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2nd book: July-September

" The phone rang just after nine o'clock Tuesday night. Tengo was listening to music and reading a book. This was his favorite time of day, reading to his heart's content before going to sleep. When he tired of reading, he would fall asleep.

This was the first time he had heard the phone ring in quite a while, and there was something ominous about it. This was not Komatsu calling. The phone had a different ring when it was Komatsu. Tengo hesitated, wondering whether he should pick it up at all. He let it ring five times. Then he lifted the needle from the record groove and picked up the receiver. It might be his girlfriend.

“Mr Kawana?” a man said. It was the voice of a middle-aged man, soft and deep. Tengo did not recognize it.

“Yes”, Tengo said cautiously.

“I'm sorry to call so late at night. My name is Yasuda,” the man said in a neutral voice, neither friendly nor hostile, neither impersonal nor intimate.

Yasuda? The name was ordinary enough, but he couldn't think of any Yasuda he knew.

“I'm calling to give you a message, the man said. He then inserted a slight pause, rather like putting bookmark in between the pages of a book. “My wife will not be able to visit you home anymore, I believe. That is all I wanted to tell you.”

Yasuda! That was his girlfriend's name. Kyoko Yasuda. She never had occasion to speak her name in Tengo's presence, which accounted for the lag in recognition. This man on the phone was Kyoko's husband. Tengo felt as if something was stuck in his throat.

“Have I managed to make myself clear?” the man asked, his voice entirely free of emotion -or none that Tengo could hear. He spoke with a slight accent, possibly from Hiroshima or Kyushu. Tengo could not be sure.

“Not be able to visit,” Tengo echoed his words.

“Yes, she will be no longer able to visit”.

Tengo mustered up the courage to ask, “Has something happened to her?”

“So, what I'm telling you, Mr Kawana, is that you will probably never never see my wife again. I just wanted to let you know that. “

The man knew that Tengo had been sleeping with his wife. Once a week. For a year. Tengo could tell that he knew. But the man's voice was strangely lacking in either anger or resentment. It contained something else -not so much a personal emotion as an objective scene: an abandoned, overgrown garden, or a dry riverbed after a major flood – a scene like that.

“I'm not sure what you're trying to-”

“Then just leave it at that,” the man said, before Tengo could finish. A trace of fatigue was discernible in his voice. “One thing should be perfectly clear. My wife is irretrievably lost. She can no longer visit your home in any form. That is what I am saying.”

“Irretrievably lost”, Tengo repeated.

..."

1st book : April-June

« Ici? Ca ne va pas? A l'âge que vous avez, vous pensez à quoi...? Vous portez un super costume , votre cravate est bien serrée et vous ne savez même pas ce que tout le monde sait? Vous n'imaginez tout de même pas que vous allez me montrer votre zizi dans un endroit pareil. Et les gens, là, qu'en penseraient ils? Non, nous allons nous rendre dans votre chambre, vous enlèverez votre caleçon et vous me le montrerez, voilà. Juste vous et moi. C'est comme ça que les choses se passent.

-Je vous le montre, bon, mais après, qu'est-ce qui va arriver? Demanda l'homme d'un ton soucieux.

-Après me l'avoir montré, ce qui arrivera...? répéta Aomamé, qui retint son souffle et qui, cette fois; grimaça avec audace,. Eh bien, sans doute qu'on fera l'amour. Que voulez-vous qu'on fasse d'autre? Vous croyez que je vais aller exprès dans votre chambre, que je vais regarder votre zizi et que je vous dirai: «Merci beaucoup de votre obligeance. Vous m'avez montré quelque chose de très joli. Eh bien, je vous laisse et bonne nuit»? Quelques fils n'auraient pas été débranchés dans votre cerveau?»