THE NOVEL BEHIND THE PTE MED CULT MOVIE ‘Mesmerisin; ge EUR Lt i TT Uae, TTT - q a.First published in Great Britain 2009 This paperback edition published 2010 Copyright © 2009 by Ryu Murakami Translation copyright © 2009 by Ralph McCarthy The moral right of the author and translator has been asserted No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the Publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 36 Soho Square, London W1D 3QY www.bloomsbury.com A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 4088 0072 0 1098765 Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc FSC Sains‘WHY DON’T YOU FIND yourself a new wife, Pops?’ It was this question, posed by his son, Shige, that precipitated Aoyama’s decision to remarry. Shige’s mother, Ryoko, had died of a viral cancer some seven years before, when he was eight and Aoyama thirty-five. Because of her relative youth, Ryoko’s cancer had spread rapidly. She was operated on once, but recurrence was almost immediate, and within a month it was all over. ‘She didn’t have time to suffer, or even to grieve,’ Aoyama had told a close friend at the time. Ryoko’s father was the owner of a venerable little firm that had been manufacturing fine musical instru- ments for generations. He and his wife, devotees of jazz and classical music, had raised their only daughter in a strict but loving household. Ryoko was cultured, intelligent and strikingly attractive. She was also a woman of great inner strength, and as a wife she’d been quietly supportive of Aoyama in every aspect of 1