“First Year: Switzerland.” He sat down on the sofa, closed his eyes, and focused on the music. “Le mal du pays” was the eighth piece in the suite, the first track on the B side. Usually he started with that piece and listened until the fourth composition in “Second Year: Italy,” “Petrarch’s Sonnet 47.” At that point, the side ended, and the needle automatically lifted from the record.

“Le mal du pays.” The quiet, melancholy music gradually gave shape to the undefined sadness enveloping his heart, as if countless microscopic bits of pollen adhered to an invisible being concealed in the air, ultimately revealing, slowly and silently, its shape. This time the being took on the shape of Sara—Sara in her mint-green short-sleeved dress.

The ache in his heart returned. Not an intense pain, but the memory of intense pain.

What did you expect? Tsukuru asked himself. A basically empty vessel has become empty once again. Who can you complain to about that? People come to him, discover how empty he is, and leave. What’s left is an empty, perhaps even emptier, Tsukuru Tazaki, all alone. Isn’t that all there is to it?

Still, sometimes they leave behind a small memento, like Haida and the boxed set of Years of Pilgrimage. He probably didn’t simply forget it, but intentionally left it behind in Tsukuru’s apartment. And Tsukuru loved that music, for it connected him to Haida, and to Shiro. It was the vein that connected these three scattered people. A fragile, thin vein, but one that still had living, red blood coursing through it. The power of music made it possible. Whenever he listened to that music, particularly “Le mal du pays,” vivid memories of the two of them swept over him. At times it even felt like they were right beside him, quietly breathing.

At a certain point the two of them had vanished from his life. Suddenly, without warning. No—it was less that they had left than that they had deliberately cut him off, abandoned him. Of course that had hurt Tsukuru deeply, and that wound remained to this day. But in the end, wasn’t it the two of them—Shiro and Haida—who had, in a real sense of the term, been wounded or injured? Recently, that view had taken hold of his mind.

Maybe I am just an empty, futile person, he thought. But it was precisely because there was nothing inside of me that these people could find, if even for a short time, a place where they belonged. Like a nocturnal bird seeks a safe place to rest during the day in a vacant attic. The birds like that empty, dim, silent place. If that were true, then maybe he should be happy he was hollow.

The final strains of “Petrarch’s Sonnet 47” vanished in the air, the recording ended, and the needle automatically lifted, moved to the side, returned to the armrest. He lowered the needle back to the beginning of the B side of the LP. The needle quietly traced the grooves of the record and once more Lazar Berman was playing, beautifully, ever so delicately.

He listened to the whole side again, then changed into pajamas and got into bed. He switched off the light beside his bed, and once more felt grateful that what had taken hold of his heart was a deep sorrow, not the yoke of intense jealousy. That would have snatched away any hope for sleep.

Finally sleep came, wrapping him in its embrace.

For several fleeting moments he felt that familiar softness throughout his body. This, too, was one of the few things Tsukuru felt thankful for that night.

In the midst of sleep he heard birds calling out in the night.

As soon as he arrived at the Helsinki airport, Tsukuru exchanged his yen for euros, found a cell phone store, and bought the most basic, prepaid phone they had. This done, he walked out of the terminal, his carry-on bag hanging from his shoulder, and walked to the taxi stand. He got into a taxi, an older model Mercedes-Benz, and told the driver the name of his hotel in the city.

They left the airport and drove onto the highway. Though this was Tsukuru’s first trip abroad, neither the deep green woods they passed nor the billboards in Finnish gave him the sense he had come—for the first time ever—to a foreign country. Obviously it took much longer to come here than to go to Nagoya, but he felt no different than when he’d gone back to his hometown. Only the currency in his wallet had changed. He wore his usual outfit—chinos, black polo shirt, sneakers, and a light brown cotton jacket. He’d brought the bare minimum when it came to extra clothes. He figured if he needed anything more, he could always buy it.

“Where are you from?” asked the taxi driver in English, shooting Tsukuru a glance in the rearview mirror. He was a middle-aged man with a full, thick beard.

“Japan,” Tsukuru replied.

“That’s a long way to come with so little luggage.”

“I don’t like heavy baggage.”

The driver laughed. “Who does? But before you know it, you’re surrounded by it. That’s life. C’est la vie.” And again, he laughed happily.

Tsukuru laughed along with him.

“What kind of work do you do?” the driver asked.

“I build railroad stations.”

“You’re an engineer?”

“Yes.”

“And you came to Finland to build a station?”

“No, I came here on vacation to visit a friend.”

“That’s good,” the driver said. “Vacations and friends are the two best things in life.”

Did all Finns like to make clever witticisms about life? Or was it just this one driver? Tsukuru hoped it was the latter.

Thirty minutes later, when the taxi pulled up in front of a hotel in downtown Helsinki, Tsukuru wasn’t sure whether or not he should add a tip. He realized he hadn’t checked this in the guidebook (or anything else about Finland, in fact). He added a little under 10 percent of what the meter said and gave it to the driver. The driver looked pleased and handed him a blank receipt, so it was probably the right decision. Even if it wasn’t, the driver clearly wasn’t upset.

The hotel Sara had chosen for him was an old-fashioned place in the center of the city. A handsome blond bellboy escorted him via an antique elevator to his room on the fourth floor. The furniture was old, the bed substantial, the walls covered with faded wallpaper with a pine needle pattern. There was an old claw-foot tub, and the windows opened vertically. The drapes were thick, with a thin lace curtain over the window. The whole place had a faintly nostalgic odor. Through the window, he could see green tram cars running down the middle of a broad boulevard. Overall, a comfortable, relaxing room. There was no coffee maker or LCD TV, but Tsukuru didn’t mind. He wouldn’t have used them anyway.

“Thank you. This room is fine,” Tsukuru told the bellboy, and handed him two one-euro coins as a tip. The bellboy grinned and softly slipped out of the room like a clever cat.

· · ·

By the time he’d showered and changed, it was already evening. Outside, though, it was still bright as noon. A distinct half moon hung above, like a battered piece of pumice stone that had been tossed by someone and gotten stuck in the sky.

He went to the concierge desk in the lobby and got a free city map from the red-haired woman working there. He told her the address of Sara’s travel agency, and the woman marked it in pen on the map. It was less than three blocks from the hotel. He followed the concierge’s advice and bought a pass that was good for the city buses, subway, and streetcars. She told him how to ride these, and gave him a map of the lines. The woman looked to be in her late forties. She had light green eyes, and was very kind. Every time he talked with an older woman, Tsukuru got a natural, calm feeling. This seemed true no matter where in the world he found himself.