In the course of pursuing these thoughts, Aomame became aware of her own intense urge for male flesh. Why, of all things, should I start wanting a man at a time like this? She shook her head as she walked along, unable to judge whether this increased sexual desire had been brought about by psychological tension or was the natural cry of the eggs stored inside her or just a product of her own genes’ warped machinations. The desire seemed to have very deep roots—or, as Ayumi might say, “I want to fuck like crazy.” What should I do now? Aomame wondered. I could go to one of my usual bars and look for the right kind of guy. It’s just one subway stop to Roppongi. But she was too tired for that. Nor was she dressed for seduction: no makeup, only sneakers and a vinyl gym bag. Why don’t I just go home, open a bottle of red wine, masturbate, and go to sleep? That’s it. And let me stop thinking about the moon.

One glance was all it took for Aomame to realize that the man sitting across from her on the subway home from Hiroo to Jiyugaoka was her type—mid-forties, oval face, hairline beginning to recede. Head shape not bad. Healthy complexion. Slim, stylish black-framed glasses. Smartly dressed: light cotton sport coat, white polo shirt, leather briefcase on lap. Brown loafers. A salaried working man from the look of him, but not at some straitlaced corporation. Maybe an editor at a publishing company, or an architect at a small firm, or something to do with apparel, that was probably it. He was deeply absorbed in a paperback, its title obscured by a bookstore’s plain wrapper.

Aomame thought she would like to go somewhere and have hot sex with him. She imagined herself touching his erect penis. She wanted to squeeze it so tightly that the flow of blood nearly stopped. Her other hand would gently massage his testicles. The hands now resting in her lap began to twitch. She opened and closed her fingers unconsciously. Her shoulders rose and fell with each breath. Slowly, she ran the tip of her tongue over her lips.

But her stop was coming up soon. She had to get off at Jiyugaoka. She had no idea how far the man would be going, unaware that he was the object of her sexual fantasies. He just kept sitting there, reading his book, obviously unconcerned about the kind of woman who was sitting across from him. When she left the train, Aomame felt like ripping his damned paperback to shreds, but of course she stopped herself.

Aomame was sound asleep in bed at one o’clock in the morning, having an intensely sexual dream. In the dream, her breasts were large and beautiful, like two grapefruits. Her nipples were hard and big. She was pressing them against the lower half of a man. Her clothes lay at her feet, where she had cast them off. Aomame was sleeping with her legs spread. As she slept, Aomame had no way of knowing that two moons were hanging in the sky side by side. One of them was the big moon that had always hung there, and the other was a new, smallish moon.

Tsubasa and the dowager were also asleep, in Tsubasa’s room. Tsubasa wore new checked pajamas and slept curled into a tight little ball in bed. The dowager, still wearing her street clothes, was stretched out in a long chair, a blanket over her knees. She had been planning to leave after Tsubasa fell asleep, but had fallen asleep there. Set back from the street in its hilltop location, the apartment house was hushed, its grounds silent but for the occasional distant scream of an accelerating motorcycle or the siren of an ambulance. The German shepherd also slept, curled up outside the front door. The curtains had been drawn across the window, but they glowed white in the light of a mercury-vapor lamp. The clouds began to part, and from the rift, now and then two moons peeked through. The world’s oceans were adjusting their tides.

Tsubasa slept with her cheek pressed against the pillow, her mouth slightly open. Her breathing could not have been any quieter, and aside from the occasional tiny twitch of one shoulder, she barely moved. Her bangs hung over her eyes.

Soon her mouth began to open wider, and from it emerged, one after another, a small troupe of Little People. Each one carefully scanned the room before emerging. Had the dowager awakened at that point, she might have been able to see them, but she remained fast asleep. She would not be waking anytime soon. The Little People knew this. There were five of them altogether. When they first emerged, they were the size of Tsubasa’s little finger, but once they were fully on the outside, they would give themselves a twist, as though unfolding a tool, and stretch themselves to their full one-foot height. They all wore the same clothing without distinguishing features, and their facial features were equally undistinguished, making it impossible to tell them apart.

They climbed down from the bed to the floor, and from under the bed they pulled out an object about the size of a Chinese pork bun. Then they sat in a circle around the object and started feverishly working on it. It was white and highly elastic. They would stretch their arms out and, with practiced movements, pluck white, translucent threads out of the air, applying them to the fluffy, white object, making it bigger and bigger. The threads appeared to have a suitably sticky quality. Before long, the Little People themselves had grown to nearly two feet in height. They were able to change their height freely as needed.

Several hours of concentrated work followed, during which time the Little People said nothing at all. Their teamwork was tight and flawless. Tsubasa and the dowager remained sound asleep the whole time, never moving a muscle. All the other women in the safe house enjoyed deeper sleeps than usual. Stretched out on the front lawn, perhaps dreaming, the German shepherd let out a soft moan from the depths of its unconscious.

Overhead, the two moons worked together to bathe the world in a strange light.

CHAPTER 20

Tengo

THE POOR GILYAKS

Tengo couldn’t sleep. Fuka-Eri was in his bed, wearing his pajamas, sound asleep. Tengo had made simple preparations for sleeping on the couch (no great imposition, since he often napped there), but he had felt not the slightest bit sleepy when he lay down, so he was writing his long novel at the kitchen table. The word processor was in the bedroom; he was using a ballpoint pen on a writing pad. This, too, was no great imposition. The word processor was undeniably more convenient for writing speed and for saving documents, but he loved the classic act of writing characters by hand on paper.

Writing fiction at night was rather rare for Tengo. He enjoyed working when it was light outside and people were walking around. Sometimes, when he was writing at night while everything was hushed and wrapped in darkness, the style he produced would be a little too heavy, and he would have to rewrite the whole passage in the light of day. Rather than go to that trouble, it was better to write in daylight from the outset.

Writing at night for the first time in ages, though, using a ballpoint pen and paper, Tengo found his mind working smoothly. His imagination stretched its limbs and the story flowed freely. One idea would link naturally with the next almost without interruption, the tip of the pen raising a persistent scrape against the white paper. Whenever his hand tired, he would set the pen down and move the fingers of his right hand in the air, like a pianist doing imaginary scales. The hands of the clock were nearing half past one. He heard strangely few sounds from the outside, as though extraneous noises were being soaked up by the clouds covering the city’s sky like a thick cotton layer.