That night Tsukuru had a long, bizarre dream. He was seated at a piano, playing a sonata—a huge, brand-new grand piano, the white keys utterly white, the black keys utterly black. An oversized score lay open on the music stand. Beside him stood a woman, dressed in a tight, subdued black dress, swiftly turning the pages for him with her long pale fingers. Her timing was impeccable. Her jet-black hair hung to her waist. Everything in the scene appeared in gradations of white and black. There were no other colors.
He had no idea who had composed the sonata. It was a lengthy piece, though, with a score as thick as a phone book. The pages were filled with notes, literally covered in black. It was a challenging composition, with a complex structure, and required a superior technique. And he had never seen it before. Still, he was able to sight-read it, instantly grasping the world expressed there, and transforming this vision into sound. Just like being able to visualize a complicated blueprint in 3D. He had this special ability. His ten practiced fingers raced over the keyboard like a whirlwind. It was a dazzling, invigorating experience—accurately decoding this enormous sea of ciphers more quickly than anyone else, and instantaneously giving them form and substance.
Absorbed in his playing, his body was pierced by a flash of inspiration, like a bolt of lightning on a summer afternoon. The music had an ambitious, virtuoso structure, but at the same time it was beautifully introspective. It honestly and delicately expressed, in a full, tangible way, what it meant to be alive. A crucial aspect of the world that could only be expressed through the medium of music. His spine tingled with the sheer joy and pride of performing this music himself.
Sadly, though, the people seated before him seemed to feel otherwise. They fidgeted in their seats, bored and irritated. He could hear the scraping of chairs, and people coughing. For some reason, they were oblivious to the music’s value.
He was performing in the grand hall of a royal court. The floor was smooth marble, the ceiling vaulted, with a lovely skylight in the middle. The members of the audience—there must have been about fifty people—were seated on elegant chairs as they listened to the music. Well-dressed, refined, no doubt cultured individuals, but unfortunately they were unable to appreciate this marvelous music.
As time passed, the clamor they made grew louder, even more grating. There was no stopping it now, as it overwhelmed the music. By now even he could no longer hear the music he was playing. What he heard instead was a grotesquely amplified and exaggerated noise, the sounds of coughs and groans of discontent. Still, his eyes remained glued to the score, his fingers racing over the keyboard, as if he were possessed.
He had a sudden realization. The woman in black, turning the pages of the score for him, had six fingers. The sixth finger was about the same size as her little finger. He gasped, and felt a shudder run through his chest. He wanted to look up at the woman standing beside him. Who was she? Did he know her? But until that movement of the score was over, he couldn’t spare a moment’s glance away. Even if there wasn’t a single person now who was still listening.
At this point Tsukuru awoke. The green numbers on his bedside clock read 2:35. His body was covered in sweat, his heart still beating out the dry cadence of time passing. He got up, tugged off his pajamas, wiped himself down with a towel, put on a new T-shirt and boxers, and sat down on the sofa in the living room. In the darkness, he thought about Sara. He agonized over every word he’d spoken to her earlier on the phone. He should never have said what he did.
He wanted to call her and take back everything that he’d said. But he couldn’t call anyone at nearly 3 a.m. And asking her to forget what he’d already said was all the more impossible. At this rate I might well lose her, he thought.