P R AISE F O R K E I I CHI RO HI RA N O“Hirano’s English-language debut is a shape-shifting psychologicalthriller . . . As back-alley gritty and entertaining as a Raymond
Chandler novel, the book asks what it means to be ‘you’ and suggeststhat the answer means nothing at all. Hirano’s stylish, suspenseful noir
should earn him a stateside audience.”—Publishers Weekly“Keiichiro Hirano’s A Man has all the trappings of a gripping detective
story: a bereaved wife, a dead man whose name belongs to someone
else, mysterious coded letters, a lawyer intent on uncovering the truth.
Together with a willfully understated title, however, these features
belie a deeply thoughtful novel whose mystery premise gives way toan examination of the most profound questions of identity and artistic
creation. In a work so rooted in Japanese cultural history, the questions
posed by the author become distinctly literary, moving ultimately toaddress the very practice of novel writing.”—The Arts Desk
“A riveting examination of desire and identity, A Man patiently unpicks
the nature of unfulfilled aspirations. Keiichiro Hirano has written amultilayered tale of human reinvention, at once eminently readable
and deeply moving.”—Tash Aw, author of The Harmony Silk Factory andFive Star Billionaire

“There is no doubt that Keiichiro Hirano is an author with anextremely pioneering and modern spirit. His works have opened up avery imaginative space in analyzing and exploring the spiritual worldof humanity.”—Sheng Keyi, author of Northern Girls and Death Fugue“Hirano has continued to grapple with new themes ever since his
debut. In this work, he has arrived at the primal question of what
validates human existence.”—Yōko Ogawa, author of The Memory Police

A LSO BY KEIICHIR O HIR A NO
A Man

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, andincidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2016 by Keiichiro Hirano
Translation copyright © 2021 by Juliet Winters CarpenterAll rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, ortransmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Previously published asマチネの終わりに (Matinee no owarini) in the Mainichi
Newspapers in 2015 originally and a book published by 毎日新聞出版株式会社 Mainichi Shinbun Publishing Inc. in Japan in 2016. A paperback version
was published by Bungeishunju 文藝春秋 in 2019. Translated from Japanese by
Juliet Winters Carpenter. First published in English by Amazon Crossing in 2021.
English translation rights under the license granted by Cork, Inc., and Media Do
International, Inc.
Published by Amazon Crossing, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Amazon Crossing are trademarks of Amazon.com,
Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542005180 (paperback)ISBN-10: 1542005183 (paperback)ISBN-13: 9781542005203 (hardcover)ISBN-10: 1542005205 (hardcover)
Cover design by David Drummond
Printed in the United States of America
First Edition

P R OLOG UE

This is the story of two people whom I call Satoshi Makino and Yoko
Komine. To protect their privacy, I have altered various details: theirnames, to begin with, as well as the organizations they belong to, thechronology of events, and so forth.
If I were to be absolutely faithful to the truth, I myself would haveto make an appearance in certain scenes, but no such person exists inthe novel.
My purpose in writing their story was not to lay their lives bare.
Realizing that the story is not completely “true” may lessen its interestfor some readers. But while fiction makes it possible to refrain fromrevealing some secrets, it is the only way to reveal others. I wished, while
guarding the outer details of my friends’ lives, to write freely about theirinner emotional lives by presenting them as fictional characters.
When Satoshi and Yoko first met, they were, to borrow from
Dante’s Divine Comedy, “midway in the journey of our life,” losing
sight of “the straight way.” Both were around forty, an age of peculiarly
delicate anxiety. Whether they envisioned the bright hustle and bustleof their lives continuing or coming to an end, they felt dispirited. And
just as in those opening lines, though it was “a hard thing to speak of,”they found themselves lost in that “dark wood.”

What name should I give the feeling that my friends had for each other?
Was it friendship? Was it love? They maintained a strong relationshipof trust that brought equal parts suffering and healing, and, at times,
even a semblance of hatred; but investigating only the outer aspect ofthat relationship would tell us nothing.
I came to know Satoshi first, and later, Yoko. I was therefore in aposition to fully sense why the two of them were so drawn to each other.
Brilliance and desolation appear intermittently in the record of
their lives. Joy and sadness play tug-of-war. This is all the more reason
why the alignment of their souls possesses a quality that is rare in today’s
world—a quality that I shall call, if I may, beauty.
I sympathized with them, grew disgusted with them sometimes,
and yet I admired them. Nothing is as tedious as the romance of others, but in their case it was different. Why? Over the course of a few
years, I experienced several enormous disappointments, and pondering their romance in spare moments offered a brief escape.
From the first, theirs were lives I was incapable of leading, yet even
now I often wonder what I would have done if those things had happened to me.
Their lives contain riddles, some of which I never did fathom. They
were such distant figures, even for me, that the reader should beware ofhurrying to feel a direct sympathy for them, lest they elude the reader
altogether.
As time went on, my desire to write about them grew, and when
the time felt right, I picked up my pen.

2

1
Th e L o n g N i g h t o f t h e F i r s t E n c o u n t e r

In 2006, classical guitarist Satoshi Makino turned thirty-eight. To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of his professional debut, he gave an
extraordinary number of concerts that year—thirty-five in his homecountry of Japan, fifty-one overseas.
Tonight was the crowning event of a hugely successful tour. The
autumn leaves in the vicinity of Tokyo’s Suntory Hall were just thenat their peak, and the trees, lit up by champagne-colored lights, shone
brilliantly. A cold wind was blowing, sometimes strong enough to whirl
the leaves, but this only kindled greater excitement in the hearts of thepeople standing outside, bundled in coats, tickets in hand.
Makino’s performance that evening was talked about long afterward.
The main item on the program was Concierto de Aranjuez, which
he performed with the New Japan Philharmonic orchestra; for his three
encores he played Lauro’s “Seis por derecho,” then his own arrangementof Brahms’s Intermezzo no. 2 in A Major, and finally a Toru Takemitsu
arrangement of the Beatles’ “Yesterday.” The instrument he played on
was for once not his beloved Fleta but a Greg Smallman guitar.
Ever since his storied debut at eighteen, when he’d taken first prizein the Paris International Guitar Competition, Makino’s performances
had always been sure-footed and trouble-free. The past twenty years had
demonstrated not only that he possessed talent, but that of the many
talents out there, his was singularly fine.

Makino’s listeners frequently forgot to breathe. His stylistic perfection made it impossible to half listen, critics often said, and thiswasn’t entirely a compliment—the wry implication was that listening
to Makino perform was a bit exhausting.
From the first, he was so excessively good at whatever he played, inany genre, that some thought he lacked commitment and was merely
toying with his talent. Others found him thoughtful, partly because of
the look of brooding concentration he wore while playing, like a chessplayer staring at the board.
That night, he showed an insightful understanding of the musicwith startlingly original interpretations that won listeners over: “Yes, yes,of course!” Even in the third movement of the Concierto de Aranjuez, themusic was articulated in such fine-honed and loving detail that every
nuance came alive, leading some critics to raise an eyebrow, surprised
to discover that a piece so infamously difficult—it seldom sounded
impressive, no matter who the performer was—should turn out to possess such charm. In short, the music was so persuasively rendered that,regardless of one’s personal likes and dislikes, it was impossible to findfault with any of it.
At the encore, as if on cue, the audience rose in a standing ovation.
While clapping, people leaned backward slightly and thrust their arms
forward as far as they could in hopes of getting him to hear them. The
height of clapping hands rises in direct proportion to the degree theapplauder is moved; this was another thing the audience discoveredthat evening.
With every curtain call, Makino gave a refined bow of a slightly different flavor. He showed how satisfied and moved he was, not hiding his
fatigue. The shy smile on his face, so different from the solemn expression of moments before, radiated the exhilaration he often displayedon television talk shows.
After the concert, the lobby was in an uproar, creating a synergy thatconvinced people their private impression was right: the performance4

had been stupendous. People who had come without a companion
quickly began sharing their excitement online, standing stock still andcausing others to bump into them with annoyance.
The recording of the concert, released afterward as a CD, went on
to win that year’s Record Academy Award and sold extremely well foran album of classical music—classical guitar, no less. It was reviewed
widely, covered not just in specialty magazines and newspapers but also
on television, giving even those with no interest in music the vague
notion that that fellow Makino must really be something, all right.
The value of having attended that concert subsequently rose evenhigher, as Satoshi Makino’s solo performances came to an abrupt halt,
ushering in a period of long silence.
Looking back, there was one incident that might have been an
omen. After the concert, more people than usual flocked backstage
to see Makino, but he kept them waiting for nearly forty minutes.
Suspicion mounted that he might have collapsed in his dressing room,
but his manager, Sanae Mitani, adamantly refused to let anyone open
the door.
Mitani, who had been in her position at Kinoshita Music for ayear or so, had recently turned thirty with a resigned sigh. She had around, pink-cheeked face, short brown hair parted on one side, andblack-framed glasses. Her appearance inclined people to treat her like achild, but she was a woman of spirit. Older men in particular tended tofall into one of two camps, either lavishing affection on her or bristlingwith displeasure.
Before going into his dressing room, Makino had left instructions
that no one was to knock on the door. Why he’d said this, Mitani didn’tknow, but she faithfully carried out his wishes. Finally, he emerged,
apologizing in a droll way: “Sorry to keep you waiting, folks. I don’tknow, I just ran out of steam. I guess that’s what happens when you’re
coming up on forty.” He twisted his head from side to side to loosen
the tendons in his neck.
5

He had changed into a white shirt subtly embroidered with tiny
white stars, a black jacket, and narrow-leg cargo pants in dark moss
green. His face looked refreshed and his hair was combed. He was smiling, but his glance darted from face to face as if he were unsure where
to look.
His staff was relieved, judging from his expression that he was allright. Afterward, they all remembered seeing a 750-milliliter bottle ofEvian water lying empty on the floor. When one of them brought it up,
the others chimed in: “Yes, right! That struck me as odd too.” Though
what it might have meant, none of them knew.
During the forty minutes he was hidden away, unavailable, mostof those waiting had given up and gone home. He exchanged friendly,
gracious greetings with the few who had stuck it out. At the end of theline was Keiko Korenaga, his contact at Jupiter, chatting with a woman
with pretty hair.
Long before the two women’s turn came up, Makino was awareof them, glancing their way more than once. More precisely, it wasn’t“them” he checked out but rather Korenaga’s unknown companion.
From the stage he had noticed her, having spotted her sitting in theorchestra section. His gaze, searching for Korenaga, had been drawn
to the woman at her side and lingered there, his interest piqued by thesmall, fair face whose features he couldn’t quite make out.
Lustrous black hair fell to her slightly square shoulders and crossedin front, the way a woman crosses her ankles. Her nose was well defined,
eyes not deep set, eyebrows a pair of serene arcs. Her large eyes turned
down slightly at the corners and crinkled when she smiled, giving her
the air of a mischief-loving boy. Wound around her slender, pale neck
was a scarf with a design of flowers scattered on a checkered backgroundof black and pale green. Her lightly distressed jeans looked good on her
long, straight legs.
Makino ended up studying her longer than was prudent. Then,
when it was finally their turn and she stood before him, he hastily slid
6

his gaze over to Korenaga at her side. After speaking words of praise andappreciation, Korenaga introduced the woman. “This is Yoko Komine.
She’s a reporter for the French news agency RFP.”
Smiling, Yoko said, “Congratulations,” and shook his hand.
The word sounded to him like a direct translation from a foreign
language. Westerners often greeted him with “Congratulations!” or“Félicitations!” after a concert. Her makeup was applied with a lighttouch, unlike that of many young Japanese women; her name wasJapanese, but her features suggested she might be part Japanese andpart something else.
“That Brahms you played for an encore is a favorite of mine,” shesaid. “The arrangement was marvelous.”
Makino’s eyes widened in pure pleasure. She was the first to speakof that piece instead of the Aranjuez, and moreover, it was the only
performance he’d been satisfied with tonight.
“Thank you. It’s not an easy piece to play.”“I was entranced.” She laid a hand on her breast and smiled without
exaggeration. Her voice was low and resonant—a cultivated voice, hethought. “It was as if the music were taking me to some far-off place,urging me to come along, leading me gently by the hand.”
Makino held out his arms smoothly, as if inviting her to dance.
“Actually, that was me, issuing you a personal invitation from the stage.”
She looked surprised at this forwardness, perhaps put off.
“Watch out, Yoko,” said Korenaga. “Makino is a bit of a ladies’man, and he’s stayed single all his life. A word to the wise.”“Come on, don’t say such slanderous things about me. Is that really
what you think?”“What everybody thinks. But I’ve got news for you: Yoko has afiancé. Somebody she met in college—an economist, your polar opposite. And he’s an American.”
Makino withdrew his hands, as if he had just been cautioned
against touching a work of art. “That is too bad. What do you mean,7

‘He’s an American’?” He glanced down at Yoko’s left hand, where aplatinum ring sparkled on the fourth finger.
Listening to their banter, Yoko evidently decided not to be standoffish. “Anyway, I always liked Glenn Gould’s rendition of that Brahms,
but from now on I’ll listen to Satoshi Makino’s version on guitar.” Herexpression softened.
“I like the Glenn Gould recording a lot too. If you do listen again,
I’m pretty sure you’ll decide it’s better after all, so do me a favor and stayaway from it.” He grinned. “I’m joking, of course. He’s a total genius,
far above me, but we do have one thing in common.”“Oh? What’s that? Are you sensitive to cold too?”“Could be, now that you mention it. But no, actually, I hate giving
live concerts.”
Yoko took this in. “Then tonight you did a brilliant job of enduring us ‘spectators at a bullfight.’” She locked eyes with him for several
seconds.
A bit shaken by her gaze, at once probing and profoundly understanding, he felt his social smile slip and struggled to retrieve it.
His manager, Mitani, standing to one side with Makino’s guitarcase in her arms, frowned. She had apparently mistaken “spectators at
a bullfight” for Yoko’s own phrasing, not realizing it was a Glenn Gould
quotation. Meanwhile, Korenaga, assuming from the look on Makino’s
face that Yoko had incurred his displeasure, rushed to continue her
introduction.
“Yoko’s father is the director of that movie you like so much,
Makino-san. Coins of Happiness.”“Really? Jerko Solich?” He turned to Yoko in astonishment.
“Yes, I’m the daughter of his second wife, who’s Japanese. They werealready divorced by the time I was old enough to notice, and I hardly
lived with him at all, but we are in touch now.”“Is that right! That movie is the reason I fell in love with the guitar
in the first place. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen it, ever since8I was a kid!” He paused. “Well, well, well. I have the greatest respectfor your father. I really do.”“Thank you. I actually knew you admired his work. As a matter offact, this is the second time I’ve heard you play. After you won the ParisInternational Guitar Competition, my mother and I went to see you.
We were so excited that a Japanese person had won! It was at the Salle
Pleyel, wasn’t it?”
“What? Are you serious? Good lord. I mean, I’m honored, but . . .
back then I was still pretty bad.”“Not at all. Your playing was so wonderful, I was madly jealous. To
think that a high school boy two years younger than me could play thetheme music from my father’s film so brilliantly and be showered withaccolades—it was unforgivable! I was quite put out about it.” Her nose
wrinkled when she laughed.
She laughs like a child, he thought.
Mitani had stepped out to make a phone call, and when she cameback, she urged Makino to move along to the after-party.
Yoko glanced at her Omega watch. “Goodness, look at the time!
I’m so sorry to keep you when you must be exhausted.” She made as
if to leave.
Swiftly, Makino said, “If you don’t mind, would you come along to
the party? I’d love to talk some more.”
Korenaga seconded the invitation, taking her by the arm. “Yes, docome!”
Yoko hesitated, glancing again at her watch before agreeing: “Allright, if you’re sure I won’t be in the way.”
They rode in separate taxis to a Spanish restaurant nearby. By thenit was going on eleven o’clock.

9The dimly lit restaurant was full, except for their reserved seats.
Flamenco music was playing, and the white walls by the register were
decorated with visitors’ autographs. Yoko slipped off her coat and studied the signature of Paco de Lucía, whose guitar music was just thenfilling the room.
Makino hadn’t noticed a resemblance when looking at her straighton, but now, viewing her in profile, he definitely saw a touch of her
father. Or maybe it was something in the way she was engaged just thenin looking, feeling, and thinking.
Becoming aware of Makino’s gaze on her, Yoko turned toward him,
indicating the autograph. Since they had ridden in separate taxis, thiswas only the second time their eyes had met. Apparently at ease talking
to artists, she offered him her full impression of the concert and thenunself-consciously joined the circle of guests. Makino realized that he
was in slight awe of her, instead of the other way around. She seemed
a little unapproachable, intellectual, but there was something friendly
about her at the same time, he thought, something warm and appealing.
Eight of them sat at a table and drank a toast with cava. Dish after
dish was carried in, and they passed them around the table, sharing
everything without ceremony.
Makino was his usual talkative self. One of his staff brought up S,
Japan’s leading photographer, and Makino joined in with an anecdotefrom his ride back from Kyoto on the bullet train toward the end of
his tour.
“When I got on board, there he was in the row right in front ofme, across the aisle. S can be difficult when he wants to be, so I wasn’t
going to say anything, but then our eyes happened to meet. After that I
couldn’t very well ignore him, so I went over to say hello. ‘Hi, it’s been awhile. I’m Makino.’ Then—you know that way he has—he just flickeda glance at me. Cut me dead.”“No!” someone said. “That’s awful.”10

“I didn’t know what to do. I figured he might have forgotten who
I was, even though we’d worked together. Just in case, I tried again.
‘Satoshi Makino, the guitarist.’ Even then, he just looked at me like,‘Who is this guy?’ He was starting to piss me off.”“Right.”“‘Remember?’ I said. ‘We were on that TV talk show together
once, and then later on we bumped into each other in Aizuwakamatsu
and went out drinking.’ And so on. I brought up one encounter after
another, trying to get him to react. What do you think he said? ‘I’m
afraid you are mistaken.’”“Did you get on his wrong side somehow? Or was he just in a bad
mood?”“Well, when he said that, it kind of jolted me. So I took anotherlook, and lo and behold, it wasn’t him after all.”“What?”“Yeah, the guy was a total stranger. Once I got a good look at him,
I could see he was someone else. Why the hell I ever thought he was S
in the first place, I have no idea.”
Everybody had been listening blankly; now they all burst out
laughing.
“I was so embarrassed. I felt like sinking into the ground and disappearing. It wasn’t just him—everybody around was looking at me too.”“What did you do?”“I was in too deep to come out and say I was wrong, so I acted
angry: ‘All right, be that way! Never mind!’”“You didn’t apologize?”“Couldn’t. I went back to my seat in a huff and slept.”“You slept?”“Pretended to. How could I sleep after all that? But I was too cowardly to open my eyes, so I stayed like that the whole rest of the way toTokyo. Even though I had piles of work to do!”11

Once again the table convulsed with laughter. As he told the story,
Makino glanced at Yoko from time to time. Their eyes met more thanonce. She was leaning back in her chair, holding a lightly cupped handto her mouth, shoulders shaking with mirth. “Hilarious!” she murmured, and wiped a tear from her lower eyelid with her middle finger.
He felt accepted, and glad of it.
While Makino talked, Mitani had been making sure the others
were served. Now, passing a dish, she said, “When you’re telling stories,
Makino, you turn into someone else. Listening to you speak, it’s hard to
imagine you’re the same person who gave that phenomenal performance
tonight. When I first took this job, it was a continual shock.”“That’s how most people are. People like S who get on their highhorse and stay there are the exception.”“Give the poor man a break. It wasn’t even him, for God’s sake!”said someone else, sending a new wave of laughter around the table.
Yoko, sitting across from Makino, heaped her plate with vegetables.
“Are you a vegetarian?” he asked.
“No, but now and then I concentrate on vegetables by choice. It
helps me stay fit. And this is a pretty late dinner.”
Makino looked at her in some surprise. Choosing now and then to“concentrate on vegetables,” as she put it, sounded easy, but how many
people managed to pull it off? He’d never met anyone with such intelligent eating habits. He felt he had glimpsed the freedom, and discipline,with which she arranged her life.
“Besides, I’m leaving soon for Iraq.”“Iraq?”“I went there once last year too. Sorry, I never did give you one of
my business cards, did I?” She pulled out a card from a gold-colored
holder, and he reached over and took it.
“How long will you be there?”“Six weeks, then two weeks off. I’ll do that twice—so four months
in all.”12

“Is it safe? I saw the news about Hussein’s death sentence the otherday.”“Now is the most dangerous time since the invasion. But I’ll be allright. We have permanent staff there, and security is tight. What worries
me more than anything is the scarcity of good, fresh vegetables. That’s
another reason I need to eat them now.”“Ah, so that’s it! Go on, stuff yourself while you can.”She smiled and sipped her wine. “Before leaving for Baghdad, I
wanted to surround myself with beauty. That’s why I came to yourconcert tonight. And I’m so glad I did.”“After you return from Iraq, please come hear me play again. I’ll
send you an invitation. Where are you based?”“Paris. Yes, thank you, that would be so nice. I’ll go anywhere. And
while I’m gone, I’ll listen to your music on my iPod.”
Here, Mitani spoke up. “Let me know, and I’ll be happy to reservea seat for you anytime.” She and Yoko exchanged business cards.
“Thank you.”“Have you lived in Paris long?” Mitani asked. “Makino-san lived
there for a while once.”“Oh really? I’ve lived there ever since I took this job. About ten
years now, I guess. I grew up in Geneva.”“You graduated from Columbia, right?”
Yoko looked at her with some surprise.
“I checked your father’s Wikipedia page before, in the taxi,” Mitani
explained.
“Oh! I didn’t realize there was information about me on there. I
studied literature at Oxford, and then I went to Columbia for graduate
school.”“Super elite! Amazing.”“Hardly. There are a lot of people out there far more amazing thanI’ll ever be. I owe a lot to my mother. She’s the one who brought me up
and made it all possible. She wanted to prove something to my father,13

I suppose. Her existence is wiped clean from his personal history, andhe never mentions her in public. How anything about me got on his
Wikipedia page I have no idea. That’s the trouble with the internet,
don’t you think?” Yoko sounded casual, but her words sent a hush over
the table.
Mitani tactfully changed the subject. “So, Yoko, how many languages do you speak?”“Basically Japanese, French, and English, and some German I
picked up in college, because I was studying German wartime literature.
Rilke especially. Also I can read Latin, and I know a smattering of a few
other languages, Romanian for one, but carrying on a conversation isdifficult. So when people ask me how many languages I speak, I neverknow quite what to say.”“Whoa.”“I would really like to learn Croatian, my father’s native language.
When I was little, I didn’t know any English, so when I saw him, we
couldn’t talk. And that’s what my mother spoke to him in, so I could
never understand what they were saying. I remember bursting into tears
and wondering who my real parents were. When the chance came, I
studied English for all I was worth. Still, it’s neither my mother tongue
nor his.” She paused. “However many languages I might speak, it’s sad
not to know my father’s.”
Yoko explained this difficult situation without a trace of sentimentality, even smiling now and then. Makino, listening respectfully,
paused with a forkful of omelet in midair as the realization struck himthat there were parents and children in the world who didn’t share
a common language. He pictured Yoko as a little girl sitting acrossfrom her father, unable to do anything but smile. What might she havelooked like? Had she always resembled him the way she did now? Afterliving so long with her mother, did she discover on one of his visits that
she looked like him? Solich must have seen it right away. But even if
14

they’d both made the same discovery, they would have had no way toshare it with each other.
Makino’s background was just the opposite. He’d been broughtup from early childhood to fulfill the dreams of his guitar-loving
father. By the time he was in kindergarten, they already shared thesame language—guitar. Rather than playing music, Makino had had
fun making his guitar “talk.” Though his aging father had slowly lostthe ability to comprehend what Makino’s guitar was saying . . .
Mitani and Yoko went on chatting, letting the sad anecdote slide
without further comment. “My one linguistic claim to fame,” Mitani
was saying, “is knowing Hakata dialect. My English never gets any
better, sadly.”“So you’re from Fukuoka?”“Born and bred!”
Makino spoke up teasingly. “Every day, I am made acutely awareof how strong Kyushu women are.”“My mother’s roots are in Nagasaki,” said Yoko.
“No! You’re from Kyushu?” Mitani said this in a voice so loud thatevery head at the table turned.
“Yes. In summer and winter we used to vacation at my grandmother’s house. I went swimming in the sea.”“How about that! I feel a real bond with you now. You’re Japanese
after all!”“I think I am pretty Japanese inside, actually. Everyone says so.
My father’s roots are a bit more complicated. He identifies much morestrongly as Yugoslavian than Croatian. Plus he has some Austrian blood.
My mother’s family history is much simpler. I learned to speak Nagasaki
dialect from my grandmother. That gave me a fondness for Japanesedialects. Hakata dialect spoken by a woman is really charming. Very
attractive. And not too different from Nagasaki dialect, either.”“See, Makino?” said Mitani, using her native dialect. “Yoko thinks
so too!” Then she asked Yoko if she ever got back to Nagasaki.
15

“Yes, but unfortunately, my grandmother died the year before last.”“Oh, I’m sorry.”“No, it’s all right. She was ninety. My mother lived in Europe fromthe time she was a young woman, but in the end she went back tolive with Grandma, just over ten years ago. Not that Grandma needed
looking after; she was really healthy and alert. She never did get sick,either—she fell.”“How sad. Nowadays people stay healthy well into old age, so falls
are what’s really dangerous.”“It’s true. I never knew my paternal grandparents, so my Japanese
grandma meant a lot to me.” After a brief pause, she said, “When she
fell, she hit her head on a stone in the garden. A natural stone, about
yea big. When I was a little girl, I used to play house there with mycousin, using the stone as a table and setting out red berries and leaves
on it. Never dreaming that, one day, that same stone would take mygrandmother’s life . . .”Paella arrived, and Mitani scooped some onto a plate for Yoko.
“Well, at that age a fatal fall can happen anywhere,” she said comfortingly. “It was just one of those things.”“Yes, but you see, it was the very stone where I used to play,” Yoko
repeated as she took the plate.
Mitani looked dubious. “Well, yeah, I suppose if you’d known
ahead of time you could have done something about it, but what? Was
it in a dangerous place?”“No, that’s not what I was trying to say. I just meant that as a childI played innocently at the very place that years later would take mygrandmother’s life. That’s all.”“Okay . . . but you know what, the world’s a dangerous place forold folks. Don’t blame yourself.”“I don’t blame myself. I mean, how could I? It’s just that . . .” Yoko
paused, uncertain whether to continue, not having expected to encounter such difficulty in getting her point across. People at the other half16

of the table, finding the large mound of late-night paella somewhat
daunting, were discussing which Italian restaurant in Tokyo was thebest. Yoko glanced over as if debating whether to join their discussion
instead.
Makino poured red wine into Yoko’s and Mitani’s glasses, then his
own, and waited for a moment before addressing Mitani. “I think Yoko
is talking about memory.”
Both women directed their gaze at him.
“Because her grandmother died at that stone, her memory of playing there as a child will never be the same. Isn’t that right? In her mind,
the two stones are one and the same. And as a result, that childhood
memory has now become painful.”
Yoko looked steadily at Makino, who was speaking quietly now,
without his former ebullience. Her eyes shone with the pleasure ofknowing someone understood.
But to Mitani, his explanation merely sowed new seeds of confusion. “Wouldn’t her childhood memory be just that, a memory, withno connection to the future? At the time, it was just an ordinary stone.
For her to play there without knowing what was going to happen years
later was only natural.”“Yes, at the time. But after the loss of her grandmother, memoriesof playing at that stone would give rise to mixed feelings.”“Well, I don’t get it. Yoko, is that what you meant?”“I just realized it myself for the first time, listening to him explain.”
Makino looked briefly at Yoko and then lowered his eyes.
Mitani was unsatisfied. “Yeah, but . . . I mean . . . What’s the point?
Sorry, it makes no sense to me.”“It’s nothing. I’m sorry I brought up such a weird topic anyway.”
Yoko, realizing that Mitani was tipsy, tried to smooth things over.
Makino, however, wasn’t ready to let it go.
“It’s not at all weird,” he said. “Music is like that too. After you follow
a musical theme to the end, looking back, what do you see? Beethoven’s
17diary contains a mysterious line: ‘Ascertain all in the evening.’ I forget
offhand what the original German is. Yoko, you could probably help me
there. Anyway, I think he meant something similar. Listening to a musical theme develop, you come to see that it contained a certain potentiality all along. Once you follow it to the end, the theme never sounds thesame again. A bud that you look at knowing nothing of the flower tocome isn’t the same as the bud you look back on in memory with theflower before you. Music doesn’t just progress forward in a straight line
but works backward into the past as well. Without understanding that,you would never appreciate the fascination of the fugue.”He paused slightly before going on. “People think that only the
future can be changed, but in fact, the future is continually changing
the past. The past can and does change. It’s exquisitely sensitive anddelicately balanced.”
Yoko was nodding as she listened, one hand pressing her long black
hair against her neck. “This moment is no exception,” she said. “Fromthe vantage point of the future, it’s exactly that, exquisitely sensitive anddelicately balanced.” After a pause, she said, “But I’m not sure how helpful this way of thinking really is. It’s a little frightening to me, actually.
Tonight has been so enjoyable. I wish it could go on forever.”Makino didn’t reply, but his expression showed he agreed. The pleasure of having someone understand sank deep inside him, made him
ecstatic. This was not something he was used to by any means.
Mitani, apparently still unconvinced, turned her attention woozily
to the conversation at the other end of the table. From then until therestaurant closed at two thirty, Makino and Yoko were absorbed in a
private conversation.
She looked into the flame of the candle on the table. “You didapologize, didn’t you? To the man on the bullet train, I mean.”
Makino stared. Then, thinking once again—how many times
now?—how much he was enjoying this evening, he smiled. “Well, sure.
Who wouldn’t? But it makes a better story to say I got angry.”18

“I thought so.”“How did you know?”“I don’t know . . . I just did.” She smiled too.
Still smiling, Makino looked down, then raised his head again.
“There’s one other thing that only you caught.”“What’s that?”
Tonight’s concert was a dud, he started to say, but then thought better of it. He had expected to spend the night with the bitter aftertasteof disappointment, but thanks to her, that had changed. No need tospoil the evening now.
“Never mind. Sorry. It’s okay—it’s nothing.”“What is it?”“Just . . . something unimportant.”
She seemed to have some notion of what he meant. Her face
expressed her dissatisfaction, but she didn’t press the issue.
More than once they surreptitiously checked their watches, realizing how late it was getting but pretending otherwise, prolonging theevening all they could. Finally, the others began suggesting it was timeto leave. Mitani was asleep in her chair.
“She must be exhausted, after the strain of the concert. I hope she
didn’t mind what I said.” Yoko looked at her, concerned.
“It’s all right. When she gets an idea in her head, she won’t let it go,
but her stubbornness helps me. She’s a really solid person.”
Promising to keep in touch, they drifted out of the restaurant withthe others. After helping Yoko into a taxi, Makino watched through thewindow as she gave instructions to the driver, his eyes on her profile.
The daughter of Jerko Solich. Someone who for twenty years had neverforgotten a concert he’d given at age eighteen . . .
Then she turned and looked back at him.

19

Impossible as it seemed at the time, afterward they each felt separatelythat they could have spent the remainder of the night together, that theoption had been real. As their relationship developed, the long nightof their first encounter came back to them frequently in memory as
something special. The moment of that lingering last look was indeed“exquisitely sensitive and delicately balanced.” Amid the swirling rapidsof time’s ceaseless rush downstream to the past, it shone with a soft andlonely light—while beyond lay the vast ocean of oblivion. Every timethey were wounded in the future, again and again they would returnin memory to look into each other’s eyes, embraced by the darkness ofthat night.

20

would not fail again . . . standing on the once-more silent
carpet, those lovers wreathed now in true smiles.
He came to the edge of the pond, which reflected the deep green
all around, and in his eagerness and anxiety kept changing his grip on
the handle of his guitar case. He walked along, his eyes searching wide
across the space before him. Just off the path curving gently around thepond, he saw a bench in a shady spot straight ahead.
He stood still. Watching the desultory play of the afternoon lighton the surface of the pond was a woman, seated alone on the bench.
She slowly turned her face toward him.
He looked at her and smiled. Yoko started to respond, but it was
all she could do to maintain her composure. She stood up, purse inhand, and turned again to face him. He was already walking toward
her. His figure grew bigger as she watched. With reddened eyes, she
finally smiled too. Five and a half years had passed since the smiles theyexchanged the night they first met.

301

ACKNOWLEDGMEN TS

This book could not have been written without the cooperation ofmany people, for which I am deeply grateful. Classical guitarist Shinichi Fukuda in particular made himself available from the very beginning, when the novel was still in the planning stage, and I am greatly
in his debt. Guitarists Daisuke Suzuki and Yasuji Ohagi also gave me
advice.
Concerning Rilke’s Duino Elegies, I did the translation myself (using
the text Werke in drei Bänden by Rainer Maria Rilke, Horst Nalewski,ed., Leipzig: Insel-Verlag, 1978) under the supervision of the German
literary scholar Yoshikazu Takemine. I of course am alone responsible
for any infelicities.
In addition, the following associations and individuals gave me
valuable input: the Japan Association for Refugees, the Association ofNagasaki Hibakusha and Their Testimonies, Jean-Marc Mojon, RobertCampbell, and Kanae Doi, Japanese representative to Human Rights
Watch, the international nongovernmental organization.
Finally, in the course of gathering information about Iraq, I had
the unparalleled chance to sit down with the late freelance journalist
Kenji Goto for long talks about his experiences covering global conflict.
My description of Jalila’s refugee experience is largely drawn from his

December 11, 2004, report in the Independent Press entitled “Pari no
Irakujin josei” (An Iraqi woman in Paris). It pains me more than I cansay that I can never deliver this book to Goto, who was eagerly looking
forward to its completion. On January 30, 2015, he was executed byIslamic State militants. Rest in peace.

ABOUT THE AUTHO R

Photo © Mikiya Takimoto

Keiichiro Hirano is an award-winning and bestselling novelist whose
debut novel, The Eclipse, won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in
1998, when he was a twenty-three-year-old university student. A cultural envoy to Paris appointed by Japan’s Ministry of Cultural Affairs,
Hirano has lectured throughout Europe. Widely read in France, China,
Korea, Taiwan, Italy, and Egypt, Hirano’s novels include the Watanabe
Junichi Literary Prize–winning novel At the End of the Matinee—arunaway bestseller in Japan—and the critically acclaimed and Yomiuri
Prize for Literature–winning A Man. His short fiction has appeared in
the Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature. For more information, visit http://en.k-hirano.com and follow Hirano on Twitter at@hiranok_en.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATO R

Photo © 2014 Toyota Horiguchi

Juliet Winters Carpenter is a veteran translator and professor emerita of
Doshisha Women’s College of Liberal Arts in Kyoto. Her first translated
novel, Secret Rendezvous by Kobo Abe, received the 1980 Japan-US
Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature.
In 2014, A True Novel by Minae Mizumura received the same award aswell as the American Translators Association Lewis Galantière Award.
The audio edition of her translation of Shion Miura’s bestsellingnovel The Great Passage won an Earphones Award. Carpenter’s otherrecent translations include An I-Novel by Minae Mizumura and Pax
Tokugawana: The Cultural Flowering of Japan, 1603–1853 by Toru
Haga. She lives on Whidbey Island in Washington.