he phone rang at just past noon on Tuesday. Aomame was seated on her yoga mat, legs wide apart, stretching her iliopsoas muscles. It was a much more strenuous exercise than it looked. A light sheen of perspiration was starting to seep through her shirt. She stopped, wiped her face with a towel, and answered the phone.

“Bobblehead is no longer in that apartment,” Tamaru said, as always omitting any sort of greeting. No hellos for him.

“He’s not there anymore?”

“No, he’s not. He was persuaded.”

“Persuaded,” Aomame repeated. She imagined this meant that Tamaru had, through some means, forcibly removed Bobblehead.

“Also, the person named Kawana who lives in that building is the Tengo Kawana you have been looking for.”

The world around Aomame expanded, then contracted, as if it were her own heart.

“Are you listening?” Tamaru asked.

“I am.”

“But Tengo Kawana isn’t in his apartment right now. He has been gone for a couple of days.”

“Is he all right?”

“He’s not in Tokyo now, but he’s definitely all right. Bobblehead rented an apartment in Tengo’s building, and was waiting there for you to come see Tengo. He had set up a hidden camera and was keeping watch over the entrance.”

“Did he take my picture?”

“He took three photos of you. It was nighttime, and you had on a hat, glasses, and a muffler, so you can’t see any facial details in the photos. But it’s you. If you had gone there one more time, things could have gotten sticky.”

“So I made the right choice leaving things up to you?”

“If there is such a thing as a right choice here.”

“Anyway,” Aomame said, “I don’t have to worry about him.”

“That man won’t be trying to do you any harm anymore.”

“Because you persuaded him.”

“I had to adjust some things as we went, but in the end, yes,” Tamaru said. “I got all the photos. Bobblehead’s aim was to wait until you showed up, and Tengo Kawana was merely the bait he was using to reel you in. So I can’t see that they would have any reason now to harm Tengo. He should be fine.”

“That’s a relief,” Aomame said.

“Tengo teaches math at a cram school in Yoyogi. He is apparently an excellent teacher, but he only works a few days a week, so he doesn’t make much money. He’s still single, and he lives modestly in that simple apartment.”

When Aomame closed her eyes she could hear her heartbeat inside her ears. The boundary between herself and the world seemed blurred.

“Besides teaching math at the cram school, he is writing a novel. A long one. Ghostwriting Air Chrysalis was just a side job. He has his own literary ambitions, which is a good thing. A certain amount of ambition helps a person grow.”

“How did you find all this out?”

“He’s gone now, so I let myself into his apartment. It was locked, not that I would count that as a lock. I feel bad about invading his privacy, but I needed to do a basic check. For a man living alone, he keeps his place clean. He had even scrubbed the gas stove. The inside of his fridge was very neat, no rotten cabbage or anything tucked away in the back. I could see he had done some ironing as well. Not a bad partner for you to have. As long as he isn’t gay, I mean.”

“What else did you find out?”

“I called the cram school and asked about his teaching schedule. The girl who answered the phone said that Tengo’s father passed away late Sunday night in a hospital somewhere in Chiba Prefecture. He had to leave Tokyo for the funeral, and his Monday classes were canceled. She didn’t know when or where the funeral would take place. His next class is on Thursday, so it seems he will be back by then.”

Aomame remembered that Tengo’s father was an NHK fee collector. On Sundays Tengo had made the rounds of his father’s collection route with him. She and Tengo had run across each other a number of times on the streets of Ichikawa. She couldn’t remember his father’s face very well. He was a small, thin man who wore a fee collector’s uniform. He didn’t look at all like Tengo.

“Since there’s no more Bobblehead, is it all right if I go see Tengo?”

“That’s not a good idea,” Tamaru shot back. “Bobblehead was persuaded, but I had to get in touch with Sakigake to get them to take care of one last piece of business. There was one particular article I didn’t want to fall into the hands of the authorities. If that had been discovered, the residents of the apartment would have been gone over with a fine-tooth comb, and your friend might have gotten mixed up in it too. It would have been difficult for me to wrap up everything by myself. If the authorities spotted me lugging that article out in the middle of the night and questioned me, I don’t know how I would talk my way out of it. Sakigake has the manpower and the resources, and that’s the sort of thing they’re used to. Like the time they transported another article out of the Hotel Okura. Do you follow what I’m saying?”

In her mind Aomame translated Tamaru’s terminology into more straightforward vocabulary. “So this persuasion got rather rough, I take it.”

Tamaru gave a low groan. “I feel bad about it, but that man knew too much.”

“Was Sakigake aware of what Bobblehead was doing in that apartment?”

“He was working for them, but on that front he was acting on his own. He hadn’t yet reported to his superiors on what he was doing. Fortunately for us.”

“But by now they must know that he was up to something.”

“Correct. So you had best not go near there for a while. Tengo Kawana’s name and address have to be on their checklist. I doubt they know yet about the personal connection between you and Tengo. But when they search for the reason Bobblehead was in that apartment, Tengo’s name will surface. It’s only a matter of time.”

“If we’re lucky, it might be some time before they discover it. They might not make the connection between Bobblehead’s death and Tengo right away.”

“If we’re lucky,” Tamaru said. “If they’re not as meticulous as I think they are. But I never count on luck. That’s how I’ve survived all these years.”

“So I shouldn’t go near that apartment building.”

“Correct,” Tamaru said. “We made a narrow escape, and we can’t be too careful.”

“I wonder if Bobblehead figured out that I’m hiding in this apartment.”

“If he had, right now you would be somewhere I couldn’t get to.”

“But he came so close.”

“He did. But that was just coincidence, nothing more.”

“That’s why he could sit there on the slide, totally exposed.”

“Right,” Tamaru said. “He had no idea that you were watching him. He never expected it. And that was his fatal mistake. I said that, didn’t I? That there is a very fine line between life and death?”

A few seconds of silence descended on them. A heavy silence that a person’s—any person’s—death brings on.

“Bobblehead might be gone, but the cult is still after me.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Tamaru said. “At first they wanted to grab you and find out what organization planned Leader’s murder. They know you couldn’t have done it on your own. It was obvious that you must have had backup. If they had caught you, you would have been in for some tough questioning.”

“Which is why I needed a pistol,” Aomame said.

“Bobblehead was well aware of all this,” Tamaru went on. “He knew the cult was after you to grill you and punish you. But somehow the situation has drastically shifted. After Bobblehead left the stage, I spoke with one of the cult members. He said they have no plans to do you any harm. He asked me to give you this message. It could be a trap, but it sounded genuine to me. The guy explained that Leader was actually hoping to die, that it was a kind of self-destruction. So there’s no need anymore to punish you.”

“He’s right,” Aomame said in a dry tone. “Leader knew from the outset that I had gone there to kill him. And he wanted me to kill him.”

“His security detail hadn’t seen through you, but Leader had.”

“That’s right. I don’t know why, but he knew everything beforehand,” Aomame said. “He was waiting for me there.”

Tamaru paused briefly, and then said, “What happened?”

“We made a deal.”

“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” Tamaru said, his voice stiff.

“I never had the opportunity to tell you.”

“Tell me what sort of deal you made.”

“I massaged his muscles for a good hour, and all the while he talked. He knew about Tengo. And somehow he knew about the connection between Tengo and me. He told me he wanted me to kill him. He wanted to escape the terrible physical pain he was in as soon as possible. If I would give him death, he said, he would spare Tengo’s life for me. So I made up my mind and took his life. Even if I hadn’t carried it out, he already had one foot in the grave, and when I considered the kinds of things he had done, I almost felt like letting him stay as he was, in such agony.”

“You never reported to Madame about this deal you made.”

“I went there to kill Leader, and I carried out my assignment,” Aomame said. “The issue with Tengo was private.”

“All right,” Tamaru said, sounding half resigned. “You most definitely did carry out your assignment, I’ll give you that. And the issue of Tengo Kawana is indeed a private matter. But somewhere either before or after this, you became pregnant. That’s not something that can be easily overlooked.”

“Not before or after. I got pregnant on that very night, the night of the huge rainstorm and terrible lightning that hit the city. On the same exact night when I dealt with Leader. As I said before, without any sex involved.”

Tamaru sighed. “Considering what we’re talking about, I either have to believe you or not believe you, one or the other. I have always found you to be a trustworthy person and I want to believe you, but I can’t fathom the logic. Understand, I am a person who can only follow deductive reasoning.”

Aomame was silent.

Tamaru went on. “Is there a cause-and-effect relationship between Leader’s murder and this mysterious pregnancy?”

“I really can’t say.”

“Is it possible that the fetus inside you is Leader’s child? That he used some method—what that would be I have no idea—and impregnated you? If that’s true, then I understand why they’re trying to get ahold of you. They need a successor to Leader.”

Aomame clutched the phone tight and shook her head. “That’s impossible. This is Tengo’s child. I know it for a fact.”

“That’s another thing I have to either trust you on or not.”

“Beyond that, I can’t explain anything.”

Tamaru sighed again. “All right. For the time being I’ll accept what you’re saying—that this baby is yours and Tengo’s, and that you know this for a fact. Still, I don’t see how it makes sense. At first they wanted to capture you and punish you severely, but at a certain point something happened—or they found out something. Now they need you. They said they guarantee your safety, and that they have something to offer you, and they want to meet directly to discuss this. What could have happened to account for this sudden turnaround?”

“They don’t need me,” Aomame said. “They need what’s inside my belly. Somewhere along the line they realized this.”

“Ho, ho,” one of the Little People intoned from somewhere.

“Things are moving a bit too fast for me,” Tamaru said. He gave a little groan again in the back of his throat. “I still don’t see the logical connection here.”

Well, nothing’s been logical since the two moons appeared, Aomame thought. That’s what stole the logic from everything. Not that she said this aloud.

“Ho, ho,” six other Little People joined in.

“They need someone to hear the voice,” Tamaru said. “The man I talked with on the phone was insistent about that. If they lose the voice, it could be the end of the religion. What hearing the voice actually means, I have no idea. But that’s what the man said. Does this mean that the child inside you is the one who hears the voice?”

Aomame laid a gentle hand on her abdomen. Maza and dohta, she thought to herself. The moons can’t hear about this.

“I’m not—really sure,” Aomame said, carefully choosing her words. “But I can’t think of any other reason they would need me.”

“But why would this child have that kind of special power?”

“I don’t know.” In exchange for his life, maybe Leader entrusted his successor to me, she thought. In order to accomplish that, on that stormy night he might have temporarily opened the circuits where worlds intersect, and joined Tengo and me as one.

Tamaru went on. “No matter who the father of that child is, or whatever abilities that child may or may not have when it’s born, you have no intention of negotiating with the cult, correct? You don’t care what they give you in exchange. Even if they solve all the riddles you’ve been wondering about.”

“I’ll never do it,” Aomame said.

“Despite your intentions, they may take what they want by force. By any means necessary,” Tamaru said. “Plus, you have a weak spot: Tengo Kawana. Perhaps the only weak spot you have, but it’s a big one. When they discover that, that’s where they’ll focus their attack.”

Tamaru was right. Tengo was both her reason for living and her Achilles’ heel.

Tamaru went on. “It’s too dangerous for you to stay there any longer. You need to move to a more secure location before they figure out the connection between you and Tengo.”

“There are no more secure places in this world,” Aomame said.

Tamaru mulled over her opinion. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” he said quietly.

“First, I have to see Tengo. Until that happens, I can’t leave here. No matter how dangerous it might be.”

“What are you going to do when you see him?”

“I know what I need to do.”

Tamaru was silent for a moment. “You’re crystal clear on that?”

“I don’t know if it will work out, but I know what I have to do. I’m crystal clear on that, yes.”

“But you’re not planning on telling me what it involves.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t. Not just you, but anybody. If I told anyone about it, at that instant it would be disclosed to the whole world.”

The moons were listening carefully. So were the Little People. And this very room she was in. She couldn’t let it out of her heart, not one centimeter. She had to surround her heart with a thick wall so nothing could escape.

On the other end of the line Tamaru was tapping the tip of a ballpoint pen on a desk. Aomame could hear the dry, rhythmic noise. It was a lonely sound, lacking any resonance.

“Okay, then let’s get in touch with Tengo Kawana. Before that, though, Madame must agree to it. The task I’ve been given is to move you, as soon as possible, to another location. But you said you can’t leave there until you see Tengo. It doesn’t look like it will be easy to explain the reason to her. You understand that, right?”

“It’s very difficult to logically explain the illogical.”

“Exactly. As difficult as finding a real pearl in a Roppongi oyster bar. But I’ll do my best.”

“Thank you,” Aomame said.

“What you’re insisting on doesn’t make sense to me, no matter how I look at it. Still, the more I talk with you, the more I feel that maybe I can accept it. I wonder why.”

Aomame kept silent.

“Madame trusts you and believes in you,” Tamaru said, “so if you insist on it that much, I can’t see her finding a reason not to let you see Tengo. You and Tengo seem to have an unwavering connection to each other.”

“More than anything in the world,” Aomame said.

More than anything in any world, she repeated to herself.

“Even if I say it’s too dangerous, and refuse to contact Tengo, you’ll still go to that apartment to see him.”

“I’m sure I will.”

“And no one can stop you.”

“It’s pointless to try.”

Tamaru paused for a moment. “What message would you like me to give Tengo?”

“Come to the slide after dark. After it gets dark, anytime is fine. I will be waiting. If you tell him Aomame said this, he’ll understand.”

“Okay. I’ll let him know. Come to the slide after dark.”

“If he has something important he doesn’t want to leave behind, tell him to bring it with him. But tell him he has to be able to keep both hands free.”

“Where are you going to take that luggage?”

“Far away,” Aomame said.

“How far away?”

“I don’t know,” Aomame said.

“All right. As long as Madame gives her permission, I’ll let Tengo know. And I will do my best to keep you safe. But there’s still danger here. We’re dealing with desperate men. You need to protect yourself.”

“I understand,” Aomame said quietly. Her palm still lay softly on her abdomen. Not just myself, she thought.

After she hung up, she collapsed onto the sofa. She closed her eyes and thought about Tengo. She couldn’t think of anything else. Her chest felt tight, and it hurt, but it was a good sort of pain. It was the kind of pain she could put up with. Tengo was so close, almost within reach. Less than a ten-minute walk away. The very thought warmed her to her core. Tengo is a bachelor, and teaches math at a cram school. He lives in a neat, humble little apartment. He cooks, irons, and is writing a long novel. Aomame envied Tamaru. If it were possible, she would like to get into Tengo’s apartment like that, when he was out. Tengo’s Tengo-less apartment. In the deserted silence she wanted to touch each and every object there—check out how sharp his pencils were, hold his coffee cup, inhale the odor of his clothes. She wanted to take that step first, before actually coming face-to-face with him.

Without that prefatory knowledge, if they were suddenly together, just the two of them, she couldn’t imagine what she should say. The thought made it hard to breathe, and her mind went blank. There were too many things. Still, when it came down to it, perhaps nothing needed to be said. The things she most wanted to tell him would lose their meaning the moment she put them into words.

All she could do now was simply wait—calmly, with eyes wide open. She prepared a bag so she could run outside as soon as she spotted Tengo. She stuffed an oversized black leather shoulder bag with everything she would need so she wouldn’t have to come back here. There weren’t all that many things. Some cash, a few changes of clothes, and the Heckler & Koch, fully loaded. That was about it. She put the bag where she could get to it at a moment’s notice. She took her Junko Shimada suit from the hanger in the closet and, after checking that it wasn’t wrinkled, hung it on the wall in the living room. She also took out the white blouse that went with the suit, stockings, and her Charles Jourdan high heels. And the beige spring coat. The same outfit she was wearing when she climbed down the emergency stairway on Metropolitan Expressway No. 3. The coat was a bit thin for a December evening, but she had no other choice.

After getting all this ready, she sat in the garden chair on the balcony and looked out through the slit in the screen at the slide in the park. Tengo’s father died late Sunday night. A minimum of twenty-four hours had to elapse between the time a person died and the time they could be cremated. She was sure there was a law that said that. Tuesday would be the earliest they could do the cremation. Today was Tuesday. The earliest Tengo would be back in Tokyo from wherever after the funeral would be this evening. And then Tamaru could give him the message. So Tengo wouldn’t be coming to the park anytime before that. Plus, it was still light out.

On his death, Leader set this little one inside my womb, she thought. That’s my working supposition. Or maybe I should say intuition. Does this mean I’m being manipulated by the will he left behind, being led to a destination that he established?

Aomame grimaced. I can’t decide anything. Tamaru surmised that I got pregnant with the one who hears the voice as a result of Leader’s plan. Probably as an air chrysalis. But why does it have to be me? And why does my partner have to be Tengo? This was another thing she couldn’t explain.

Be that as it may, things are moving forward around me, even though I can’t figure out the connections, or sort out the principles at work behind them, or see where things are headed. I’ve just wound up entangled in it all. Until now, that is, she told herself.

Her lips twisted and she grimaced even more.

From now on, things will be different. Nobody else’s will is going to control me anymore. From now on, I’m going to do things based on one principle alone: my own will. I’m going to protect this little one, whatever it takes. This is my life, and my child. Somebody else may have programmed it for their own purposes, but there’s no doubt in my mind that this is Tengo’s and my child. I’ll never hand it over to anyone else. Never. From here on out, I’m the one in charge. I’m the one who decides what’s good and what’s bad—and which way we’re headed. And people had better remember that.

The phone rang the next day, Wednesday, at two in the afternoon.

“I gave him the message,” Tamaru said, as usual omitting any greeting. “He’s in his apartment now. I talked to him this morning on the phone. He will be at the slide tonight at precisely seven.”

“Did he remember me?”

“He remembered you well. He seems to have been searching all over for you.”

It was just as Leader said. Tengo is looking for me. That’s all I need to know. Aomame’s heart was filled with an indescribable joy. No other words in this world had any meaning for her.

“He will be bringing something important with him then, as you asked. I’m guessing that this will include the novel he’s writing.”

“I’m sure of it,” Aomame said.

“I checked around that humble building he lives in. All looks clear to me. No suspicious characters hanging around. Bobblehead’s apartment is deserted. Everything’s quiet, but not too quiet. Those guys took care of the article during the night and left. They probably thought it wouldn’t be good to stay too long. I made sure of this, so I don’t think I overlooked anything.”

“Good.”

“Probably, though, is the operative word here, at least for now. The situation is changing by the moment. And obviously I’m not perfect. I might be overlooking something important. It is possible that those guys might turn out to be one notch ahead of me.”

“Which is why it all comes down to me needing to protect myself.”

“As I said.”

“Thank you for everything. I’m very grateful to you.”

“I don’t know what you plan to do from now on,” Tamaru said, “but if you do go somewhere far away, and I never see you again, I know I’ll feel a little sad. You’re a rare sort of character, a type I’ve seldom come across before.”

Aomame smiled into the phone. “That’s pretty much the impression I wanted to leave you with.”

“Madame needs you. Not for the work you do, but on a personal level, as a companion. So I know she feels quite sad that she has to say good-bye like this. She can’t come to the phone now. I hope you’ll understand.”

“I do,” Aomame said. “I might have trouble, too, if I had to talk with her.”

“You said you’re going far away,” Tamaru said. “How far away are we talking about?”

“It’s a distance that can’t be measured.”

“Like the distance that separates one person’s heart from another’s.”

Aomame closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She was on the verge of tears, but was able to hold it together.

“I’m praying that everything will go well,” Tamaru said quietly.

“I’m sorry, but I may have to hold on to the Heckler & Koch,” Aomame said.

“That’s fine. It’s my gift to you. If it gets troublesome to have, just toss it into Tokyo Bay. The world will take one small step closer to disarmament.”

“I might end up never firing the pistol. Contrary to Chekhov’s principle.”

“That’s fine, too,” Tamaru said. “Nothing could be better than not firing it. We’re drawing close to the end of the twentieth century. Things are different from back in Chekhov’s time. No more horse-drawn carriages, no more women in corsets. Somehow the world survived the Nazis, the atomic bomb, and modern music. Even the way novels are composed has changed drastically. So it’s nothing to worry about. But I do have a question. You and Tengo are going to meet on the slide tonight at seven.”

“If things work out,” Aomame said.

“If you do see him, what are you going to do there?”

“We’re going to look at the moon.”

“Very romantic,” Tamaru said, gently.