The Aosawa Murders

by Riku Onda

  RESIDENTS FILE PETITION

  City residents have begun a petition calling for the preservation of the former Aosawa mansion in the Nakaogaki district, after learning of a decision to demolish the building.

  The residence was built in 1957 and designed by leading modern architect Kenzo Murano, who in his later years rarely undertook commissions for private homes.

  Unusually for a residential building of the time, reinforced concrete was used in the construction. The structure was a combined clinic and residence that incorporated Japanese and Western styles into the overall design rather than simply separating them into Western architectural style for the clinic and Japanese style for the residence. Its distinctive appearance is a familiar sight to city residents.

  However, it has been virtually uninhabited since a major crime took place there in 1973. This, along with soaring land prices, has contributed to difficulties in maintaining it, and the Aosawa family is therefore preparing to sell it. Upon learning of plans to demolish the building, local residents, fearing the loss of such a valuable architectural artefact, launched a petition calling on the prefectural government to recognize and preserve it as a cultural heritage site.

  Kiyoshiro Kawataki, 73, who represents the Round Windows House Association, had been a patient of three generations of doctors in the Aosawa family clinic and told us, “The building is a familiar symbol of the district and a valuable part of our architectural cultural heritage as well. Experts have confirmed to us that it is still structurally sound, and we plead for it to be left as it is.”

  II

  A RESPONSE REGARDING THE RECENT INCIDENT IN THE PARK

  I recall that on the afternoon of the twenty-sixth there were fewer visitors than normal, in all likelihood due to the severe heat and approaching end of the summer holidays.

  It is my custom to make a tour of inspection of the whole park every three hours when there is no other pressing business, and at one o’clock in the afternoon of that day, I did not see anybody fitting the description of Makiko Yoshimizu. Other staff members also confirm this.

  As it was late in the day, the strong reflected glare on the asphalt and dry pathways would have raised the temperature to close to 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Staff had sprinkled a certain amount of water on the paths for cooling purposes, but at such a temperature this would not have had any significant effect.

  Apparently the first sighting of a person matching the description of Mrs Yoshimizu was reported at 3.30. One of the cleaning staff witnessed a woman with a child talking to another woman sitting on a bench. The cleaner’s impression was that the woman and child were not acquainted with the woman on the bench, and instead were passers-by who happened to exchange a few words. This staff member cannot be certain her memory is accurate, as the park is a large one with many visitors. I ask for your understanding of this.

  Next, at around four o’clock, two gardeners observed the woman sitting on the bench with a bottle of lemonade in her hand. She was alone, and there was no sign of the aforementioned woman and child at that time. She appeared to be resting, and the gardeners did not sense anything unusual. Then, at 4.30, I discovered Mrs Yoshimizu collapsed on the bench. It was near closing time and park staff were about to carry out their final inspections for the day. Initially I thought she was asleep. She appeared to be leaning against the bench and dozing. When I approached and called “hello”, she gave no response. Her silence seemed unusual, so I touched her on the shoulder and called to her once more, and as I did so she slid over and collapsed on the bench.

  I was shocked by this and quickly called other staff, who rang for an ambulance. At this time she did not appear to be conscious. I later heard that she never regained consciousness.

  It pains me greatly that we did not find her earlier, as I learned that she has a young child. The staff and I will wholeheartedly do our utmost to ensure that such an incident never happens again. I regret that this is all the information I can provide on the last hours of Mrs Yoshimizu.

  III

  BOARD OF EDUCATION INSPECTS AOSAWA RESIDENCE

  The Prefectural Board of Education invited experts to inspect the Aosawa residence in Nakaogaki after receiving a petition with close to ten thousand signatures calling for the building to be preserved. In discussions with the citizens’ group leading the campaign, group members, local historians and architects all stressed the rarity and value of the mansion. Heated discussion continued for two hours, ending with the Board of Education undertaking to review the case and report on the result of their review.

  DECISION TO DEMOLISH AOSAWA RESIDENCE

  The Board of Education announced its decision not to recognize and preserve the Aosawa residence in Nakaogaki as a cultural heritage site.

  The Board explained that their decision was based on a number of considerations: one, that other cultural properties in more urgent need of preservation should be given priority; two, that the Aosawa residence is located on prime development land, hence the cost of maintaining it would exceed prefectural budget resources; and three, that the Board has taken into consideration the wishes of the current owner to dispose of the building.

  The citizens’ group responded angrily to the decision, saying that the cultural heritage registration system was meaningless if it did not preserve those buildings with strong roots to the daily lives and memories of ordinary people. It stressed that the landscape was changing rapidly and with each passing day important historical buildings were being lost due to the scrap-and-build mentality of the Japanese construction industry. The group also accused administrative officials who handed down the decision of being in collusion with the construction industry, which it said is more concerned with securing contracts to construct new buildings than taking the time and trouble to build superior quality structures to leave for posterity.

  Demolition work is scheduled to start as early as the middle of next month; however, the citizens’ group is taking a hard-line attitude and saying that resorting to force is not out of the question.

  IV

  MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE INCIDENT IN THE PARK

  When I spoke to Mrs Yoshimizu I saw no lemonade bottle. She had collapsed in such a way as to be lying prone on the bench: therefore, if there were any bottle I feel sure that I would have noticed it. I also did not see any objects lying on the ground at her feet. The cleaning staff I spoke with confirmed that very little rubbish had been thrown away that day, and no bottle was found in any of the bins in the vicinity. The park has clear views and cleaning staff do a thorough job, therefore it is my belief that if a lemonade bottle had been left lying anywhere it would have been conspicuous. It is possible that Mrs Yoshimizu returned the empty lemonade bottle to the teahouse where she bought it. With this in mind I also made enquiries at the teahouse; however, I was told that the wooden bottle return box is kept outside, and if anyone had returned the bottle the staff inside would not necessarily be aware of that.

  The identity of the mother and child who exchanged a few words with Mrs Yoshimizu is not known. All I can say is that they appear to have been in the area by chance.

  According to the description of the staff member who saw them, the woman was plump and middle-aged, and the child was a small girl around two years old. She did not see their faces, apparently. However, she did say that from their dress they appeared to be local visitors, not tourists.

  I hope this answers your questions.

  V

  DATELINE: CITY OF K—, THIRTY-ONE YEARS SINCE THE AOSAWA MURDERS

  Even The Forgotten Festival Came to Be Forgotten

  There are things that happen on this earth which can only be described as a strange twist of fate. Like many people, there was a time when I too would have scoffed at such an idea and regarded it as not worthy of serious consideration. However, in the course of my life I have encountered things for which there can be no other explanation. In fact, I recently became aware of one such incident which forces me to the conclusion that th
ere can be no other explanation.

  The other day I came across a brief article tucked away in a small newspaper. It was about a housewife who had died of heatstroke in K— Park while on her way back to Tokyo after visiting her husband at his regional posting. At the time I read this article I did not pay it any particular attention. However, my interest was immediately aroused when I discovered from an old acquaintance who I happened to see a few days later that this woman was the author of The Forgotten Festival.

  My acquaintance was a former police officer. He had been in charge of the investigation into what came to be known as the Aosawa Case, and as a young reporter at the time I had followed him around for over six months, hounding him at all hours of the day and night for updates on the case.

  A mass poisoning with an unprecedented number of deaths had inevitably led to parallels being drawn with the Teigin Incident. The investigation into the crime was closed after the suicide of the suspect, yet doubts about his guilt have continued to be expressed in various quarters ever since, together with claims that he was falsely accused. A quarter of a century later the truth still remains shrouded in darkness, while the incident slowly fades from the city’s memory.

  In recent weeks, however, the Aosawa Case has once again come to public attention due to the publicity surrounding the campaign to preserve the Aosawa residence, the scene of the murders. I myself sought out that old acquaintance again after my memory was refreshed by this campaign.

  The Forgotten Festival: how many would recall that title now? The book became a bestseller after a young woman who had been at the scene as a girl wrote about the incident in a novel more than ten years later. I remember vividly how its publication once again brought the Aosawa Case into the spotlight. The author was roundly criticized for using the word Festival in the title, but she maintained silence on the subject and after that one volume never published another book.

  I cannot help but see it as a peculiar twist of fate that the author should have died here, in this city, just as it is in the process of attempting to eliminate all trace of the house where the murders occurred. It is as if time has been turned back.

  She had been at the scene of the crime with her two elder brothers. I contacted one of them after her death and he agreed to a telephone interview on condition that I did not give his name. When I asked what his thoughts were on his sister dying in the very city where the crime had occurred, he told me bluntly, “When all is said and done, she wasn’t ever able to get away from it. She didn’t tell us she was going to write that book, and never once mentioned the murders again after it was published, but it seems she could never put it behind her.”

  The family moved away from the city when the father was transferred shortly after the incident; however, soon after that the parents divorced. The younger of the two brothers apparently committed suicide in his twenties.

  “We weren’t especially conscious of it, but I do think now that all of us being at the scene of the crime as children did have something to do with it,” he told me. “My sister’s book was called The Forgotten Festival, but for us it was The Unforgettable Festival.”

  Though I said nothing in reply, the thought I had was that even a book can be forgotten. The cruellest thing in this world is to be forgotten; yet time will bury the furore of the past and silence the chatter that was once on people’s lips.

  Almost everybody directly associated with the crime is deceased, and those who know anything about it are departing this world in quick succession. There is an old saying that truth is time’s daughter, but I have to wonder whether time will ever tell us the truth of this affair.

  VI

  STAND-OFF WITH CITIZENS’ GROUP CONTINUES

  A citizens’ group disputing the decision to demolish the Aosawa residence is continuing its daily protests outside the house in a standoff with construction workers attempting to begin demolition work.

  Police were called in on the morning of the 18th after a confrontation when workers attempted to enter the premises. The contractor in charge of the demolition has postponed work on the grounds that it is dangerous to both parties, and has appealed to authorities to persuade the citizens’ group to desist. However, the prefecture is unwilling to intervene as the Aosawa family has requested the demolition and therefore it is no longer a prefectural concern. The deadlock appears set to continue for some time.

  VII

  A LETTER FROM JUNJI

  I tried to start this letter with “Dear” but couldn’t do it. It’s my first letter to you, isn’t it? I’m not good at letters or writing, so it felt strange to even have to think about how to start a letter.

  You must wonder why I’m writing. I don’t really understand it myself. We could just as easily meet and talk, but there are things I can never actually say, so for some reason I’m writing this instead.

  I think I told you once I’ve never felt comfortable in my skin. It’s like there’s an outer me that’s the container, and another me on the inside, and the two don’t fit together at all.

  Of course, I know how people see me. Even as a kid I was always restless and fidgety, an insignificant little nobody who couldn’t say anything clever. That was me. Always a hanger-on. A busy live wire with no real friends. Nobody really cared if I was around or not. That’s who I was back then, and I doubt if things will change.

  I think it was reading my sister’s book that brought this masochistic mood on. (I told you about that book, didn’t I?) Maybe being caught up in all that as a kid has something to do with it too.

  Being a thoughtless show-off, naturally I enjoyed the fame that came from my sister writing a book and me being connected to it all. I admit it. In the beginning, that is. But later I felt overwhelmed by enormous anxiety one night all of a sudden. It’s terrible. Every single night I have the same dream. I dream about the murders. In my dream, I’m laughing. I see people writhing on the floor in agony and I laugh at them.

  In my dream, I did it. I see a son of the family, the one who always looked down on me. I see the housekeeper who put on airs because she was in charge of the kitchen for an old establishment family. I see all the people in that house who gave us the cold shoulder because we were outsiders who didn’t understand how great that family supposedly was. I see them all on the floor writhing in pain, and I mock them with my laughter. I was infatuated with the children in that house, always over there following them about, but I knew they never accepted or even liked me. I hated myself for being looked down on and hated them for doing it to me. That’s why I went over to the house that day.

  I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I should keep writing this.

  I bet you’re wondering now. You can’t imagine what’s bothering me. Why I’m writing this letter.

  The house we lived in then was old, with a very small garden out the back. A damp, dark garden with shrubs, paper plants and camellias. A breeze-block fence separated our house from next door, and neighbourhood cats used to walk along the top of it, like a pathway.

  Sometimes I’d be doing homework or something in my room and look up straight into the eyes of a cat walking along the top of the fence. The cats used to sit on the paving stones underneath the paper plant sometimes and groom themselves.

  The first time I went over to that house that day, the drinks had just been delivered. It must have shown on my face that I wanted some, because the housekeeper gave me a bottle of cola. She opened the lid for me.

  If I’d drunk it then things might have been different. I might have been the only one who died and everybody else would have been saved. I might have been remembered as the unlucky hero who saved the day. But that didn’t happen.

  I might give the impression of being careless and slapdash, but deep down I’m actually deeply suspicious and spineless. Always quick to run away if I sense trouble. When the housekeeper opened the bottle I was surprised the lid came off so easily, because exactly a week before I’d copped it from Mother for breaking a promise to o
nly drink one bottle of cola at a time. She’d caught me just as I was about to drink a third bottle, so I’d done my best to put the lid back on. It looked all right, but a few days later when I took it from the fridge again to drink, the lid came off just like that, and the cola was completely flat.

  So I knew. I knew somebody had already opened that soft drink and put the lid back on. I was instantly suspicious and took the bottle back home. It had a strange kind of sour, bitter smell. As I was going inside I saw a white cat walking along the top of the fence and thought maybe I could use it as a taste tester. So I squeezed down the side of the house to the back garden and found the cat just where I thought it would be, licking itself.

  I poured some of the drink in front of it and the cat only licked a tiny bit, but the effect was instant. Straight away it stumbled and had a sort of fit. It must have sensed danger because it made a kind of warning cry and got away from there as fast as it could.

  I thought about what this meant. Or at least I think I did. I don’t know if I really did think about it. Looking back, I still don’t know what I was thinking at the time.

  Anyway, I decided not to drink the cola. I poured it down an outside drain, took the bottle back to that house, wiped it with my shirt and put it in the case at the back door.

  I never told anybody. I think I understood that people in the house would drink that cola, and though the result was what I expected, it was also not what I expected.

  I went home again and called my sister. I still think about what was in my head then, over and over, even now. What was I thinking? Why didn’t I tell anybody about the cat? Why didn’t I tell anybody about the lid, and the strange smell?

  I don’t know. I truly don’t know.

  In my dream, I’m laughing. I watch everybody and laugh. The white cat lies on the ground between all the people rolling around. It trembles and its legs stick out at weird angles.