did find out, it obviously didn’t bother them. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here now.

“We know about that, too,” Buzzcut said. “But you did live in faith at one time in your life—that especially impressionable time of early childhood. So I assume you have a good idea what I mean when I speak of something as ‘sacred.’ In any religion, the sacred lies at the very root of faith. We must never tread upon that world. There is a sacred region into which we dare not stray. The first step of all faith is to recognize its existence, accept it, and revere it absolutely. You do understand what I am trying to say, don’t you?”

“I think so,” Aomame said, “though whether I accept it or not is another matter.”

“Of course,” Buzzcut said. “Of course there is no need for you to accept it. It is our faith, not yours. But, transcending the question of belief or nonbelief, you are likely to witness special things—a being who is by no means ordinary.”

Aomame kept silent. A being who is by no means ordinary.

Buzzcut narrowed his eyes for a time, gauging the meaning of Aomame’s silence. Then, speaking unhurriedly, he said, “Whatever you happen to witness today, you must not mention it to anyone on the outside. For that would cause an ineradicable defilement of the holiness, as if a clear, beautiful pond were polluted by a foreign body. Whatever the world at large might think, or the laws of this world might stipulate, that is how we feel about it. If we can count on you, and if you will keep your promise, we can, as I said before, provide you with generous remuneration.”

“I see,” Aomame said.

“We are a small religious body, but we have strong hearts and long arms,” Buzzcut said.

You have long arms, Aomame thought. I guess I’ll be testing to find out just how long they are.

Leaning against the desk with his arms folded, Buzzcut studied Aomame, as if checking to see whether a picture hanging on the wall was crooked or straight. Ponytail remained motionless, never once taking his eyes off of Aomame.

Buzzcut checked his watch.

“Let’s go, then,” he said. He cleared his throat once, then moved slowly across the room with the careful steps of a pilgrim crossing the surface of a lake. He gave two soft knocks on the door to the connecting room and, without waiting for a response, pulled the door open, gave a slight bow, and entered. Aomame followed, carrying the gym bag. Sinking step after careful step into the deep carpet, she made sure that her breathing was under control. Her finger was cocked and ready to pull the trigger of the pistol in her imagination. Nothing to worry about. I’m the same as always. But still, Aomame was afraid. A chunk of ice was stuck to her spine—ice that showed no sign of melting. I’m cool, calm, and—deep down—afraid.

We must never tread upon that world. There is a sacred region into which we dare not stray, Buzzcut had said. Aomame knew what he meant by that. She herself had once lived in a world that placed such a region at its core. In fact, I might still be living in that world. I just may not be aware of it.

Aomame soundlessly repeated the words of her prayer with her lips. Then she took one deep breath, made up her mind, and walked into the next room.

CHAPTER 8

Tengo

TIME FOR THE CATS TO COME

Tengo spent the next week or more in a strange silence. One night, the man named Yasuda had called to tell Tengo that his wife had been lost and would never visit Tengo again. An hour later Ushikawa had called to tell him that Tengo and Fuka-Eri were functioning together as a carrier of a “thought crime” epidemic. Each caller had conveyed to Tengo a message containing (he could only believe that it did contain) a deep meaning, the way a toga-clad Roman would mount a platform in the middle of the Forum to make a proclamation to concerned citizens. And once each man had spoken his piece, he had hung up on Tengo.

Not one person had contacted Tengo since those two nighttime calls. There were no phone calls, no letters, no knocks on the door, no carrier pigeons. Neither Komatsu nor Professor Ebisuno nor Fuka-Eri nor Kyoko Yasuda had anything at all they needed to convey to Tengo.

And Tengo felt as if he had lost all interest in those people. Nor was it just them: he seemed to have lost interest in anything at all. He didn’t care about the sales of Air Chrysalis or what its author, Fuka-Eri, might be doing now, or what was happening with Komatsu’s scheme or whether Professor Ebisuno’s coolly conceived plan was progressing well, or how close the media had come to sniffing out the truth, or what kind of moves Sakigake might be making. If the boat they were all riding in was plunging over the falls upside down, there was nothing to do but fall with it. Tengo could struggle all he wanted to at this point, and it would do nothing to change the flow of the river.