“Who switched the tracks?”

“Who switched the tracks? That is another difficult question. The logic of cause and effect has little power here.”

“In any case, some kind of will transported me into this world of 1Q84,” Aomame said. “A will other than my own.”

“That is true. You were carried into this world when the train you were on had its tracks switched.”

“Do the Little People have anything to do with that?”

“In this world there are the so-called Little People. Or at least, that is what they are called in this world. But they do not always have a shape or a name.”

Aomame bit her lip in thought. Then she said, “What you are saying sounds contradictory to me. Let’s assume it was these ‘Little People’ who switched the track and carried me into this world of 1Q84. Why would they do such a thing if they don’t want me to do what I am about to do to you? It would be far more advantageous to get rid of me.”

“That is not easy to explain,” the man said, his voice lacking all intonation. “But you are a very quick thinker. You might be able to grasp, however vaguely, what I am trying to tell you. As I said before, the most important thing with regard to this world in which we live is for there to be a balance maintained between good and evil. The so-called Little People—or some kind of manifestations of will—certainly do have great power. But the more they use their power, the more another power automatically arises to resist it. In that way, the world maintains a delicate balance. This fundamental principle is the same in any world. Precisely the same thing can be said in this world of 1Q84 that now contains us. When the Little People began to manifest their enormous power, a power opposing the Little People also automatically came into being. And this opposing momentum must have drawn you into the year 1Q84.”

Lying like a beached whale on his blue yoga mat, the giant man released a huge breath.

“To continue with the train analogy: it is possible for them to switch tracks, as a result of which the train has entered its current line—the 1Q84 line. One thing they are not able to do, however, is to distinguish one passenger on the train from another—to choose among them. Which means that there may be passengers aboard who, to them, are undesirable.”

“Uninvited passengers.”

“Exactly.”

Again there was a rumble of thunder. This one was much louder than before. But there was no lightning. Just the sound. Strange, Aomame thought. The thunder is so close, but the lightning doesn’t flash. And no rain is falling.

“Have I managed to make myself clear thus far?”

“I’m listening,” she said, having already moved the needle away from the spot on his neck. Now she had it pointed cautiously toward empty space. She had to concentrate all her attention on what he was saying.

Where there is light, there must be shadow, and where there is shadow there must be light. There is no shadow without light and no light without shadow. Karl Jung said this about ‘the Shadow’ in one of his books: ‘It is as evil as we are positive … the more desperately we try to be good and wonderful and perfect, the more the Shadow develops a definite will to be black and evil and destructive.… The fact is that if one tries beyond one’s capacity to be perfect, the Shadow descends to hell and becomes the devil. For it is just as sinful from the standpoint of nature and of truth to be above oneself as to be below oneself.’

“We do not know if the so-called Little People are good or evil. This is, in a sense, something that surpasses our understanding and our definitions. We have lived with them since long, long ago—from a time before good and evil even existed, when people’s minds were still benighted. But the important thing is that, whether they are good or evil, light or shadow, whenever they begin to exert their power, a compensatory force comes into being. In my case, when I became an ‘agent’ of the so-called Little People, my daughter became something like an agent for those forces opposed to the Little People. In this way, the balance was maintained.”

“Your daughter?”

“Yes, the first one to usher in the so-called Little People was my daughter. She was ten years old at the time. Now she is seventeen. The Little People emerged from the darkness at some point, coming here through her, and they made me their agent. My daughter became a Perceiver and I became a Receiver. Apparently we were suited to such roles by nature. In any case, they found us. We did not find them.”

“And so you raped your own daughter.”

“I had congress with her,” he said. “That expression is closer to the truth. And the one I had congress with was, strictly speaking, my daughter as a concept. ‘To have congress with’ is an ambiguous term. The essential point was for us to become one—as Perceiver and Receiver.”

Aomame shook her head. “I can’t understand what you are saying. Did you have sex with your daughter or didn’t you?”

“The answer to that question is, finally, both yes and no.”

“Is this true of little Tsubasa as well?”

“Yes, in principle.”

“But Tsubasa’s uterus was destroyed—not ‘in principle’ but in reality.”

The man shook his head. “What you saw was the outward manifestation of a concept, not an actual substance.”

Aomame was unable to follow the swift flow of the conversation. She paused to bring her breathing under control. Then she asked, “Are you saying that a concept took on human shape and ran away on its own two feet?”

“To put it simply.”

“The Tsubasa I laid eyes on was not actual substance?”

“Which is why she was retrieved.”

“Retrieved,” Aomame said.

“She was retrieved and is now being healed. She is receiving the treatment she needs.”

“I don’t believe you,” Aomame declared.

“I can’t blame you,” the man said without emotion.

Aomame was at a loss to say anything for a time. Then she asked another question. “By violating your daughter, conceptually and ambiguously, you became an agent of the Little People. But simultaneously, your daughter compensated by leaving you and becoming, as it were, an opponent of the Little People. Is this what you are asserting?”

“That is correct. And in order to do so, she had to leave her own dohta behind,” the man said. “That doesn’t mean anything to you, though, does it?”

“ ‘Dohta’?” Aomame asked.

“Something like a living shadow. Here another character becomes involved—an old friend of mine. A man I can trust. I put my daughter in his care. Then, not too long ago, yet another character became involved, someone you know very well by the name of Tengo Kawana. Sheer chance brought Tengo and my daughter together as a team.”

Time seemed to come to a sudden halt. Aomame could find no words to speak. She went stiff from head to toe, waiting for time to begin to move once again.

The man continued speaking. “Each happened to have qualities that augmented the other. What Tengo lacked, Eriko possessed, and what Eriko lacked, Tengo possessed. They joined forces to complete a single work. And the fruits of their collaboration turned out to have a great impact. That is to say, in the context of establishing an opposition to the Little People.”

“They made a team?”

“Not that the two have a romantic or physical relationship. So there is nothing for you to worry about—if that is what you have in mind. Eriko will never have a romantic relationship with anyone. She has transcended such things.”

“What are the fruits of their collaboration, exactly?”

“In order to explain that, I must bring up a second analogy. The two have, so to speak, invented an antibody to a virus. If we take the actions of the Little People to be a virus, Tengo and Eriko have created and spread the antibody to combat it. This is, of course, a one-sided analogy. From the Little People’s point of view, Tengo and Eriko are, conversely, the carriers of a virus. All things are arranged as mirrors set face-to-face.”