55 pages • 1 hour read
After Dark
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Chapters 5-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary
Walking down a side street, Kaoru declares that they should go someplace to drink. Mari is too young to drink, but Kaoru tells her to get a nonalcohol beverage. At a small bar, Kaoru drinks a beer and Mari has a sparkling water. They discuss Guo, and Kaoru asks Mari about herself. Mari is in college studying Chinese. She wants to be a freelance translator to avoid the 9-to-5 work grind. Mari explains that, growing up, her parents told her to study hard because she could not rely on her looks like her sister, Eri. Kaoru affirms that Mari is good-looking, saying, “You’re plenty damn cute. It’s true: I’m not just saying it to make you feel good. Let ‘em get a load of me if they want to see ugly” (67).
Growing up being told she was “ugly” took a toll on Mari. She eventually developed a phobia of school, and it was not until she found a Chinese school in Yokohama that she felt comfortable again. Her parents were not happy. They wanted Mari to go to a prestigious school: “They had our roles picked out for us: the elder sister, Snow White; the younger sister, a little genius” (69).
Kaoru asks what a respectable girl like Mari is doing out all night in this neighborhood. Kaoru says that the neighborhood changes after the last train leaves, and even she has had some dangerous encounters. Mari asks to change the subject.
Kaoru is surprised that Mari smokes. Mari asks why the love hotel is called “Alphaville”; Alphaville is one of Mari’s favorite films by Jean-Luc Godard. Kaoru doesn’t know the movie, or why the hotel has its name. Mari summarizes the film for Kaoru: In a futuristic city, strong emotions like love are forbidden, as is irony, but sex is allowed. Kaoru jokes that it is a perfect name for a love hotel.
Kaoru used to be a fairly popular professional wrestler. Her persona was over-the-top and reckless; she ended up hurting her back badly when she was 29 and was forced to retire. Now, when it rains, she is laid up with a back spasm. All the money she made went to building her parents a house and paying off her brother’s gambling debts. Someone in her fan club eventually suggested she become a manager of a love hotel.
Kaoru offers Mari a spare bed at the love hotel to pass the night, but Mari has decided to read all night to pass the time. Mari asks about how Kaoru met Takahashi; Kaoru says that it’s an interesting story, but it would be better for her to hear it from Takahashi. Kaoru tells her that Takahashi is a good person, bound to make it big as a musician. She says she will take Mari to the Skylark, where her friend is the manager; he will keep Mari safe until morning.
They briefly discuss vinyl LPs with the bartender, who contends that time passes differently after the trains stop running. Mari mentions her uncle, from whom she gained an appreciation for vinyl and Jean-Luc Godard. He died three years ago. The bartender welcomes them to come back. Mari takes a matchbox from the bar and leaves with Kaoru.
At 1:56am, in the bathroom of the bright and crowded Skylark, Mari washes her hands over and over in the bathroom. She stares at her face in the mirror as if trying to catch any miniscule changes. She leaves, but her image in the mirror remains, looking from side to side. The bathroom darkens.
Chapter 6 Summary
Kaoru scans the Alphaville’s security cameras to try to find the man who assaulted Guo. It is not going well. Komugi and Korogi tease Kaoru for her lack of tech skills, joking that she was born in the wrong era. Kaoru does not know what she will do when she discovers the man’s identity—she cannot go to the police. Finally, Kaoru stumbles upon the correct timeframe: 10:53pm. The man looks utterly nondescript and ordinary, like an average company man. Based on the ease with which he moved through the love hotel, the women surmise that he must be a regular.
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Based on his details, Korogi guesses that the man must work late in a local office, likely a computer software related job; she herself used to work in such a company. Kaoru prints a full-color picture of the man from a frame of the security footage, grainy but clear enough to recognize him on the street.
Kaoru realizes that Guo was the last person to use the love hotel’s phone. Steeling herself, she hits the redial button. A man answers. Kaoru tells him she has a picture of the man who assaulted Guo. The man says he will be there in 10 minutes. Korogi and Komugi are hesitant about involving the Chinese gangsters; however, Koru wants revenge on the man, and she figures that though the gangsters will definitely find the man, they will not kill a Japanese citizen.
The same man who picked up Guo arrives 10 minutes later on his motorcycle. He appears unimpressed by the photos of the man, apparently wondering what Kaoru wants in exchange for the information. She asks only that he let her know if they find the man; she does not need to know what they do to him. She asks if they still cut people’s ears off. He looks slightly amused and replies, “A man only has one life. Ears, he has two” (95). When the man leaves, Komugi compares him to a ghost.
Later, in the office, Kaoru studies the photo of the man. She appears disquieted.
Chapter 7 Summary
The man in the grey trench coat from Kaoru’s security photo works furiously at a computer. The company’s name is Veritech; it is 2:43am. The man does not mind working this late; he is able to play music—in this case, Bach—and he can work uninterrupted by his coworkers. He is around 40, well-dressed, and attractive: “He does not look like the kind of man who would buy a Chinese sex-worker in a love hotel—and certainly not one who would administer an unmerciful pounding to such a woman, strip her clothes off, and take them away” (99). His right hand aches as he types.
He misses a phone call but picks it up as it goes to the answering machine; the prerecorded message reveals his name is Shirakawa. Shirakawa’s wife is on the other end; she is tired, wondering when he will come home. Shirakawa claims he stayed late at work to finish up a project. His wife is disappointed; Shirakawa has had to stay late most nights for months, and their schedules rarely intersect. Shirakawa uses golf metaphors to explain his importance at the company, and he promises his schedule will calm down. He agrees to get a carton of Takanashi brand low-fat milk from the convenience store for his kids on the way home and hangs up.
Meanwhile, at a convenience store, Tetsuya Takahashi frowns at a carton of Takanashi brand low-fat milk and selects a carton of whole milk instead. He carefully selects an apple and a vinyl-packaged fish cake, then pays. Outside in the cold, he downs the milk, slowly eats the apple, and walks off into the night.
Chapter 8 Summary
A great change has happened in Eri Asai’s room at 3:03am: Eri is gone. The bed is neatly made. The television’s image has completely sharpened and stabilized; it still shows the Man with No Face sitting in the chair. He is staring intently at something. The television camera pans to follow his line of sight and reveals Eri sleeping in bed on the screen. Over the past two hours, Eri has been transported to this world inside the screen. The man and Eri are so still that the image seems paused, but this is not the case. Time keeps moving forward.
Chapter 9 Summary
On a break from band practice at 3:07am, Takahashi checks in with Mari at the Skylark. He sits at her table and apologizes for interrupting her evening earlier with the business with Kaoru and Guo, but he lets Mari know that Kaoru was very grateful. Mari asks Takahashi about his relationship with music. Takahashi loves playing, but he recognizes that he is not good enough to make it professionally. He plans on quitting in a month to study law: Pre-law is his official major, but he has never taken it very seriously. He had always been able to make pretty good grades, and he figures that will make for a pretty good future; but lately, he wants to apply himself and actually study.
Mari asks why he suddenly wants to study. Takahashi says he will give a medium-length version of his answer. Takahashi attended several criminal trials for a class. He always believed there was a high wall of separation between himself and violent criminals. However, as he watched these trials, that wall became less distinct. The notion of a trial itself, and, later, other societal institutions, appeared to him like “some special, weird creature” (118). He began to feel terror at the power of this “creature” and its power to strip people of their identity.
One of the men on trial was an axe-murderer, arsonist, and repeat drug offender. The murder of two people was almost an automatic death-sentence; nobody was surprised at the verdict. At home, Takahashi was startled to discover sympathy for the man welling up in him. The man’s fate reminded him that every single human is caught up in the grasp of the strange creature, no matter who they are or what they do. Takahashi wants to understand the law. He will remain a student until he passes the bar exam.
Takahashi asks if Mari has seen the film Love Story. He summarizes the plot for her: A law student is disowned by his rich family for marrying a poor Italian woman. Takahashi thinks that the couple made poverty look elegant, but he doubts he could. The main character eventually makes it big as a lawyer, and the couple lives happily ever after, while the father that disowned him dies of miserable diseases. Mari asks what is good about a plot like that; Takahashi cannot remember his point. He suggests they take a walk to a nearby park to feed the stray cats that gather there.
On the way to the park, the man on the black motorcycle—the Chinese gangster—drives by, helmetless, scanning the area intently; Mari and Takahashi do not notice him. Mari asks how Takahashi knows Kaoru. Takahashi explains that he sometimes does odd jobs for Alphaville, including installing their security camera. Takahashi had once visited the love hotel with a girl, only to discover afterward that neither had enough money to pay. He left his student ID with Kaoru and returned later to pay off what he owed. Kaoru took a liking to him. She even helped his band find their practice space.
Takahashi is embarrassed by this story. Mari asks why he does not live with his family if they live in Tokyo. He explains his mother is not his biological mother; they get along, but he prefers to keep the peace and live alone. He does not get along with his father, who is an antisocial man and a former convict. Takahashi says living around his family makes him start to doubt his genes. Mari reacts with mock horror. Takahashi notes that this is the first time he has seen her smile tonight.
Chapters 5-9 Analysis
This section of After Dark introduces the novel’s third narrative, following Shirakawa, the violent salaryman who beat Guo mercilessly. Shirakawa is a disturbing and inscrutable character. He is first identified on the Alphaville security camera—a form of surveillance evocative of the novel’s theme of Voyeurism and the Narrative Camera. Korogi’s assessment of Shirakawa proves correct: She surmises that he must be an office worker working late in the area: “There’s a bunch of people like that. They stay at the office and work till morning. Especially computer software guys” (88). In many ways, Shirakawa fits the stereotype of the Japanese salaryman, a corporate worker whose long hours often intrude on his personal life. Normally, this would posit him firmly in daytime Tokyo, a character of the “light.” Shirakawa, however, enjoys working overnight. He darkly jokes to his wife about having Chinese as a snack, implying that he regularly hires sex workers. He does not look like a man who would hire a sex worker and then assault her, but “that is exactly what he did—what he had to do” (99). The narrator’s emphasis on the word “had” indicates that Shirakawa has violent compulsions and implies that Guo is not the first woman he has assaulted; Kaoru suspects he is a regular at the Alphaville.
Like Mari and Takahashi, Shirakawa’s individuality clashes with his place among the collective. In Shirakawa’s case, it extends into violence and depravity, far beyond Mari’s past phobia of school or Takahashi’s band ventures. In all cases, however, these characters occupy an intersection of “light” and “dark” Tokyo. It is Takahashi—at nighttime—who brings up the topic of the collective once more; unlike the narrator, who simply observed the Tokyo collective from afar, Takahashi adds his own personal feelings when describing the “creature” that makes up society and its institutions—a word that mirrors the narrator’s description in Chapter 1. The dread he feels, when considering the way all people are equally caught in the “creature’s” grasp, is existential in nature; another common feature of Murakami novels.
Other surreal elements of After Dark greatly increase in this section. Takahashi is linked to Shirakawa through Synchronicity when he examines the same milk at 7-Eleven that Shirakawa’s wife wants Shirakawa to buy. They will later be linked again in the same dairy section at the same 7-Eleven by Guo’s cellphone. Mari and Takahashi pass by the Chinese gangster on the motorcycle, though they, too, do not interact. Mari also has an odd moment in the bathroom of the Skylark, in which her reflection remains in the mirror after Mari leaves. This later happens with Shirakawa too, and there is little explanation for either instance. The narrator describes the scene: “The Mari in the mirror is looking from her side into this side. Her somber gaze seems to be expecting some kind of occurrence. But there is no one on this side. Only her image is left in the Skylark’s restroom mirror” (81). This is an example of a nebulous theme of doubling, or the vague notion of another world that manifests when no one is watching. It parallels the way that light and dark Tokyo are figuratively separated, with nighttime Tokyo existing largely outside the notice of daytime Tokyo.
Mari’s reflection looking through the mirror directly relates to what happens to Eri in this section of the novel. Eri has been transported, bed and all, into the room on the other side of the television screen, where she is watched over by the Man with No Face. This enigmatic character mirrors the camera’s Voyeurism and the Narrative Camera, representing the anonymity of Eri’s audience. Trapped in the television, Eri is essentially reduced to an image, like a reflection without an original reference. This is what led to her emotional collapse and retreat from the world. The Man with No Face’s generic appearance mirrors Shirakawa’s; though the narrator—the “camera”—cannot yet sense any intentions from the man, his later malevolent aura, and other smaller details, will link the two more closely.
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