“That’s putting it mildly. It’s like we’re holding a time bomb. Fuka-Eri is in no way ordinary. She’s not just another pretty seventeen-year-old. If the novella makes a big splash, the media are going to pounce on this and reveal all kinds of tasty facts. It’ll be terrible.”

“True, it could be a real Pandora’s box,” Komatsu said, but he was still smiling.

“So should we cancel the plan?”

“Cancel the plan?!”

“Yes, it’ll be too big a deal, and too dangerous. Let’s put the original manuscript back in the pile.”

“It’s not that easy, I’m afraid. Your Air Chrysalis rewrite has already gone out to the printers. They’re making the galleys. As soon as it’s printed it’ll go to the editor in chief and the head of publications and the four members of the selection committee. It’s too late to say, ‘Excuse me, that was a mistake. Please give it back and pretend you never saw it.’ ”

Tengo sighed.

“What’s done is done. We can’t turn the clock back,” Komatsu said. He put a Marlboro between his lips, narrowed his eyes, and lit the cigarette with the café’s matches. “I’ll think about what to do next. You don’t have to think about anything, Tengo. Even if Air Chrysalis takes the prize, we’ll keep Fuka-Eri under wraps. She’ll be the enigmatic girl writer who doesn’t want to appear in public. I can pull it off. As the editor in charge of the story, I’ll be her spokesman. Don’t worry, I’ve got it all figured out.”

“I don’t doubt your abilities, but Fuka-Eri is no ordinary girl. She’s not the type to shut up and do as she’s told. If she makes up her mind to do something, she’ll do it. She doesn’t hear what she doesn’t want to hear. That’s how she’s made. It’s not going to be as easy as you seem to think.”

Komatsu kept silent and went on turning over the matchbox in his hand. Then he said, “In any case, Tengo, we’ve come this far. All we can do now is make up our minds to keep going. First of all, your rewrite of Air Chrysalis is marvelous, really wonderful, far exceeding my expectations. It’s almost perfect. I have no doubt that it’s going to take the new writers’ prize and cause a big sensation. It’s too late now for us to bury it. If you ask me, burying a work like that would be a crime. And as I said before, things are moving full speed ahead.”

“A crime?!” Tengo exclaimed, looking straight at Komatsu.

“Well, take these words, for example,” Komatsu said. “ ‘Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.’ ”

“What is that?”

“Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Have you ever read Aristotle?”

“Almost nothing.”

“You ought to. I’m sure you’d like it. Whenever I run out of things to read, I read Greek philosophy. I never get tired of the stuff. There’s always something new to learn.”

“So what’s the point of the quotation?”

“The conclusion of things is the good. The good is, in other words, the conclusion at which all things arrive. Let’s leave doubt for tomorrow,” Komatsu said. “That is the point.”

“What does Aristotle have to say about the Holocaust?”

Komatsu’s crescent-moon smile further deepened. “Here, Aristotle is mainly talking about things like art and scholarship and crafts.”

Tengo had far more than a passing acquaintance with Komatsu. He knew the man’s public face, and he had seen his private face as well. Komatsu appeared to be a lone wolf in the literary industry who had always survived by doing as he pleased. Most people were taken in by that image. But if you observed him closely, taking into account the full context of his actions, you could tell that his moves were highly calculated. He was like a player of chess or shogi who could see several moves ahead. It was true that he liked to plot outlandish schemes, but he was also careful to draw a line beyond which he would not stray. He was, if anything, a high-strung man whose more outrageous gestures were mostly for show.

Komatsu was careful to protect himself with various kinds of insurance. For example, he wrote a literary column once a week in the evening edition of a major newspaper. In it, he would shower writers with praise or blame. The blame was always expressed in highly acerbic prose, which was a specialty of his. The column appeared under a made-up name, but everyone in the industry knew who was writing it. No one liked being criticized in the newspaper, of course, so writers tried their best not to ruffle his feathers. When asked by him to write something, they avoided turning him down whenever possible. Otherwise, there was no telling what might be said about them in the column.

Tengo was not fond of Komatsu’s more calculating side, the way he displayed contempt for the literary world while exploiting its system to his best advantage. Komatsu possessed outstanding editorial instincts, and he had been enormously helpful to Tengo. His advice on the writing of fiction was almost always valuable. But Tengo was careful to keep a certain distance between them. He was determined not to draw too close to Komatsu and then have the ladder pulled out from under him for overstepping certain boundaries. In that sense, Tengo, too, was a cautious individual.

“As I said a minute ago, your rewrite of Air Chrysalis is close to perfect. A great job,” Komatsu continued. “There’s just one part—really, just one—that I’d like to have you redo if possible. Not now, of course. It’s fine at the ‘new writer’ level. But after the committee picks it to win the prize and just before the magazine prints it, at that stage I’d like you to fix it.”

“What part?” Tengo asked.

“When the Little People finish making the air chrysalis, there are two moons. The girl looks up to find two moons in the sky. Remember that part?”

“Of course I remember it.”

“In my opinion, you haven’t written enough about the two moons. I’d like you to give it more concrete detail. That’s my only request.”

“It is a little terse, maybe. I just didn’t want to overdo it with detail and destroy the flow of Fuka-Eri’s original.”

Komatsu raised the hand that had a cigarette tucked between the fingers. “Think of it this way, Tengo. Your readers have seen the sky with one moon in it any number of times, right? But I doubt they’ve seen a sky with two moons in it side by side. When you introduce things that most readers have never seen before into a piece of fiction, you have to describe them with as much precision and in as much detail as possible. What you can eliminate from fiction is the description of things that most readers have seen.”

“I get it,” Tengo said. Komatsu’s request made a lot of sense. “I’ll fill out the part where the two moons appear.”

“Good. Then it will be perfect,” Komatsu said. He crushed out his cigarette.

“I’m always glad to have you praise my work,” Tengo said, “but it’s not so simple for me this time.”

“You have suddenly matured,” Komatsu said slowly, as if pausing for emphasis. “You have matured both as a manipulator of language and as an author. It should be simple enough for you to be glad about that. I’m sure rewriting Air Chrysalis taught you a lot about the writing of fiction. It should be a big help the next time you write your own work.”

“If there is a next time,” Tengo said.

A big grin crossed Komatsu’s face. “Don’t worry. You did your job. Now it’s my turn. You can go back to the bench and take it easy, just watch the game unfold.”

The waitress arrived and poured cold water into their glasses. Tengo drank half of his before realizing that he had absolutely no desire for water. He asked Komatsu, “Was it Aristotle who said the human soul is composed of reason, will, and desire?”