He broke off and looked out the window to the clouds. They’d barely moved. A heavy lid, bearing down from the heavens. Absorbing all color from the control tower and airplanes and ground-transport vehicles and tarmac and men in uniform.

“People like Aoki don’t scare me. They’re all over the place, but I don’t trouble myself with them anymore. When I run into them, I don’t get involved. I see them coming and I head the other way. I can spot them in an instant. But at the same time, I’ve got to admire the Aokis of this world. Their ability to lay low until the right moment, their knack for latching on to opportunities, their skill in fucking with people’s minds—that’s no ordinary talent. I hate their kind so much it makes me want to puke, but it is a talent.

“No, what really scares me is how easily, how uncritically, people will believe the crap that slime like Aoki deal out. How these Aoki types produce nothing themselves, don’t have an idea in the world, and talk so nice, how this slime can sway gullible types to any opinion and get them to perform on cue, as a group. And this group never entertains even a sliver of doubt that they could be wrong. They think nothing of hurting someone, senselessly, permanently. They don’t take any responsibility for their actions. Them. They’re the real monsters. They’re the ones I have nightmares about. In those dreams, there’s only the silence. And these faceless people. Their silence seeps into everything like ice water. And then it all goes murky. And I’m dissolving and I’m screaming, but no one hears.”

Ozawa just shook his head.

I waited for him to continue, but he was quiet. He folded his hands and lay them on the table.

“We still have time—how about a beer?” he said after a while.

Yeah, let’s, I said. We probably both could use one.

—translated by Alfred Birnbaum

THE ELEPHANT VANISHES

WHEN THE ELEPHANT disappeared from our town’s elephant house, I read about it in the newspaper. My alarm clock woke me that day, as always, at 6:13. I went to the kitchen, made coffee and toast, turned on the radio, spread the paper out on the kitchen table, and proceeded to munch and read. I’m one of those people who read the paper from beginning to end, in order, so it took me awhile to get to the article about the vanishing elephant. The front page was filled with stories of SDI and the trade friction with America, after which I plowed through the national news, international politics, economics, letters to the editor, book reviews, real-estate ads, sports reports, and finally, the regional news.