As he rewrote the novel, and afterward, Tengo had pondered the meaning of the maza and the dohta, but he was never quite able to grasp the overall picture. But now, as he talked with Komatsu, the pieces gradually fell into place. Though he still had questions: Why did an air chrysalis materialize above his father’s bed in the hospital? And why was Aomame, as a young girl, inside?

“It’s a fascinating system,” Komatsu said. “But isn’t it a problem for the maza to be separated from the dohta?”

“Without the dohta, it’s hard to see the maza as a complete entity. As we saw with Fuka-Eri, it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what that means, but there is something missing—like a person who has lost his shadow. What the dohta is like without the maza, I have no idea. Probably they’re both incomplete, because, ultimately, the dohta is nothing more than an alter ego. But in Fuka-Eri’s case, even without the maza by her side, the dohta may have been able to fulfill her role as a kind of medium.”

Komatsu’s lips were stretched in a tight line for a while, then turned up slightly. “Are you thinking that everything in Air Chrysalis really took place?”

“I’m not saying that. I’m just making an assumption—hypothesizing that it’s all real, and going from there.”

“All right,” Komatsu said. “So even if Fuka-Eri’s alter ego goes far away from her body, she can still function as a medium.”

“Which explains why Sakigake isn’t forcing her to return, even if they know her whereabouts. Because in her case, even if the maza isn’t nearby, the dohta can still fulfill her duties. Maybe their connection is that strong, even if they’re far apart.”

“Okay …”

Tengo continued, “I imagine that they have multiple dohtas. The Little People must use the chance to create many air chrysalises. They would be anxious if all they had was one Perceiver. Or the number of dohtas who can function correctly might be limited. Maybe there is one powerful, main dohta, and several weaker auxiliary dohtas, and they function collectively.”

“So the dohta that Fuka-Eri left behind was the main dohta, the one who functions properly?”

“That seems possible. Throughout everything that has happened, Fuka-Eri has always been at the center, like the eye of a hurricane.”

Komatsu narrowed his eyes and folded his hands together on the table. When he wanted to, he could really focus on an issue.

“You know, Tengo, I was thinking about this. Couldn’t you hypothesize that the Fuka-Eri we met is actually the dohta and what was left behind at Sakigake was the maza?”

This came as a bit of a shock. The idea had never occurred to Tengo. For him, Fuka-Eri was an actual person. But put it that way, and it started to sound possible. I have no periods. So there’s no chance I’ll get pregnant. Fuka-Eri had announced this, after they had had intercourse that night. If she was nothing more than an alter ego, her inability to get pregnant would make sense. An alter ego can’t reproduce itself—only the maza can do it. Still, Tengo couldn’t accept that hypothesis—that it was possible he had had intercourse with her alter ego, not the real Fuka-Eri.

“Fuka-Eri has a distinct personality. And her own code of conduct. I sort of doubt an alter ego could have those.”

“Exactly,” Komatsu agreed. “If she has nothing else, Fuka-Eri does have her own distinct personality and code of conduct. I would have to agree with you on that one.”

Still, Fuka-Eri was hiding a secret, a critical code hidden away inside this lovely girl, a code he had to crack. Tengo sensed this. Which one was the real person and which one the alter ego? Or was the whole notion of classifying into “real” and “alter ego” a mistake? Maybe Fuka-Eri was able, depending on the situation, to manipulate both her real self and her alter ego?

“There are several things I still don’t understand,” Komatsu said, resting his hands on the table and staring at them. For a middle-aged man, his fingers were long and slender.

“The voice has stopped speaking, the water in the well has dried up, the prophet has died. What will happen to the dohta after that? She won’t follow him in death like widows do in India.”

“When there’s no more Receiver, there’s no need for a Perceiver.”

“If we take your hypothesis a step further, that is,” Komatsu said. “Did Fuka-Eri know that would be the result when she wrote Air Chrysalis? That Sakigake man told me it wasn’t intentional. At least it wasn’t her intention. But how could he know this?”

“I don’t know,” Tengo said. “But I just can’t see Fuka-Eri intentionally driving her father to his death. I think her father was facing death for some other reason. Maybe that’s why she left in the first place. Or maybe she was hoping that her father would be freed from the voice. I’m just speculating, though, and I have nothing to back it up.”

Komatsu considered this for a long time, wrinkles forming on either side of his nose. Finally he sighed and glanced around. “What a strange world. With each passing day, it’s getting harder to know how much is just hypothetical and how much is real. Tell me, Tengo, as a novelist, what is your definition of reality?”

“When you prick a person with a needle, red blood comes out—that’s the real world,” Tengo replied.

“Then this is most definitely the real world,” Komatsu said, and he rubbed his inner forearm. Pale veins rose to the surface. They were not very healthy-looking blood vessels—blood vessels damaged by years of drinking, smoking, an unhealthy lifestyle, and various literary intrigues. Komatsu drained the last of his highball and clinked the ice around in the empty glass.

“Could you go on with your hypothesis? It’s getting more interesting.”

“They are looking for a successor to the one who hears the voice,” Tengo said. “But they also have to find a new, properly functional dohta. A new Receiver will need a new Perceiver.”

“In other words, they need to find a new maza as well. And in order to do so, they have to make a new air chrysalis. That sounds like a pretty large-scale operation.”

“Which is why they’re so deadly serious.”

“Exactly.”

“But they can’t be going about this blind,” Tengo said. “They’ve got to have somebody in mind.”

Komatsu nodded. “I got that impression, too. That’s why they wanted to get rid of us as fast as they could—so we don’t bother them anymore. I think we were quite a blot on their personal landscape.”

“How so?”

Komatsu shook his head. He didn’t know either.

“I wonder what message the voice told them until now. And what connection there is between the voice and the Little People.”

Komatsu shook his head listlessly again. This, too, went beyond anything the two of them could imagine.

“Did you see the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey?”

“I did,” Tengo said.

“We’re like the apes in the movie,” Komatsu said. “The ones with shaggy black fur, screeching out some nonsense as they dance around the monolith.”

A new pair of customers came into the bar, sat down at the counter like they were regulars, and ordered cocktails.

“There’s one thing we can say for sure,” Komatsu said, sounding like he wanted to wind things down. “Your hypothesis is convincing. It makes sense. I always really enjoy having these talks with you. But we’re going to back out of this scary minefield, and probably never see Fuka-Eri or Professor Ebisuno again. Air Chrysalis is nothing more than a harmless fantasy novel, with not a single piece of concrete information in it. And what that voice is, and what message it’s transmitting, have nothing to do with us. We need to leave it that way.”