In early May Komatsu called him for the first time in quite a while. The phone rang just before nine o’clock at night.

“It’s all set,” Komatsu said, with a note of excitement in his voice. This was rare for him.

Tengo could not tell at first what Komatsu was talking about. “What’s all set?”

“What else? Air Chrysalis took the new writers’ award a few minutes ago. The committee reached a unanimous decision, with none of the usual debate. I guess you could say it was inevitable, it’s such a powerful work. In any case, things have started to move. We’re in this together from now on, Tengo. Let’s give it our best shot.”

Tengo glanced at the calendar on the wall. Come to think of it, today was the day the screening committee was going to pick the winner. Tengo had been so absorbed in writing his own novel, he had lost all sense of time.

“So what happens now?” Tengo asked. “In terms of the prize schedule, I mean.”

“Tomorrow the newspapers announce it—every paper in the country. They’ll probably have photos, too. A pretty seventeen-year-old girl wins: that alone will cause a sensation. Don’t take this the wrong way, but that has a lot more news value than if the new writers’ prize had gone to some thirty-year-old cram school teacher who looks like a bear coming out of hibernation.”

“Way more,” Tengo said.

“Then comes the award ceremony on May 16 in a Shinbashi hotel. The press conference is all arranged.”

“Will Fuka-Eri be there?”

“I’m sure she will, this time at least. There’s no way the winner of a new writers’ prize wouldn’t be present at the award ceremony. If we can get through that without any major mishaps, we can then adopt a policy of total secrecy. ‘Sorry, but the author does not wish to make public appearances.’ We can hold them at bay like that, and the truth will never come out.”

Tengo tried to imagine Fuka-Eri holding a press conference in a hotel ballroom. A row of microphones, cameras flashing. He couldn’t picture it.

“Do you really need to have a press conference?” he asked Komatsu.

“We’ll have to, at least once, to keep up appearances.”

“It’s bound to be a disaster!”

“Which is why it’s your job, Tengo, to make sure it doesn’t turn into a disaster.”

Tengo went silent. Ominous dark clouds appeared on the horizon.

“Hey, are you still there?” Komatsu asked.

“I’m here,” Tengo said. “What does that mean—it’s my job?”

“You have to drill Fuka-Eri on how a press conference works and how to deal with it. Pretty much the same sorts of questions come up every time, so you should prepare answers for questions they’re likely to ask, and have her memorize them word for word. You teach at a cram school. You must know how to do stuff like that.”

“You want me to do it?”

“Of course. She trusts you, for some reason. She’ll listen to you. There’s no way I can do it. She hasn’t even agreed to meet me.”

Tengo sighed. He wished he could cut all ties with Air Chrysalis. He had done everything asked of him, and now he just wanted to concentrate on his own work. Something told him, however, that it was not going to be that simple, and he knew that bad premonitions have a far higher accuracy rate than good ones.

“Are you free in the evening the day after tomorrow?” Komatsu asked.

“I am.”

“Six o’clock at the usual café in Shinjuku. Fuka-Eri will be there.”

“I can’t do what you’re asking me to do,” Tengo said to Komatsu. “I don’t know anything about press conferences. I’ve never even seen one.”

“You want to be a novelist, right? So imagine it. Isn’t that the job of the novelist—to imagine things he’s never seen?”

“Yes, but aren’t you the one who told me all I had to do was rewrite Air Chrysalis, that you’d take care of everything else after that, that I could just sit on the sidelines and watch the rest of the game?”

“Look, I’d gladly do it if I could. I’m not crazy about asking people to do things for me, but that’s exactly what I’m doing now, pleading with you to do this job because I can’t do it. Don’t you see? It’s as if we’re in a boat shooting the rapids. I’ve got my hands full steering the rudder, so I’m letting you take the oar. If you tell me you can’t do it, the boat’s going to capsize and we all might go under, including Fuka-Eri. You don’t want that to happen, do you?”

Tengo sighed again. Why did he always get himself backed into a corner where he couldn’t refuse? “Okay, I’ll do my best. But I can’t promise it’s going to work.”

“That’s all I’m asking,” Komatsu said. “I’ll owe you big for this. I mean, Fuka-Eri seems to have made up her mind not to talk to anyone but you. And there’s one more thing. You and I have to set up a new company.”

“A company?”

“Company, office, firm—call it anything you like. To handle Fuka-Eri’s literary activities. A paper company, of course. Officially, Fuka-Eri will be paid by the company. We’ll have Professor Ebisuno be her representative and you’ll be a company employee. We can make up some kind of title for you, it doesn’t matter, but the main thing is the company will pay you. I’ll be in on it, too, but without revealing my name. If people found out that I was involved, that would cause some serious trouble. Anyway, that’s how we divide up the profits. All I need is for you to put your seal on a few documents, and I’ll take care of the rest. I know a good lawyer.”

Tengo thought about what Komatsu was telling him. “Can you please just drop me from your plan? I don’t need to be paid. I enjoyed rewriting Air Chrysalis, and I learned a lot from it. I’m glad that Fuka-Eri got the prize and I’ll do my best to prepare her for the press conference. But that’s all. I don’t want to have anything to do with this convoluted ‘company’ arrangement. That would be straight-up fraud.”

“You can’t turn back now, Tengo,” Komatsu said. “Straight-up fraud? Maybe so. But you must have known that from the start when we decided to pull the wool over people’s eyes with this half-invented author, Fuka-Eri. Am I right? Of course something like this is going to involve money, and that’s going to require a sophisticated system to handle it. This is not child’s play. It’s too late to start saying you don’t want to have anything to do with it, that it’s too dangerous, that you don’t need money. If you were going to get out of the boat, you should have done it before, while the stream was still gentle. You can’t do it now. We need an official head count to set up a company, and I can’t start bringing in new people now who don’t know what’s going on. You have to do it. You’re right in the thick of what’s happening now.”

Tengo racked his brain without producing a single useful thought. “I do have one question, though,” he said to Komatsu. “Judging from what you’re saying, Professor Ebisuno intends to give his full approval to the plan. It sounds as if he’s already agreed to set up the fake company and act as a representative.”

“As Fuka-Eri’s guardian, the Professor understands and approves of the entire situation and has given us the green light. I called him as soon as you told me about your talk with him. He remembered me, of course. I think he didn’t say anything about me because he wanted to get your uncensored opinion of me. He said you impressed him as a sharp observer of people. What in the world did you tell him about me?”

“What does Professor Ebisuno have to gain from participating in this plan? He can’t possibly be doing it for the money.”

“You’re right about that. He’s not the kind of guy to be influenced by a little spare change.”

“So why would he let himself get involved in such a risky plan? Does he have something to gain from it?”

“I don’t know any better than you do. He’s a hard one to read.”

“And so are you. That gives us a lot of deep motives to guess about.”