Rintaro couldn’t decide whether the last sentence was the woman’s attempt at humor, or whether she actually meant what she said. Either way, the weight of the question was the same.
He looked down at his feet. There was no easy reply and yet there were thoughts bubbling up in his mind that he did not want to silence. He reached up and touched his right hand to the frame of his glasses. He shut his eyes.
Once his eyes were closed, the familiar comfort of the round stool transported him back to Natsuki Books. It didn’t matter that he was sitting in a fake, reconstructed version of the shop, his mind easily drifted back to where he was most at home.
The seasoned old bookshelves, the retro light fittings, the wooden latticed door that blocked out most of the sunlight, and the silver bell that swung to and fro every time a customer came in. His memory gradually filled the shelves with each of the books he had read.
The Brothers Karamazov, The Grapes of Wrath, The Count of Monte Cristo, Gulliver’s Travels . . . Rintaro could recall the exact location of every single book he had read, and as he traced them in his mind, he felt a wave of calm rush through his body.
“I can’t—” Rintaro faltered, but he did his best to string his words together.
“I don’t know the answer. But I do know that books have helped me many times. I’m the kind of person who tends to dwell on the past, and I give up way too easily, but somehow, I’ve made it this far because books keep me going.”
He stared down at the polished wood floor as he picked the words one by one from the depths of his mind.
“You made some good points, but books are more powerful than you think. Even though so many books are disappearing, there are just as many that survive.”
He looked up. The woman was still sitting there, motionless. Rintaro continued, looking at the eyes that never seemed to focus on any particular spot.
“My grandpa always used to say that books have tremendous power. I don’t know how things were two thousand years ago, but these days I’m surrounded by fascinating books. I live with them every day. So—”
“Pity.”
All of a sudden a cold wind picked up. It was faint, but it had enough strength to cut off Rintaro’s speech. His feverish tones were immediately chilled to subzero temperature. The woman’s next words struck a final blow.
“You’ve disappointed me.”
Rintaro shivered. He was staring into a dark void. It was a peculiar kind of darkness that lurked behind the woman’s eyes. Perhaps it was sorrow, perhaps despair. Whatever it was, it was a bleak emotion, an abyss that swallowed up everything. It was a force that left a mere high school student like Rintaro utterly defenseless.
“Thoughts alone can’t change the world.”
Her tone was resigned. She had given up.
“I’ve heard plenty of juvenile idealism, tons of lukewarm optimism. Over and over through the years. I’m tired of it. Because nothing ever changes.”
As she spoke, the woman’s voice gradually became lower and deeper, and there was a shift in the air. Her eyes stared vacantly, and the lightly crossed legs and hands that rested on them were pale and bloodless. She was like a waxwork figure—fixed to the sofa with nothing moving but her lips. Although she had the form of one, what sat before Rintaro was no longer even a woman. She had turned into a giant crouching being, filled with a dark emotion that had no outlet.
“I’ve seen all kinds of temporary fixes, stopgap measures. Easy compromises that do nothing but defer the problem. There have been silly debates between smug, self-satisfied people. From time to time the dangers facing books were brought up, but there was nothing we could do to slow the currents. We ended up being swept away. Just like those three people you met who changed their philosophy on life, and ended up losing their place in this world.”