engo had spent ten days reworking Air Chrysalis before handing it over to Komatsu as a newly finished work, following which he was visited by a string of calm, tranquil days. He taught three days a week at the cram school, and got together once a week with his married girlfriend. The rest of his time he spent doing housework, taking walks, and writing his own novel. April passed like this. The cherry blossoms scattered, new buds appeared on the trees, the magnolias reached full bloom, and the seasons moved along in stages. The days flowed by smoothly, regularly, uneventfully. This was the life that Tengo most wanted, each week linking automatically and seamlessly with the next.

Amid all the sameness, however, one change became evident. A good change. Tengo was aware that, as he went on writing his novel, a new wellspring was forming inside him. Not that its water was gushing forth: it was more like a tiny spring among the rocks. The flow may have been limited, but it was continuous, welling up drop by drop. He was in no hurry. He felt no pressure. All he had to do was wait patiently for the water to collect in the rocky basin until he could scoop it up. Then he would sit at his desk, turning what he had scooped into words, and the story would advance quite naturally.

The concentrated work of rewriting Air Chrysalis might have dislodged a rock that had been blocking his wellspring until now. Tengo had no idea why that should be so, but he had a definite sense that a heavy lid had finally come off. He felt as though his body had become lighter, that he had emerged from a cramped space and could now stretch his arms and legs freely. Air Chrysalis had probably stimulated something that had been deep inside him all along.

Tengo sensed, too, that something very like desire was growing inside him. This was the first time in his life he had ever experienced such a feeling. All through high school and college, his judo coach and older teammates would often say to him, “You have the talent and the strength, and you practice enough, but you just don’t have the desire.” They were probably right. He lacked that drive to win at all costs, which is why he would often make it to the semifinals and the finals but lose the all-important championship match. He exhibited these tendencies in everything, not just judo. He was more placid than determined. It was the same with his fiction. He could write with some style and make up reasonably interesting stories, but his work lacked the strength to grab the reader by the throat. Something was missing. And so he would always make it to the short list but never take the new writers’ prize, as Komatsu had said.

After he finished rewriting Air Chrysalis, however, Tengo was truly chagrined for the first time in his life. While engaged in the rewrite, he had been totally absorbed in the process, moving his hands without thinking. Once he had completed the work and handed it to Komatsu, however, Tengo was assaulted by a profound sense of powerlessness. Once the powerlessness began to abate, a kind of rage surged up from deep inside him. The rage was directed at Tengo himself. I used another person’s story to create a rewrite that amounts to a literary fraud, and I did it with far more passion than I bring to my own work. Isn’t a writer someone who finds the story hidden inside and uses the proper words to express it? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? You should be able to write something as good as Air Chrysalis if you make up your mind to do it. Isn’t that true?

But he had to prove it to himself.

Tengo decided to discard the manuscript he had written thus far and start a brand-new story from scratch. He closed his eyes and, for a long time, listened closely to the dripping of the little spring inside him. Eventually the words began to come naturally to him. Little by little, taking all the time he needed, he began to form them into sentences.

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.”

“Well, anyway,” Komatsu said, “the Professor may look like just another innocent old guy, but in fact he’s quite inscrutable.”

“How much does Fuka-Eri know about the plan?”

“She doesn’t know—and she doesn’t need to know—anything about the behind-the-scenes stuff. She trusts Professor Ebisuno and she likes you. That’s why I’m asking you for more help.”

Tengo shifted the phone from one hand to the other. He felt a need to trace the progress of the current situation. “By the way, Professor Ebisuno is not a scholar anymore, is he? He left the university, and he’s not writing books or anything.”

“True, he’s cut all ties with academia. He was an outstanding scholar, but he doesn’t seem to miss the academic world. But then, he never did want much to do with authority or the organization. He was always something of a maverick.”

“What sort of work is he doing now?”

“I think he’s a stockbroker,” Komatsu said. “Or, if that sounds too old-fashioned, he’s an investment consultant. He manages money for people, and while he moves it around for them, he makes his own profit on the side. He stays holed up on the mountaintop, issuing suggestions to buy or sell. His instinct for it is frighteningly good. He also excels at analyzing data and has put together his own system. It was just a hobby for him at first, but it became his main profession. So that’s the story. He’s pretty famous in those circles. One thing’s for sure: he’s not hurting for money.”

“I don’t see any connection between cultural anthropology and stock trading,” Tengo said.

“In general, there is no connection, but there is for him.”

“And he’s a hard one to read.”

“Exactly.”

Tengo pressed his fingertips against his temples. Then, resigning himself to his fate, he said, “I’ll meet Fuka-Eri at the usual café in Shinjuku at six o’clock the day after tomorrow, and we’ll prepare for the press conference. That’s what you want me to do, right?”

“That’s the plan,” Komatsu said. “You know, Tengo, don’t think too hard about this stuff for the time being. Just go with the flow. Things like this don’t happen all that often in one lifetime. This is the magnificent world of a picaresque novel. Just brace yourself and enjoy the smell of evil. We’re shooting the rapids. And when we go over the falls, let’s do it together in grand style!”

Tengo met Fuka-Eri at the Shinjuku café in the evening two days later. She wore a slim pair of jeans and a thin summer sweater that clearly revealed the outline of her breasts. Her hair hung down long and straight, and her skin had a fresh glow. The male customers kept glancing in her direction. Tengo could feel their gazes. Fuka-Eri herself, though, seemed totally unaware of them. When this girl was announced as the winner of a literary magazine’s new writers’ prize, it would almost certainly cause a commotion.

Fuka-Eri had already received word that she had won the prize, but she seemed neither pleased nor excited by it. She didn’t care one way or the other. It was a summerlike day, but she ordered hot cocoa and clutched the cup in both hands, savoring every drop. No one had told her about the upcoming press conference, but when Tengo explained, she had no reaction.

“You do know what a press conference is, don’t you?”

“Press conference …” Fuka-Eri repeated the words.

“You sit up on the podium and answer questions from a bunch of newspaper and magazine reporters. They’ll take your picture. There might even be TV cameras. The whole country will see reports on the questions and answers. It’s very unusual for a seventeen-year-old girl to win a literary magazine’s new writers’ award. It’ll be big news. They’ll make a big deal of the fact that the committee’s decision was unanimous. That almost never happens.”

“Questions and answers,” Fuka-Eri asked.

“They ask the questions, you give the answers.”

“What kind of questions.”

“All kinds of questions. About the work, about you, about your private life, your hobbies, your plans for the future. It might be a good idea to prepare answers now for those kinds of questions.”

“Why.”

“It’s safer that way. So you aren’t at a loss for answers and don’t say anything that might invite misunderstanding. It wouldn’t hurt to get ready for it now. Kind of like a rehearsal.”

Fuka-Eri drank her cocoa in silence. Then she looked at Tengo with eyes that said, “I’m really not interested in doing such a thing, but if you think it’s necessary …” Her eyes could be more eloquent—or at least speak more full sentences—than her words. But she could hardly conduct a press conference with her eyes.

Tengo took a piece of paper from his briefcase and unfolded it on the table. It contained a list of questions that were likely to come up at the press conference. Tengo had put a lot of time and thought into compiling it the night before.

“I’ll ask a question, and you answer me as if I’m a newspaper reporter, okay?”

Fuka-Eri nodded.

“Have you written lots of stories before?”

“Lots,” Fuka-Eri replied.

“When did you start writing?”

“A long time ago.”

“That’s fine,” Tengo said. “Short answers are good. No need to add anything extra. Like, the fact that Azami did the writing for you. Okay?”

Fuka-Eri nodded.

“You shouldn’t say anything about that. It’s just our little secret, yours and mine.”

“I won’t say anything about that,” Fuka-Eri said.

“Did you think you’d win when you submitted your work for the new writers’ prize?”

She smiled but said nothing.

“So you don’t want to answer that?”

“No.”

“That’s fine. Just keep quiet and smile when you don’t want to answer. They’re stupid questions, anyway.”

Fuka-Eri nodded again.

“Where did you get the story line for Air Chrysalis?”

“From the blind goat.”

“Good answer. What are your friends at school saying about your winning the prize?”

“I don’t go to school.”

“Why don’t you go to school?”

No answer.

“Do you plan to keep writing fiction?”

Silence again.

Tengo drank the last of his coffee and returned the cup to the saucer. From the speakers recessed in the café’s ceiling, a string performance of soundtrack music from The Sound of Music played at low volume.

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens …

“Are my answers bad,” Fuka-Eri asked.

“Not at all,” Tengo said. “Not at all. They’re fine.”

“Good,” Fuka-Eri said.

Tengo meant it. Even though she could not speak more than a sentence at a time and some punctuation marks were missing, her answers were, in a sense, perfect. The best thing was her instant response to every question. Also good was the way she looked directly into the eyes of the questioner without blinking. This proved that her answers were honest and their shortness was not meant as a put-down. Another bonus was that no one was likely to be able to grasp her precise meaning. That was the main thing that Tengo was hoping for—that she should give an impression of sincerity even as she mystified her listeners.

“Your favorite novel is …?”

“The Tale of the Heike.”

Tengo was astounded. To think that a thirteenth-century samurai war chronicle should be her favorite “novel”! What a great answer!

“What do you like about The Tale of the Heike?”

“Everything.”

“How about another favorite?”

“Tales of Times Now Past.”

“But that’s even older! Don’t you read any new literature?”

Fuka-Eri gave it a moment of thought before saying, “‘Sansho the Bailiff.’”

Wonderful! Ogai Mori must have written that one around 1915. This was what she thought of as “new literature.”

“Do you have any hobbies?”

“Listening to music.”

“What kind of music?”

“I like Bach.”

“Anything in particular?”

“BWV 846 to 893.”

Tengo mulled that one over. “The Well-Tempered Clavier, Books I and II.”

“Yes.”

“Why did you answer with the BWV numbers?”

“They’re easier to remember.”

The Well-Tempered Clavier was truly heavenly music for mathematicians. It was composed of prelude and fugue pairs in major and minor keys using all twelve tones of the scale, twenty-four pieces per book, forty-eight pieces in all, comprising a perfect cycle.

“How about other works?” Tengo asked.

“BWV 244.”

Tengo could not immediately recall which work of Bach’s had a BWV number of 244.

Fuka-Eri began to sing.

Tengo was momentarily dumbstruck. Her singing was not exactly on key, but her German pronunciation was amazingly clear and precise.

“‘St. Matthew Passion,’” Tengo said. “You know it by heart.”

“No I don’t,” the girl said.

Tengo wanted to say something, but the words would not come to him. All he could do was look down at his notes and move on to the next question.

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

Fuka-Eri shook her head.

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to get pregnant.”

“It’s possible to have a boyfriend without getting pregnant.”

Fuka-Eri said nothing but instead blinked several times.

“Why don’t you want to get pregnant?”

Fuka-Eri kept her mouth clamped shut. Tengo felt sorry for having asked such a stupid question.

“Okay, let’s stop,” Tengo said, returning the list to his briefcase. “We don’t really know what they’re going to ask, and you’ll be fine answering them any way you like. You can do it.”

“That’s good,” Fuka-Eri said with apparent relief.

“I’m sure you think it’s a waste of time to prepare these answers.”

Fuka-Eri gave a little shrug.

“I agree with you. I’m not doing this because I want to. Mr. Komatsu asked me to do it.”

Fuka-Eri nodded.

“But,” Tengo said, “please don’t tell anyone that I rewrote Air Chrysalis. You understand that, don’t you?”

Fuka-Eri nodded twice. “I wrote it by myself.”

“In any case, Air Chrysalis is your work alone and no one else’s. That has been clear from the outset.”

“I wrote it by myself,” Fuka-Eri said again.

“Did you read my rewritten Air Chrysalis?”

“Azami read it to me.”

“How did you like it?”

“You’re a good writer.”

“Which means you liked it, I suppose?”

“It’s like I wrote it,” Fuka-Eri said.

Tengo looked at her. She picked up her cocoa cup and took a sip. He had to struggle not to look at the lovely swell of her chest.

“I’m glad to hear that,” he said. “I really enjoyed rewriting Air Chrysalis. Of course, it was very hard work trying not to destroy what you’d done with it. So it’s very important to me to know whether you liked the finished product or not.”

Fuka-Eri nodded silently. Then, as if trying to ascertain something, she brought her hand up to her small, well-formed earlobe.

The waitress approached and refilled their water glasses. Tengo took a swallow to moisten his throat. Then, screwing up his courage, he gave voice to a thought that he had been toying with for a while.

“I have my own request to make of you now, if you don’t mind.”

“What’s that.”

“I’d like you to go to the press conference in the same clothes you’re wearing today.”

Fuka-Eri gave him a puzzled look. Then she looked down to check each article of clothing she had on, as if she had been unaware until this moment of what she was wearing.

“You want me to go wearing this,” she asked.

“Right. I’d like you to go to the press conference wearing exactly what you’re wearing now.”

“Why.”

“It looks good on you. It shows off the shape of your chest beautifully. This is strictly my own hunch, but I suspect the reporters won’t be able to stop themselves from looking down there and they’ll forget to ask you tough questions. Of course, if you don’t like the idea, that’s fine. I’m not insisting.”

Fuka-Eri said, “Azami picks all my clothes.”

“Not you?”

“I don’t care what I wear.”

“So Azami picked your outfit today?”

“Azami picked it.”

“Even so, it looks great on you.”

“So this outfit makes my chest look good,” she asked without a question mark.

“Most definitely. It’s a real attention-getter.”

“This sweater and bra are a good match.”

Fuka-Eri looked straight into his eyes. Tengo felt himself blushing.

“I can’t tell what kind of matching is involved, but the, uh, effect is excellent.”

Fuka-Eri was still staring into Tengo’s eyes. Gravely, she asked, “You can’t stop yourself from looking down there.”

“It’s true, I must confess,” Tengo said.

Fuka-Eri pulled on the collar of her sweater and all but stuck her nose inside as she looked down, apparently to check out what kind of bra she had on today. Then she focused her eyes on Tengo’s bright red face for a moment as if looking at some kind of curiosity. “I will do as you say,” she said a moment later.

“Thank you,” Tengo said, bringing their session to an end.

Tengo walked Fuka-Eri to Shinjuku Station. Many people on the street had their jackets off. A few women wore sleeveless tops. The bustle of people combined with the traffic created the liberated sound unique to the city. A fresh early-summer breeze swept down the street. Tengo was mystified: where could such a wonderful-smelling wind come from to reach the crowded streets of Shinjuku?

“Are you going back to your house in the country?” Tengo asked Fuka-Eri. The trains were jammed; it would take her forever to get home.

Fuka-Eri shook her head. “I have a room in Shinano-machi. Just a few minutes away from here.”

“You stay there when it gets too late to go home?”

“Futamatao is too far away.”

As before, Fuka-Eri held Tengo’s left hand while they were walking to the station. She did it the way a little girl holds a grown-up’s hand, but still it made Tengo’s heart pound to have his hand held by such a beautiful girl.

When they reached the station, she let go of his hand and bought a ticket to Shinano-machi from the machine.

“Don’t worry about the press conference,” Fuka-Eri said.

“I’m not worried.”

“Even if you don’t worry, I can do it okay.”

“I know that,” Tengo said. “I’m not the least bit worried. I’m sure it will be okay.”

Without speaking, Fuka-Eri disappeared through the ticket gate into the crowd.

After leaving Fuka-Eri, Tengo went to a little bar near the Kinokuniya bookstore and ordered a gin and tonic. This was a bar he would go to now and then. He liked the old-fashioned decor and the fact that they had no music playing. He sat alone at the bar and stared at his left hand for a while, thinking nothing in particular. This was the hand that Fuka-Eri had been holding. It still retained her touch. He thought about her chest, its beautiful curves. The shape was so perfect it had almost no sexual meaning.

As he thought about these things, Tengo found himself wanting to talk with his older girlfriend on the telephone—to talk about anything at all: her complaints about child raising, the approval rating of the Nakasone government, it didn’t matter. He just wanted to hear her voice. If possible, he wanted to meet her somewhere right away and have sex with her. But calling her at home was out of the question. Her husband might answer. One of her children might answer. He never did the phoning. That was one of the rules they had established.

Tengo ordered another gin and tonic, and while he waited for it he imagined himself in a little boat shooting the rapids. On the phone Komatsu had said, “When we go over the falls, let’s do it together in grand style!” But could Tengo take him at his word? Wouldn’t Komatsu leap onto a handy boulder just before they reached the falls? “Sorry, Tengo,” he would say, “but I just remembered some business I have to take care of. I’ll leave the rest of this to you.” And the only one to go over the falls in style would be Tengo himself. It was not inconceivable. Indeed, it was all too conceivable....

He went home, went to bed, and dreamed. He hadn’t had such a vivid dream in a very long time. He was a tiny piece in a gigantic puzzle. But instead of having one fixed shape, his shape kept changing. And so—of course—he couldn’t fit anywhere. As he tried to sort out where he belonged, he was also given a set amount of time to gather the scattered pages of the timpani section of a score. A strong wind swept the pages in all directions. He went around picking up one page at a time. He had to check the page numbers and arrange them in order as his body changed shape like an amoeba. The situation was out of control. Eventually Fuka-Eri came along and grabbed his left hand. Tengo’s shape stopped changing. The wind suddenly died and stopped scattering the pages of the score. “What a relief!” Tengo thought, but in that instant his time began to run out. “This is the end,” Fuka-Eri informed him in a whisper. One sentence, as always. Time stopped, and the world ended. The earth ground slowly to a halt, and all sound and light vanished.

When he woke up the next day, the world was still there, and things were already moving forward, like the great karmic wheel of Indian mythology that kills every living thing in its path.