The nurse finished her tasks, put the clipboard back, and gave Tengo an awkward smile.

“His condition is unchanged. The same as always.”

“So he’s stable,” Tengo said in as cheerful a voice as he could manage. “To put a positive spin on it.”

A half-apologetic smile rose to her lips and she inclined her head just a touch. She glanced at the book on his lap. “Are you reading that to him?”

Tengo nodded. “I doubt he can hear it, though.”

“Still, it’s a good thing to do,” the nurse said.

“Maybe it is, or maybe it isn’t, but I can’t think of anything else I can do.”

“But not everybody else would do that.”

“Most people have busier lives than I do,” Tengo said.

The nurse looked like she was about to say something, but she hesitated. In the end she didn’t say a thing. She looked at his sleeping father, and then at Tengo.

“Take care,” she said.

“Thanks,” Tengo answered.

After Nurse Adachi left, Tengo waited a while, then began reading aloud once more.

In the evening, when his father was wheeled on a gurney to the examination room, Tengo went to the cafeteria, drank some tea, then phoned Fuka-Eri from a pay phone.

“Is everything okay?” Tengo asked her.

“Yes, everything is okay,” she said. “Just like always.”

“Everything’s fine with me, too. Doing the same thing every day.”

“But time is moving forward.”

“That’s right,” Tengo said. “Every day time moves forward one day’s worth.”

And what has gone forward can’t go back to where it came from.

“The crow came back again just a little while ago,” Fuka-Eri said. “A big crow.”

“In the evening that crow always comes up to the window.”

“Doing the same thing every day.”

“That’s right,” Tengo said. “Just like us.”

“But it doesn’t think about time.”

“Crows can’t think about time. Probably only humans have the concept of time.”

“Why,” she asked.

“Humans see time as a straight line. It’s like putting notches on a long straight stick. The notch here is the future, the one on this side is the past, and the present is this point right here. Do you understand?”

“I think so.”

“But actually time isn’t a straight line. It doesn’t have a shape. In all senses of the term, it doesn’t have any form. But since we can’t picture something without form in our minds, for the sake of convenience we understand it as a straight line. At this point, humans are the only ones who can make that sort of conceptual substitution.”

“But maybe we are the ones who are wrong.”

Tengo mulled this over. “You mean we may be wrong to see time as a straight line?”

No response.

“That’s a possibility. Maybe we’re wrong and the crow is right. Maybe time is nothing at all like a straight line. Perhaps it’s shaped like a twisted doughnut. But for tens of thousands of years, people have probably been seeing time as a straight line that continues on forever. And that’s the concept they based their actions on. And until now they haven’t found anything inconvenient or contradictory about it. So as an experiential model, it’s probably correct.”

“Experiential model,” Fuka-Eri repeated.

“After taking a lot of samples, you come to view one conjecture as actually correct.”

Fuka-Eri was silent for a time. Tengo had no idea if she had understood him or not.

“Hello?” Tengo said, checking if she was still there.

“How long will you be there,” Fuka-Eri asked, omitting the question mark.

“You mean how long will I be in Chikura?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know,” Tengo answered honestly. “All I can say right now is that I’ll stay here until certain things make sense. There are some things I don’t understand. I want to stay for a while and see how they develop.”

Fuka-Eri was silent on the other end again. When she was silent it was like she wasn’t there at all.

“Hello?” Tengo said again.

“Don’t miss the train,” Fuka-Eri said.

“I’ll be careful,” Tengo replied, “not to be late for the train. Is everything okay with you?”

“One person came here a while ago.”

“What kind of person?”

“An N—H—K person.”

“A fee collector from NHK?”

“Fee collector,” she asked, again without the question mark.

“Did you talk to him?” Tengo asked.

“I did not understand what he was saying.”

She apparently had no idea what NHK was. The girl lacked some essential cultural knowledge.

“It will take too long to explain over the phone,” Tengo said, “but basically it’s a large organization. A lot of people work there. They go around to all the houses in Japan and collect money every month. You and I don’t need to pay, because we don’t receive anything from them. I hope you didn’t unlock the door.”

“No, I did not unlock it. Like you told me.”

“I’m glad.”

“But he said, ‘You are a thief.’ ”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” Tengo said.

“We have not stolen anything.”

“Of course we haven’t. You and I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Fuka-Eri was again silent on the other end of the line. “Hello?” Tengo said.

Fuka-Eri didn’t reply. She might have already hung up. Though he didn’t hear any sound that indicated this.

“Hello?” Tengo repeated, this time more loudly.

Fuka-Eri coughed lightly. “That person knew a lot about you.”

“The fee collector?”

“Yes. The N—H—K person.”

“And he called you a thief.”

“No. He didn’t mean me.”

“He meant me?”

Fuka-Eri didn’t reply.

“Anyway,” Tengo said, “I don’t have a TV. So I’m not stealing anything from NHK.”

“But that person was very angry that I didn’t unlock the door.”

“It doesn’t matter. Let him be angry. But no matter what happens, no matter what anyone tells you, never, ever unlock the door.”

“I won’t unlock it.”

After saying this, Fuka-Eri suddenly hung up. Or perhaps it wasn’t so sudden. Perhaps for her, hanging up the phone at that point was an entirely natural, even logical act. To Tengo’s ear, though, it sounded abrupt. But Tengo knew that even if he were to try his hardest to guess what Fuka-Eri was thinking and feeling, it wouldn’t do any good. As an experiential model.

Tengo hung up the phone and went back to his father’s room.

His father had not been brought back to his room yet. The bed still had a depression in it from his body. No air chrysalis was there. In the room, darkened by the dim, chill dusk, the only thing present was the slight trace of the person who had occupied it until moments ago.

Tengo sighed and sat down on the chair. He rested his hands on his lap and gazed for a long while at the depression in the sheets. Then he stood, went to the window, and looked outside. The rain had stopped, and the autumn clouds lingered over the pine windbreak. It would be a beautiful sunset, the first in some time.

Tengo had no idea why the fee collector knew a lot about him. The last time an NHK fee collector had come around had been about a year ago. At that time he had stood at the door and politely explained to the man that there was no TV in his apartment. He never watched TV, he continued. The fee collector hadn’t been convinced, but he had left without saying any more, muttering some snide remark under his breath.

Was it the same fee collector who had come today? He had the impression that that man had also said something about his being a thief. It was a bit odd that the same collector would show up a year later and say he knew a lot about Tengo. They had only stood at the door and chatted for five minutes or so, that’s all.

Whatever. What was important was that Fuka-Eri had kept the door locked. The fee collector wouldn’t be paying another visit anytime soon. He had a quota to meet and had to be tired of standing around quarreling with people who refused to pay their subscription fees. In order not to waste time, he would skip the troublesome customers’ places and collect the fees from people who didn’t have a problem paying.