The Aosawa Murders

by Riku Onda

  Tues, 5 Aug

  Fine. Awful heat. Went sightseeing today as K seems worn out too. Saw the gardens and ate cold Chinese noodles. K very impressed by blue room. Sent K back to guest house and visited 4 alone. Rather hostile. Questioned my motives. Occasional silences. Feeling tired. Looked in Y, A and H. Cramped, hard to find things. Didn’t look likely to have back issues of G. Went back to guest house and had drink with K. Couldn’t get a word in edgeways. He seems tired. I feel bad. Might increase his pay.

  Wed, 6 Aug

  Fine, occasional cloud. 9 and 12 still away. 10, 11, 15 and 16 refusing interviews. 11 claims to be away for early summer holiday but it’s an excuse. K seems down, hung-over maybe. Told him to rest and concentrate on transcribing while I visited 13 and 14. Didn’t expect much but results surprising. Though can’t work out how to connect them from outsider’s perspective alone. Dropped by M and it was open. Tired so only had quick look to check location of shelves.

  Thurs, 7 Aug

  Fine. K down with summer cold. Said he’s okay if he can stay out of heat so told him to transcribe. But the rooms are hot as hell too. Ended up drinking gallons of soft drinks. Spending a lot on fluids. Using up lots of tape too so bought a stack, but it’s expensive. 9 passed away. 12 still away. 17 and 18 will only speak on the phone.

  Fri, 8 Aug

  Cloudy, occasional sun. K recovered. Will concentrate on transcriptions. Went to see 21. Took all morning. Very useful. Tried my luck with 20. Rambling. Waste of time. Went to M. Listened to owner.

  Sat, 9 Aug

  K returned to Tokyo. Took tapes to do at home. Hugely grateful. Saw 19 in morning. Went to M and spoke to owner. Will get a bunch of G back issues together for me. Did nothing much in evening. First time in long while. 21 called. Just remembered something. Will visit again tomorrow.

  Sun, 10 Aug

  Visited 21 again. Quite shocking. Predicted it, but still unexpected. Went back to room and sorted out information. Don’t know when I can come back. Many people away next week for Obon break. Went to M and spoke to owner. Looked for books together. Bought a few. Did transcriptions by myself at night. Then homework. Wish I had more help, but can’t ask anyone else. Will have to do it myself.

  II

  Yes, that is indeed her handwriting.

  Ah, seeing it again like this brings it all back.

  A solid, steady hand with a uniform touch, yet one that reveals no emotion.

  My memories of working on this book have faded over time. Especially as it has been many years since I worked in that particular department.

  I wish that I could have stayed in book production, but with the pressure of younger editors coming up I had to go into management, which is far less interesting.

  However, if you ask me about a particular title it all comes back immediately. I can recall every book I had a hand in and hold each one in great affection, regardless of whether they sold well or not.

  Your call took me by surprise. I was not expecting to hear that title mentioned again after so many years. But the mind is a mysterious instrument. The moment I heard it I experienced a veritable physical sensation of memories flooding back.

  Yes, that title did extremely well.

  Yes, that is true. And it was also quite the talk of the town. Readers were familiar with the case from the news, yet many had not realized the scale and seriousness of it.

  However, we did also receive many calls of complaint.

  In the main these expressed dissatisfaction with the title. We were reprimanded for using the word festival in connection with such a tragic incident. However it was an apt title, in my opinion, and quite in keeping with the content. For one thing, the word festival is also used in religious contexts, and I believed that the book did convey convincingly the gravity of that period for the author. Therefore I stuck to my guns, as it were, on that issue.

  Yet it never made it to paperback. The author’s refusal to grant permission was one reason, but generally speaking, topical publications such as this are difficult to sell in a paperback format.

  The author?

  Well, I have to say that she was an enigma. For a university student she was very composed and self-assured.

  When it comes to publishing a book, most authors show some degree of excitement about it, but she never did. No, although she seemed surprised by all the attention, she did not appear to be pleased by it.

  If anything she implied it was all rather a bother. You do know that she turned me down initially?

  Yes, when I first approached her. But in the end she was persuaded. She gave the impression that it could not be avoided, and told me that this was the first and last time she would do anything like this. By anything like this I rather think she meant getting involved with strangers to research a project and write about it.

  I heard her say more than once that this was not part of the plan.

  She had meant to use her research as material, and had never intended for other people to see it.

  Yes, I believed her implicitly. I do not think it was simple modesty.

  Of course, I understood her feelings to some extent. After writing a book there comes a point when the author must make a decision whether to continue to write and become a writer, as it were, or accept that the first book has been a one-off. In the course of my discussions with this particular author I had the distinct impression that it would be the first and last time for her. It was clear to me that she was resolved on this.

  To be honest, I hardly saw her again once the book came out. I could count on one hand the number of times I met her after handing over the advance copies. We had a flood of requests for interviews after it was released, but she would never consent to any. She instructed me to refuse them all, as she was simply not interested. Naturally the publicity department were tearing their hair out, as it were. Well, of course they would be. The media were banging on our door, so to speak, and we only had a bare minimum of information about the author to give them. I resorted to the excuse that she preferred to stay out of the spotlight due to her connection with the case.

  In the eyes of the public, however, it appeared as if we were the ones stonewalling and putting up barriers to hide her. That was a major misperception.

  She did not show any interest whatsoever in sales or reviews. It was almost as if once the book was published, it meant nothing to her any more.

  III

  Yes, my word, I was tremendously excited the first time I read it.

  Why was that? Because I could not believe it had been written by a slip of a girl barely past twenty. The writing was dispassionate and meticulous, and her style was poised. Had I not known the author was a university student I could not have pinpointed her age.

  It also had a certain… er, this may not be the right expression, but let me venture to say that it had a certain ominous… or perhaps, shall we say… sinister undertone.

  Hmm, that probably does not clarify things much. Allow me to rephrase. One could say that from it there emanated a cool gaze and mysterious ambience that was not entirely of her creation, and which existed only between the covers.

  I am sure you know there is such a thing as a fluke.

  It could be called chance, or beginners’ luck or some such term, but it is indeed real.

  Well occasionally it happens that a work comes to be possessed by a quality the author never intended. This was one such book, though we will never know if it was a fluke or not as she never wrote another.

  The subject matter was deeply fascinating and surrounded in much mystery. It is still often referred to in conjunction with the Teigin Incident. Given all that, I did anticipate that the book would cause a stir.

  I am not in a position to judge if what she wrote was the truth. However, I do believe that in the case of this book that is not the issue. In fact, I would venture to say that in terms of genre it is closer to Capote’s In Cold Blood. It is a work that cannot be classified neatly into any particular genre. Neither ficti
on nor non-fiction. I would also be hard-pressed to call it literary, because of ambivalence about the style. However, one could say that is another of its attractions.

  Of all the titles I had the privilege to work on, this one was an original. Quite singular. It resembles no other work I know. Yes, this book was special. Almost as if it came from another world, so to speak.

  IV

  That is correct. Undertaking to accept this cardboard box was her first condition.

  Yes, it is the complete set of materials that she used to write the book.

  Everything is in here. I do not believe she has anything in her possession any more.

  There is also a stack of tapes in the box. Although, by now they might have stretched and become unusable. You may find that they are no longer audible. I kept the box on a shelf at work amongst my personal belongings, and that was the extent of my caretaking. However, in my defence let me say that she did make it plain she did not want to keep the materials and told me unreservedly to burn them, throw them away, or to do whatever I liked with them. She sent them to me once the proofreading was finished, apparently with no regrets.

  No, apart from a quick look through, I have never examined them thoroughly. Knowing that these were her research notes was enough for me. I felt no need to go through everything.

  However, had I been instructed to dispose of them, well, I think I would have hesitated.

  That notebook is a diary of her interviews.

  You can see how matter-of-fact it is. As is she a very matter-of-fact sort of person.

  She assigned numbers to each of her interviewees, and there is a separate list of those at the end. There were close to forty people on it, although she did not have contact with everybody. Some were unable to be located and others refused to talk with her.

  K was apparently another student, a boy younger than her, who helped with the interviews. He seemed to have difficulty coping with the heat in the Hokuriku region.

  I beg your pardon?

  The alphabet letters, you say? Ah, I believe they indicate second-hand bookshops.

  V

  Apparently she referred to each second-hand bookshop in the city centre by the first letter in its name.

  You are correct. The Forgotten Festival makes no mention of her visiting bookshops.

  This book is a seamless blend of reportage and fiction, past and present, yet although it reveals where she did her research and interviews, the old bookshops are completely omitted.

  I do not know. I had no cause to think there was any significant reason. Perhaps she had the overall effect of the book in mind and wanted to keep things simple. I personally believe that she chose the best way.

  Ah, G in the diary is that one – the thin magazine.

  You will find a bundle of back issues in the box.

  It looks to be a magazine with a small circulation. A local tattle magazine. It contains local news, gossip and scoops, et cetera, which would only be of interest to a very limited readership. She appears to have collected copies published around the time of the murders.

  I believe she was looking for any rumours circulating at the time, articles with leaks on the police investigation or anything that the medical fraternity might be saying about the victims. When one is an outsider, it is extremely difficult to be privy to local rumours. Even more so when the victims are people of influence. Apparently she wanted to look into the past and reputation of the murdered family. In the end, however, she never found anything to back up any suspicions she may have had.

  Despite its sorry-looking appearance, this magazine does have a certain je ne sais quoi.

  One does not expect much of the content.

  Well, because it consists almost entirely of juvenile insults, it reeks of amateurishness, and the advertisements are almost all related to the sex trade.

  Nevertheless, for someone such as myself accustomed to publishing commercially viable magazines, it does have a raw appeal that leaves a strong impression.

  I see in it the origins of the mass media. Because the mass media is, after all, really only a fancy version of a local community noticeboard.

  To flick through something like this can be rather enlightening, and even moving. One sees how people became able to communicate and spread information, which in turn lead to the formation of civil movements and newspapers.

  My interest was piqued by that magazine and therefore I read it cover to cover, yet I came across nothing about the clinic. However, I cannot say with complete certainty that there never was anything to be discovered, as I do not have all the back issues.

  That is indeed true. We can assume that she invested much effort in investigating second-hand bookshops.

  The city is not only an old castle town but it is also an old university town, hence the proliferation of bookshops. As these are concentrated in specific areas, it would have been relatively easy enough for her to visit them all. Second-hand bookshops are perfectly suited to the ambience of an old city, do you not agree?

  Yes, this district is one of the biggest specialized secondhand bookshop areas in the world, but much has changed over the last few years.

  I do find it delightful that used bookshops are once again in fashion with young people.

  There are two kinds of people in this world, I believe, those who frequent bookshops and those who do not.

  I beg your pardon?

  What about the notebook?

  Number six is the only interviewee to not be mentioned?

  My word, you are thorough.

  How sharp of you to have noticed. Never fear, I am not putting you to a test or any such thing.

  To tell the truth, it bothered me too when I first read that notebook. I found myself unconsciously ticking off each person as they appeared. Yet six never does. Was it someone in the same profession? Someone else?

  I raised it with her too. Who is number six? There is no record of this person in the list at the back either.

  She told me that it was a woman who survived.

  This woman had apparently gone overseas, therefore she was ultimately unable to ask the questions she most wanted to. That was her only regret, she said.

  VI

  When it comes to one-book authors, Margaret Mitchell leaps to mind.

  Her story is quite remarkable. She sent her manuscript in a trunk to an editor and then pestered him with numerous telegrams. He started reading the manuscript on the train, rather unwillingly I believe. However, that manuscript turned out to be Gone with the Wind.

  I do envy that editor.

  Imagine having the incredible fortune to be the very first person to read that book. What if he had lost the pages? Or worse, simply dismissed it as another tedious manuscript and passed it on for another editor to discover? I quail to think what might have happened.

  Whichever way I think, it makes me shudder.

  Margaret Mitchell poured everything she had into Gone with the Wind, and declared afterwards that she would never write another novel. And she never did, which I think is magnificent. She gave her all to what became her one and only great work.

  Oh no, I do not mean to suggest in the least that this book compares with Gone with the Wind. I was merely discussing the work of an editor.

  Novels such as Gone with the Wind are what make an editor’s work such an adventure, one that is both fascinating and daunting.

  I spend my days ploughing through a mountain of envelopes on my desk, searching for that as yet undiscovered masterpiece and am rarely – if ever – rewarded. Yet, when one least expects it, something surfaces from an unforeseen quarter. The production begins and it is sent out into the world, as if that were the plan all along.

  I sensed from the beginning that she had no interest in pursuing the path of a writer, so I did ask her once what kind of career she was interested in.

  She looked at me with a terribly serious expression and said, “Hmm, let me see.” She was never one to smile much.

  And she
said, “I don’t really know, but I can tell you that this is not it.”

  Then I asked if there were something she wanted to do. After thinking that over for a while she said that there was something she wanted to know. That was all. Then she told me, as if the thought had just occurred to her, that to be honest she had not thought that publishing the book was a good idea in the beginning, but that now she was grateful. Because she believed that publishing it would help her to discover something which she wished to know.

  I persisted in asking what it was, but she would only repeat that it was a private matter. Ultimately, she never told me.

  VII

  Incidentally, I did receive an odd telephone call about a year after the book came out.

  Crank calls are not uncommon in this business. Usually the caller says something along the lines of I am the author of such and such a book so please send any royalties to this account, or complains that a particular title was a disgraceful plagiarism of their life, and so on. You would be surprised.

  However, this call was not odd in that sense, which is perhaps why it left an impression on me.

  The caller was a middle-aged woman. She sounded refined and confident.

  She told me that she had read the book and wondered if by any chance the author happened to be Makiko Saiga. She claimed to be an old acquaintance of Makiko’s and said that she wanted to get in contact with her.

  Nothing in her manner struck me as odd.

  Since the book was written under a pen name and contained no photographs, I suspected that she was telling the truth about knowing the author.

  However, Miss Saiga had already instructed me to never give out her details to anyone who asked for them, especially people who had known her as a child. She said that if anyone were to enquire, I was to ask for the person’s address and say that the author would be in contact. Which is what I said in this case.