As a teacher, Tengo pounded into his students’ heads how voraciously mathematics demanded logic. Here things that could not be proven had no meaning, but once you had succeeded in proving something, the world’s riddles settled into the palm of your hand like a tender oyster. Tengo’s lectures took on uncommon warmth, and the students found themselves swept up in his eloquence. He taught them how to practically and effectively solve mathematical problems while simultaneously presenting a spectacular display of the romance concealed in the questions it posed. Tengo saw admiration in the eyes of several of his female students, and he realized that he was seducing these seventeen- or eighteen-year-olds through mathematics. His eloquence was a kind of intellectual foreplay. Mathematical functions stroked their backs; theorems sent warm breath into their ears. Since meeting Fuka-Eri, however, Tengo no longer felt sexual interest in such girls, nor did he have any urge to smell their pajamas.

Fuka-Eri is surely a special being, Tengo realized. She can’t be compared with other girls. She is undoubtedly someone of special significance to me. She is—how should I put it?—an all-encompassing image projected straight at me, but an image I find it impossible to decipher.

Still, I’d better end any involvement with Fuka-Eri. Tengo’s rational mind reached this lucid conclusion. I should also put as much distance as possible between myself and the piles of Air Chrysalis displayed in the front of all the bookstores, and the inscrutable Professor Ebisuno, and that ominously mysterious religious organization. I’d also better keep away from Komatsu, at least for the time being. Otherwise, I’m likely to be carried into even more chaotic territory, pushed into a dangerous corner without a shred of logic, driven into a situation from which I can never extricate myself.

But Tengo was also well aware that he could not easily withdraw from the twisted conspiracy in which he was now fully involved. He was no Hitchcockian protagonist, embroiled in a conspiracy before he knew what was happening. He had embroiled himself, knowing full well that it contained an element of risk. The machine was already in motion, gaining too much forward momentum for him to stop it. Tengo himself was one of its gears—and an important one at that. He could hear the machine’s low groaning, and feel its implacable motion.

Komatsu called Tengo a few days after Air Chrysalis topped the bestseller list for the second week in a row. The phone rang after eleven o’clock at night. Tengo was already in bed in his pajamas. He had been reading a book for a while, lying on his stomach, and was just about to turn off the bedside light. Judging from the ring, he knew it was Komatsu. Exactly how, he could not explain, but he could always tell when the call was from Komatsu. The phone rang in a special way. Just as writing had a particular style, Komatsu’s calls had a particular ring.

Tengo got out of bed, went to the kitchen, and picked up the receiver. He did not really want to answer the call and would have preferred to go quietly to sleep, to dream of Iriomote cats or the Panama Canal, or the ozone layer, or Basho—anything, as long as it was as far from here as possible. If he didn’t answer the phone now, though, it would just ring again in another fifteen minutes or half an hour. Better to take the call now.

“Hey, Tengo, were you sleeping?” Komatsu asked, easygoing as usual.

“I was trying,” Tengo said.

“Sorry about that,” Komatsu said, sounding not the least bit sorry. “I just wanted to let you know that Air Chrysalis is selling well.”

“That’s great.”

“Like hotcakes. They can’t keep up. The poor guys at the printer are working through the night. Anyhow, I figured the numbers would be pretty good, of course. The author is a beautiful seventeen-year-old girl. People are talking about it. All the elements are in place for a bestseller.”

“Unlike novels written by a thirty-year-old cram school teacher who looks like a bear, you mean.”

“Exactly. But still, you couldn’t call this a commercial novel. It’s got no sex scenes, it’s not a tearjerker. Not even I imagined it would sell so spectacularly.”

Komatsu paused as if he expected a response from Tengo. When Tengo said nothing, he went on:

“It’s not just selling a lot, either. The critical reception is wonderful, too. This is no lightweight drama slapped together on a whim by some youngster. The story itself is outstanding. Of course your superb revision made this possible, Tengo. That was an absolutely perfect piece of work you did.”

Made this possible. Ignoring Komatsu’s praise, Tengo pressed his fingertips against his temples. Whenever Komatsu openly praised Tengo, it was bound to be followed by something unpleasant.

Tengo asked Komatsu, “So tell me, what’s the bad news?”

“How do you know there’s bad news?”

“Look what time you’re phoning me! There has to be some bad news.”

“True,” Komatsu said, in apparent admiration. “You’ve got that special sensitivity, Tengo. I should have known.”

Sensitivity’s got nothing to do with it, Tengo thought. It’s just plain old experience. But he said nothing and waited to see what Komatsu was getting at.

“Unfortunately, you’re right, I do have a piece of unpleasant news,” Komatsu said. He paused meaningfully. Tengo imagined Komatsu at the other end, his eyes gleaming like a mongoose’s in the dark.

“It probably has something to do with the author of Air Chrysalis, am I right?”

“Exactly. It is about Fuka-Eri. And it’s not good. She’s been missing for a while.”

Tengo’s fingers kept pressing against his temples. “ ‘A while’? Since when?”

“Three days ago, on Wednesday morning, she left her house in Okutama for Tokyo. Professor Ebisuno saw her off. She didn’t say where she was going. Later in the day she phoned to say she wouldn’t be coming back to the house in the hills, that she was going to spend the night in their Shinano-machi condo. Professor Ebisuno’s daughter was also supposed to spend the night there, but Fuka-Eri never showed up. They haven’t heard from her since.”

Tengo traced his memory back three days, but could think of nothing relevant.

“They have absolutely no idea where she is. I thought she might have contacted you.”

“I haven’t heard a thing,” Tengo said. More than four weeks must have gone by since she spent the night in his apartment.

Tengo momentarily wondered whether he ought to tell Komatsu what she had said back then—that she had better not go back to the Shinano-machi condo. She might have been sensing something ominous about the place. But he decided not to mention it. He didn’t want to have to tell Komatsu that Fuka-Eri had stayed at his apartment.

“She’s an odd girl,” Tengo said. “She might have just gone off somewhere by herself without telling anybody”

“No, I don’t think so. She may not look it, but Fuka-Eri is a very conscientious person. She’s always very clear about her whereabouts, always phoning to say where she is or where she’s going and when. That’s what Professor Ebisuno tells me. For her to be out of touch for three full days is not at all usual for her. Something bad might have happened.”

“Something bad,” Tengo growled.

“The Professor and his daughter are both very worried,” Komatsu said.

“In any case, if she stays missing like this, it’ll put you in a difficult position, I’m sure,” Tengo said to Komatsu.

“True, especially if the police get involved. I mean, think about it: beautiful teenage writer of runaway bestseller disappears! You know the media would go crazy over that one. Then they’re going to drag me out for comments as her editor. No good can come of that. I’m strictly a shadow figure, I don’t do well in the sunlight. Once something like that gets going the truth could come out at any point.”