“I think so,” Tsukuru said. “But to launch a business like that you need a fair amount of capital. Where could Aka have possibly gotten it? His father’s a university professor and kind of a straight arrow. As far as I know he isn’t that well off, and I can’t imagine he’d be willing to invest in something that risky.”

“I don’t know. It’s a mystery,” Sara said. “That being said, when you knew him in high school, was this Akamatsu the sort of person you could imagine becoming a kind of guru?”

Tsukuru shook his head. “No, he was more the calm, objective, academic type. He was quick, superintelligent, and had a way with words. Most of the time, though, he tried to not show any of that. Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but he was more comfortable in the background, scheming on his own. I can’t picture him standing up in front of people and trying to inspire and encourage them.”

“People change,” Sara said.

“True enough,” Tsukuru said. “People do change.

And no matter how close we once were, and how much we opened up to each other, maybe neither of us knew anything substantial about the other.”

Sara gazed at Tsukuru for a time before she spoke. “Anyway, both of them are working in Nagoya City. They’ve basically never taken a step outside the city since the day they were born. Their schools were in Nagoya, their jobs are in Nagoya. Reminds me of Conan Doyle’s The Lost World. Is Nagoya really that nice a place?”

Tsukuru couldn’t answer, but he had a strange feeling. If circumstances had been different he might have spent his life entirely within the confines of Nagoya too, and never questioned it.

Sara was silent. She folded up the printouts, put them back in the envelope, placed it on the end of the table, and took a drink of water. When she spoke again, her tone was more formal.

“Now, about the last person, Shiro—Yuzuki Shirane—unfortunately, she does not have a present address.”

“Does not have a present address,” Tsukuru murmured.

That’s an odd way of putting it, Tsukuru thought. If she’d said she didn’t know her present address, that he could fathom. But saying she doesn’t have a present address sounded strange. He considered the implications. Had Shiro gone missing? She wasn’t homeless, was she?

“Sadly, she’s no longer in this world,” Sara said.

“No longer in this world?”

For some reason an image flashed before his eyes of Shiro in a space shuttle, wandering in outer space.

“She passed away six years ago,” Sara said. “That’s why she has no present address. She does have a gravestone, in a suburb of Nagoya. It’s very difficult for me to have to tell you this.”

Tsukuru didn’t know what to say. The strength drained out of him, like water leaking from a small hole in a bag. The hum around him faded, Sara’s voice the only thing that—barely—reached him. It was a far-off, meaningless echo, as if he were hearing it from the bottom of a pool. He roused himself, sat up straight, and raised his head above the water. He was finally able to hear again, and the words started to regain meaning. Sara was speaking to him.

“… I didn’t write down the details of how she passed away. I think it’s better if you find that out on your own. Even if it takes time.”

Tsukuru nodded automatically.

Six years ago? Six years ago she was thirty. Still only thirty. Tsukuru tried to picture her at that age, but couldn’t. What he imagined was Shiro at sixteen or seventeen. A terrible sadness washed over him. What the hell was this? He couldn’t even grow old with her?

Sara leaned across the table and gently laid her hand, small and warm, on his. Tsukuru was happy at this intimate touch, and grateful, yet it felt like something happening simultaneously, far away, to someone else.

“I’m very sorry it turned out this way,” Sara said. “But you had to hear this someday.”

“I know,” Tsukuru said. Of course he knew this. But it would take a while for his mind to catch up to reality. It was nobody’s fault.

“I have to get going,” Sara said, glancing at her watch. She handed him the envelope. “I printed out all the information about your four friends. Only the bare minimum is written down here. It’s more important that you meet them in person. You’ll learn more that way.”

“I really appreciate it,” Tsukuru said. It took a while for him to locate the appropriate words, and to voice them. “I should be able to let you know pretty soon how things turn out.”

“I’ll wait to hear from you. In the meanwhile, if there’s anything I can do, be sure to let me know.”

Tsukuru thanked her again.

They left the cafй and said goodbye. Tsukuru stood on the street, watching as Sara, in her milky coffee-brown summer suit, waved and disappeared into the crowd. He wished he could be with her longer, spend more time with her, have a good, leisurely talk. But she had her own life, most of which occurred offstage, in a place he didn’t yet know about, doing things that had nothing to do with him.

Sara’s envelope was tucked in the inside pocket of his suit jacket. It contained a neatly folded document that listed a concise summary of his four friends’ lives. One of them no longer existed here. She was no more than a handful of white ash. Her thoughts, her opinions, her feelings, her hopes and dreams—all of them had vanished without a trace. All that remained were memories of her. Her long, straight black hair, her shapely fingers on the keyboard, her smooth, white, graceful (yet strangely eloquent) calves, her playing of Franz Liszt’s “Le mal du pays.” Her wet pubic hair, her hard nipples. No—that wasn’t even a memory. That was a—Tsukuru decided not to go there.

Where to now? Tsukuru wondered as he leaned back against a streetlight. His watch showed it was just before seven. Some light remained in the sky, but the shop windows along the street were sparkling more by the minute, enticing those who wandered by. It was still early, and he had nothing in particular he needed to do. He didn’t want to go home just yet. He didn’t want to be alone in a quiet place. Tsukuru could go anywhere he liked. Almost anywhere. But he couldn’t think of any place to go.

At a time like this it would be nice if I could drink more, he thought. At this point most men would find a bar and get drunk. But his body couldn’t handle more than a fixed amount of alcohol. Liquor didn’t give him deadened senses, or a pleasant forgetfulness, just a splitting headache the next morning.

So, where should I go?

There really was only one choice.

He walked along the main street to Tokyo Station, passed through the Yaesu entrance, and sat down on a bench on the Yamanote line platform. He spent over an hour watching as, almost every minute, another line of green train cars pulled up to the platform, disembarking hordes of people and hurriedly swallowing up countless more. His mind was a blank as he watched, absorbed in the scene. The view didn’t soothe the pain in his heart, but the endless repetition enthralled him as always and, at the very least, numbed his sense of time.

Unceasing crowds of people arrived out of nowhere, automatically formed lines, boarded the trains in order, and were carried off somewhere. Tsukuru was moved by how many people actually existed in the world. And he was likewise moved by the sheer number of green train cars. It was surely a miracle, he thought—how so many people, in so many railroad cars, are systematically transported, as if it were nothing. How all those people have places to go, places to return to.

As the rush-hour surge finally receded, Tsukuru Tazaki slowly got to his feet, boarded one of the cars, and went home. The pain was still there, but now he knew there was something he had to do.