As a rule, they listened to Beethoven string quartets on the way home. Kafuku never tired of them—he found them perfectly suited to thinking or, if he preferred, thinking about nothing at all. If he wanted something lighter, he chose classic American rock. Groups like the Beach Boys, the Rascals, CCR, the Temptations, and so on. The popular music of his youth. Misaki never commented on his selection. He couldn’t tell if his music pleased or pained her, or if she was listening at all, for that matter. She was a young woman who didn’t show her emotions.

Under normal circumstances, Kafuku found reciting his lines in the presence of others stressful, but those inhibitions vanished with Misaki. In that sense, he appreciated her lack of expressiveness and her cool, distant personality. He might roar beside her while he rehearsed, but she acted as though she heard nothing. Indeed it was quite possible that her attention was solely focused on the road. Perhaps driving put her in a Zen-like frame of mind.

Kafuku had no idea what Misaki thought of him as a person. Was she kindly disposed, or unimpressed and disinterested, or did she loathe him and put up with him just to keep her job? He was in the dark. But it didn’t matter to him all that much how she felt. He liked her smooth and assured driving, her lack of chatter, and the way she kept her feelings to herself.

After the night’s performance ended, Kafuku washed off his stage makeup, changed his clothes, and left the theater as quickly as possible. He didn’t like dawdling. He knew almost none of his fellow actors. He would call Misaki on his cell phone and have her drive to the stage door to pick him up. When he stepped outside, the yellow Saab would be waiting for him. By the time he got back to his Ebisu apartment, it would be a little after ten thirty. This pattern repeated itself on a nightly basis.

He had other work as well. He spent one day a week shooting a drama series at a TV studio in the middle of the city. It was your garden-variety detective show, but the audience was large and it paid well. He played a fortune-teller who assisted the female lead detective. To prepare for the role, he had dressed in fortune-teller’s garb and set up a booth on the street, where he told the fortunes of a number of passersby. Word had it that many of his prognostications had hit the mark. When his day of shooting ended he went straight from the studio to the theater in Ginza. That was the risky part. On weekends, after the matinee, he would teach a night class at an acting school. He loved working with young actors. Misaki ferried him around for all these activities. She drove him from place to place without the slightest fuss, always on time, so that Kafuku grew used to sitting beside her in the Saab’s passenger seat. On occasion, he even fell fast asleep.