Azabu is a quiet Tokyo district whose steep, winding streets and shaded old houses make it feel apart from the city’s ordinary pace. It is the setting of the Willow House, where Aomamé trains the elderly owner in martial arts and stretching; as the woman’s request becomes a continuing appointment, the neighborhood serves both as a refuge of routine and as a guarded threshold in Aomamé’s increasingly unstable world.

Setting and atmosphere

The Willow House stands high on a steep slope in Azabu. Old, densely grown weeping willows rise above its stone garden wall; when the wind moves them, they sway silently, like a gathering of wandering souls. The neighborhood has long taken its name from these trees. Small birds perch in their branches, while a large cat warms itself on a sunny corner of the roof. Narrow, twisting streets admit few cars, and broad-canopied trees leave the surroundings dim even in the middle of the day. The nearby embassies do little to disturb the prevailing quiet, though the cicadas make it overwhelming as summer approaches.

The atmosphere is not merely scenic. The district seems to slow time: arriving there gives the impression that its flow has slackened slightly. This suspended quality makes Azabu a fitting setting for the Willow House, where privacy, watchfulness, and regular visits coexist behind a high wall and controlled gate.

The Willow House and its routines

Aomamé’s visits to the Willow House establish her practical connection to Azabu. She enters through a metal gate that opens automatically after she gives her name at the intercom. A surveillance camera tracks her across the garden, and she deliberately walks upright, with her chin drawn in, as if performing composure for the camera. On one visit she wears a grey navy jacket beneath a dark-blue windbreaker, jeans, white sneakers, and a shoulder bag. Her ice pick is not inside it; when she has no use for the weapon, it rests in a drawer at home.

The house’s security makes the passage through the garden more than an ordinary arrival or departure. Aomamé is observed as she crosses the grounds, and the gate closes behind her once she is inside or outside. The controlled entrance belongs to a larger pattern of care and caution around the elderly resident, whose protection is also a concern for Tamaru, her loyal and perceptive aide.

Aomamé’s work and the elderly owner

The relationship between Aomamé and the old woman begins through an invitation. A few days after their initial contact, Aomamé receives a note left at the reception desk of her club, asking her to call when she could. A secretary transfers her to the old woman, who thanks her for calling and proposes dinner so they can speak privately. Aomamé accepts, unsure what the older woman might want to discuss with someone like her.

They meet at a French restaurant in quiet Azabu, a long-standing favorite of the old woman. A familiar elderly waiter leads her to the best table, and the manager greets her respectfully. She wears a neatly cut pale-green dress and a jade necklace. The meal is composed of refined, light dishes, including the day’s pea soup; she orders Chablis, as does Aomamé, while Aomamé chooses grilled fish and the old woman eats vegetables alone. She remarks that at an advanced age little food is needed to stay alive, and jokes that what she does eat should therefore be excellent. In this setting, she makes her actual proposal: individual martial-arts training at her home two or three times a week, with stretching as well if Aomamé can provide it.

The arrangement becomes part of Aomamé’s working routine. On one Saturday, she reminds herself that she is due at the Willow House at three in the afternoon for a stretching session. The appointment had originally been set for Friday, but the old woman changed it because she had to go to the hospital for an examination; Tamaru passed on the change. Aomamé has forgotten the appointment after a night of drinking, and counts on the hours remaining before three to recover from her headache and regain her composure. Azabu thus enters her day not only as a destination but as a concrete obligation that persists through distraction and physical exhaustion.

The district as a guarded threshold

After a conversation with Tamaru, Aomamé leaves the Willow House while he watches her go. She keeps her back straight and her path direct, although inwardly she is confused by events she did not know had happened, in places she did not know. The clashes at Lake Motosu and the Beretta pistol are among the disturbing facts that make her feel that the world she once understood has begun to come apart. She wants its contradictions resolved and its logic restored before the surrounding reality becomes sheer extravagance.

Her uncertainty is sharpened by her awareness of Tamaru’s divided obligations. He is prudent, intuitive, dangerous, and wholly loyal to the old woman. Aomamé and Tamaru like one another, or feel something close to sympathy, but she knows that if he judged her presence a danger to his employer, he could remove her without hesitation, perhaps even kill her, believing himself to be doing his duty. The secure household in Azabu therefore offers no uncomplicated sanctuary: its gate marks the boundary of a protective network whose loyalty can also become a threat.

When Aomamé finally crosses the garden and leaves, the gate opens and closes behind her. She gives the camera as pleasant a smile as she can manage and waves lightly, behaving as though everything is fine. Then she descends the steep slope and begins to order her thoughts, making a careful, subtle list of what she must deal with. Azabu’s quiet streets frame this transition from watched composure to private calculation: within the old house, routine and protection hold; beyond its gate, Aomamé must confront a world whose apparent unity has fractured.