I hear you don’t know where I am. You might be worried. But you don’t have to be. This is not a dangerous place. I wanted to tell you that. I really shouldn’t do this, but I felt like I ought to.

[Ten seconds of silence.]

They told me not to tell anyone. That I’m here. The Professor filed a search request with the police to look for me. But they’re not doing anything. Kids run away all the time. So I will just stay still here a while.

[Fifteen seconds of silence.]

This place is far away. No one will find me if I don’t go out walking. Very far away. Azami will bring this tape to you. Better not send it in the mail. Gotta be careful. Wait, I’ll make sure it’s recording.

[A click. An empty interval. Another click.]

Good, it’s recording.

Children shouting in the distance. Faint sounds of music. These were probably coming through an open window. There might have been a kindergarten nearby.

Thanks for putting me up that time. I needed you to do that. I also needed to get to know you. Thanks for reading the book to me. I felt close to the Gilyaks. Why do the Gilyaks walk through the forest swamps and not on the wide roads.

[Tengo secretly added a question mark at the end.]

Even if the roads are convenient, it’s easier for the Gilyaks to keep away from the roads and walk through the forest. To walk on the roads, they would have to completely remake the way they walk. If they remade the way they walk, they would have to remake other things. I couldn’t live like the Gilyaks. I would hate for men to hit me all the time. I would hate to live with a lot of maggots around—so dirty! But I don’t like to walk on wide roads, either. I need more water.

Fuka-Eri took another drink of water. After a short silence, her glass came back to the table with a clunk. Then there was an interval while she wiped her lips with her fingertips. Didn’t this girl realize that tape recorders have pause buttons?

I think it might be trouble for you that I went away. But I don’t want to be a novelist, and I don’t plan to write anymore. I asked Azami to look up stuff about the Gilyaks for me. She went to the library. The Gilyaks live in Sakhalin and are like the Ainu and American Indians: they don’t have writing. They don’t leave records. I’m the same. Once it gets written down, the story is not mine anymore. You did a good job of writing my story. I don’t think anybody else could do that. But it’s not my story anymore. But don’t worry. It’s not your fault. I’m just walking in a place away from the road.

Here Fuka-Eri inserted another pause. Tengo imagined her trudging along silently, alone, off to the side, away from a road.

The Professor has big power and deep wisdom. But the Little People have just as deep wisdom and big power as he does. Better be careful in the forest. Important things are in the forest, and the Little People are in the forest, too. To make sure the Little People don’t harm you, you have to find something the Little People don’t have. If you do that, you can get through the forest safely.

Having managed to say all this in one go, Fuka-Eri paused to take a deep breath. She did this without averting her face from the microphone, thereby recording what sounded like a huge gust of wind blowing between buildings. When that quieted down, there came the deep, foghorn-like sound of a large truck honking in the distance. Two short blasts. Apparently Fuka-Eri was in a place not far from a major highway.

[Clearing of throat.] I’m getting hoarse. Thanks for worrying about me. Thanks for liking my chest shape and putting me up in your apartment and lending me your pajamas. We probably can’t see each other for a while. The Little People may be mad that they were put into writing. But don’t worry. I’m used to the forest. Bye.

There was a click, and the recording ended.

Tengo stopped the tape and rewound to the beginning. Listening to the rain dripping from the eaves, he took several deep breaths and twirled the plastic ballpoint pen in his fingers. Then he set the pen down. He had not taken a single note. He had merely listened in fascination to Fuka-Eri’s normally peculiar narrative style. Without resorting to note taking, he had grasped the three main points of her message:

1

She had not been abducted, but was merely in temporary hiding. There was no need to worry about her.

2

She had no intention of publishing any more books. Her story was meant for oral transmission, not print.

3

The Little People possessed no less wisdom and power than Professor Ebisuno. Tengo should be careful.

These were the points she hoped to convey. She also spoke of the Gilyaks, the people who had to stay off broad roads when they walked.

Tengo went to the kitchen and made himself some coffee. While drinking his coffee, he stared aimlessly at the cassette tape. Then he listened to it again from the beginning. This time, just to make sure, he occasionally pushed the pause button and took brief notes. Then he let his eyes make their way through the notes. This led to no new discoveries.

Had Fuka-Eri made her own simple notes at first and followed them as she spoke into the recorder? Tengo could not believe she had done that. She wasn’t the type to do such a thing. She had undoubtedly spoken her thoughts into the mike as they came to her in real time (without even pushing the pause button).

What kind of place could she be in? The recorded background noises provided Tengo with few hints. The distant sound of a door slamming. Children’s shouts apparently coming in through an open window. A kindergarten? A truck horn. She was obviously not deep in the woods but somewhere in a city. The time of the recording was probably late morning or early afternoon. The sound of the door might suggest that she was not alone.

One thing was clear: Fuka-Eri had gone into hiding on her own initiative. No one had forced her to make the tape: that much was obvious from the sound of her voice and the way she spoke. There was some perceptible nervousness at the beginning, but otherwise it sounded as if she had freely spoken her own thoughts into the microphone.

The Professor has big power and deep wisdom. But the Little People have just as deep wisdom and big power as he does. Better be careful in the forest. Important things are in the forest, and the Little People are in the forest, too. To make sure the Little People don’t harm you, you have to find something the Little People don’t have. If you do that, you can get through the forest safely.

.    .    .

Tengo played that part back one more time. Fuka-Eri narrated this section somewhat more rapidly than the others. The intervals between sentences were a touch shorter. The Little People were beings who possessed the potential for harming both Tengo and Professor Ebisuno, but he could not discern in Fuka-Eri’s tone of voice any suggestion that she had written them off as evil. Judging from the way she spoke of them, they seemed like neutral beings who could go either way. Tengo had misgivings about another passage:

The Little People may be mad that they were put into writing.

If the Little People were, in fact, angry, it stood to reason that Tengo himself would be one of the objects of their anger. He was, after all, one of those most responsible for having publicized their existence in print. Even if he were to beg their forgiveness on the grounds that he had done so without malice, they were not likely to listen to him.

What kind of harm did the Little People inflict on others? Tengo could hardly be expected to know the answer. He rewound the tape again, returned it to the envelope, and stuffed it in a drawer. Putting his raincoat and hat on again, he set out for the market once more in the pouring rain.