1Q84

1Q84

“1Q84,” Aomame said. “Are you talking about the fact that I am living now in the year called 1Q84, not the real 1984?”

“What the real world is: that is a very difficult problem,” the man called Leader said as he lay on his stomach. “What it is, is a metaphysical proposition. But this is the real world, there is no doubt about that. The pain one feels in this world is real pain. Deaths caused in this world are real deaths. Blood shed in this world is real blood. This is no imitation world, no imaginary world, no metaphysical world. I guarantee you that. But this is not the 1984 you know.”

“Like a parallel world?”

The man’s shoulders trembled with laughter. “You’ve been reading too much science fiction. No, this is no parallel world. You don’t have 1984 over there and 1Q84 branching off over here and the two worlds running along parallel tracks. The year 1984 no longer exists anywhere. For you and for me, the only time that exists anymore is this year of 1Q84.”

“We have entered into its time flow once and for all.”

“Exactly. We have entered into this place where we are now. Or the time flow has entered us once and for all. And as far as I understand it, the door only opens in one direction. There is no way back.”

“I suppose it happened when I climbed down the Metropolitan Expressway’s emergency stairway.”

“Metropolitan Expressway?”

“Near Sangenjaya,” Aomame said.

“The place is irrelevant,” the man said. “For you, it was Sangenjaya. But the specific place is not the question. The question here, in the end, is the time. The track, as it were, was switched there, and the world was transformed into 1Q84.”

Aomame imagined a number of Little People joining forces to move the device that switches the tracks. In the middle of the night. Under the pale light of the moon.

“And in this year of 1Q84, there are two moons in the sky, aren’t there?”

“Correct: two moons. That is the sign that the track has been switched. That is how you can tell the two worlds apart. Not that all of the people here can see two moons. In fact, most people are not aware of it. In other words, the number of people who know that this is 1Q84 is quite limited.”

“Most people in this world are not aware that the time flow has been switched?”



“Correct. To most people, this is just the plain old everyday world they’ve always known. This is what I mean when I say, ‘This is the real world.’

"So the track has been switched,” Aomame said. “If it had not been switched, we would not be meeting here like this. Could that be what you are saying?”

“That is the one thing that no one knows. It’s a question of probability. But that is probably the case.”

“Is what you are saying an objective fact, or just a hypothesis?”

“Good question. But distinguishing between the two is virtually impossible. Remember how the old song goes, ‘Without your love, it’s a honky-tonk parade’?” He hummed the melody. “Do you know it?”

“ ‘It’s Only a Paper Moon.’ ”

“That’s it. 1984 and 1Q84 are fundamentally the same in terms of how they work. If you don’t believe in the world, and if there is no love in it, then everything is phony. No matter which world we are talking about, no matter what kind of world we are talking about, the line separating fact from hypothesis is practically invisible to the eye. It can only be seen with the inner eye, the eye of the mind.”

“Who switched the tracks?”

“Who switched the tracks? That is another difficult question. The logic of cause and effect has little power here.”

“In any case, some kind of will transported me into this world of 1Q84,” Aomame said. “A will other than my own.”

“That is true. You were carried into this world when the train you were on had its tracks switched.”

“Do the Little People have anything to do with that?”

“In this world there are the so-called Little People. Or at least, that is what they are called in this world. But they do not always have a shape or a name.”

Aomame bit her lip in thought. Then she said, “What you are saying sounds contradictory to me. Let’s assume it was these ‘Little People’ who switched the track and carried me into this world of 1Q84. Why would they do such a thing if they don’t want me to do what I am about to do to you? It would be far more advantageous to get rid of me.”

“That is not easy to explain,” the man said, his voice lacking all intonation. “But you are a very quick thinker. You might be able to grasp, however vaguely,what I am trying to tell you. As I said before, the most important thing with regard to this world in which we live is for there to be a balance maintained between good and evil. The so-called Little People—or some kind of manifestations of will—certainly do have great power. But the more they use their power, the more another power automatically arises to resist it. In that way, the world maintains a delicate balance. This fundamental principle is the same in any world. Precisely the same thing can be said in this world of 1Q84 that now contains us. When the Little People began to manifest their enormous power, a power opposing the Little People also automatically came into being. And this opposing momentum must have drawn you into the year 1Q84.”

Lying like a beached whale on his blue yoga mat, the giant man released a huge breath.

“To continue with the train analogy: it is possible for them to switch tracks, as a result of which the train has entered its current line—the 1Q84 line. One thing they are not able to do, however, is to distinguish one passenger on the train from another—to choose among them. Which means that there may be passengers aboard who, to them, are undesirable.”

“Uninvited passengers.”

“Exactly.”

Again there was a rumble of thunder. This one was much louder than before. But there was no lightning. Just the sound. Strange, Aomame thought. The thunder is so close, but the lightning doesn’t flash. And no rain is falling.

“Have I managed to make myself clear thus far?”

“I’m listening,” she said, having already moved the needle away from the spot on his neck. Now she had it pointed cautiously toward empty space. She had to concentrate all her attention on what he was saying.

Where there is light, there must be shadow, and where there is shadow there must be light. There is no shadow without light and no light without shadow. Karl Jung said this about ‘the Shadow’ in one of his books: ‘It is as evil as we are positive … the more desperately we try to be good and wonderful and perfect, the more the Shadow develops a definite will to be black and evil and destructive.… The fact is that if one tries beyond one’s capacity to be perfect, the Shadow descends to hell and becomes the devil. For it is just as sinful from the standpoint of nature and of truth to be above oneself as to be below oneself.’



“We do not know if the so-called Little People are good or evil. This is, in a sense, something that surpasses our understanding and our definitions. We have lived with them since long, long ago—from a time before good and evil even existed, when people’s minds were still benighted. But the important thing is that, whether they are good or evil, light or shadow, whenever they begin to exert their power, a compensatory force comes into being. In my case,when I became an ‘agent’ of the so-called Little People, my daughter became something like an agent for those forces opposed to the Little People. In this way, the balance was maintained.”