Near dawn they slipped on hotel bathrobes, stood next to the large window, and sipped the red wine they had ordered from room service. Aomame took just a token sip. They didn’t need to sleep yet. From their room on the seventeenth floor they could enjoy watching the moon to their hearts’ content. The clouds had drifted away, and nothing impeded their view. The dawn moon had moved quite a distance, though it still hovered just above the city skyline. The moon was an ashy white, and looked about ready to fall to earth, its job complete.

At the front desk Aomame had asked for a room high up with a view of the moon, even if it cost more. “That’s the most important thing—having a nice view of the moon,” she said.

The clerk was kind to this young couple who had shown up without a reservation. It also helped that the hotel wasn’t busy. She felt kindly toward the couple from the moment she set eyes on them. She had the bellboy go up to look at the room to make sure it had the view they wanted, and only then handed Aomame the key to the junior suite. She gave them a special discount, too.

“Is it a full moon or something tonight?” the woman clerk asked Aomame, her interest aroused. Over the years she had heard every kind of demand, hope, and desire from guests you could imagine. But this was a first, having guests who were looking for a room with a good view of the moon.

“No,” Aomame replied. “The moon’s past full. It’s about two-thirds full. But that doesn’t matter. As long as we can see it.”

“You enjoy watching the moon, then?”

“It’s important to us,” Aomame smiled. “More important than you can know.”

Even as dawn approached, the number of moons didn’t increase. It was just the same old familiar moon. The one and only satellite that has faithfully circled the earth, at the same speed, from before human memory. As she stared at the moon, Aomame softly touched her abdomen, checking one more time that the little one was there, inside her. She could swear her belly had grown from the night before.

I still don’t know what sort of world this is, she thought. But whatever world we’re in now, I’m sure this is where I will stay. Where we will stay. This world must have its own threats, its own dangers, must be filled with its own type of riddles and contradictions. We may have to travel down many dark paths, leading who knows where. But that’s okay. It’s not a problem. I’ll just have to accept it. I’m not going anywhere. Come what may, this is where we’ll remain, in this world with one moon. The three of us—Tengo and me, and the little one.

Put a tiger in your tank, the Esso tiger said, his left profile toward them. But either side was fine. That big grin of his facing Aomame was natural and warm. I’m going to believe in that smile, she told herself. That’s what’s important here. She did her own version of the tiger’s smile. Very naturally, very gently.

She quietly stretched out a hand, and Tengo took it. The two of them stood there, side by side, as one, wordlessly watching the moon over the buildings. Until the newly risen sun shone upon it, robbing it of its nighttime brilliance. Until it was nothing more than a gray paper moon, hanging in the sky.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Murakami, Haruki, [date]

[1Q84. English]

1Q84 / Haruki Murakami; translated from the Japanese by Jay Rubin and

Philip Gabriel. — 1st ed.

p. cm.

eISBN: 978-0-307-95702-3

I. Rubin, Jay, [date] II. Gabriel, Philip, [date] III. Title.

PL856.U673A61213 2011

895.6’35—dc22

2011014274

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:

Oneworld Classics Ltd: Excerpts from Sakhalin Island by Anton Chekhov, translated by Brian Reeve, copyright © 2007 by Brian Reeve. Reprinted by permission of Oneworld Classics Ltd.

Random House, Inc. and The Estate of Isak Dinesen c/o Gyldendal Group Agency: Excerpts from Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen, copyright © 1937 by Random House, Inc. and copyright renewed 1965 by Rungstedlundfonden. Reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc. and The Estate of Isak Dinesen c/o Gyldendal Group Agency.

SA Music LLC, Hal Leonard Corporation: Excerpt from “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” music by Harold Arlen, lyrics by Billy Rose and E. Y. “Yip” Harburg, copyright © 1933 (renewed) by SA Music LLC/ASCAP, Chappell & Co., and Glocca Morra Music. All rights for Glocca Morra Music administered by Next Decade Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of SA Music LLC, Hal Leonard Corporation.

Photographs by Roméo Enriquez

v3.1

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into more than forty languages, and the most recent of his many international honors is the Jerusalem Prize, whose previous recipients include J. M. Coetzee, Milan Kundera, and V. S. Naipaul.

READER’S GUIDE

1Q84

by Haruki Murakami

The introduction, discussion questions, and suggested further reading that follow are designed to enhance your group’s discussion of 1Q84, the magnum opus of critically acclaimed and best-selling novelist, Haruki Murakami, author of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Norwegian Wood, and Kafka On the Shore.

Introduction

Set in 1984, Haruki Murakami’s expansive new novel tells the story of the deeply intertwined fates of its two remarkable protagonists, Tengo and Aomame.

Tengo and Aomame were grade school classmates who experienced a moment of mystical union when Aomame, a girl shunned for belonging to a fringe religious group, suddenly seized Tengo’s hand and looked deeply into his eyes. Their paths diverged shortly after Aomame’s impulsive and ambiguous gesture, but each was left profoundly changed by it. For the next 20 years, they are held in the gravitational pull of this brief moment of connection.

Now they are nearly thirty. Tengo is a math teacher and unpublished novelist, drifting rather aimlessly through his life, with no clear sense of purpose or ambition. Aomame is a fitness instructor, bodyworker and, most importantly, an assassin of men who have violently abused their wives.

When Komatsu, an unscrupulous and cynical editor, asks Tengo to rewrite a story by 17-year-old Fuka-Eri so that it can be considered for a major literary prize, Tengo realizes he’s entering into a devil’s bargain. But he’s so taken with the story that he is unable to resist Komatsu’s offer. Accepting the task opens up a Pandora’s box of perils that far surpass even Tengo’s and Komatsu’s worst fears. The novel, Air Chrysalis, becomes an immediate best seller, attracting widespread media attention that threatens to uncover Komatsu’s and Tengo’s scam. More ominously, the novel has aroused the ire of the “little people,” a malevolent group of other-worldly miniature spirits.