"That's a tough one," Oshima says, and smiles. A moment passes before he goes on. "If I had to say anything it'd be this: Whatever it is you're seeking won't come in the form you're expecting."

"Kind of an ominous prophecy."

"Like Cassandra."

"Cassandra?" I ask.

"The Greek tragedy. Cassandra was the princess of Troy who prophesied. She was a temple priestess, and Apollo gave her the power to predict fate. In return he tried to force her to sleep with him, but she refused and he put a curse on her. Greek gods are more mythological than religious figures. By that I mean they have the same character flaws humans do. They fly off the handle, get horny, jealous, forgetful. You name it."

He takes a small box of lemon drops out of the glove compartment and pops one in his mouth. He motions for me to take one, and I do.

"What kind of curse was it?"

"The curse on Cassandra?"

I nod.

"The curse Apollo laid on her was that all her prophecies would be true, but nobody would ever believe them. On top of that, her prophecies would all be unlucky ones-predictions of betrayals, accidents, deaths, the country falling into ruin. That sort of thing. People not only didn't believe her, they began to despise her. If you haven't read them yet, I really recommend the plays by Euripides or Aeschylus. They show a lot of the essential problems we struggle with even today. In koros."

"Koros? What's that?"

"That's what they called the chorus they used in Greek plays. It stands at the back of the stage and explains in unison the situation or what the characters are feeling deep down inside. Sometimes they even try to influence the characters. It's a very convenient device. Sometimes I wish I had my own chorus standing behind me."

"Are you able to prophesy?"

"No such luck." He smiles. "For better or for worse, I don't have that kind of power. If I sound like I'm always predicting ominous things, it's because I'm a pragmatist. I use deductive reasoning to generalize, and I suppose this sometimes winds up sounding like unlucky prophecies. You know why? Because reality's just the accumulation of ominous prophecies come to life. All you have to do is open a newspaper on any given day and weigh the good news versus the bad news, and you'll see what I mean."

Oshima carefully downshifts at each curve, the kind of practiced gear shifting you hardly notice. Only the change in the sound of the engine gives it away.

"There is one piece of good news, though," he says. "We've decided to take you in. You'll be a staff member of the Komura Memorial Library. Which I think you're qualified for."

Instinctively I glance at him. "You mean I'm going to be working at the library?"

"More precisely, from now on you'll be a part of the library. You're going to be staying in the library, living there. You'll open the doors when it's time for the library to open, shut them when it's time to close up. As I said before, you seem to be a pretty self-disciplined sort of person, and fairly strong, so I don't imagine the job will be very hard for you. Miss Saeki and I aren't all that strong physically, so it'll really help us out a lot. Other than that, you'll just help with small day-to-day things. Nothing to speak of, really. Making delicious coffee for me, going out shopping for us. We've prepared a room that's attached to the library for you to stay in. It's originally a guest room, but we don't have any guests staying over so it hasn't been used for a long time. That's where you'll live. It has its own shower, too. The best thing is you'll be in the library so you can read whatever you like."

"But why-" I begin to say, but can't finish.

"Why are we doing this? It's all based on a very simple principle. I understand you, and Miss Saeki understands me. I accept you, and she accepts me. So even if you're some unknown fifteen-year-old runaway, that's not a problem. So, what do you think?"

I give it some thought. "All I was looking for was a roof over my head. That's all that matters right now. I don't really know what it means to become part of the library, but if it means I can live there, I'm grateful. At least I won't have to commute anymore."

"Then it's settled," Oshima says. "Let's go to the library. So you can become a part of it."

We get on the highway and pass a number of towns, a giant billboard for a loan company, a gas station with gaudy decorations, a glass-enclosed restaurant, a love hotel made up to look like a European castle, an abandoned video store with only its sign left, a pachinko place with an enormous parking lot, a McDonald's, 7-Eleven, Yoshinoya, Denny's… Noisy reality starts to surround us. The hiss of eighteen-wheelers' air brakes, horns, and exhaust. Everything near me until now-the fire in the stove, the twinkle of the stars, the stillness of the forest-has faded away. I find it hard to even imagine them.

"There are a couple of things you should know about Miss Saeki," Oshima says. "When she was little, my mother and Miss Saeki were classmates and very close. She says that Miss Saeki was a bright little girl. She got good grades, was good at composition, sports of all kinds, and could play the piano well, too. She was the best at whatever she tried. And beautiful. Of course she's still quite a stunning person."

I nod.

"When she was still in grade school she had a sweetheart. The eldest son of the Komura family-a distant relative, actually. They were the same age and made a handsome couple, a regular Romeo and Juliet. They lived near each other and were never apart. And when they became adults they fell in love. They were like one body and spirit, according to my mother."

We're waiting at a red light, and Oshima looks up at the sky. When the signal turns green, he steps on the gas and we zoom out in front of a tanker truck. "Do you remember what I told you in the library? About how people are always wandering around, searching for their other half?"

"That part about male/male, female/female, and male/female?"

"Right. What Aristophanes said. How we stumble through our lives desperately fumbling for our other half. Miss Saeki and that young man never had to do that. They were born with their other half right there in front of them."

"They were lucky."

Oshima nods. "Absolutely. Up to a point."

He rubs his chin with his palm like he's checking out how well he shaved. There's no trace of a razor-his skin is as smooth as porcelain.

"When the young man was eighteen he went to Tokyo to go to college. He had good grades and a major he was interested in. He also wanted to see what the big city was like. She went to a local college and majored in piano. This is a conservative part of the country, and she came from an old-fashioned kind of family. She was an only child, and her parents didn't want her going off to Tokyo. So the two of them were separated for the first time in their lives. Just like God had cut them cleanly apart with a knife.

"Of course they wrote to each other every day. 'It might be good for us to try being apart like this,' he wrote her. 'Then we can really tell how much we mean to each other.' But she didn't believe that. She knew their relationship was real enough that they didn't need to go out of their way to test it. It was a one-in-a-million union, fated to be, something that could never be broken apart. She was absolutely sure of that. But he wasn't. Or maybe he was, but simply didn't accept it. So he went ahead and went to Tokyo, thinking that overcoming a few obstacles would strengthen their love for each other. Men are like that sometimes.

"When she was nineteen Miss Saeki wrote a poem, set it to music, and played the piano and sang it. It was a melancholy melody, innocent and lovely. The lyrics, on the other hand, were symbolic, contemplative, hard to figure out. The contrast gave the song a kind of spirit and immediacy. Of course the whole song, lyrics and melody, was her way of crying out to her boyfriend, so far away. She sang the song a few times in front of people. She was ordinarily shy, but she loved to sing and had even been in a folk music band in college. Someone was very impressed by the song, made a demo tape, and sent it to a friend of his who was a director at a record company. He loved the song and had her go to their studio in Tokyo and record it.