“No, I don’t. Nobody ever told me, and I never really wanted to know.”

Sara swirled the wine in her glass and gazed at the ripples, as if reading someone’s fortune.

“I find this very strange,” she said. “That incident was obviously a huge shock, and in a way, it changed your life. Don’t you think?”

Tsukuru gave a small nod. “In a lot of ways I’ve become a different person.”

“How so?”

“Well, I feel more often how dull and insignificant I am for other people. And for myself.”

Sara gazed into his eyes for a time, her voice serious. “I don’t think you’re either dull or insignificant.”

“I appreciate that,” Tsukuru said. He gently pressed his fingers against his temple. “But that’s an issue I have to figure out on my own.”

“I still don’t follow,” Sara said. “The pain caused by that incident is still in your mind, or your heart. Or maybe both. But I think it’s very clearly there. Yet for the last fifteen or sixteen years you’ve never tried to trace the reason why you had to suffer like that.”

“I’m not saying I didn’t feel like knowing the truth. But after all these years, I think it’s better just to forget about it. It was a long time ago, and it’s all sunk within the past.”

Sara’s thin lips came together, and then she spoke. “I think that’s dangerous.”

“Dangerous? How so?”

“You can hide memories, but you can’t erase the history that produced them.” Sara looked directly into his eyes. “If nothing else, you need to remember that. You can’t erase history, or change it. It would be like destroying yourself.”

“Why are we talking about this?” Tsukuru said, half to himself, trying to sound upbeat. “I’ve never talked to anybody about this before, and never planned to.”

Sara smiled faintly. “Maybe you needed to talk with somebody. More than you ever imagined.”

• • •

That summer, after he returned to Tokyo from Nagoya, Tsukuru was transfixed by the odd sensation that, physically, he was being completely transformed. Colors he’d once seen appeared completely different, as if they’d been covered by a special filter. He heard sounds that he’d never heard before, and couldn’t make out other noises that had always been familiar. When he moved, he felt clumsy and awkward, as if gravity were shifting around him.

For the five months after he returned to Tokyo, Tsukuru lived at death’s door. He set up a tiny place to dwell, all by himself, on the rim of a dark abyss. A perilous spot, teetering on the edge, where, if he rolled over in his sleep, he might plunge into the depth of the void. Yet he wasn’t afraid. All he thought about was how easy it would be to fall in.