hen Aomame walked into the adjoining room, Buzzcut followed and swiftly closed the door. The room was totally dark. Thick curtains covered the window, and all lights had been extinguished. A few rays of light seeped in through a gap between the curtains, serving only to emphasize the darkness of everything else.

It took time for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, as in a movie theater or planetarium. The first thing she saw was the display of an electric clock on a low table. Its green figures read 7:20 p.m. When a few more seconds passed, she could tell that there was a large bed against the back wall. The clock was near the head of the bed. This room was somewhat smaller than the spacious adjoining room, but it was still larger than an ordinary hotel room.

On the bed was a deep black object, like a small mountain. Still more time had to go by before Aomame could tell that its irregular outline indicated the presence of a human body. During this interval, the outline remained perfectly unbroken. She could detect no signs of life. There was no breathing to be heard. The only sound was the soft rush of air from the air conditioner near the ceiling. Still, the body was not dead. Buzzcut’s actions were based on the premise that this was a living human being.

This was a very large person, most likely a man. She could not be sure, but the person did not seem to be facing in this direction and did not seem to be under the covers but rather was lying facedown on the made-up bed, like a large animal at the back of a cave, trying not to expend its physical energy while it allows its wounds to heal.

“It is time,” Buzzcut announced in the direction of the shadow. There was a new tension in his voice.

Whether or not the man heard Buzzcut’s voice was unclear. The dark mound on the bed remained perfectly still. Buzzcut stood stiffly by the door, waiting. The room was enveloped in a silence so deep Aomame could hear someone swallow, and then she realized that the sound of swallowing had come from her. Gripping her gym bag in her right hand, Aomame, like Buzzcut, was waiting for something to happen. The clock display changed to 7:21, then 7:22, then 7:23.

Eventually the outline on the bed began to show a slight degree of motion—a faint shudder that soon became a clear movement. The person must have been in a deep sleep or a state resembling sleep. The muscles awoke, the upper body began to rise, and, in time, the consciousness was regained. The shadow sat straight up on the bed, legs folded. It’s definitely a man, thought Aomame.

“It is time,” Buzzcut said again.

Aomame heard the man release a long breath. It was like a heavy sigh slowly rising from the bottom of a deep well. Next came the sound of a large inhalation. It was as wild and unsettling as a gale tearing through a forest. Then the cycle started again, the two utterly different types of sound repeated, separated by a long silence. This made Aomame feel uneasy. She sensed that she had found her way into a region that was completely foreign to her—a deep ocean trench, say, or the surface of an unknown asteroid: the kind of place it might be possible to reach with great effort, but from which return was impossible.

Her eyes refused to adapt fully to the darkness. She could now see to a certain point but no farther. All that her eyes could reach was the man’s dark silhouette. She could not tell which way he was facing or what he was looking at. All she could see was that he was an extremely large man and that his shoulders seemed to rise and fall quietly—but enormously—with each breath. This was not normal breathing. Rather, it was breathing that had a special purpose and function and that was performed with the entire body. She pictured the large movements of his shoulder blades and diaphragm expanding and contracting. No ordinary human being could breathe with such fierce intensity. It was a distinctive method of breathing that could only be mastered through long, intense training.

Buzzcut stood next to her at full attention, back straight, chin in. His breathing was shallow and quick, in contrast to that of the man on the bed. He was trying to minimize his presence as he waited for the intense deep breathing sequence to end: apparently it was an activity the man practiced routinely. Like Buzzcut, Aomame could do nothing but wait for it to end. It was probably a process the man needed to go through to become fully awake.

Finally, the special breathing ended in stages, the way a large machine stops running. The intervals between breaths grew gradually longer, concluding with one long breath that seemed to squeeze everything out. A deep silence fell over the room once again.

“It is time,” Buzzcut said a third time.

The man’s head moved slowly. He now seemed to be facing Buzzcut.

“You may leave the room,” the man said. His voice was a deep, clear baritone—decisive and unambiguous. His body had apparently attained complete wakefulness.

Buzzcut gave one shallow bow in the darkness and left the room the way he had entered it, with no unnecessary movements. The door closed, leaving Aomame alone in the room with the man.

“I’m sorry it’s so dark,” the man said, most likely to Aomame.

“I don’t mind,” Aomame said.

“We had to make it dark,” the man said softly. “But don’t worry. You will not be hurt.”

Aomame nodded. Then, recalling that she was in darkness, she said aloud, “I see.” Her voice was somewhat harder and higher than normal.

For a time, the man stared at Aomame in the darkness. She felt herself being stared at intensely. His gaze was precise and attentive to detail. He was not so much “looking” at her as “viewing” her. He seemed able to survey every inch of her body. She felt as if he had, in an instant, stripped off every piece of clothing and left her stark naked. But his gaze didn’t stop with the skin; it pierced through to her muscles and organs and uterus. He can see in the dark, she thought. He is viewing far more than the eyes can see.

“Things can be seen better in the darkness,” he said, as if he had just seen into her mind. “But the longer you spend in the dark, the harder it becomes to return to the world aboveground where the light is. You have to call a stop to it at some point.”

Having said this, he spent another interval observing Aomame. There was nothing sexual in his gaze. He was just viewing her as an object, the way a boat passenger stares at the shape of a passing island. But this was no ordinary passenger. He was trying to see through to everything about the island. With prolonged exposure to such a relentless, piercing gaze, Aomame strongly felt the imperfections of her own fleshly self. This was not how she felt normally. Aside from the size of her breasts, she was, if anything, proud of her body. She trained it daily and kept it beautiful. Her muscles were smooth and taut without the slightest excess flesh. Stared at by this man, however, she could not help but feel that her flesh was a worn-out old bag of meat.

As though he had read her thoughts, the man stopped staring at her. She felt the power suddenly go out of his gaze. It was as if someone had been spraying water with a hose when another person behind the building turned off the spigot.

“Sorry, but could you open the curtains just a bit?” the man asked softly. “I’m sure you could use some light, too, for your work.”

Setting the gym bag on the floor, Aomame went over to the window and pulled on the cords at the side to open, first, the thick, heavy curtains and then the inner white lace curtains. Nighttime Tokyo poured its light into the room. Tokyo Tower’s floodlights, the lamps lining the elevated expressway, the moving headlights of cars, the lighted windows of high-rise buildings, the colorful rooftop neon signs: they all combined to illuminate the hotel room with that mixed light unique to the big city, but just barely, enough so that Aomame was now able to make out some of the room’s furnishings. Aomame saw the light with a pang of familiarity. This was light from the world to which she herself belonged. She suddenly realized how urgently she needed such light. As weak as it was, though, it appeared to be too strong for the man’s eyes. Still seated on the bed in the lotus position, he covered his face with his two large hands.

“Are you all right?” Aomame asked.

“Don’t worry,” he said.

“Shall I close the curtains a bit more?”

“No, that’s fine. I have a problem with my retinas. It takes time for them to adjust to light. I’ll be all right in a minute. Have a seat over there.”

A problem with his retinas? Aomame wondered. People with retinal problems are usually on the verge of going blind. But this was of no concern to Aomame now. She was not here to deal with this man’s sight.

While the man was covering his face with his hands and letting his eyes adjust to the light streaming in from the window, Aomame sat on a sofa and watched him. Now it was her turn to study him in detail.

He was a very large man. Not fat, just large. Tall and broad and powerful looking. She had heard about his large size from the dowager, but she had not expected him to be this big. There was, of course, no reason that a religious guru should not be huge. She imagined ten-year-old girls being raped by this big man and found herself scowling. She imagined him naked and mounted on a tiny girl. There was no way for such girls to resist. Even an adult woman would have a difficult time of it.

The man was wearing something like thin sweatpants that narrowed at the ankles with elastic bands, and a solid-color long-sleeved shirt that had a slight, silk-like sheen. The loose-fitting shirt buttoned up the front, but the man had left the top two buttons open. Both the pants and the shirt appeared to be white or a light cream color. These were not pajamas but more like comfortable lounging clothes or an outfit that would look normal under palm trees in southern lands. His bare feet looked big. The broad stone wall of his shoulders brought to mind an experienced martial arts combatant.

After waiting for a pause in Aomame’s observation, the man said, “Thanks for coming today.”

“It’s my job,” Aomame said in a voice devoid of emotion. “I go where I’m needed.” Even as she spoke, however, she felt like a prostitute who had come when called. Perhaps this was due to the way he had undressed her in the darkness with that penetrating gaze.

“How much do you know about me?” the man asked Aomame, his hands still covering his face.

“How much do I know about you?”

“That’s right.”

“Almost nothing,” Aomame said, choosing her words carefully. “I have not even been told your name. All I know is that you are the head of a religious organization in Nagano or Yamanashi, that you have some kind of physical problem, and that I may be able to help you with it.”

The man gave his head a few quick shakes and took his hands away from his face. Now he and Aomame were looking directly at each other.

His hair was long. His abundant head of hair hung straight down to his shoulders. It had much gray mixed in. The man was probably somewhere in his late forties or early fifties. He had a large nose that occupied a good deal of his face. It was admirably straight and brought to mind a calendar photo of the Alps. The mountain had a broad base and great dignity. It was the first thing one noticed when looking at his face, and it contrasted sharply with his eyes, which were set so deeply into his face that it was hard to tell what they were looking at. Like his body, his face was broad and thick. Clean-shaven, it bore no scars or moles. The features worked well together, producing a look of serenity and intelligence but also something peculiar, out of the ordinary, something that did not inspire easy trust. It was the kind of face that, on first impression, gives people pause. Perhaps it was because the nose was too big. Because of it, the face was missing a certain balance, perhaps the root of what left the observer feeling unsettled. Or perhaps it was the deep-set eyes that did it, the way they gave off the quiet glow of an ancient glacier. Then again, it might have been the cruel impression created by the thin lips, which looked as if they were ready to spit out unpredictable words at any moment.

“And besides that?” he asked.

“Besides that I have heard very little. All I was told was to be prepared to perform stretching exercises. The muscles and joints are my area of expertise. I don’t need to know much about my clients’ positions or personalities.”

Just like a whore, Aomame thought.

“I understand what you are saying,” the man said in a deep voice. “But in my case, you might need some explanation.”

“I would be glad to listen to anything you might wish to share.”

“People call me ‘Leader.’ But I almost never show my face to anyone. Most of our believers, although they belong to the religion and live in the same compound, have no idea what I look like.”

Aomame nodded.

“But here I am, letting you see my face. For one thing, I can hardly ask you to treat me in the dark or blindfolded. And there is also the question of courtesy”

“What I do is not a ‘treatment,’” Aomame calmly corrected him. “It is simply the stretching of the muscles. I am not licensed to perform medical procedures. All I do is force people to stretch the muscles they don’t normally use or the ones that are difficult to use, and that way we prevent the deterioration of their physical strength.”

The man appeared to smile faintly, though it might have been a mere illusion caused by a slight twitching of his facial muscles.

“I am quite aware of that. I simply used the word ‘treat’ for convenience’s sake. Don’t worry. All I was trying to say was that you are now seeing something that most people are not able to see, and I wanted you to be aware of that.”

“I was warned in there not to say anything about this to anyone,” Aomame said, pointing toward the door to the adjoining room. “But none of you need to worry. Nothing that I observe here will find its way outside. I touch many people’s bodies in my work. You may be someone in a special position, but to me you are merely one of many people with muscle problems. The only part of you that concerns me is your muscles.”

“I hear you were a Society of Witnesses believer as a child.”

“It’s not as if I chose to become a believer. I was simply raised that way. There is a big difference between the two.”

“Indeed, a very big difference,” the man said. “But people can never fully divorce themselves from the images implanted during early childhood.”

“For better or worse,” Aomame said.

“The Witnesses’ doctrines are very different from those of the religion that I belong to. If you ask me, any religion that takes the end of the world as one of its central tenets is more or less bogus. In my view, the only thing that ever ‘ends’ is the individual. That said, the Society of Witnesses is an amazingly tough religion. Its history is not very long, but it has withstood many tests and has steadily continued to increase the number of its believers. There is a lot that can be learned from that.”

“It probably just shows how close-minded they’ve been. The smaller and narrower such a group is, the more firmly they can resist outside pressure.”

“You are probably right about that,” the man said, pausing for a few moments. “In any case, we’re not here to discuss religion.”

Aomame said nothing.

“What I want you to understand is the fact that my body has many special things about it.”

Aomame, still seated, waited for him to go on.

“As I said before, my eyes can’t stand strong light. This symptom appeared some years ago. I had no particular problem until that time, but all at once, at some point, it started. This was the main reason I stopped coming into people’s presence. I spend practically all my time in dark rooms.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do anything for vision problems,” Aomame said. “As I said before, the muscles are my area of expertise.”

“Yes, I am quite aware of that. And of course I consulted medical specialists. I have been to any number of famous eye doctors and had many tests. But they tell me there is nothing they can do at this point. My retinas have been damaged, but they don’t know the cause. The symptoms are slowly progressing. If things go on like this, I will lose my sight before long. As you say, of course, this is a problem that has nothing to do with the muscles. But let me list my physical problems in order, and when I am through, we can think about what you can and cannot do.”

Aomame nodded.

“The next problem is that my muscles often go stiff,” the man said. “I quite literally ‘can’t move a muscle.’ They become rock hard and stay that way for hours. All I can do at such times is lie down. I don’t feel any pain. All the muscles of my body simply become immobile. I can’t even move a finger. The only thing I can manage to move, through sheer willpower, is my eyeballs. This happens once or twice a month.”

“Do you have any sign beforehand that it is about to happen?”

“First I have spasms. My muscles start twitching all over. That goes on for ten to twenty minutes. After that, my muscles go dead, as if someone has turned off a switch. During those ten or twenty minutes after the warning comes, I go to a place where I can stretch out, and I lie down. Like a boat seeking shelter from a storm in a cove, I wait there in hiding for the paralysis to pass over me. And though the paralysis is complete when it comes, my mind remains fully awake. No, if anything, it is awake with a special clarity.”

“You say you have no pain?”

“I lose all sensation. If you jabbed me with a needle, I wouldn’t feel it.”

“Have you consulted a doctor about that?”

“I have been to all the best hospitals and any number of doctors, but all they can tell me is that this is an unprecedented affliction for which current medical knowledge can do nothing. I have tried traditional Chinese remedies, osteopathic physicians, acupuncture, moxibustion, massage, hot spring cures—everything I could think of—but have had no results worth talking about.”

Aomame frowned slightly. “All my approach does is to stimulate the normal bodily functions. I doubt that it will have much effect on such severe problems.”

“Yes, I am quite aware of that as well. But I am trying to exhaust every possibility. Even if your method has no effect, that is not your responsibility. Just do to me what you always do. I would like to see how my body responds to it.”

Aomame pictured the man’s huge body lying motionless in some dark place like a hibernating animal.

“When was the last time you experienced the paralysis?”

“Ten days ago,” the man said. “And—this is a bit difficult to bring up, but—there is one more thing I should probably mention.”

“Feel free to tell me anything.”

“All the time my muscles are in that state of suspended animation, I have an erection.”

Aomame’s frown deepened. “You mean to say that your sex organ remains hard for hours at a time?”

“That is correct.”

“But you have no feeling.”

“None at all,” he said. “No sexual desire, either. I just harden up. Like a rock, the way my muscles do.”

Aomame gave her head a little shake and did her best to resume a normal expression. “I don’t believe I can do anything about that, either. It’s quite far from my area of expertise.”

“This is very difficult for me to talk about, and you probably don’t want to hear about it either, but may I tell you a bit more?”

“Please do. Your secrets are safe with me.”

“During this interval, it happens that I am physically joined with girls.”

“Girls?!”

“I have a number of females around me. Whenever I go into my paralytic state, they take turns mounting me and having sexual relations with me. I have no feeling at all. I feel no sexual pleasure. But I do ejaculate. With each of them.”

Aomame kept silent.

He continued, “All together, there are three girls, all in their teens. I am sure you must be wondering why I have such young girls around me and why they must have sex with me.”

“Could it be, perhaps, part of a religious practice?”

Still sitting cross-legged on the bed, the man took a deep breath. “It is thought that these paralyses of mine are a form of grace bestowed by heaven, a kind of sacred state. Thus, when I am visited by those states, the girls come to me and join their bodies with mine. They are trying to become impregnated. With my heir.”

Aomame looked at him, saying nothing. He also fell silent.

“So, then, what you are telling me is that the girls’ purpose is to become pregnant? To carry your child?” Aomame then asked.

“That is correct.”

“And during this several-hour period while you lie there paralyzed, you have three ejaculations with these three girls?”

“That is correct.”

Aomame could not help but realize that she had gotten herself into a terribly complicated situation. She was about to murder this man, to send him to the other side. Yet here she was, being given the strange secrets of his flesh.

“I don’t quite understand the precise nature of your problem. All the muscles of your body become paralyzed once or twice a month. When that happens, your three girlfriends come and have sex with you. True, that is not exactly normal in commonsense terms, but—”

“They are not my girlfriends,” the man said, cutting her short. “They serve me as shrine maidens. Joining their bodies with mine is one of their duties.”

“Duties?”

“It is a role that has been assigned to them—to become pregnant with my heir.”

“Assigned by whom?” Aomame asked.

“That would be a long story,” the man said. “The problem is that all of this is steadily leading toward the destruction of my flesh.”

“So, then, have they gotten pregnant?”

“No, not yet. And there is little possibility that any of them will. They have not started their periods. Still, they are hoping for a miracle through heavenly grace.”

“None of them have gotten pregnant. They are not menstruating,” Aomame said. “And your flesh is headed for destruction.”

“Little by little, the time of each paralytic episode is growing longer. And the episodes are increasing in number. They started seven years ago. Back then, I would have one episode in two or three months. Now it is once or twice a month, and after each paralysis ends, my body is racked by excruciating pain and exhaustion. I have to live this way for a week or more each time. I feel as if my whole body is being stabbed by thick needles. I have intense headaches and an overwhelming fatigue. I find it impossible to sleep, and no medicine has done anything to alleviate the pain.”

The man sighed. Then he continued, “The second week after the episode is better than the first, but still the pain never entirely goes away. Intense pain comes over me like a wave several times a day. I can hardly breathe. My organs don’t function properly. My joints creak like a machine that needs oiling. My flesh is being devoured and my blood sucked out. I can feel it happening. But what is gnawing away at me is neither cancer nor a parasite. I have had every test they can think of, but they can never find the cause. They tell me I’m the picture of health. Medical science cannot explain my torment. The only conclusion is that this is the price I must pay for the heavenly grace I experience.”

This man is surely on the road to destruction, Aomame thought. But she could find no hint of emaciation about him. He seemed sturdily built in every way and appeared to have the discipline to withstand intense pain. And yet she could sense that his flesh was headed for destruction. This man is diseased. I don’t know what his disease might be, but even if I don’t take steps to dispatch him right now, he will suffer intense pain as his flesh is slowly destroyed and he encounters inevitable death.

“I can’t stop its progress,” the man said, as if he had read Aomame’s thoughts. “Every part of me is being eaten away, my body hollowed out, and a horribly painful death awaits me. They’ll just throw me away like a useless old car.”

“‘They’?” Aomame asked. “Who are ‘they’?”

“I am talking about the ones who are eating away at my flesh like this,” the man said. “But never mind that. What I am looking for now is some way to have my very real pain eased to some extent. That is what I need more than anything, even if the solution is not complete. This pain is unbearable. At times—at certain times—the pain deepens dramatically, as if it has a direct link to the center of the earth. It is a kind of pain that no one else besides me can grasp. It has robbed me of many things, but in return it has given me much. Deep, special pain bestows deep, special grace—not that the grace alleviates the pain, of course. Nor can it prevent the coming destruction.”

A deep silence followed for some moments.

Aomame finally managed to speak. “I know I keep saying the same thing, but I can’t help thinking that the techniques at my disposal can do almost nothing for your problem—especially if it is something that has come to you as a payment for heavenly grace.”

Leader sat up straight and looked at Aomame with those small, deep-set, glacier-like eyes. Then he opened his long, thin lips.

“No, I think you can do something for me—something that only you can do.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I am right, I know it,” the man said. “I know a lot of things. If you are willing, I would like to have you start now. Do what you always do.”

“I’ll try,” Aomame said, her voice tense and hollow. What I always do, Aomame thought.