For the next thirty minutes, though, no one came into or out of the building. Eventually a middle-aged woman he had seen a number of times emerged and pedaled off on her bike. Ushikawa had dubbed her “Chin Lady” because of the ample flesh dangling below her chin. A half an hour later Chin Lady returned, a shopping bag in the basket of her bike. She parked her bike in the bike parking area and went into the building, bag in hand. After this, a boy in elementary school came home. Ushikawa’s name for him was “Fox,” since his eyes slanted upward. But no one who could have been the fee collector appeared. Ushikawa was puzzled. The building had only one way in and out, and he had kept his eyes glued to the entrance every second. If the collector hadn’t come out, that could only mean he was still inside.

He continued to watch the entrance without a break. He didn’t go to the bathroom. The sun set, it grew dark, and the light at the entrance came on. But still no fee collector. After six, Ushikawa gave up. He went to the bathroom and let out all the pee he had been holding in. The man was definitely still in the building. Why, he didn’t know. It didn’t make any sense. But that weird fee collector had decided to stay put.

The wind, colder now, whined through the frozen electric lines. Ushikawa turned on the space heater, and as he smoked a cigarette he tried to make sense of it all. Why did the man have to speak in such an aggressive, challenging tone? Why was he so positive that someone was inside the apartment? And why hadn’t he left the building? If he hasn’t left here, then where is he?

Ushikawa left the camera, leaned against the wall, and stared for the longest time at the orange filament of the space heater.

CHAPTER 17

Aomame

I ONLY HAVE ONE PAIR OF EYES

It was a windy Saturday, nearly eight p.m., when the phone rang. Aomame was wearing a down jacket, a blanket on her lap, sitting on the balcony. Through a gap in the screen, she kept an eye on the slide in the playground, which was illuminated by the mercury-vapor lamp. Her hands were under the blanket so they wouldn’t get numb. The deserted slide looked like the skeleton of some huge animal that had died in the Ice Age.

Sitting outside on a cold night might not be good for the baby, but Aomame decided it wasn’t cold enough to present a problem. No matter how cold you may be on the outside, amniotic fluid maintained nearly the same temperature as blood. There are plenty of places in the world way colder and harsher, she concluded. And women keep on having babies, even there. But above all, this cold was something she felt she had to endure if she wanted to see Tengo again.

As always, the large yellow moon and its smaller green companion floated in the winter sky. Clouds of assorted sizes and shapes scudded swiftly across the sky. The clouds were white and dense, their outlines sharply etched, and they looked to her like hard blocks of ice floating down a snowmelt river to the sea. As she watched the clouds, appearing from somewhere only to disappear again, Aomame felt she had been transported to a spot near the edge of the world. This was the northern frontier of reason. There was nothing north of here—only the chaos of nothingness.

The sliding glass door was open just a crack, so the ringing phone sounded faint, and Aomame was lost in thought, but she didn’t miss the sound. The phone rang three times, stopped, then twenty seconds later rang one more time. It had to be Tamaru. She threw aside the blanket, slid open the cloudy glass door, and went inside. It was dark inside and the heat was at a comfortable level. Her fingers still cold, she lifted the receiver.

“Still reading Proust?”

“But not making much progress,” Aomame replied. It was like an exchange of passwords.

“You don’t like it?”

“It’s not that. How should I put it—it’s a story about a different place, somewhere totally unlike here.”

Tamaru was silent, waiting for her to go on. He was in no hurry.

“By different place, I mean it’s like reading a detailed report from a small planet light-years away from this world I’m living in. I can picture all the scenes described and understand them. It’s described very vividly, minutely, even. But I can’t connect the scenes in that book with where I am now. We are physically too far apart. I’ll be reading it, and I find myself having to go back and reread the same passage over again.”

Aomame searched for the next words. Tamaru waited as she did.

“It’s not boring, though,” she said. “It’s so detailed and beautifully written, and I feel like I can grasp the structure of that lonely little planet. But I can’t seem to go forward. It’s like I’m in a boat, paddling upstream. I row for a while, but then when I take a rest and am thinking about something, I find myself back where I started. Maybe that way of reading suits me now, rather than the kind of reading where you forge ahead to find out what happens. I don’t know how to put it exactly, but there is a sense of time wavering irregularly when you try to forge ahead. If what is in front is behind, and what is behind is in front, it doesn’t really matter, does it. Either way is fine.”

Aomame searched for a more precise way of expressing herself.

“It feels like I’m experiencing someone else’s dream. Like we’re simultaneously sharing feelings. But I can’t really grasp what it means to be simultaneous. Our feelings seem extremely close, but in reality there’s a considerable gap between us.”

“I wonder if Proust was aiming for that sort of sensation.”

Aomame had no idea.

“Still, on the other hand,” Tamaru said, “time in this real world goes ever onward. It never stands still, and never reverses course.”

“Of course. In the real world time goes forward.”

As she said this Aomame glanced at the glass door. But was it really true? That time was always flowing forward?

“The seasons have changed, and we are getting close to the end of 1984,” Tamaru said.

“I doubt I’ll finish In Search of Lost Time by the end of the year.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Tamaru said. “Take your time. It was written over fifty years ago. It’s not like it’s crammed with hot-off-the-press information or anything.”

You might be right, Aomame thought. But maybe not. She no longer had much trust in time.

“Is that thing inside you doing all right?” Tamaru asked.

“So far, so good.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Tamaru said. “By the way, you heard about the short balding guy who has been loitering outside the Willow House, right?”

“I did. Is he still hanging around?”

“No. Not recently. He did for a couple of days and then he disappeared. But he went to the rental agencies in the area, pretending to be looking for an apartment, gathering information about the safe house. This guy really stands out. As if that weren’t bad enough, his clothes are awful. So everyone who talked with him remembers him. It was easy to track his movements.”

“He doesn’t sound like the right type to be doing investigations or reconnaissance.”

“Exactly. With looks like those, he’s definitely not cut out for that kind of work. He has a huge head, too, like one of those Fukusuke good-luck dolls. But he does seem to be good at what he does. He knows how to pound the pavement and dig up information. And he seems quite sharp. He doesn’t skip what is important, and he ignores what isn’t.”

“And he was able to gather a certain amount of information on the safe house.”

“He knows it’s a refuge for women fleeing domestic violence, and that the dowager has provided it free of charge. I think he must also have discovered that the dowager is a member of the sports club where you worked, and that you often visited her mansion to do private training sessions with her. If I were him, I would have been able to find out that much.”