Chapter 6: Do We Still Have a Long Way to Go? (Tengo)

1Q84, Volume 1,
By Murakami Haruki, Version 1.0
Chapter 6: Do We Still Have a Long Way to Go? (Tengo)

A call came from Komatsu early Friday morning, just after 5 o'clock. At that time, Tengo was having a dream about crossing a long stone bridge. He was going to the other side to get some which were important for reasons he couldn't remember. Tengo was the only person walking across the bridge. Lined with sandbanks all over the place, it was a beautiful river. The water was flowing slowly, and along the shoreline willow trees were growing. The graceful shapes of trout were visible. Vivid green leaves were drooping over the surface of the water. It was like the scenery in a Chinese painting. Having been woken up from this scene, he peered through the darkness at his bedside clock. Of course, before he picked up the receiver he alread had a pretty good idea about who would be calling at this kind of hour.
“Tengo, do you own a word processor?” Komatsu asked. No “good morning” or “were you already awake?” Surely if he had been already awake, then he must have been up all night. It wasn't as though he would wake up this early just because he wanted to see the sun rise. Whereever he had been before falling asleep, he must have remembered something he needed to tell Tengo.
“Of course I don't have one,” Tengo said. It was still dark. And he was still in the middle of the long bridge. It was unusual for Tengo to see a dream this clearly. “It's nothing to brag about, but I can't afford one.”
“Can you use them?”
“I can. If I had a computer or a word processor, I'd use it. We have them at the cram school, so I use them for work”
“OK, then see if you can find one to buy today. I don't know anything about machines, so I'll leave the brand and the model up to you. Worry about the cost later. I want you to use the computer to start rewriting 'The Chrysalis of Air' as quickly as possible.”
“Even if you say that, the cheapest ones are 250,000 yen.”
“I don't care how much it costs.”
Tengo rubbed his neck with the receiver. “Are you saying that you're buying me a word processor, Komatsu?”
“Well, I've got a little bit of pocket money saved up. In this business, it's necessary to invest a little money. You can't be stingy. You know that 'The Chrysalis of Air' was sent in as an electronic manuscript, so when it comes to revising it, it would be bad if you did it without a computer. At least we can make it look like the original. Could you start rewriting it today?”
Tengo thought about it. “That'll work. I think I'll be able to start soon. But Fukaeri told me that before she gave me permission to rewrite it, I would have to meet someone on Sunday, and I still haven't met that person yet. If things go badly at the meeting, then there's a chance that the money and effort will have all been for nothing.”
“I don't care. Things will work out somehow. We can handle the details later. For now, it's a race against time.”
“So you're saying you have confidence that the interview will go well?”
“It's a gut feeling,” Komatsu said. “Call it a hunch. I don't seem to have been gifted with any special talents or anything, but I do get hunches. I'd even venture to say that they're the only reason I've survived up til now. Hey, Tengo, what's the difference between talents and hunches?”
“I don't really know.”
“There are some talents that let you eat as much as you want, but when it you have good intuition, you never have to worry about food.”
“I guess I get it,” Tengo said.
“So I'm not worried about it. It's fine if you start today as soon as possible.”
“If that's what you say, then I won't worry about it. If you expect me to start now, though, I just don't want to hear anything like 'Oh, your hard work was for nothing' later on.”
“In that situation, I'll take full responsibility.”
“OK. I promised to meet someone this afternoon, but other than that I'm free. I'll go into town this morning and pick out a computer.”
“Please do, Tengo. I'm counting on you. Together, we can change the world.”

Just after 9 o'clock there was a call from his girlfriend. It was after the time when she usually drove her husband and kids to the train station. She was coming over to Tengo's apartment that afternoon. They always got together on Fridays.
“My body doesn't feel well,” she said. “I'm sorry, but it seems that I won't be coming today. See you next week, OK?”
Saying that her body wasn't feeling well was her roundabout way of letting him know that she was on her period. She was the well-bred sort of person who used roundabout expressions to refer to her period. When she was in bed, she wasn't an especially polite or indirect person, but that was an entirely different issue. Tengo said he was sorry no to see her, but that it couldn't be helped.
This week, though, it wasn't so bad that he couldn't see her. Sex with her was fun, but Tengo was already preoccupied with rewriting 'The Chrysalis of Air”. Various ideas for the revision kept popping into his head like bubbles bursting on an ancient sea. I'm not that different from Komatsu, Tengo thought. Even before it's been formally decided, I already feel like working on it.
Att 10 o'clock, he went to Shinjuku and used his credit card to buy a Fujitsu computer. Compared to the previous models of the same line, the newest models were all more lightweight. He bought some spare ink ribbons and some paper. Then he took his purchases back to his apartment, put them on his desk and plugged in the power chord. At work he normally used big word processors, but there was a huge difference between those and the smaller models in terms of functionality. Once he had made sure the machine was working correctly, Tengo began to rewrite “The Chrysalis of Air”.
He didn't have anything like a clear plan for rewriting the novel. He only had ideas about certain parts. For the sake of consistency, though, he'd have to rewrite the whole thing. Tengo wasn't sure if it was even possible to rewrite “The Chrysalis of Air” while retaining the original sense of illusion. Komatsu had said that the writing needed some big changes, but changing it would probably lose the essential atmosphere and quality of the story. It would be like giving the wrong skeleton to a butterfly. When he thought about these kinds of things, when he had doubts, he became more anxious. But things had already started to move forward. And there wasn't much time. There was no time to be crossing his arms and brooding. At any rate, he'd just have to deal with the specific details one at a time. Maybe as he handle all the little details, the shape of the entire thing would materialize.
“Tengo, you can do it because you're you. That much I know,” Komatsu had confidently declared. He wasn't sure why, but it seemed to Tengo that Komatsu could just be making the whole thing up. When it came to that guy's behavior, he had no idea what to think. In any case, there wasn't a big difference between their goals. And he never seemed to think of the past. However, that guy had also said that as an editor, he had a hunch that there was something special about the story. Komatsu never had any hesitation about saying anything. Once he had decided on something, he would act immediately. He didn't care what people around him said. He barked orders like a commander on the front lines. And it seemed that Tengo had never been blessed with that sort of ability.
By the time Tengo actually started to revise the novel, it was 12:30 in the afternoon. He typed the first few pages of the manuscript on the computer screen, until he reached a good stopping point. Then he revised this block until he was satisfied. He didn't want to change the content, just thoroughly rearrange the writing. It was the same as renovating rooms in a mansion. The basic structure had to remain unchanged. There was no problem with the structure itself. There was no need to change the plumbing. The things which could be changed out-the ceilings, floors, walls and curtains-just needed to be upgraded. I must be a really good carpenter, Tengo thought to himself. I don't even need anything like the finished designs. I just have to use all of my skill and intuition to fix it up here and there.
He read the passage over once, adding explanations in the places that were hard to understand and making the sentences seem to flow better. He removed any unnecessary or redundant statements, and filled in the places that seemed to be missing something. Every so often, he would change the order of sentences or phrases. Since the original didn't have many descriptive words, he added adjectives wherever he thought they were needed while trying to respect the original style. Fukaeri's writing was bad in general, and there wasn't a clear distinction between the good parts and the bad parts, so most of the work consisted of trying to figure out which was which. Because the writing was so bad, it was difficult to read and difficult to understand, but that was what made it fresh. The goal was to remove the difficult parts while salvaging the fresh parts.
While making progress on his rewriting, Tengo kept thinking about how it didn't feel like Fukaeri had written the story as a literary novel. She used her own words-words she would use if she was really seeing something with her own eyes-for example, she used words that were usually reserved for documenting records. The words weren't particularly good, but, ignoring the words, he couldn't find any phrases which didn't serve some function. That was all there were. That's why it didn't seem to have been written as literature. If there was no intent to distribute the story, there was no need to fill it in with little details. In a room, for example, a roof and four walls are all it takes to keep out the rain and the wind. Thus, Fukaeri didn't care how much Tengo messed with her writing. She had already achieved her goal. “Rewrite it if you want,” she had said, and that was probably exactly how she felt.
Though the structure of the writing of “The Chrysalis of Air” was already decided, only he himself could understand which type of sentences were good. If he looked at it with his own eyes, he got the idea that if Fukaeri's aim had been to record information, then writing the piece like a news article would be sufficient. There was no need to go to all the trouble of making it readable. That's how it seemed to him, as it had been assumed that only some specific person would read it. Even though “The Chrysalis of Air” hadn't been written as literature, and even though the writing was bad, it still had the power to appeal to people's hearts. However, it was important to bear in mind that this other person was probably different than most readers in the general public. That was the impression Tengo got from reading it.
Well, just what sort of reader might he be?
Tengo had no idea, of course.
What Tengo did know was that “The Chrysalis of Air” had very good parts and very bad parts, that it was really unique fiction, and that it seemed to have some special purpose.

As a result of the revisions, the length of the manuscript swelled to two and a half times the original size. Logically, if there were more places with too little writing than places with too much, the size of the whole thing would increase during revision. After all, the original version had been much too thin. To turn it into a proper novel, the point of view needed to be stabilized and it needed to be easier to read. But the original flow needed to remain clear. Obviously with too much outside influence the sharpness of the original manuscript would be lost.
The next job was to remove all the unnecessary parts from the expanded manuscript. Absolutely anything that wasn't needed would be cut out. The work of removing was much simpler than the work of filling in the problem spots. This editing cut the size of the work down to about of 70% of its size. It was a kind of mind game. Adding things took time, and taking things out took time. He would take turns alternating between these tasks, and gradually the time for each task would decrease as the novel became more literary. The less he had to add, the closer he would come to the point where there would be nothing left to remove. Ignoring his own ego, he removed any unnecessary modifications, using ever bit of common sense he possessed. Doing work like this was Tengo's natural talent. He'd been born a specialist. With the concentration of a bird searching for worms from the air, and the endurance of a donkey carrying a heavy load, he would always follow the rules of the game.

Holding his breath, he continued his work like this as though absorbed in a dream, so that if he looked at the clock on the wall each time he toke a breath, three minutes would pass between each glance. For that matter, he hadn't had lunch. He went to the kitchen and boiled some water in the kettle while grinding some coffee beans. He ate a few slices of cheese biscuit, took a bite of an apple, and made coffee with the boiling water. He drank from a large mug and thought about sex with his older girlfriend for a while, to change his mood. Normally, he ought to be doing that with her right now. He thought about what he would do, and what she would do. He closed his eyes, faced the ceiling, and took a deep breath while considering the possibilities.
After that, Tengo returned to his desk, rebooted the circuitry in his head, and began rereading the revised block of “The Chrysalis of Air” on the screen from the beginning. He was like the general turning to inspect his troops in the trenches in the Stanley Kubrick movie “Paths of Glory”. He looked over his own words and nodded. Not bad. The writing is getting better. Things are progressing. But it's not done yet. There are still some things missing. Here and there the sandbags are collapsing. The machine guns are running out of bullets. The barbed wire seems to be running all over the place.
He printed out what he had so far. Then, he saved his work, shut off the computer, and pushed it to the side of his desk. Next, he carefully read each page one more time, pencil in hand. He marked the phrases he thought needed to be removed and the phrases which needed to be expanded until he was satisfied that there was nothing left to mark. As if choosing a tile to fit into a crack in a bathtub, he inspected the situation from every angle, choosing the perfect words. If the fit was bad, he would adjust the placement. There were subtle differences that could make or break a novel.
The way the exact same words looked on paper was slightly different from the way they looked on the computer screen. The feel of writing with a pencil was different from the feel of pressing buttons on a keyboard. It was necessary to check from both viewpoints. He turned on the computer and one by one corrected the places he had marked in pencil. Then he read the new version of the manuscript on the screen. Not bad, Tengo thought. Each sentence has the proper weight, and flows with the proper rhythm.
Tengo sat back in his chair to stretch his back, looked up at the ceiling, and let out a deep breath. Of course, it's not perfect. No matter how many days I reread it, I would always find something to fix. But this is good enough. This is the limit of m concentration. I also need some time to cool off. The hand on the clock is pointing to 5 o'clock, and it's starting to get dark. I'll revise the next block tomorrow. I've only done the beginning but it took almost a whole day. It's taking longer than I thought it would. But, just like laying railroad tracks, it should go quicker once I get into the rhythm. Just like anything else, the part is starting out. If I can get past that, then...
Then Tengo imagined Fukaeri's face and wondered how she would feel if she read the revised manuscript. Tengo hadn't the slightest idea what she would think, though. Tengo knew absolutely nothing about Fukaeri as a person. All he knew was that she was 17 years old, a third-year high school student with absolutely no interest in taking college entrance exams, had a strange way of talking, drank white wine, and had a face that stirred people's hearts.
But the description (or perhaps it was a documentation) of how the world was in Fukaeri's “The Chrysalis of Air” brought forth a response in Tengo, or something like a response, which made him feel like she had an almost perfect grasp on what was happening. Thanks to Tengo's careful and attentive editing, the images which had been limited by Fukaeri's peculiar use of language became more clear and vivid. It had to flow as one. Tengo knew that. He consistently added only artistic improvements, as if he himself had written the original, so that his changes blended naturally with the original. Thus, “The Chrysalis of Air” arose powerfully as a single story.
Tengo couldn't be more pleased. Having spent a long time concentrating on his revision, his felt exhausted, although he felt strangely uplifted. He turned off the word processor and, after removing it from the from of the desk, briefly considered continuing his revision. He was enjoying rewriting the story. If things kept going as they were, Fukaeri couldn't be disappointed with the final product. Although, Tengo couldn't imagine Fukaeri looking either pleased or disappointed. Rather, if he imagined her face smiling, the area around her mouth seemed to blur slightly. Her face didn't have things like expressions. Tengo didn't know if she had no expressions because she naturally had no emotions, or if it was that she simply hid her emotions. Either way, she's a strange girl, Tengo thought.

The main character of “The Chrysalis of Air” was probably based on a younger version of Fukaeri herself.
She was a ten year old girl, in a special commune (it would probably be described as a commune) in the mountains, taking care of a blind goat. All the children were each given a job. Goats held a special meaning in this community, so because this particular goat was getting old, someone needed to watch it to make sure that nothing happened to it. It mustn't be let out of her sight. These were her orders. But she didn't pay attention, and during that time the goat had died. She was punished for it. She was put in a storeroom with the dead goats. For ten days she was completely alone and forbidden from leaving. She was also forbidden from talking to anyone.
Goats served the role of a passageway between this world and the world of the little people. She didn't know whether the little people were good or bad (Tengo didn't know either, of course). When night fell, the little people passed through the corpse of the goat and came to this world. When morning came, they would return to the other side. The girl was able to talk with the little people. They told the girl how to make the chrysalis of Air.

What Tengo admired most was how detailed and concrete the descriptions of the behavior and actions of the unseeing goat were. Details like those were what made the whole work so vivid. Could she have possibly taken care of an actual blind goat? Tengo guessed that she probably had. Even if she hadn't experienced the whole story herself, Fukaeri had a rare natural talent as a narrator.
The next time I see Fukaeri (which ought to be Sunday) I should ask about goats and communes, Tengo thought. Of course, he didn't know how Fukaeri would respond to such questions. Remembering their last meeting, she hadn't seemed to answer many questions. Questions she didn't want to answer, or questions she didn't plan on answering, she easily ignored. It was as though she went deaf. Just like Komatsu. They were a lot alike. Tengo wasn't like that. If you asked him something, anything at all, he would somehow answer honestly. He had probably just been born that way.

At 5:30, his older girlfriend called.
“What are you doing now?” she asked.
“I'm writing a whole novel in one day,” Tengo said. It was half true, half lie. He wasn't actually writing his own novel. But there was no reason to give a full explanation.
“Are you getting work done?”
“Sort of.”
“I'm sorry for canceling so suddenly today. Do you think we'll meet next week?”
“I'm looking forward to it,” Tengo said.
“Me too,” she said.
Then she talked about her kids. She often talked to Tengo about her children. She had two small daughters. Tengo had no siblings, and of course he had no children. Therefore, he didn't know anything about kids. She didn't care about about that, however, and talked about her own kids anyway. Tengo didn't talk about himself very much. He liked listening to people talk about anything. Therefore he listened interestedly when she talked. Her older daughter, a second-year elementary student, seemed to be being bullied, she told him. The daughter hadn't said so herself, but a classmate's mother had come to talk to her about it. Of course Tengo had never met this daughter. Once he had seen a picture of her. She didn't resemble her mother at all.
“Why is she being bullied?” Tengo asked.
“Sometimes she has asthma attacks and can't do things with the other children. Maybe that's it. She's an obedient child, and her grades aren't bad.”
“I don't really know,” Tengo said, “but children with asthma should be protected, not bullied.”
“In the world of kids, things aren't that simple,” she said with a sigh. “Everyone different gets left out. It's kind of the same in the adult world, but it's more personal in the kid world.”
“How, specifically?”
She considered specific examples. One by one, she considered things, but it seemed like the sort of thing a kid would have to answer. It was something secret. She hadn't said why. It was something mean.
“Were you bullied as a kid?”
Tengo remembered his childhood. “I don't think so. Maybe I'm wrong, but never that I noticed.”
“If you didn't notice, then you were never bullied. The whole point of bullying is to be noticed. If you didn't notice any bullying, then you couldn't have been bullied.”
When Tengo was a kid, he had been big and strong. Everyone kept an eye out for him. That was probably why he wasn't bullied. But in those days, bullying wasn't as serious.
“Were you bullied?” Tengo asked.
“Yes,” she said directly. Then she seemed to hesitate. “I was bullied.”
“In front of everyone?”
“Yes. In fifth grade. Everyone was listening to one boy. I don't remember why. There was probably some reason, but since I don't remember it, it couldn't have been very important. But either way, I still think it was bad. I think it was something embarrassing. I wonder why it had to happen. I don't really know myself.”
Tengo related to this, and suddenly remembered a similar incident. It was like a broken memory when not fully awake. It was something he couldn't forget. But this conversation had brought it up. It was too long to say. Once it was put into words, the most important nuances of the event would be lost. He had never talked about it with anyone, and he probably never would.
“Ultimately,” his older girlfriend said, “most people joined in the shunning because being part of the group meant being safe. Well, better her than me. It was the same in all times and places, most people didn't bother to think about troublesome things.”
“Once you become part of the minority, you become troublesome to think about.”
“You said it,” she said in a depressed voice. “But that might not be the case as often if people just thought for themselves more.”
“More people should probably think for themselves.”
“That is a problem.”
“It's easier not to think too much about things,” Tengo said. “Ultimately it would be more painful. In class, only a few kids use their head properly.”
“That's right,” she said. Then she thought to herself about something for a moment. Tengo waited patiently with his ear pressed against the receiver while she got her thoughts in order.
“Thanks. It was fun talking to you,” she said after a while. She seemed to have been reminded if something.
“It was relaxing for me, too,” Tengo said.
“Why's that?”
“Because I was talking to you.”
“See you next Friday,” she said.

After hanging up, Tengo went outside to the neighborhood supermarket and bought some food. He returned to his room with a paper bag, and one by one he wrapped up the vegetables and fish, then put them in the refrigerator. After that he was listening to music on the radio while preparing dinner when the phone rang. The phone had rang four times in one day, which was unusual for Tengo. He could easily count the number of times it had happened in the last year. This time the call was from Fukaeri.
“About this Sunday,” She said without introduction.
On the other end of the line he could hear car horns blaring. Something seemed to be angering the drivers. She was probably calling from a public phone near a big street.
“You mean about our meeting with someone somewhere this Sunday,” Tengo filled in.
“At 9AM, the first car, the train to Tachikawa from Shinjuku station,” she said. It was like she was reciting three facts.
“You're saying that we'll meet on the front car of the train on the lower platform in the middle?”
“Right.”
“Where should I buy a ticket to?”
“Wherever.”
“”I'll just buy a ticket for a likely place and then adjust the fare when we arrive,” Tengo speculated on his own. It was for the sake of rewriting “The Chrysalis of Air”. “Then, will we be going somewhere far away?”
“What are you doing now?” she asked, ignoring the question.
“Making dinner.”
“What kind?”
“Since I'm alone, nothing much. Grilled fish and radish. I'm going to eat it with tofu and leak miso soup. With cucumbers, seaweed, and vinegar. Then I'll pickle it with cabbage for lunch. That's all.”
“Sounds tasty.”
“Yeah. It's not the most delicious thing ever. It's just the usual meal,” Tengo said.
Fukaeri didn't say anything. Long silences didn't bother her. But Tengo wasn't like that.
“That's right, I started rewriting your 'The Chrysalis of Air” today,” Tengo said. “You never gave me your final permission, but if I waited until Sunday, there wouldn't be enough time.”
“Komatsu told you to?”
“That's right. Komatsu told me to start rewriting.”
“You're close to Komatsu?”
“Yeah, you could say we're close.” There was probably no on in the world closer to Komatsu. But that would take a while to explain.
“Is the revision going well?”
“So far. More or less.”
“That's good,” Fukaeri said. Somehow it didn't seem like her usual empty response. She sounded pleased to hear that the revision was progressing. Normally her control over her emotions didn't let this much show.
“I'm glad you're interested,” Tengo said.
“I'm not worried,” Fukaeri said after pausing.
“Why do you say that?” Tengo asked.
Fukaeri didn't answer that one. As usual the phone was silent. It was a deliberate kind of silence. It was probably silence to let Tengo think. But no matter how hard he strained his brain, he had no idea why she was so certain.
To break the silence, Tengo said,” Hey, there's something I wanted to ask you. Did you really live in a commune like that and take care of a goat? I'm asking because the description seemed so close to reality. So I wanted do know, did that really happen?”
Fukaeri gave a slight cough. “Goats don't talk.”
“That's fine,” Tengo said. “If you say they don't talk, then they don't. I was just asking. Don't worry. That how it is with authors and their works. There's no need for any further explanation. About the meeting on Sunday. Is there anything I should know about the person we're meeting?”
“I don't really know.”
“What I mean is... How should I dress, what sort of gift should I bring, that sort of thing. What sort of person is he, since you haven't given me any hints?”
Fukaeri was still silent. But this time it wasn't intentional silence. She was simply trying to understand the point of Tengo's questions. His questions didn't touch down anywhere in the realm of her consciousness. It was like they had passed over the edge of her understanding and gotten sucked into oblivion. They might as well have been rockets sent out to explore the other side of Pluto.
“Never mind, it's not a big deal,” Tengo said, losing interest. These kind of questions are irrelevant. I'll just buy some fruit from somewhere.
“OK, 9 o'clock on Sunday,” Tengo said.
Fukaeri paused for a few seconds, then hung up without saying anything. Mo “goodbye” or “well, see you Sunday.” She just hung up abruptly.
Maybe she had nodded to Tengo instead of saying goodbye. Most people didn't use body language over the phone, though. Tengo hung up the phone, took two deep breaths to clear his head, then went back to preparing his small dinner.