His father turned once more in Tengo’s direction. His expressionless eyes made Tengo think of two empty swallows’ nests hanging from the eaves.

“Hello,” Tengo said.

“Mr. Kawana, your son is here from Tokyo!” the nurse said.

His father said nothing. Instead, he looked straight at Tengo as if he were reading a bulletin written in a foreign language.

“Dinner starts at six thirty,” the nurse said to Tengo. “Please feel free to stay until then.”

Tengo hesitated for a moment after the nurse was gone, and then approached his father, sitting down in the chair that faced his—a faded, cloth-covered chair, its wooden parts scarred from long use. His father’s eyes followed his movements.

“How are you?” Tengo asked.

“Fine, thank you,” his father said formally.

Tengo did not know what to say after that. Toying with the third button of his dungaree shirt, he turned his gaze toward the pine trees outside and then back again to his father.

“You have come from Tokyo, is it?” his father asked, apparently unable to remember Tengo.

“Yes, from Tokyo.”

“You must have come by express train.”

“That’s right,” Tengo said. “As far as Tateyama. There I transferred to a local for the trip here to Chikura.”

“You’ve come to swim?” his father asked.

“I’m Tengo. Tengo Kawana. Your son.”

“Where do you live in Tokyo?” his father asked.

“In Koenji. Suginami Ward.”

The three wrinkles across his father’s forehead deepened. “A lot of people tell lies because they don’t want to pay their NHK subscription fee.”

“Father!” Tengo called out to him. This was the first time he had spoken the word in a very long time. “I’m Tengo. Your son.”

“I don’t have a son,” his father declared.

“You don’t have a son,” Tengo repeated mechanically.

His father nodded.

“So, what am I?” Tengo asked.

“You’re nothing,” his father said with two short shakes of the head.

Tengo caught his breath. He could find no words. Nor did his father have any more to say. Each sat in silence, searching through his tangled thoughts. Only the cicadas sang without confusion, screeching at top volume.

He may be speaking the truth, Tengo felt. His memory may have been destroyed, and his mind might be sunk in mud, but the words on his lips are probably true. Tengo understood this intuitively.

“What are you talking about?” Tengo asked.

“You are nothing,” his father repeated the words, his voice devoid of emotion. “You were nothing, you are nothing, and you will be nothing.”

That’s enough, Tengo thought.

He wanted to get up out of his chair, walk to the station, and go back to Tokyo. He had heard what he needed to hear. But he could not stand up. He was like the young man who traveled to the town of cats. He had curiosity. He wanted to know what lay behind those words. He wanted a clearer answer. There was danger lurking there, of course. But if he let this opportunity escape, he would lose any chance to learn the secret about himself forever. It would sink into total chaos.

Tengo arranged and rearranged words in his head until, at last, he was ready to speak them. This was the question he had come close to asking since childhood but could never quite manage to utter.

“What you’re saying, then, is that you are not my biological father, correct? You are telling me that there is no blood connection between us, is that it?”

His father looked at him without speaking. It was impossible to tell from his expression whether he had understood the meaning of Tengo’s question.

“Stealing radio waves is an unlawful act,” his father said, looking into Tengo’s eyes. “It is no different from stealing money or valuables, don’t you think?”

“You’re probably right,” Tengo decided to agree for now.

His father nodded several times with apparent satisfaction.

“Radio waves don’t come falling out of the sky for free like rain or snow,” his father said.

With his lips closed Tengo stared at his father’s hands. They were lined up neatly on his knees, right hand on right knee, left hand on left knee, stock still. Small, dark hands, they looked tanned to the core by long years of outdoor work.

“My mother didn’t really die of an illness when I was little, did she?” Tengo asked slowly, speaking phrase by phrase.

His father did not answer. His expression did not change, and his hands did not move. His eyes focused on Tengo as if they were observing something unfamiliar.

“My mother left you. She got rid of you and left me behind. She probably went off with another man. Am I wrong?”

His father nodded. “It is not good to steal radio waves. You can’t get away with it, doing anything you like.”

This man understands my questions perfectly well. He just doesn’t want to answer them directly, Tengo felt.

“Father,” Tengo addressed him. “You may not actually be my father, but I’ll call you that for now because I don’t know what else to call you. To tell you the truth, I’ve never liked you. Maybe I’ve even hated you most of the time. You know that, don’t you? But even supposing you are not my real father and there is no blood connection between us, I no longer have any reason to hate you. I don’t know if I can go so far as to be fond of you, but I think that at least I should be able to understand you better than I do now. I have always wanted to know the truth about who I am and where I came from. That’s all. But no one ever told me. If you will tell me the truth right now, I won’t hate you or dislike you anymore. In fact, I would welcome the opportunity not to have to hate you or dislike you any longer.”

His father went on staring at Tengo with expressionless eyes, saying nothing, but Tengo felt he might be seeing the tiniest gleam of light flashing somewhere deep within those empty swallows’ nests.

“I am nothing,” Tengo said. “You are right. I’m like someone who’s been thrown into the ocean at night, floating all alone. I reach out, but no one is there. I call out, but no one answers. I have no connection to anything. The closest thing I have to a family is you, but you hold on to the secret and won’t even try to tell me anything. Meanwhile, in this seaside town, your memory goes through repeated ups and downs as it steadily deteriorates day by day. Like your memory, the truth about me is being lost. Without the aid of truth, I am nothing, and I can never be anything. You are right about that, too.”

“Knowledge is a precious social asset,” his father said in a monotone, though his voice was somewhat quieter than before, as if someone behind him had reached over and turned down the volume. “It is an asset that must be amassed in abundant stockpiles and utilized with the utmost care. It must be handed down to the next generation in fruitful forms. For that reason, too, NHK needs to have all of your subscription fees and—”

This is a kind of mantra for him, thought Tengo. He has protected himself all these years by reciting such phrases. Tengo felt he had to smash this obstinate amulet of his, to pull the living human being out from behind the surrounding barrier.

He cut his father short. “What kind of person was my mother? Where did she go? What happened to her?”

His father brought his incantation to a sudden halt.

Tengo went on, “I’m tired of living in hatred and resentment. I’m tired of living unable to love anyone. I don’t have a single friend—not one. And, worst of all, I can’t even love myself. Why is that? Why can’t I love myself? It’s because I can’t love anyone else. A person learns how to love himself through the simple acts of loving and being loved by someone else. Do you understand what I am saying? A person who is incapable of loving another cannot properly love himself. No, I’m not blaming you for this. Come to think of it, you may be such a victim. You probably don’t know how to love yourself. Am I wrong about that?”