t was a windy Saturday, nearly eight p.m., when the phone rang. Aomame was wearing a down jacket, a blanket on her lap, sitting on the balcony. Through a gap in the screen, she kept an eye on the slide in the playground, which was illuminated by the mercury-vapor lamp. Her hands were under the blanket so they wouldn’t get numb. The deserted slide looked like the skeleton of some huge animal that had died in the Ice Age.

Sitting outside on a cold night might not be good for the baby, but Aomame decided it wasn’t cold enough to present a problem. No matter how cold you may be on the outside, amniotic fluid maintained nearly the same temperature as blood. There are plenty of places in the world way colder and harsher, she concluded. And women keep on having babies, even there. But above all, this cold was something she felt she had to endure if she wanted to see Tengo again.

As always, the large yellow moon and its smaller green companion floated in the winter sky. Clouds of assorted sizes and shapes scudded swiftly across the sky. The clouds were white and dense, their outlines sharply etched, and they looked to her like hard blocks of ice floating down a snowmelt river to the sea. As she watched the clouds, appearing from somewhere only to disappear again, Aomame felt she had been transported to a spot near the edge of the world. This was the northern frontier of reason. There was nothing north of here—only the chaos of nothingness.

The sliding glass door was open just a crack, so the ringing phone sounded faint, and Aomame was lost in thought, but she didn’t miss the sound. The phone rang three times, stopped, then twenty seconds later rang one more time. It had to be Tamaru. She threw aside the blanket, slid open the cloudy glass door, and went inside. It was dark inside and the heat was at a comfortable level. Her fingers still cold, she lifted the receiver.

“Still reading Proust?”

“But not making much progress,” Aomame replied. It was like an exchange of passwords.

“You don’t like it?”

“It’s not that. How should I put it—it’s a story about a different place, somewhere totally unlike here.”

Tamaru was silent, waiting for her to go on. He was in no hurry.

“By different place, I mean it’s like reading a detailed report from a small planet light-years away from this world I’m living in. I can picture all the scenes described and understand them. It’s described very vividly, minutely, even. But I can’t connect the scenes in that book with where I am now. We are physically too far apart. I’ll be reading it, and I find myself having to go back and reread the same passage over again.”

Aomame searched for the next words. Tamaru waited as she did.

“It’s not boring, though,” she said. “It’s so detailed and beautifully written, and I feel like I can grasp the structure of that lonely little planet. But I can’t seem to go forward. It’s like I’m in a boat, paddling upstream. I row for a while, but then when I take a rest and am thinking about something, I find myself back where I started. Maybe that way of reading suits me now, rather than the kind of reading where you forge ahead to find out what happens. I don’t know how to put it exactly, but there is a sense of time wavering irregularly when you try to forge ahead. If what is in front is behind, and what is behind is in front, it doesn’t really matter, does it. Either way is fine.”

Aomame searched for a more precise way of expressing herself.

“It feels like I’m experiencing someone else’s dream. Like we’re simultaneously sharing feelings. But I can’t really grasp what it means to be simultaneous. Our feelings seem extremely close, but in reality there’s a considerable gap between us.”

“I wonder if Proust was aiming for that sort of sensation.”

Aomame had no idea.

“Still, on the other hand,” Tamaru said, “time in this real world goes ever onward. It never stands still, and never reverses course.”

“Of course. In the real world time goes forward.”

As she said this Aomame glanced at the glass door. But was it really true? That time was always flowing forward?

“The seasons have changed, and we are getting close to the end of 1984,” Tamaru said.

“I doubt I’ll finish In Search of Lost Time by the end of the year.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Tamaru said. “Take your time. It was written over fifty years ago. It’s not like it’s crammed with hot-off-the-press information or anything.”

You might be right, Aomame thought. But maybe not. She no longer had much trust in time.

“Is that thing inside you doing all right?” Tamaru asked.

“So far, so good.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Tamaru said. “By the way, you heard about the short balding guy who has been loitering outside the Willow House, right?”

“I did. Is he still hanging around?”

“No. Not recently. He did for a couple of days and then he disappeared. But he went to the rental agencies in the area, pretending to be looking for an apartment, gathering information about the safe house. This guy really stands out. As if that weren’t bad enough, his clothes are awful. So everyone who talked with him remembers him. It was easy to track his movements.”

“He doesn’t sound like the right type to be doing investigations or reconnaissance.”

“Exactly. With looks like those, he’s definitely not cut out for that kind of work. He has a huge head, too, like one of those Fukusuke good-luck dolls. But he does seem to be good at what he does. He knows how to pound the pavement and dig up information. And he seems quite sharp. He doesn’t skip what is important, and he ignores what isn’t.”

“And he was able to gather a certain amount of information on the safe house.”

“He knows it’s a refuge for women fleeing domestic violence, and that the dowager has provided it free of charge. I think he must also have discovered that the dowager is a member of the sports club where you worked, and that you often visited her mansion to do private training sessions with her. If I were him, I would have been able to find out that much.”

“You’re saying he’s as good as you are?”

“As long as you don’t mind the effort involved, you can learn how to best gather information and train yourself to think logically. Anyone can do that much.”

“I can’t believe there would be that many people like that in the world.”

“Well, there are a few. Professionals.”

Aomame sat down and touched the tip of her nose. It was still cold from being outside.

“And that man isn’t hanging around outside the mansion anymore?” Aomame asked.

“I think he recognizes that he stands out too much. And he knows about the security cameras. So he gathered as much information as he could in a short time and then moved on.”

“So he knows about the connection between me and the dowager, that this is more than just a relationship between a sports club trainer and a wealthy client, and that the safe house is connected, too. And that we were involved in some sort of project together.”

“Most likely,” Tamaru said. “As far as I can tell, the guy is getting close to the heart of things. Step by step.”

“From what you’re saying, though, it sounds like he’s working on his own, not as part of some larger organization.”

“I had the same impression. Unless they had some special ulterior motive, a large organization would never hire a conspicuous man like that to undertake a secret investigation.”

“So why is he doing this investigation—and for whom?”

“You got me,” Tamaru said. “All I know is he’s good at what he does and he’s dangerous. Anything beyond that is just speculation. Though my own modest speculation leads me to believe that, in some form or another, Sakigake is involved.”

Aomame considered this prospect. “And the man has moved on.”

“Right. I don’t know where he has gone, though. But if I had to make a logical guess I would say that he is trying to track you down.”

“But you told me it was next to impossible to find this place.”

“Correct. A person could investigate all he wanted and never discover anything that linked the dowager to the apartment. Any possible connection has been erased. But I’m talking about the short term. If it’s long term, chinks in the armor will appear, just where you least expect them. You might wander outside, for instance, and be spotted. That’s just one possibility.”

“I don’t go outside,” Aomame insisted. But this wasn’t entirely true. She had left the apartment twice: once when she ran over to the playground in search of Tengo, the other time when she took the taxi to the turnout on the Metropolitan Expressway No. 3, near Sangenjaya, in search of an exit. But she couldn’t reveal this to Tamaru.

“Then how is he going to locate this place?”

“If I were him, I would take another look at your personal information. Consider what kind of person you are, where you came from, what kind of life you have led up till now, what you’re thinking, what you’re hoping for in life, what you’re not hoping for. I would take all the information I could get my hands on, lay it all out on a table, verify it, and dissect it from top to bottom.”

“Expose me, in other words.”

“That’s right. Expose you under a cold, harsh light. Use tweezers and a magnifying glass to check out every nook and cranny, to discover patterns in the way you act.”

“I don’t get it. Would an analysis like that really turn up where I am now?”

“I don’t know,” Tamaru said. “It might, and it might not. It depends. I’m just saying that’s what I would do. Because I can’t think of anything else. Every person has his set routines when it comes to thinking and acting, and where there’s a routine, there’s a weak point.”

“It sounds like a scientific investigation.”

“People need routines. It’s like a theme in music. But it also restricts your thoughts and actions and limits your freedom. It structures your priorities and in some cases distorts your logic. In the present situation, you don’t want to move from where you are now. At least until the end of the year you have refused to move to a safer location—because you’re searching for something there. And until you find that something you can’t leave. Or you don’t want to leave.”

Aomame was silent.

“What that might be, or how much you really want it, I have no idea. And I don’t plan to ask. But from my perspective that something constitutes your personal weak point.”

“You may be right,” Aomame admitted.

“And Bobblehead’s going to follow that. He will mercilessly trace that personal element that’s restraining you. He thinks it will lead to a breakthrough—provided he is as skilled as I imagine and is able to trace fragmentary clues to arrive at that point.”

“I don’t think he will be able to,” Aomame said. “He won’t be able to find a path. Because it’s something that is found only in my heart.”

“You’re a hundred percent sure of that?”

Aomame thought about it. “Not a hundred percent. Call it ninety-eight.”

“Well, then you had better be very concerned about that two percent. As I said, this guy is a professional. He is very smart, and very persistent.”

Aomame didn’t reply.

“A professional is like a hunting dog,” Tamaru said. “He can sniff out what normal people can’t smell, hear what they can’t pick up. If you do the same things everyone else does, in the same way, then you’re no professional. Even if you are, you’re not going to survive for long. So you need to be vigilant. I know you are a very cautious person, but you have to be much more careful than you have been up till now. The most important things aren’t decided by percentages.”

“There’s something I would like to ask you,” Aomame said.

“What would that be?”

“What do you plan to do if Bobblehead shows up there again?”

Tamaru was silent for a moment. The question seemed to have caught him by surprise. “I probably won’t do anything. I’ll just leave him be. There’s nothing he can do around here.”

“But what if he starts to do something that bothers you?”

“Like what, for instance?”

“I don’t know. Something that’s a nuisance.”

Tamaru made a small sound in the back of his throat. “I think I would send him a message.”

“As a fellow professional?”

“I suppose. But before I actually did anything, I would need to find out who he’s working with. If he has backup, I could be the one in danger instead of him. I would want to make sure of that before I did anything.”

“Like checking the depth of the water before jumping in a pool.”

“That is one way of putting it.”

“But you believe he is acting on his own. You said he probably doesn’t have any backup.”

“I did, but sometimes my intuition is off,” Tamaru said. “And unfortunately, I don’t have eyes in the back of my head. At any rate, I would like you to keep an eye out, all right? See if there’s anyone suspicious around, any change in the scenery outside, anything out of the ordinary. If you notice anything unusual, no matter how small, make sure you let me know.”

“I understand. I will be careful,” Aomame said. She didn’t need to be told. I’m looking for Tengo, so I won’t miss the most trivial detail. Still, like Tamaru said, I only have one pair of eyes.

“That’s about it from me,” he said.

“How is the dowager?” Aomame asked.

“She is well,” Tamaru replied. Then he added, “Though she seems kind of quiet these days.”

“She never was one to talk much.”

Tamaru gave a low growl in the back of his throat, as if his throat were equipped with an organ to express special emotions. “She is even quieter than usual.”

Aomame pictured the dowager, alone on her chair, a large watering can at her feet, endlessly watching butterflies. Aomame knew very well how quietly the old lady breathed.

“I will include a box of madeleines with the next supplies,” Tamaru said as he wound up the conversation. “That might have a positive effect on the flow of time.”

“Thank you,” Aomame said.

Aomame stood in the kitchen and made cocoa. Before going back outside to resume her watch, she needed to warm up. She boiled milk in a pan and dissolved cocoa powder in it. She poured this into an oversized cup and added a cap of whipped cream she had made ahead of time. She sat down at the dining table and slowly sipped her cocoa as she reviewed her conversation with Tamaru. The man with the large, misshapen head is laying me out bare under a cold, harsh light. He’s a skilled professional, and dangerous.

She put on the down jacket, wrapped the muffler around her, and, the cup of half-drunk cocoa in hand, went out again to the balcony. She sat down on the garden chair and spread the blanket on her lap. The slide was deserted, as usual. But just then she spotted a child leaving the playground. It was strange for a child to be visiting the playground alone at this hour. A stocky child wearing a knit cap. She was looking at him from well above, through a gap in the screen on the balcony, and the child quickly cut across her field of vision and disappeared into the shadows of the building. His head seemed too big for a child, but it might just have been her imagination.

It certainly wasn’t Tengo, so Aomame gave it no more thought and turned back to the slide. She sipped her cocoa, warming her hands with the cup, and watched one bank of clouds after another scud across the sky.

Of course, it wasn’t a child that Aomame saw for a moment, but Ushikawa. If the light had been better, or if she had seen him a little longer, she would have noticed that his large head wasn’t that of a child. It would have dawned on her that that dwarfish, huge-headed person was none other than the man Tamaru had described. But Aomame had only glimpsed him for a few seconds, and at less than the ideal angle. Luckily, for the same reasons, Ushikawa hadn’t spotted Aomame out on the balcony.

At this point, a number of “if”s came to mind. If Tamaru had hung up a little earlier, if Aomame hadn’t made cocoa while mulling over things, she would have seen Tengo, on top of the slide, gazing up at the sky. She would have raced out of the room, and they would have been reunited after twenty years.

If that had happened, however, Ushikawa, who had been tailing Tengo, would have noticed that this was Aomame, would have figured out where she lived, and would have immediately informed the duo from Sakigake.

So it’s hard to say if Aomame’s not seeing Tengo at this point was an unfortunate or fortunate occurrence. Either way, as he had done before, Tengo climbed up to the top of the slide and gazed steadily at the two moons floating in the sky and the clouds crossing in front. Ushikawa watched Tengo from the shadows. In the interim Aomame left the balcony, talked with Tamaru on the phone, and made her cocoa. In this way, twenty-five minutes elapsed. A fateful twenty-five minutes. By the time Aomame had put on her down jacket and returned to the balcony, Tengo had left the playground. Ushikawa didn’t immediately follow after him. Instead, he stayed at the playground, checking on something he needed to make sure of. When he had finished, he quickly left the playground. It was during those few seconds that Aomame spotted him from the balcony.

The clouds were still racing across the sky, moving south, over Tokyo Bay and then out to the broad Pacific. After that, who knows what fate awaited them, just as no one knows what happens to the soul after death.

At any rate, the circle was drawing in tighter. But Tengo and Aomame weren’t aware that the circle around them was closing in. Ushikawa sensed what was happening, since he was actively taking steps to tighten it, but even he couldn’t see the big picture. He didn’t know the most important point: that the distance between him and Aomame was now no more than a couple dozen meters. And unusually for Ushikawa, when he left the playground his mind was incomprehensibly confused.

By ten it was too cold to stay outside, so Aomame reluctantly got up and went back into the warm apartment. She undressed and climbed into a hot bath. As she soaked in the water, letting the heat take away the lingering cold, she rested a hand on her belly. She could feel the slight swelling there. She closed her eyes and tried to feel the little one that was inside. There wasn’t much time left. Somehow she had to let Tengo know: that she was carrying his child. And that she would fight desperately to protect it.

She dressed, got into bed, lay on her side in the dark, and fell asleep. Before she fell into a deep sleep she had a short dream about the dowager.

Aomame is in the greenhouse at the Willow House as they watch butterflies together. The greenhouse is like a womb, dim and warm. The rubber tree she left behind in her old apartment is there. It has been well taken care of and is so green that she hardly recognizes it. A butterfly from a southern land that she has never seen before is resting on one of its thick leaves. The butterfly has folded its brightly colored wings and seems to be sleeping peacefully. Aomame is happy about this.

In the dream her belly is hugely swollen. It seems near her due date. She can make out the heartbeat of the little one. Her heartbeat and that of the little one blend together into a pleasant, joint rhythm.

The dowager is seated beside her, her back ramrod straight as always, her lips a straight line, quietly breathing. The two of them don’t talk, in order not to wake the sleeping butterfly. The dowager is detached, as if she doesn’t notice that Aomame is next to her. Aomame of course knows how closely the dowager protects her, but even so, she can’t shake a sense of unease. The dowager’s hands in her lap are too thin and fragile. Aomame’s hands unconsciously feel for the pistol, but can’t find it.

She is swallowed up by the dream, yet at the same time aware it is a dream. Sometimes Aomame has those kinds of dreams, where she is in a distinct, vivid reality but knows it isn’t real. It is a detailed scene from a small planet somewhere else.

In the dream, someone opens the door to the greenhouse. An ominous cold wind blows in. The large butterfly opens its eyes, spreads its wings, and flutters off, away from the rubber tree. Who is it? She twists her head to look in that direction. But before she can see who it is, the dream is over.

She was sweating when she woke up, an unpleasant, clammy sweat. She stripped off her damp pajamas, dried herself with a towel, and put on a new T-shirt. She sat up in bed for a time. Something bad might be about to happen. Somebody might be trying to get the little one. And whoever that is might be very close by. She had to find Tengo—there was not a moment to lose. But other than watching the playground every night, there wasn’t a thing she could do. Nothing other than what she was already doing—carefully, patiently, dutifully, keeping her eyes open, trained on this one tiny section of the world, that single point at the top of the slide. Even with such focus, though, a person can overlook things. Because she only has one pair of eyes.

Aomame wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come. She lay down again in bed, rested her palms on her stomach, and quietly waited for sleep to overtake her.