Listening to the music here, next to a lake in Finland, it had a different sort of charm from when he heard it back in his apartment in Tokyo. But no matter where he listened to it, regardless of whether he heard it on a CD or an old LP, the music remained the same, utterly engaging and beautiful. Tsukuru pictured Yuzu at the piano in her parlor, playing the piece, leaning over the keyboard, eyes closed, lips slightly open, searching for words that don’t make a sound. She was apart from herself then, in some other place.

The piece ended, there was a pause, then the next piece began. “The Bells of Geneva.” Eri touched the remote control and lowered the volume.

“It strikes me as different from the performance I always listen to at home,” Tsukuru said.

“Which pianist do you listen to?”

“Lazar Berman.”

Eri shook her head. “I’ve never heard his version.”

“It’s a little more elegant than this one. I like this performance, it’s wonderful, but the style of this version makes it sound more like a Beethoven sonata than Liszt.”

Eri smiled. “That would be because it’s Alfred Brendel. Maybe it’s not so elegant, but I like it all the same. I guess I’m used to this version, since it’s the one I always listen to.”

“Yuzu played this piece so beautifully. She put so much feeling into it.”

“She really did. She was very good at pieces this length. In longer pieces she sort of ran out of energy halfway through. But everyone has their own special qualities. I always feel like a part of Yuzu lives on in this music. It’s so vibrant, so luminous.”

When Yuzu was teaching the children at the school, Tsukuru and Ao usually played soccer with the boys in the small playground outside. They divided into two teams and tried to shoot the ball into the opposite goal (which was usually constructed from a couple of cardboard boxes). As he passed the ball, Tsukuru would half listen to the sound of children playing scales that filtered out the window.

The past became a long, razor-sharp skewer that stabbed right through his heart. Silent silver pain shot through him, transforming his spine to a pillar of ice. The pain remained, unabated. He held his breath, shut his eyes tight, enduring the agony. Alfred Brendel’s graceful playing continued. The CD shifted to the second suite, “Second Year: Italy.”

And in that moment, he was finally able to accept it all. In the deepest recesses of his soul, Tsukuru Tazaki understood. One heart is not connected to another through harmony alone. They are, instead, linked deeply through their wounds. Pain linked to pain, fragility to fragility. There is no silence without a cry of grief, no forgiveness without bloodshed, no acceptance without a passage through acute loss. That is what lies at the root of true harmony.