Tengo considered this for a moment and said, “I understand what you are saying, but even if you are right, isn’t this something that could have been solved just by expelling Fukada from Sakigake, like the peaceful splitting off of Akebono from Sakigake? They wouldn’t have had to lock him up, would they?”

“You’re quite right about that. Under ordinary circumstances, there would have been no need to take the trouble of locking him up. But Fukada would almost certainly have had his hands on some of Sakigake’s secrets by then, things that Sakigake would have found very awkward if they were exposed to the public. So just throwing him out was not the answer.

“As the original founder of the community, Fukada had acted as its virtual leader for years and must have witnessed everything that had been done on the inside. He must have known too much. In addition to which, he himself was quite well known to the public at large. So even if Fukada and his wife wanted to renounce their ties with the group, Sakigake could not simply let them go.”

“And so you are trying to shake up the stalemate indirectly? You want to stir up public interest by letting Eri have a sensational debut as a writer, with Air Chrysalis a bestseller?”

“Seven years is a very long time, and nothing I have tried over the years has done any good. If I don’t take this drastic measure now, the riddle may never be solved.”

“So you are using Eri as bait to try to lure a big tiger out of the underbrush.”

“No one knows what is going to come out of the underbrush. It won’t necessarily be a tiger.”

“But you do seem to be expecting something violent to happen, I gather.”

“True, there is that possibility,” the Professor said with a thoughtful air. “You yourself should know that anything can happen inside homogeneous, insular groups.”

A heavy silence followed, in the midst of which Fuka-Eri spoke up.

“It’s because the Little People came,” she said softly.

Tengo looked at her seated beside the Professor. As always, her face lacked anything that might be called an expression.

“Are you saying that something changed in Sakigake because the Little People came?” Tengo asked her.

She said nothing in reply. Her fingers toyed with the top button of her blouse.

Professor Ebisuno then spoke as if taking up where Eri’s silence left off. “I don’t know what the Little People are supposed to mean, and Eri either can’t or won’t explain in words what the Little People are. It does seem certain, however, that the Little People played some role in the sudden drastic change of Sakigake from an agricultural commune to a religious organization.”

“Or something Little People-ish did,” Tengo said.

“That’s true,” the Professor said. “I don’t know, either, whether it was the Little People themselves or something Little People-ish. But it does appear to me, at least, that Eri is trying to say something important by introducing the Little People in her Air Chrysalis.”

The Professor stared at his hands for a time, then looked up and said, “George Orwell introduced the dictator Big Brother in his novel 1984, as I’m sure you know. The book was an allegorical treatment of Stalinism, of course. And ever since then, the term ‘Big Brother’ has functioned as a social icon. That was Orwell’s great accomplishment. But now, in the real year 1984, Big Brother is all too famous, and all too obvious. If Big Brother were to appear before us now, we’d point to him and say, ‘Watch out! He’s Big Brother!’ There’s no longer any place for a Big Brother in this real world of ours. Instead, these so-called Little People have come on the scene. Interesting verbal contrast, don’t you think?”

Looking straight at Tengo, the Professor had something like a smile on his face.

“The Little People are an invisible presence. We can’t even tell whether they are good or evil, or whether they have any substance or not. But they seem to be steadily undermining us.” The Professor paused, then continued on. “It may be that if we are ever to learn what happened to Fukada and his wife or what happened to Eri, we will first have to find out what the Little People are.”

“So, then, is it the Little People that you are trying to lure out into the open?” Tengo asked.

“I wonder, ultimately, whether it is possible for us to lure something out when we can’t even tell whether it has substance or not,” the Professor said, the smile still playing about his lips. “The ‘big tiger’ you mentioned could be more realistic, don’t you think?”

“Either way, that doesn’t change the fact that Eri is being used for bait.”

“No, ‘bait’ is not the right word. She is creating a whirlpool: that is a closer image. Eventually, those at the edge of the whirlpool will start spinning along with it. That is what I am waiting to see.”

The Professor slowly twirled his finger in space. Then he continued, “The one in the center of the whirlpool is Eri. There is no need for the one in the center of a whirlpool to move. That is what those around the edge must do.”

Tengo listened in silence.

“If I may borrow your unsettling figure of speech, all of us may be functioning as bait, not just Eri.” The Professor looked at Tengo with narrowed eyes. “You included.”

“All I had to do, supposedly, was rewrite Air Chrysalis. I was just going to be a hired hand, a technician. That was how Mr. Komatsu put it to me to begin with.”

“I see.”

“But things seem to have changed a bit along the way,” Tengo said. “Does this mean that you revised his original plan, Professor?”

“No, that is not how I see it. Mr. Komatsu has his intentions and I have my intentions. At the moment, they share the same direction.”

“So the plan is proceeding as if the two of you just happened to be riding together.”

“I suppose you could say that.”

“Two men with different destinations are riding the same horse down the road. Their routes are identical to a certain point, but neither knows what is going to happen after that.”

“Well put, like a true writer.”

Tengo sighed. “Our prospects are not very bright, I would say. But there’s no turning back now, is there?”

“Even if we could turn back, we’d probably never end up where we started,” the Professor said.

This brought the conversation to a close. Tengo could think of nothing further to say.

Professor Ebisuno left the café first. He had to see someone in the neighborhood, he said. Fuka-Eri stayed behind. Sitting on opposite sides of the table, Tengo and Fuka-Eri remained silent for a while.

“Are you hungry?” Tengo asked.

“Not really,” Fuka-Eri said.

The café was filling up. The two of them left, though neither had been the first to suggest it. For a while they walked the streets of Shinjuku aimlessly. Six o’clock was drawing near, and many people were hurrying toward the station, but the sky was still bright. Early-summer sunlight enveloped the city, its brightness feeling strangely artificial after the underground café.

“Where are you going now?” Tengo asked.

“No place special,” Fuka-Eri replied.

“Shall I see you home?” Tengo asked. “To your Shinano-machi condo, I mean. I suppose you’ll be staying there today?”

“I’m not going there,” Fuka-Eri said.

“Why not?”

She did not reply.

“Are you saying you feel you’d better not go there?”

Fuka-Eri nodded, saying nothing.

Tengo thought about asking her why she felt she had better not go there, but he sensed that it wouldn’t get him a straight answer.

“So, will you be going back to the Professor’s?”

“Futamatao is too far away.”

“Do you have somewhere else in mind?”

“I will stay at your place,” Fuka-Eri said.

“That … might … not … be a … good idea,” Tengo said. “My place is small, I live alone, and I’m sure Professor Ebisuno wouldn’t permit it.”