Tengo did not know, of course, if he would be granted such a dramatic revelation sometime in the future. It might never come. But what he needed was something so enormous, on such an overwhelming scale, that it could rival and even surpass the striking images of the “waking dream” that had disoriented and jolted and tormented him over these many years. He needed something that would totally purge him of this image. Fragmentary information would do him no good at all.

These were the thoughts that ran through Tengo’s mind as he climbed three flights of stairs.

Tengo stood in front of his apartment door, pulled his key from his pocket, inserted the key in the lock, and turned it. Then, before opening the door, he knocked three times, paused, and knocked twice more. Finally, he eased the door open.

Fuka-Eri was sitting at the table, drinking tomato juice from a tall glass. She was dressed in the same clothes she had been wearing when she arrived—a striped men’s shirt and slim blue jeans. But the impression she made on Tengo was very different from the one she had given him that morning. It took Tengo a while to realize why: she had her hair tied up, revealing her ears and the back of her neck. Those small, pink ears of hers looked as though they had been daubed with powder using a soft brush and had just been made a short time ago for purely aesthetic reasons, not for the practical purpose of hearing sounds. Or at least they looked that way to Tengo. The slim, well-shaped neck below the ears had a lustrous glow, like vegetables raised in abundant sunshine, immaculate and well suited to morning dew and ladybugs. This was the first time he had seen her with her hair up, and it was a miraculously intimate and beautiful sight.

Tengo had closed the door by reaching around behind himself, but he went on standing there in the entrance. Her bared ears and neck disoriented him as much as another woman’s total nakedness. Like an explorer who has discovered the secret spring at the source of the Nile, Tengo stared at Fuka-Eri with narrowed eyes, speechless, hand still clutching the doorknob.

“I took a shower,” she said to Tengo as he stood there transfixed. She spoke in grave tones, as though she had just recalled a major event. “I used your shampoo and rinse.”

Tengo nodded. Then, exhaling, he finally wrenched his hand from the doorknob and locked the door. Shampoo and rinse? He stepped forward, away from the door.

“Did the phone ring after I called?” Tengo asked.

“Not at all,” Fuka-Eri said. She gave her head a little shake.

Tengo went to the window, parted the curtains slightly, and looked outside. The view from the third floor had nothing unusual about it—no suspicious people lurking there or suspicious cars parked out front, just the usual drab expanse of this drab residential neighborhood. The misshapen trees lining the street wore a layer of gray dust. The pedestrian guardrail was full of dents. Rusty bicycles lay abandoned by the side of the road. A wall bore the police slogan “Driving Drunk: A One-Way Street to a Ruined Life.” (Did the police have slogan-writing specialists in their ranks?) A nasty-looking old man was walking a stupid-looking mutt. A stupid-looking woman drove by in an ugly subcompact. Nasty-looking wires stretched from one ugly utility pole to another. The scene outside the window suggested that the world had settled in a place somewhere midway between “being miserable” and “lacking in joy,” and consisted of an infinite agglomeration of variously shaped microcosms.

On the other hand, there also existed in the world such unexceptionably beautiful views as Fuka-Eri’s ears and neck. In which should he place the greater faith? It was not easy for him to decide. Like a big, confused dog, Tengo made a soft growling noise in his throat, closed the curtains, and returned to his own little world.

“Does Professor Ebisuno know that you’re here?” Tengo asked.

Fuka-Eri shook her head. The professor did not know.

“Don’t you plan to tell him?”

Fuka-Eri shook her head. “I can’t contact him.”

“Because it would be dangerous to contact him?”

“The phone may be tapped. Mail might not get through.”

“I’m the only one who knows you’re here?”

Fuka-Eri nodded.

“Did you bring a change of clothing and stuff?”

“A little,” Fuka-Eri said, glancing at her canvas shoulder bag. Certainly “a little” was all it could hold.

“I don’t mind,” the girl said.

“If you don’t mind, of course I don’t mind,” Tengo said.

Tengo went into the kitchen, put the kettle on to boil, and spooned some tea leaves into the teapot.

“Does your lady friend come here,” Fuka-Eri asked.

“Not anymore,” Tengo gave her a short answer.

Fuka-Eri stared at Tengo in silence.

“For now,” Tengo added.

“Is it my fault,” Fuka-Eri asked.

Tengo shook his head. “I don’t know whose fault it is. But I don’t think it’s yours. It’s probably my fault. And maybe hers to some extent.”

“But anyhow, she won’t come here anymore.”

“Right, she won’t come here anymore. Probably. So it’s okay for you to stay.”

Fuka-Eri spent a few moments thinking about that. “Was she married,” she asked.

“Yes, and she had two kids.”

“Not yours.”

“No, of course not. She had them before she met me.”

“Did you love her.”

“Probably,” Tengo said. Under certain limited conditions, Tengo added to himself.

“Did she love you.”

“Probably. To some extent.”

“Were you having intercourse.”

It took a moment for the word “intercourse” to register with Tengo. It was hard to imagine that word coming from Fuka-Eri’s mouth.

“Of course. She wasn’t coming here every week to play Monopoly.”

“Monopoly,” she asked.

“Never mind,” Tengo said.

“But she won’t come here anymore.”

“That’s what I was told, at least. That she won’t come here anymore.”

“She told you that,” Fuka-Eri asked.

“No, I didn’t hear it directly from her. Her husband told me. That she was irretrievably lost and couldn’t come here anymore.”

“Irretrievably lost.”

“I don’t know exactly what it means either. I couldn’t get him to explain. There were lots of questions but not many answers. Like a trade imbalance. Want some tea?”

Fuka-Eri nodded.

Tengo poured the boiling water into the teapot, put the lid on, and waited.

“Oh well,” Fuka-Eri said.

“What? The few answers? Or that she was lost?”

Fuka-Eri did not reply.

Tengo gave up and poured tea into two cups. “Sugar?”

“A level teaspoonful,” Fuka-Eri said.

“Lemon or milk?”

Fuka-Eri shook her head. Tengo put a spoonful of sugar into the cup, stirred it slowly, and set it in front of the girl. He added nothing to his own tea, picked up the cup, and sat at the table across from her.

“Did you like having intercourse,” Fuka-Eri asked.

“Did I like having intercourse with my girlfriend?” Tengo rephrased it as an ordinary question.

Fuka-Eri nodded.

“I think I did,” Tengo said. “Having intercourse with a member of the opposite sex that you’re fond of. Most people enjoy that.”

To himself he said, She was very good at it. Just as every village has at least one farmer who is good at irrigation, she was good at sexual intercourse. She liked to try different methods.

“Are you sad she stopped coming,” Fuka-Eri asked.

“Probably,” Tengo said. Then he drank his tea.

“Because you can’t do intercourse.”

“That’s part of it, naturally.”

Fuka-Eri stared straight at Tengo again for a time. She seemed to be having some kind of thoughts about intercourse. What she was actually thinking about, no one could say.

“Hungry?” Tengo asked.

Fuka-Eri nodded. “I have hardly eaten anything since this morning.”

“I’ll make dinner,” Tengo said. He himself had hardly eaten anything since the morning, and he was feeling hungry. Also, he could not think of anything to do for the moment aside from making dinner.