Aomame severely distorted her face in the gloom. She had to try her best to follow what this man was saying. “Are you telling me that I was transported into this other world of 1Q84 by Tengo’s storytelling ability—or, as you put it, by his power as a Receiver?”

“That is, at least, what I surmise,” the man said.

Aomame stared at her hands. Her fingers were wet with tears.

“If things go on as they are now, Tengo will in all likelihood be liquidated. At the moment, he is the number one threat to the so-called Little People. And, after all, this is the real world, where real blood is shed and real deaths occur. Death, of course, lasts forever.”

Aomame bit her lip.

“I would like you to think about it this way,” the man said. “If you kill me here and eliminate me from this world, the Little People will no longer have any reason to harm Tengo. If I cease to exist as a channel, Tengo and my daughter can obstruct that channel all they want without presenting any threat to them. The Little People will just forget about the two of them and look for a channel somewhere else—a channel with another origin. That will become their first priority. Do you see what I mean?”

“In theory, at least,” Aomame said.

“On the other hand, if I am killed, the organization that I have created will never leave you alone. True, it might take them some time to find you because you will surely change your name, change where you live, and maybe even change your face. Still, they will track you down and punish you severely. That is the kind of system that we have created: close-knit, violent, and irreversible. That is one choice you have.”

Aomame took time to organize her thoughts about what he had told her. The man waited for his logic to permeate her mind.

Then he went on. “Conversely, if you do not kill me here and now, what will happen? You will simply withdraw from this place and I will go on living. So then the Little People will use all their powers to eliminate Tengo in order to protect me, their agent. The protective cloak he wears is not yet strong enough. They will find his weak point and do everything they can to destroy him because they cannot tolerate any further dissemination of the antibody. Meanwhile, you cease to be a threat, and they no longer have any reason to punish you. That is your other choice.”

“In that case,” Aomame said, summarizing what the man had told her, “Tengo dies and I go on living—here, in this world of 1Q84.”

“Probably,” he said.

“But there is no point in my living in a world where Tengo no longer exists. All possibility of our meeting would be lost forever.”

“That may be the case from your point of view.”

Aomame bit down hard on her lip, imagining such a state of affairs.

“But all I have to go on is what you are saying,” she pointed out. “Why do I have to take you at your word? Is there some basis or backing for that?”

The man shook his head. “You are right. There is no basis or backing. It’s just what I tell you. But you saw my special powers a little while ago. There are no strings attached to that clock, and it’s very heavy. Go look at it yourself. Do you accept what I am saying or don’t you? Decide one way or the other. We don’t have much time left.”

Aomame looked over at the clock on the chest of drawers. Its hands were showing just before nine. The clock was slightly out of place, facing at an odd angle, having been lifted into the air and dropped back again.

The man said, “At this point in this year of 1Q84, there seems to be no way to rescue you both at the same time. You have two possibilities to choose from. In one, you probably die and Tengo lives. In the other, he probably dies and you live. As I said before, it is not a pleasant choice.”

“But no other possibilities exist to choose between.”

The man shook his head. “At this point in time, you can only choose between those two.”

Aomame filled her lungs with air and slowly exhaled.

“It’s too bad for you,” the man said. “If you had stayed in the year 1984, you would not have been faced with this choice. But at the same time, if you had stayed in 1984, you would almost surely never have learned that Tengo has continued to long for you all this time. It is precisely because you were transported to 1Q84 that you were able to learn this fact—the fact that your hearts are, in a sense, intertwined.”

Aomame closed her eyes. I will not cry, she thought. It is not the time to cry yet.

“Is Tengo really longing for me? Can you swear to that without deception?”

“To this day, Tengo has never loved anyone but you with his whole heart. It is a fact. There is not the slightest room for doubt.”

“But still, he never looked for me.”

“Well, you never looked for him. Isn’t that true?”

Aomame closed her eyes and, in a split second, reviewed the long span of years as if standing on the edge of a sheer cliff, surveying an ocean channel far below. She could smell the sea. She could hear the deep sighing of the wind.

She said, “We should have had the courage to search for each other long ago, I suppose. Then we could have been united in the original world.”

“Theoretically, perhaps,” the man said. “But you would never have even thought such a thing in the world of 1984. Cause and effect are linked that way in a twisted form. You can pile up all the worlds you like and the twisting will never be undone.”

Tears poured from Aomame’s eyes. She cried for everything she had lost. She cried for everything she was about to lose. And eventually—how long had she been crying?—she arrived at a point where she could cry no longer. Her tears dried up, as if her emotions had run into an invisible wall.

“All right, then,” Aomame said. “There is no firm basis. Nothing has been proved. I can’t understand all the details. But still, it seems I have to accept your offer. In keeping with your wishes, I will obliterate you from this world. I will give you a painless, instantaneous death so that Tengo can go on living.”

“This means that you will agree to my bargain, then?”

“Yes. We have a bargain.”

“You will probably die as a result, you know,” the man said. “You will be chased down and punished. And the punishment may be terrible. They are fanatics.”

“I don’t care.”

“Because you have love.”

Aomame nodded.

The man said, “ ‘Without your love, it’s a honky-tonk parade.’ Like in the song.”

“You are sure that Tengo will be able to go on living if I kill you?”

The man remained silent for a while. Then he said, “Tengo will go on living. You can take me at my word. I can give you that much without fail in exchange for my life.”

“And my life, too,” Aomame said.

“Some things can only be done in exchange for life,” the man said.

Aomame clenched her fists. “To tell the truth, though, I would have preferred to stay alive and be united with Tengo.”

A short silence came over the room. Even the thunder stopped. Everything was hushed.

“I wish I could make that happen,” the man said softly. “Unfortunately, however, that is not one of the options. It was not available in 1984 nor is it in 1Q84, in a different sense in each case.”

“Our paths would never have crossed—Tengo’s and mine—in 1984? Is that what you are saying?”

“Exactly. You would have had no connection whatever, but you likely would have kept on thinking about each other as each of you entered a lonely old age.”

“But in 1Q84 I can at least know that I am going to die for him.”

The man took a deep breath, saying nothing.

“There is one thing I want you to tell me,” Aomame said.

“If I can,” the man said, lying on his stomach.

“Will Tengo find out in some form or other that I died for him? Or will he never know anything about it?”

The man thought about the question for a long time. “That is probably up to you.”