1Q84 (138 page)

“Tamotsu Fukada is dead,” Buzzcut said. His voice was quiet, uninflected, but there was something terribly heavy within.

“
Dead?
” Komatsu asked.

“It happened recently,” Buzzcut said. He took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “He died of a heart attack. It was over in a moment, and he didn’t suffer. Due to the circumstances, we didn’t submit a notification of death, and we held the funeral secretly at our compound. For religious reasons the body was incinerated, the bones crushed and sprinkled in the nearby mountains. Legally, this constitutes desecration of a body, but it would be difficult to make a formal case against us. But this is the truth. We never lie when it comes to matters of life and death. I would like you to let Professor Ebisuno know about this.”

“A natural death.”

Buzzcut nodded deeply. “Mr. Fukada was a very important person for us. No—important is too trite a term to express what he was. He was a giant. His death has only been reported to a limited number of people. They grieved deeply for the loss. His wife—Eriko Fukada’s mother—died several years ago of stomach cancer. She refused chemotherapy, and passed away within our treatment facility. Her husband, Tamotsu, cared for her to the end.”

“Even so, you didn’t file a notification of her death,” Komatsu asked.

No words of denial came.

“And Tamotsu Fukada passed away recently.”

“Correct,” Buzzcut said.

“Was this after
Air Chrysalis
was published?”

Buzzcut’s gaze went down to the table for a moment, then he raised his head and looked at Komatsu.

“That’s right. Mr. Fukada passed away after
Air Chrysalis
was published.”

“Are the two events related?” Komatsu dared to ask.

Buzzcut didn’t say anything for a while, pondering how he should respond. Finally, as if he had made up his mind, he spoke. “Fine. I think it might be best to let Professor Ebisuno know all the facts, so he will understand. Mr. Tamotsu Fukada was the real Leader, the
one who hears the voice
. When his daughter, Eriko Fukada, published
Air Chrysalis
, the voice stopped speaking to him, and at that point Mr. Fukuda himself put an end to his existence. It was a natural death. More precisely, he put an end to his own existence naturally.”

“Eriko Fukada was the daughter of Leader,” Komatsu murmured.

Buzzcut gave a concise, abbreviated nod.

“And Eriko Fukada ended up driving her father to his death,” Komatsu continued.

Buzzcut nodded once more. “That is correct.”

“But the religion still continues to exist.”

“The religion does still exist,” Buzzcut replied, and he stared at Komatsu with eyes like ancient pebbles frozen deep within a glacier. “Mr. Komatsu, the publication of
Air Chrysalis
has done more than a little damage to Sakigake. However,
they
are not thinking to punish you for this. There is nothing to be gained from punishing you at this point. They have a mission they must accomplish, and in order to do so, quiet isolation is required.”

“So you want everyone to take a step back and forget it all happened.”

“In a word, yes.”

“Was it absolutely necessary to kidnap me in order to get this message across?”

Something akin to an expression crossed Buzzcut’s face for the first time, a superficial emotion, located somewhere in the interstice between humor and sympathy. “They went to the trouble of bringing you here because
they
wanted you to understand the seriousness of the situation. They didn’t want to do anything drastic, but if something is necessary, they don’t hesitate. They wanted you to really feel this, viscerally. If all of you do not keep your promise, then something quite unpleasant will occur. Do you follow me?”

“I do,” Komatsu replied.

“To tell you the truth, Mr. Komatsu, you were very fortunate. Because of all the heavy fog you may not have noticed this, but you were just a few inches from the edge of a cliff. It would be best if you remember this. At the moment
they
do not have the freedom to deal with you. There are many more pressing matters at hand. And in that sense, too, you are quite fortunate. So while this good fortune still continues …”

As he said this he turned his palms faceup, like someone checking to see if it was raining. Komatsu waited for his next words, but there weren’t any. Now that he had finished speaking, Buzzcut looked exhausted. He slowly rose from his chair, folded it, and exited the cube-shaped room without so much as a glance back. The heavy door closed, the lock clicking shut. Komatsu was left all alone.

“They kept me locked away in that square little room for four more days. We had already discussed what was important. They had told me what they wanted to say and we had come to an agreement. So I couldn’t see the point of keeping me there any longer. That duo never appeared again, and the young man in charge of me never uttered a word. I ate the same monotonous food, shaved with the electric razor, and spent my time staring at the ceiling and the walls. I slept when they turned off the lights, woke up when they switched them on. And I pondered what Buzzcut had told me. What really struck me most was the fact that he said
we were fortunate
. Buzzcut was right. If these guys wanted to, they could do anything they wanted. They could be as cold-blooded as they liked. While I was locked up in there, I really came to believe this. I think they must have kept me locked up for four more days knowing that would be the result. They don’t miss a beat—they’re very meticulous.”

Komatsu picked up his glass and took a sip of the highball.

“They drugged me again with chloroform or whatever, and when I woke up it was daybreak and I was lying on a bench in Jingu Gaien. It was the end of September, and the mornings were cold. Thanks to this I actually did wind up with a cold and a fever and I really was in bed for the next three days. But I guess I should consider myself fortunate if that’s the worst that happened to me.”

Komatsu seemed to be finished with his story. “Did you tell this to Professor Ebisuno?” Tengo asked.

“Yes, after I was released, and a few days after my fever broke, I went to his house on the mountain. I told him pretty much what I told you.”

“What was his reaction?”

Komatsu drained the last drop of his highball and ordered a refill. He urged Tengo to do the same, but Tengo shook his head.

“Professor Ebisuno had me repeat the story over and over and asked a lot of detailed questions. I answered whatever I could. I could repeat the same story as many times as he wished. I mean, after I last spoke with Buzzcut, I was locked up alone for four days in that room. I had nobody to talk to, and plenty of time on my hands. So I went over what he had told me and was able to accurately remember all the details. Like I was a human tape recorder.”

“But the part about Fuka-Eri’s parents dying was just something they claimed happened. Right?” Tengo asked.

“That’s right. They insisted it happened, but there’s no way to verify it. They didn’t file a death notice. Still, considering the way Buzzcut sounded, it didn’t seem like he was making it up. As he said, Sakigake considers people’s lives and deaths a sacred thing. After I finished my story, Professor Ebisuno was silent for a time, thinking it over. He really thinks about things deeply, for a long time. Without a word, he stood up, left the room, and didn’t come back for quite a while. I think he was trying to accept his friends’ deaths, trying to understand them as inevitable. He may have already half expected that they were no longer of the world and had resigned himself to that fact. Still, actually being told that two close friends have died has got to hurt.”

Tengo remembered the bare, spartan living room, the chilly, deep silence, the occasional sharp call of a bird outside the window. “So,” he asked, “have we actually backed our way out of the minefield?”

A fresh highball was brought over. Komatsu took a sip.

“No conclusion was reached right then. Professor Ebisuno said he needed time to think. But what other choice do we have than to do what they told us? I got things rolling right away. At work I did everything I could and stopped them from printing additional copies of
Air Chrysalis
, so in effect it’s out of print. There will be no paperback edition, either. The book already sold a lot of copies and made the company plenty of money, so they won’t suffer a loss. In a large company like this you have to have meetings about it, the president has to sign off on it—but when I dangled before them the prospect of a scandal connected with a ghostwriter, the higher-ups were terrified and in the end did what I wanted. It looks like I’ll be given the silent treatment from now on, but it’s okay. I’m used to it.”

“Did Professor Ebisuno accept what they said about Fuka-Eri’s parents being dead?”

“I think so,” Komatsu said. “But I imagine it will take some time for it to really sink in, for him to fully accept it. As far as I could tell, those guys were serious. They would make a few concessions, but I think they’re hoping to avoid any more trouble. Which is why they resorted to kidnapping—they wanted to make absolutely sure we got the message. And they didn’t need to tell me about how they secretly incinerated the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Fukada. Even though it would be hard to prove, desecration of bodies is a major crime. But still they brought it up. They laid their cards on the table. That’s why I think most of what Buzzcut told me was the truth. Maybe not every detail, but the overall picture, at least.”

Tengo went over what Komatsu had told him. “Fuka-Eri’s father was
the one who heard the voice
. A prophet, in other words. But when his daughter published
Air Chrysalis
and it became a bestseller, the voice stopped speaking to him, and as a result the father died a natural death.”

“Or rather he put an end to his own existence
naturally,
” Komatsu said.

“And so it’s critical for Sakigake to gain a new prophet. If the voice stops speaking, then the religion’s whole reason for existence is lost. So they don’t have the time to worry about the likes of us. In a nutshell, that’s the story, right?”

“I think so.”

“
Air Chrysalis
contains information of critical importance to them. When it was published and became widely read, the voice went silent. But what critical information could the book be pointing toward?”

“During those last four days of my confinement I thought a lot about that,” Komatsu said. “
Air Chrysalis
is a pretty short novel. In the story the world is filled with Little People. The ten-year-old girl who is the protagonist lives in an isolated community. The Little People secretly come out at night and create an air chrysalis. The girl’s alter ego is inside the chrysalis and a mother-daughter relationship is formed—the
maza
and the
dohta
. There are two moons in that world, a large one and a small one, probably symbolizing the
maza
and the
dohta
. In the novel the protagonist—based on Fuka-Eri herself, I think—rejects being a
maza
and runs away from the community. The
dohta
is left behind. The novel doesn’t tell us what happened to the
dohta
after that.”

Tengo stared for a time at the ice melting in his glass.

“I wonder if the
one who hears the voice
needs the
dohta
as an intermediary,” Tengo said. “It’s through her that he can hear the voice for the first time, or perhaps through her that the voice is translated into comprehensible language. Both of them have to be there for the message of the voice to take its proper form. To borrow Fuka-Eri’s terms, there’s a Receiver and a Perceiver. But first of all the air chrysalis has to be created, because the
dohta
can only be born through it. And to create a
dohta
, the
proper maza
must be there.”

“That’s your opinion, Tengo.”

Tengo shook his head. “I wouldn’t call it an opinion. As I listened to you summarize the plot, I just thought that must be the way it is.”

As he rewrote the novel, and afterward, Tengo had pondered the meaning of the
maza
and the
dohta
, but he was never quite able to grasp the overall picture. But now, as he talked with Komatsu, the pieces gradually fell into place. Though he still had questions: Why did an air chrysalis materialize above his father’s bed in the hospital? And why was Aomame, as a young girl, inside?

“It’s a fascinating system,” Komatsu said. “But isn’t it a problem for the
maza
to be separated from the
dohta
?”

“Without the
dohta
, it’s hard to see the
maza
as a complete entity. As we saw with Fuka-Eri, it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what that means, but there is something missing—like a person who has lost his shadow. What the
dohta
is like without the
maza
, I have no idea. Probably they’re both incomplete, because, ultimately, the
dohta
is nothing more than an alter ego. But in Fuka-Eri’s case, even without the
maza
by her side, the
dohta
may have been able to fulfill her role as a kind of medium.”

Komatsu’s lips were stretched in a tight line for a while, then turned up slightly. “Are you thinking that everything in
Air Chrysalis
really took place?”

“I’m not saying that. I’m just making an assumption—hypothesizing that it’s all real, and going from there.”

“All right,” Komatsu said. “So even if Fuka-Eri’s alter ego goes far away from her body, she can still function as a medium.”

“Which explains why Sakigake isn’t forcing her to return, even if they know her whereabouts. Because in her case, even if the
maza
isn’t nearby, the
dohta
can still fulfill her duties. Maybe their connection is that strong, even if they’re far apart.”

“Okay …”

Tengo continued, “I imagine that they have multiple
dohtas
. The Little People must use the chance to create many air chrysalises. They would be anxious if all they had was one Perceiver. Or the number of
dohta
s who can function correctly might be limited. Maybe there is one powerful, main
dohta
, and several weaker auxiliary
dohta
s, and they function collectively.”