The radio in the taxi was playing classical music on the FM: a piece by Janáček, the "Sinfonietta." It wasn’t the ideal piece to listen to in a taxi trapped in traffic. The taxi driver seemed rather indifferent to it. Middle-aged, with his mouth half-open and eyes fixed on the endless line of cars ahead, like a veteran old fisherman standing at the bow, interpreting ominous signs at the convergence of two tides. Aomame, sitting comfortably in the back seat, listened to the music with half-closed eyes. How many people in the whole world understand Janáček’s "Sinfonietta" from the very first bars? Surely somewhere between "very few" and "none." However, strangely, Aomame was counted among the very few.
Janáček had composed this small symphony in 1926. He had written the first movement in a fanfare style for a sporting event. Aomame tried to imagine Czechoslovakia at that time. World War I had ended, the country had been freed from the long rule of the Habsburgs, people drank Pilsner beer in cafés, beautifully authentic machine guns were going into production, and Central Europe was enjoying a fleeting peace. Franz Kafka—unknown among unknowns—had left this world two years earlier. Soon Hitler would appear out of nowhere and devour this beautiful little country. But at that time, no one could imagine such a development.
Ultimately, perhaps the most important lesson of History is precisely this: that "at that time no one could imagine such a development." Absorbed by the melody, Aomame imagined a carefree breeze blowing over the plains of Bohemia, and her mind traveled. After the death of Emperor Taishō in 1926, Japan had entered the Shōwa Period. Slowly, a dark and unpleasant era was beginning in that country as well.