“But she left?” Nurse Tamura said, pushing up the bridge of her glasses.

Tengo nodded.

“You mean she dumped you?”

“I don’t know,” Tengo said, inclining his head. “Maybe she did. I think I probably was dumped.”

“By any chance is that person—a lot older than you?” Nurse Tamura asked, her eyes narrowed.

“Yes, she is,” Tengo said. How did she know that?

“Didn’t I tell you?” Nurse Tamura said, looking proudly at the other two nurses. They nodded.

“I told the others that,” Nurse Tamura said, “that you were going out with an older woman. Women can sniff out these things.”

“Sniff, sniff,” went Nurse Adachi.

“On top of that, maybe she was already married,” Nurse Omura said in a lazy tone. “Am I right?”

Tengo hesitated for a moment and then nodded. Lying was pointless.

“You bad boy,” Nurse Adachi said, and poked him in the thigh.

“Ten years older,” Tengo said.

“Goodness!” Nurse Omura exclaimed.

“Ah, so you had an experienced, older married woman loving you,” Nurse Tamura, herself a mother, said. “I’m envious. Maybe I should do that myself. And comfort lonely, gentle young Tengo here. I might not look it, but I still have a pretty decent body.”

She grabbed Tengo’s hand and was about to press it against her breasts. The other two women managed to stop her. Even if you were letting your hair down, there was a line that shouldn’t be crossed between nurses and a patient’s relative. That’s what they seemed to think—or else they were afraid that someone might spot them. It was a small town, and rumors spread quickly. Maybe Nurse Tamura’s husband was the jealous type. Tengo had enough problems and didn’t want to get caught up in any more.

“You’re really something,” Nurse Tamura said, wanting to change the subject. “You come all this way here, sit by your father’s bedside for hours a day reading aloud to him … Not many people would do that.”

Young Nurse Adachi tilted her head a bit. “I agree, he really is something. I really respect you for that.”

“You know, we’re always praising you,” Nurse Tamura said.

Tengo’s face reddened. He wasn’t in this town to nurse his father. He was staying here hoping to again see the air chrysalis, and the faint light it gave off, and inside it, the sleeping figure of Aomame. That was the only reason he remained here. Taking care of his unconscious father was only a pretext. But he couldn’t reveal the truth. If he did, he would have to start by explaining an air chrysalis.

“It’s because I never did anything for him up till now.” Awkwardly, he scrunched up his large frame in the narrow wooden chair, sounding uncomfortable. But the nurses found his attitude appealingly humble.

Tengo wanted to tell them he was sleepy so he could get up and go back to his inn, but he couldn’t find the right opportunity. He wasn’t the type, after all, to assert himself.

“Yes, but—” Nurse Omura said, and cleared her throat. “To get back to what we were talking about, I wonder why you and that married woman ten years older than you broke up. I imagine you were getting along all right? Did her husband find out or something?”

“I don’t know the reason,” Tengo said. “At one point she just stopped calling, and I haven’t heard from her since.”

“Hmm,” Nurse Adachi said. “I wonder if she was tired of you.”

Nurse Omura shook her head. She held one index finger pointing straight up and turned to her younger colleague. “You still don’t know anything about the world. You don’t get it at all. A forty-year-old married woman who snags a young, vigorous, delicious young man like this one and enjoys him to the fullest doesn’t then just up and say Thanks. It was fun. Bye! It’s impossible. Of course, the other way around happens sometimes.”

“Is that right?” Nurse Adachi said, inclining her head just a fraction. “I guess I’m a bit naive.”

“Yes, that’s the way it is,” Nurse Omura declared. She looked at Tengo for a while, as if stepping back from a stone monument to examine the words chiseled into it. Then she nodded. “When you get a little older you’ll understand.”

“Oh, my—it’s been simply ages,” Nurse Tamura said, sinking deeper into her chair.

For a time the three nurses were lost in a conversation about the sexual escapades of someone he didn’t know (another nurse, he surmised). With his glass of whiskey and water in hand, Tengo surveyed these three nurses, picturing the three witches in Macbeth. The ones who chant “Fair is foul, and foul is fair,” as they fill Macbeth’s head with evil ambitions. But Tengo wasn’t seeing the three nurses as evil beings. They were kind and straightforward women. They worked hard and took good care of his father. Overworked, living in this small, less-than-stimulating fishing town, they were just letting off steam, as they did once every month. But when he witnessed how the energy in these three women, all of different generations, was converging, he couldn’t help but envision the moors of Scotland—a gloomy, overcast sky, a cold wind and rain howling through the heath.

In college he had read Macbeth in English class, and somehow a few lines remained with him.

    By the pricking of my thumbs,

    Something wicked this way comes,

    Open, locks,

    Whoever knocks!

Why should he remember only these lines? He couldn’t even recall who spoke them in the play. But they made Tengo think of that persistent NHK collector, knocking at the door of his apartment in Koenji. Tengo looked at his own thumbs. They didn’t feel pricked. Still, Shakespeare’s skillful rhyme had an ominous ring to it.

    Something wicked this way comes …

Tengo prayed that Fuka-Eri wouldn’t unlock the door.

CHAPTER 7

Ushikawa

I’M HEADING YOUR WAY

For a while Ushikawa had to give up collecting more information on the elderly dowager in Azabu. The security around her was just too tight, and he knew he would come smack up against a high wall whatever direction he went in. He wanted to find out more about the safe house, but it was too risky hanging out in the neighborhood any longer. There were security cameras, and given his looks, Ushikawa was too conspicuous. Once the other party was on its guard, things could get a bit sticky, so he decided to stay away from the Willow House and try a different approach.

The only different approach he could come up with, though, was to reinvestigate Aomame. He had already asked a PI firm he had worked with to collect more information on her, and he did some of the legwork himself, questioning people involved with her. Nothing suspicious or opaque surfaced. Ushikawa frowned, sighing deeply. I must have overlooked something, he thought. Something critical.

Ushikawa took out an address book from a drawer of his desk and dialed a number. Whenever he needed information that could only be obtained illegally, this was the number he called. The man on the other end lived in a much darker world than Ushikawa. As long as you paid, he could dig up almost any information you needed. The more tightly guarded the information, the higher the fee.

Ushikawa was after two pieces of information. One was personal background on Aomame’s parents, who were still devout members of the Witnesses. Ushikawa was positive that the Witnesses had a central database with information on all their members. They had numerous followers throughout Japan, with much coming and going between the headquarters and the regional branches. Without a centralized database, the system wouldn’t run smoothly. Their headquarters was located in the suburbs of Odawara. They owned a magnificent building on a generous plot of land, and had their own factory to print pamphlets, and an auditorium and guest facilities for followers from all over the country. All their information was sourced from this location, and you could be sure it was under strict control.