Chapter 11

Aomame goes into detail about the quickest way to disable a man. Without hesitation, it's a quick kick to his balls. The pain is likened to the end of the world. It reminds her of the movie On the Beach. After graduating from college of p.e., she worked for a sports drink manufacturer and played on the company's women's softball team. After Tamaki's death, she quit both. She became an instructor at a sports club in Tokyo, teaching muscle training and martial arts. She drew flack from teaching her kicking technique in such an upscale establishment. The women enjoyed it, but the men were uncomfortable with it. That is what Aomame wanted.  Aomame sits at a singles bar, finding few suitable men. The Dowager had been the oldest member of her self-defense class. At one point, the Dowager wants Aomame to meet at a French restaurant, where the wine and food are elegant, as is the Dowager's clothing. She wants Aomame to become her personal trainer. Aomame admits to being neither a feminist or a lesbian. She goes to Willow House twice a week for training and massage sessions. Aomame was skilled at deep tissue massage, and became a professional acupuncturist. Her fingertips had a 6th sense that could discern the subtle points of the body that controlled its function. After their sessions, they would chat over tea. Dowager asks if Aomame had ever used her kicking technique for real, and she had, with intended outcome. Dowager wonders if it would work on Tamaru. Aomame says no, because he is trained with a special presence. Dowger wants to know if Aomame ever inflicted wounds, which she had, but declines to talk about. Dowagers tells her she senses something Aomame has deep inside, which she can relate to, and says if she were to ever confide in her, she could help her out.
Aomame is approached by another woman at the bar. after some chit chat, they decide to team up for the night. This woman is interested in youger men. SHe asks Aomame if she's interested in a four-way, and she says no...for now. Aomame feels she needs to find out more about this woman before engaging in such activities. Aomame is briefly stunned to learn she's a policewoman named Ayumi. Because she is a woman, she carries no weapon and does parking enforcement. Ayumi is surprised at Aomame's knowledge of guns. She gives Aomame insight into a woman's place in the world of the male dominated police world and the difficulty in dating being in law enforcement. She prefers not to have a boyfriend, just an occasional one night stand.

Chapter 10

The train pulls into Tachikawa Station where they are to transfer. As they walk, Fuka-Eri holds Tengo's hand, seemingly devoid of feeling. Even after they board the next train, Eri asks if she can continue holding his hand. He agrees, since his Sunday panic attack had waned since holding her hand. They finally arrive at Futamatao, a remote area, free from the city clutter. A lone taxi waits and they get in. They find themselves on a narrow farm road with scary twists and turns, much like a roller coaster ride. They safely arrive at a house, with two cars parked outside. The air is amazingly fresh, almost completely silent, and the sky clear. The grounds were meticulously kept. They enter, remove their shoes. Inside, it's chilly and free of decoration. They sit in complete silence. For Tengo, time passes slowly, as it always does on Sundays. After ten minutes, a man enters. Tengo stands, but is silently commanded to sit down. The man silently gazes at Tengo, taking him all in like a camera's diaphragm. The man is plainly dressed in worn clothing. His plump lips seemed the only part that stood out. The man finally speaks and apologizes for them having to travel so far. His name is Ebisuno, translated  as "field of savages", and everyone calls him Professor, even Eri. Tengo seems to recall a famous scholar with the same name.  The professor seems to know much about Tengo, and comments that Tengo does not look like a math teacher, or a writer. Professor wants to discuss the rewrite. He and Tengo agree it amounts to fraud. Everything tells Tengo to withdraw, but he says he is drawn to Air Chrysalis and doesn't want anyone else to do it. He defends Komatsu's interest as someone obsessed with literature and wanting to find the once in a lifetime "real thing".  Professor surmises neither Tengo nor Komatsu are in it for money or fame.  He is worried that if the truth comes out, it is Eri that suffers. And, if she is presented as a novelist, her dyslexia will come out. Since Eri wants Tengo to do the rewrite, Professor agrees to go along with the plan, but feels the need to tell Tengo the story if Eri's childhood and how he became responsible for raising her.  He goes back to the sixties and tells the story of his relationship with Eri's father, Tamotsu Fukada.  Not really wanting to  write the whole story, I'll say he ends up in a communal lifestyle, called Sakigake. It broke into two factions, the original and a militant one. Fukada stayed in the original. The two factions supported each other to survive. Fukada became leader of one and adviser to the other. No longer believing in the revolution, he continued to preach its theory.  Sakigake split in two and Eri escaped to live with him. The new commune bcame known as Akebono, which Tengo has recollection of this name, too. Turns out they are the ones that staged the shoot out at Lake Motosu. Now here is where I am interested. Tengo now recalls the gun battle that Aomame seems to have no recollection of! This recollection almost brings Tengo to one of his attacks, but he quickly composes himself.

Nothing remarkable until mention of the gun battle!

Chapter 9

Aomame goes to the library to research past newspapers for a glimpse into world events in 1981.  The first event that caught her attention was an NHK sub fee collector who stabbed a college student with a butcher knife. She cannot comprehend that she has no recollection of such an event. She does recall a coal mine accident. Then she finds the story she is looking for, the Yamanashi gunfight with radicals where 3 officers are killed. Aomame is upset that she has no recollection of this and her face goes through a contorted transformation. She takes a deep breath, causing such noise, it startles the student in the next cubicle. It is compared to a whale rising to the surface. Here is a sea reference, which has been absent for awhile. This story eclipses the Lake Motosu incident, but she is confused as to why she can remember all of the other events at that time, except for these two stories. She theorizes that it's not she that is deranged, but the world around her. And it's not the old world, but a new, parallel, one, that of 1Q84. She must figure this out on her own. She tries to think back to when this new world had taken over. She thinks back to the cab ride and the Sinfonietta, and when she noticed the change in police paraphernalia. She goes back to the gun battle and takes furious notes. Then turns to background information on Leos Janacek.  Still, she cannot come up with a connection between the gun battle and the stabbing. She tells herself she must adapt to the rules of this new world for her survival. She buys the Janacek Sinfonietta and takes it home to listen to over a glass of white wine. It brings her no new insights into her quandry. She makes a meal from meager pickings in the fridge, one that will not constipate her. Constipation ranks up there with domestic violence and fanatic religious fundamentalists. She showers, and the sight of her body makes her recall that she is about to turn 30.  It will be spent in 1Q84, where she is, at present.

Other than living in two worlds, what stands out can't be mere coincidence. That one of the events she cannot remember involves an NHK fee collector, which figures so prominently in Tengo's past.

Chapters 7+8

Guess I didn't have much to say beyond summaries ... glad to be back into it tho =)


Chapter 7
Aomame
Quietly, So As Not to Wake the Butterfly

Aomame goes to the Willow House, a large residence surrounded by willow trees in a fashionable neighborhood. Outside is a man, Tamaru. He is a bodyguard, and deadly, but in his private life, he tinkers with gadgets and collects prog rock records. He greets Aomame and takes her to a waiting room. Aomame is a little bit early for her appointment, and they chat. He mentions the dead man in the Shibuya hotel, though Aomame denies knowing anything about that. Then Tamaru brings Aomame around back to the hothouse for her meeting.
A dowager, the owner of the house, is inside. As are many butterflies. She cultivates plants and keeps the butterflies, though they don’t live long. The dowager also makes semi-vague allusions to the dead man. She tells Aomame that they haven’t done anything wrong. Then she shows Aomame a set of photographs of the man’s wife. She is badly bruised. It turns out that the dowager shelters the wifes of abusive men after Aomame has disposed of them and has taken in Miyama’s (ex) wife.
After her meeting with the dowager, Aomame goes back to the front of the house, and sits with Tamaru for a while. He tells her of the other women that the dowager is looking after. Then Aomame asks him when the police got new uniforms and new guns. Tamaru tells Aomame that it was after the shootout at Lake Motosu in 1981, so, two years ago, which jibes with what the men at the hotel bar told Aomame. On the way out, Aomame wonders how she could have missed hearing about the Lake Motosu incident and the resulting reorganization of the police force. She had to get her thoughts straight and figure out what was going on.

Chapter 8
Tengo
Meeting New People in New Places

Tengo goes to meet Fuka-Eri at the train station. On the way we are treated to a look at Tengo’s childhood and his father’s history. It is Sunday, and Tengo doesn’t like Sundays, never has, because of how he used to accompany his father on his route to collect NHK subscription fees. Tengo knew that, among other reasons, his father liked bringing him along because it was more difficult for those that his father was collecting from to refuse him if he had his little kid in tow. Tengo didn’t like feeling like he was being used in this way. He always dreaded Sundays because of this. And so he is uneasy on this Sunday, on the train with Fuka-Eri.
They take the train out of Tokyo and go for a long way into the countryside. During the ride, Tengo learns some things about Fuka-Eri. She doesn’t like to read or write. Tengo surmises that she has dyslexia. He also figures out that she didn’t write Air Chrysalis by herself, then. Fuka-Eri confirms this, telling Tengo that Azami, the Professor’s daughter, two people she lives with, typed it up and printed it from Fuka-Eri’s dictation. She also confirms that Tengo is going to meet with the Professor.
Tengo begins to worry about his little scheme with Komatsu to rewrite Air Chrysalis. He was concerned before that it might cause a scandal if what they were up to was revealed, but now, knowing that Fuka-Eri is dyslexic, he is even more concerned should the story prove popular and Fuka-Eri becomes well-known because of it. But he feels that he is too close to it now, too involved with Air Chrysalis to abandon it. He has to see it through no matter what.
Fuka-Eri can tell Tengo is disturbed. Not only because of Sundays and what they mean to him but because of how nervous he is about his plan with Komatsu. Fuka-Eri tells him not to be afraid. She hold his hand and tells him, “Don’t be afraid. It’s not just another Sunday,” the first time he has heard her say two consecutive sentences.

Tengo delves into his childhood. His father worked as a collector of subscription fees for NHK, and would drag Tengo along on Sundays, using him as an object to keep those owning fees from getting angry and violent. While friends and classmates did fun, childlike activities, Tengo never could. He could not play with friends, was always alone, and he resented this, and his father. His father was repatriated from Manchuria. His family was poor and hungry. They were taught to farm in a bad area, but they managed to just get by. After the Soviets invaded Manchuria, his father fled and was the only one from his farming community to make it back to Japan. He met up with a man from Manchuria who offered him the NHK job. He worked hard and was able to get insurance and move into a corporate-owned apartment. He worked his way up to the lowest spot on the totem pole. Tengo's father never read books to him, sing songs, none of the typical things parents do to have special time and bond with their children. He only repeated the story of where he came from and how he rose to his current social rank. Tengo hated hearing it. The story moves from his nameless father, to his nameless mother. Tengo knows little of her, his father shuns all questions, and only says she died shortly after his birth. Tengo is first able to recall memory of her at the age of one and a half, so he knows his father is a liar. This memory involves his mother being with a man, not his father. the only thing he seems to share with his father are dark secrets.
In his preppiest attire, Tengo meets Fuka-Eri at the train station. She was in her oddest attire. They boarded, she was her usual quiet self. After a quick nap, he asks what books she reads. She does not read. After a tedious attempt to extract details as to why, he discovers she is dyslexic. After even more interrogation, his fears are confirmed, she did not write Air Chrysalis by herself. She did so with the help of Azami, whom she lives with. Azami is the Professor's daughter, who also lives there. They are on their way to meet this Professor.
Obviously, things became so much more complicated. Tengo could not know what Komatsu's reaction would be to learn there was a 4th peg in the conspiracy. Tengo is afraid things will not go well meeting the professor. Maybe it's his fear of meeting new people on Sundays. The mere thought would bring him close to vomit. Sensing his distress, Fuka-Eri takes his hand in hers, startling him, which continues to their destination. She tries to comfort him saying first, to not be afraid, then it's not just another Sunday, to which he is surprised that she spoke two complete sentences...a first.

Chapter 7

Aomame arrives at Willow House, casually dressed. She is let in by Tamaru, a body guard with the appropriate build, and has a German Shepard that eats spinach. Willow House appears to be a haven for abused women. The owner, only known as the dowager, is in her 70's, retired from the stock market, soft-spoken, raises butterflies, and who seems to be Aomame's boss in her assassination work. Over herbal tea, she expresses her thanks for a job well done, by eliminating a violent wife beater. They had done the right thing. She gives Aomame a key, to be mailed back when through using it. They part and Aomame goes back to the front where Tamaru is. She inquires about the widow of her victim to see how she is doing. Aomame then asks Tamaru about the policemen's new uniforms and guns. He goes into a detailed explanation of a bloody shootout between police and a radical group two years ago. Aomame is very bewildered that that event had eluded her, but does not want that to show, as Tamaru would not hesitate to get rid of her, if she showed her existence was not to his employer's benefit. Aomame leaves pondering what she needs to do next to understand why her world was out of whack.

Chapter 6

I forgot the tofu in my soup last night!