“I know, it’s absolutely baffling. The Fukadas loved and treasured Eri more than anything. And if Eri was going to go to someone for help, this was the only possible place. Both Fukada and his wife had cut their ties with their families, and Eri grew up without knowing either set of grandparents. We’re the only people she could come to. Her parents had even told her this is where she should come if anything ever happened to them. In spite of that, I haven’t heard a word. It’s unthinkable.”
Tengo asked, “Didn’t you say before that Sakigake was an open commune?”
“I did indeed. Sakigake had functioned consistently as an open commune since its founding, but shortly before Eri escaped it had begun moving gradually toward a policy of confinement from the outside. I first became aware of this when I started hearing less frequently from Fukada. He had always been a faithful correspondent, sending me long letters about goings-on in the commune or his current thoughts and feelings. At some point they just stopped coming, and my letters were never answered. I tried calling, but they would never put him on the phone. And the few times they did, we had only the briefest, most limited conversations. Fukada’s remarks were brusque, as if he was aware that someone was listening to us.”
The Professor clasped his hands on his knees.
“I went out to Sakigake a few times myself. I needed to talk to Fukada about Eri, and since neither letters nor phone calls worked, the only thing left for me to do was to go directly to the place. But they wouldn’t let me into the compound. Far from it—they chased me away from the gate. Nothing I said had any effect on them. By then they had built a high fence around the entire compound, and all outsiders were sent packing.
“There was no way to tell from the outside what was happening in the commune. If it were Akebono, I could see the need for secrecy. They were aiming for armed revolution, and they had a lot to hide. But Sakigake was peacefully running an organic farm, and they had always adopted a consistently friendly posture toward the outside world, which was why the locals liked them. But the place had since become an absolute fortress. The attitude and even the facial expressions of the people inside had totally changed. The local people were just as stymied as I was by the change in Sakigake. I was worried sick that something terrible had happened to Fukada and his wife, but all I could do was take Eri under my wing. Since then, seven years have gone by, with the situation as murky as ever.”
“You mean, you don’t even know if Fukada is alive?” Tengo asked.
“Not even that much,” the Professor said with a nod. “I have no way of knowing. I’d rather not think the worst, but I haven’t heard a word from Fukada in seven years. Under ordinary circumstances, that would be unthinkable. I can only imagine that something has happened to them.” He lowered his voice. “Maybe they’re being held in there against their will. Or possibly it’s even worse than that.”
“ ‘Even worse’?”
“I’m saying that not even the worst possibility can be excluded. Sakigake is no longer a peaceful farming community.”
“Do you think the Sakigake group has started to move in a dangerous direction?”
“I do. The locals tell me that the number of people going in and out of there is much larger than it used to be. Cars are constantly coming and going, most of them with Tokyo license plates, and a lot of them are big luxury sedans you don’t often see in the country. The number of people in the commune has also suddenly increased, it seems. So has the number of buildings and facilities, too, all fully equipped. They’re increasingly aggressive about buying up the surrounding land at low prices, and bringing in tractors and excavation equipment and concrete mixers and such. They still do farming, which is probably their most important source of income. The Sakigake brand of vegetables is better known than ever, and the commune is shipping them directly to restaurants that capitalize on their use of natural ingredients. They also have contractual agreements with high-quality supermarkets. Their profits must have been rising all the while, but in parallel with that, they have apparently also been making steady progress in something other than farming. It’s inconceivable that sales of produce are the only thing financing the large-scale expansion they have been undergoing. Whatever this other thing they’re developing may be, their absolute secrecy has given the local people the impression that it must be something they can’t reveal to the general public.”
“Does this mean they’ve started some kind of political activity again?” Tengo asked.
“I doubt it,” the Professor answered without hesitation. “Sakigake always moved on a separate axis from the political realm. It was for that very reason that at one point they had to let the Akebono group go.”
“Yes, but after that, something happened inside Sakigake that made it necessary for Eri to escape.”
“Something did happen,” the Professor said. “Something of great significance. Something that made her leave her parents behind and run away by herself. But she has never said a word about it.”
“Maybe she can’t put it into words because it was too great a shock, or it somehow scarred her for life.”
“No, she’s never had that air about her, that she had experienced a great shock or that she was afraid of something or that she was uneasy being alone and separated from her parents. She’s just impassive. Still, she adapted to living here without a problem—almost too easily.”
The Professor glanced toward the door and then returned his gaze to Tengo.
“Whatever happened to Eri, I didn’t want to pry it out of her. I felt that what she needed was time. So I didn’t question her. I pretended I wasn’t concerned about her silence. She was always with Azami. After Azami came home from school, they would rush through dinner and shut themselves up in their room. What they would do in there, I have no idea. Maybe they found a way to converse when they were alone together. I just let them do as they pleased, without intruding. Aside from Eri’s not speaking, her living with us presented no problem. She was a bright child, and she did what she was told. She and Azami were inseparable. Back then, though, Eri couldn’t go to school. She couldn’t speak a word. I couldn’t very well send her to school that way.”
“Was it just you and Azami before that?”
“My wife died about ten years ago,” the Professor said, pausing for a moment. “She was killed in a car crash. Instantly. A rear-ender. The two of us were left alone. We have a distant relative, a woman, who lives nearby and helps us run the house. She also looks after both girls. Losing my wife like that was terrible, for Azami and for me. It happened so quickly, we had no way to prepare ourselves. So whatever brought Eri to us, we were glad to have her. Even if we couldn’t hold a conversation with her, just having her in the house was strangely calming to both of us. Over these seven years, Eri has, though very slowly, regained the use of words. To other people, she may sound odd or abnormal, but we can see she has made remarkable progress.”
“Does she go to school now?” Tengo asked.
“No, not really. She’s officially registered, but that’s all. Realistically speaking, it was impossible for her to keep up with school. I gave her individual instruction in my spare time, and so did students of mine who came to the house. What she got was very fragmentary, of course, nothing you could call a systematic education. She couldn’t read books on her own, so we would read out loud to her whenever we could, and I would give her books on tape. That is about the sum total of the education she has received. But she’s a startlingly bright girl. Once she has made up her mind to learn something, she can absorb it very quickly, deeply, and effectively. Her abilities on that score are amazing. But if something doesn’t interest her, she won’t look at it twice. The difference is huge.”
The reception room door was still not opening. It was taking quite a bit of time for Eri to boil water and make tea.
Tengo said, “I gather Eri dictated the story Air Chrysalis to Azami. Is that correct?”
“As I said before, Eri and Azami would always sh
ut themselves in their room at night, and I didn’t know what they were doing. They had their secrets. It does seem, however, that at some point, Eri’s storytelling became a major part of their communication. Azami would take notes or record Eri’s story and then type it into the computer in my study. Eri has gradually been recovering her ability to experience emotion since then, I think. Her apathy was like a membrane that covered everything, but that has been fading. Some degree of expression has returned to her face, and she is more like the happy little girl we used to know.”
“So she is on the road to recovery?”
“Well, not entirely. It’s still very uneven. But in general, you’re right. Her recovery may well have begun with her telling of her story.”
Tengo thought about this for a time. Then he changed the subject.
“Did you talk to the police about the loss of contact with Mr. and Mrs. Fukada?”
“Yes, I went to the local police. I didn’t tell them about Eri, but I did say that I had been unable to get in touch with my friends inside for a long time and I feared they were possibly being held against their will. At the time, they said there was nothing they could do. The Sakigake compound was private property, and without clear evidence that criminal activity had taken place there, they were unable to set foot inside. I kept after them, but they wouldn’t listen to me. And then, after 1979, it became truly impossible to mount a criminal investigation inside Sakigake.”
“Something happened in 1979?” Tengo asked.
“That was the year that Sakigake was granted official recognition as a religion.”
Tengo was astounded. “A religion?!”
“I know. It’s incredible. Sakigake was designated a ‘Religious Juridical Person’ under the Religious Corporation Law. The governor of Yamanashi Prefecture officially granted the title. Once it had the ‘Religious Juridical Person’ label, Sakigake became virtually immune to any criminal investigation by the police. Such a thing would be a violation of the freedom of religious belief guaranteed by the Constitution. The Prefectural Police couldn’t touch them.
“I myself was astounded when I heard about this from the police. I couldn’t believe it at first. Even after they showed it to me in writing and I saw it with my own eyes, I had trouble believing it could be true. Fukada was one of my oldest friends. I knew him—his character, his personality. As a cultural anthropologist, my ties with religion were by no means shallow. Unlike me, though, Fukada was a totally political being who approached everything with logic and reason. He had, if anything, a visceral disgust for religion. There was no way he would ever accept a ‘Religious Juridical Person’ designation even if he had strategic reasons for doing so.”
“Obtaining such a designation couldn’t be very easy, either, I would think.”
“That’s not necessarily the case,” the Professor said. “True, you have to go through a lot of screenings and red tape, but if you pull the right political strings, you can clear such hurdles fairly easily. Drawing distinctions between religions and cults has always been a delicate business. There’s no hard and fast definition. Interpretation is everything. And where there is room for interpretation, there is always room for political persuasion. Once you are certified to be a ‘Religious Juridical Person,’ you can get preferential tax treatment and special legal protections.”
“In any case, Sakigake stopped being an ordinary agricultural commune and became a religious organization—a frighteningly closed-off religious organization,” Tengo ventured.
“Yes, a ‘new religion,’ ” the Professor said. “Or, to put it more bluntly, a cult.”
“I don’t get it,” Tengo said. “Something major must have occurred for them to have undergone such a radical conversion.”
The Professor stared at the backs of his hands, which had a heavy growth of kinky gray hair. “You’re right about that, of course,” he said. “I’ve been wondering about it myself for a very long time. I’ve come up with all sorts of possibilities, but no final answers. What could have caused it to happen? But they’ve adopted a policy of such total secrecy, it’s impossible to find out what is going on inside. And not only that, Fukada, who used to be the leader of Sakigake, has never once publicly surfaced since they underwent their conversion.”
“And meanwhile, the Akebono faction ceased to exist after their gun battle three years ago,” Tengo said.
The Professor nodded. “Sakigake survived once they had cut themselves off from Akebono, and now they’re steadily developing as a religion.”
“Which means the gunfight was no great blow to Sakigake, I suppose.”
“Far from it,” the Professor said. “It was good advertising for them. They’re smart. They know how to turn things to their best advantage. In any case, this all happened after Eri left Sakigake. As I said earlier, it has no direct connection with Eri.”
Tengo sensed that the Professor was hoping to change the subject. He asked him, “Have you yourself read Air Chrysalis?”
“Of course,” the Professor answered.
“What did you think of it?”
“It’s a very interesting story,” the Professor said. “Very evocative. Evocative of what, though, I’m not sure, to tell you the truth. I don’t know what the blind goat is supposed to mean, or the Little People, or the air chrysalis itself.”
“Do you think the story is hinting at something that Eri actually experienced or witnessed in Sakigake?”
“Maybe so, but I can’t tell how much is real and how much is fantasy. It seems like a kind of myth, or it could be read as an ingenious allegory.”
“Eri told me the Little People actually exist,” Tengo said.
A thoughtful frown crossed the Professor’s face when he heard this. He asked, “Do you think Air Chrysalis describes things that actually happened?”
Tengo shook his head. “All I’m trying to say is that every detail in the story is described very realistically, and that this is a great strength of the work as a piece of fiction.”
“And by rewriting the story in your own words, with your own style, you are trying to put that something the story is hinting at into a clearer form? Is that it?”
“Yes, if all goes well.”
“My specialty is cultural anthropology,” the Professor said. “I gave up being a scholar some time ago, but I’m still permeated with the spirit of the discipline. One aim of my field is to relativize the images possessed by individuals, discover in these images the factors universal to all human beings, and feed these universal truths back to those same individuals. As a result of this process, people might be able to belong to something even as they maintain their autonomy. Do you see what I’m saying?”
“I think I do.”
“Perhaps that same process is what is being demanded of you.”
Tengo opened his hands on his knees. “Sounds difficult.”
“But it’s probably worth a try.”
“I’m not even sure I’m qualified to do it.”
The Professor looked at Tengo. There was a special gleam in his eye now.
“What I would like to know is what happened to Eri inside Sakigake. I’d also like to know the fate of Fukada and his wife. I’ve done my best over the past seven years to shed light on these questions, but I haven’t managed to grasp a single clue. I always come up against a thick, solid wall standing in my way. The key to unlock the mystery may be hidden in Air Chrysalis. As long as there is such a possibility, however slim, I want to pursue it. I have no idea whether you are qualified to do the job, but I do know that you think highly of the story and are deeply involved in it. Perhaps that is qualification enough.”
“There is something I have to ask you, though, and I need to receive a clear yes or no from you,” Tengo said. “It’s what I came to see you about today. Do I have your permission to rewrite Air Chrysalis?”
The Professor nodded. Then he said, “I myself am looking forward to reading your rewrite, and I know that Eri seems to have a great deal of
faith in you. She doesn’t have anyone else she can look to like that—aside from Azami and me, of course. So you ought to give it a try. We’ll put the work in your hands. In a word, the answer is yes.”
When the Professor stopped speaking, a heavy silence settled over the room like a finalized destiny. At precisely that moment, Fuka-Eri came in with the tea.
On the way back to the city, Tengo was alone. Fuka-Eri went out to walk the dog. The Professor called a cab that took Tengo to Futamatao Station in time for the next train. Tengo transferred to the Chuo Line at Tachikawa.
When the train reached Mitaka, a mother and her little girl got on and sat across from Tengo. Both were neatly dressed. Their clothing was by no means expensive or new, but all items were clean and well cared for, the whites exceptionally white, and everything nicely ironed. The girl was probably a second or third grader, with large eyes and good features. The mother was quite thin. She wore her hair tied in a bun in back, had black-framed glasses, and carried a faded bag of thick cloth. The bag seemed to be crammed full of something. The mother’s features were also nicely symmetrical, but a hint of nervous exhaustion showed at her eyes’ outer edges, making her look older than she probably was. It was only mid-April, but she carried a parasol, on which the cloth was wrapped so tightly around the pole that it looked like a dried-out club.
The two sat beside each other in unbroken silence. The mother looked as though she might be devising a plan. The girl seemed at a loss for something to do. She looked at her shoes, at the floor, at ads hanging from the train ceiling, and now and then she stole a glance at Tengo sitting opposite her. His large build and his cauliflower ears seemed to have aroused her interest. Little children often looked at Tengo that way, as if he were some kind of rare but harmless animal. The girl kept her body and head very still, allowing just her eyes to dart around from object to object.
The mother and child left the train at Ogikubo. As the train was slowing to a stop, the mother rose quickly to her feet, parasol in her left hand and cloth bag in her right. She said nothing to the girl, who also quickly left her seat and followed her out of the car. As she was standing, though, the girl took one last look at Tengo. In her eyes, he saw a strange light, a kind of appeal or plea directed at him. It was only a faint, momentary gleam, but Tengo was able to catch it. She was sending out some kind of signal, he felt. Even if this were true, of course, and it was a signal meant for him, there was nothing he could do. He had no knowledge of her situation, nor could he become involved with her. The girl left the train with her mother at Ogikubo Station, and Tengo, still in his seat, continued on toward the next station. Three middle school students now sat where the girl had been sitting. They started jabbering about the practice test they had just taken, but still there lingered in their place the after-image of the silent girl.
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