1Q84 (42 page)

“Yes, but assuming the Fukadas are in there, what possible reason could there have been for them to have been kept under restraint for seven years? That’s a
very long time
!”

“I don’t know any better than you do. I can only guess,” Professor Ebisuno said. “As I told you last time, the police did a search of Sakigake in connection with the Akebono shootout, but all they found was that Sakigake had absolutely nothing to do with the case. Ever since then, Sakigake has continued steadily to strengthen its position as a religious organization. No, what am I saying? Not steadily: they did it quite rapidly. But even so, people on the outside had almost no idea what they were actually doing in there. I’m sure you don’t know anything about them.”

“Not a thing,” Tengo said. “I don’t watch TV, and I hardly read the newspaper. You can’t tell by me what people in general know.”

“No, it’s not just you who don’t know anything about them. They purposely keep as low a profile as possible. Other new religions do showy things to get as many converts as they can, but not Sakigake. Their goal is not to increase the number of their believers. They want healthy, young believers who are highly motivated and skilled in a wide variety of professional fields. So they don’t go out of their way to attract converts. And they don’t admit just anybody. When people show up asking to join, they interview them and admit them selectively. Sometimes they go out of their way to recruit people who have particular skills they are looking for. The end result is a militant, elite religious organization.”

“Based on what kind of doctrine?”

“They probably don’t have any set scriptures. Or if they do, they’re very eclectic. Roughly, the group follows a kind of esoteric Buddhism, but their everyday lives are centered not so much on particular doctrines as on labor and ascetic practice—quite stern austerities. Young people in search of that kind of spiritual life hear about them and come from all over the country. The group is highly cohesive and obsessed with secrecy.”

“Do they have a guru?”

“Ostensibly, no. They reject the idea of a personality cult, and they practice collective leadership, but what actually goes on in there is unclear. I’m doing my best to gather what intelligence I can, but very little seeps out. The one thing I can say is that the organization is developing steadily and seems to be very well funded. The land owned by Sakigake keeps expanding, and its facilities are constantly improving. Also, the wall around the property has been greatly reinforced.”

“And at some point, the name of Fukada, the original leader of Sakigake, stopped appearing.”

“Exactly. It’s all very strange. I’m just not convinced by what I hear,” Professor Ebisuno said. He glanced at Fuka-Eri and turned back to Tengo. “Some kind of major secret is hidden inside there. I’m sure that, at some point, a kind of realignment occurred in Sakigake’s organization. What it consisted of, I don’t know. But because of it, Sakigake underwent a major change of direction from agricultural commune to religion. I imagine that something like a coup d’etat occurred at that point, and Fukada was swept up in it. As I said before, Fukada was a man without the slightest religious inclinations. He must have poured every ounce of his strength into trying to put a stop to such a development. And probably he lost the battle for supremacy in Sakigake at that time.”

Tengo considered this for a moment and said, “I understand what you are saying, but even if you are right, isn’t this something that could have been solved just by expelling Fukada from Sakigake, like the peaceful splitting off of Akebono from Sakigake? They wouldn’t have had to lock him up, would they?”

“You’re quite right about that. Under ordinary circumstances, there would have been no need to take the trouble of locking him up. But Fukada would almost certainly have had his hands on some of Sakigake’s secrets by then, things that Sakigake would have found very awkward if they were exposed to the public. So just throwing him out was not the answer.

“As the original founder of the community, Fukada had acted as its virtual leader for years and must have witnessed everything that had been done on the inside. He must have known too much. In addition to which, he himself was quite well known to the public at large. So even if Fukada and his wife wanted to renounce their ties with the group, Sakigake could not simply let them go.”

“And so you are trying to shake up the stalemate indirectly? You want to stir up public interest by letting Eri have a sensational debut as a writer, with
Air Chrysalis
a bestseller?”

“Seven years is a very long time, and nothing I have tried over the years has done any good. If I don’t take this drastic measure now, the riddle may never be solved.”

“So you are using Eri as bait to try to lure a big tiger out of the underbrush.”

“No one knows what is going to come out of the underbrush. It won’t necessarily be a tiger.”

“But you
do
seem to be expecting something violent to happen, I gather.”

“True, there is that possibility,” the Professor said with a thoughtful air. “You yourself should know that anything can happen inside homogeneous, insular groups.”

A heavy silence followed, in the midst of which Fuka-Eri spoke up.

“It’s because the Little People came,” she said softly.

Tengo looked at her seated beside the Professor. As always, her face lacked anything that might be called an expression.

“Are you saying that something changed in Sakigake because the Little People came?” Tengo asked her.

She said nothing in reply. Her fingers toyed with the top button of her blouse.

Professor Ebisuno then spoke as if taking up where Eri’s silence left off. “I don’t know what the Little People are supposed to mean, and Eri either can’t or won’t explain in words what the Little People are. It does seem certain, however, that the Little People played some role in the sudden drastic change of Sakigake from an agricultural commune to a religious organization.”

“Or something Little People-ish did,” Tengo said.

“That’s true,” the Professor said. “I don’t know, either, whether it was the Little People themselves or something Little People-ish. But it does appear to me, at least, that Eri is trying to say something important by introducing the Little People in her
Air Chrysalis
.”

The Professor stared at his hands for a time, then looked up and said, “George Orwell introduced the dictator Big Brother in his novel
1984
, as I’m sure you know. The book was an allegorical treatment of Stalinism, of course. And ever since then, the term ‘Big Brother’ has functioned as a social icon. That was Orwell’s great accomplishment. But now, in the real year 1984, Big Brother is all too famous, and all too obvious. If Big Brother were to appear before us now, we’d point to him and say, ‘Watch out! He’s Big Brother!’ There’s no longer any place for a Big Brother in this real world of ours. Instead, these so-called Little People have come on the scene. Interesting verbal contrast, don’t you think?”

Looking straight at Tengo, the Professor had something like a smile on his face.

“The Little People are an invisible presence. We can’t even tell whether they are good or evil, or whether they have any substance or not. But they seem to be steadily undermining us.” The Professor paused, then continued on. “It may be that if we are ever to learn what happened to Fukada and his wife or what happened to Eri, we will first have to find out what the Little People are.”

“So, then, is it the Little People that you are trying to lure out into the open?” Tengo asked.

“I wonder, ultimately, whether it is possible for us to lure something out when we can’t even tell whether it has substance or not,” the Professor said, the smile still playing about his lips. “The ‘big tiger’ you mentioned could be more realistic, don’t you think?”

“Either way, that doesn’t change the fact that Eri is being used for bait.”

“No, ‘bait’ is not the right word. She is creating a whirlpool: that is a closer image. Eventually, those at the edge of the whirlpool will start spinning along with it. That is what I am waiting to see.”

The Professor slowly twirled his finger in space. Then he continued, “The one in the center of the whirlpool is Eri. There is no need for the one in the center of a whirlpool to move. That is what those around the edge must do.”

Tengo listened in silence.

“If I may borrow your unsettling figure of speech, all of us may be functioning as bait, not just Eri.” The Professor looked at Tengo with narrowed eyes. “You included.”

“All I had to do, supposedly, was rewrite
Air Chrysalis
. I was just going to be a hired hand, a technician. That was how Mr. Komatsu put it to me to begin with.”

“I see.”

“But things seem to have changed a bit along the way,” Tengo said. “Does this mean that you revised his original plan, Professor?”

“No, that is not how I see it. Mr. Komatsu has his intentions and I have my intentions. At the moment, they share the same direction.”

“So the plan is proceeding as if the two of you just happened to be riding together.”

“I suppose you could say that.”

“Two men with different destinations are riding the same horse down the road. Their routes are identical to a certain point, but neither knows what is going to happen after that.”

“Well put, like a true writer.”

Tengo sighed. “Our prospects are not very bright, I would say. But there’s no turning back now, is there?”

“Even if we could turn back, we’d probably never end up where we started,” the Professor said.

This brought the conversation to a close. Tengo could think of nothing further to say.

Professor Ebisuno left the cafe first. He had to see someone in the neighborhood, he said. Fuka-Eri stayed behind. Sitting on opposite sides of the table, Tengo and Fuka-Eri remained silent for a while.

“Are you hungry?” Tengo asked.

“Not really,” Fuka-Eri said.

The cafe was filling up. The two of them left, though neither had been the first to suggest it. For a while they walked the streets of Shinjuku aimlessly. Six o’clock was drawing near, and many people were hurrying toward the station, but the sky was still bright. Early-summer sunlight enveloped the city, its brightness feeling strangely artificial after the underground cafe.

“Where are you going now?” Tengo asked.

“No place special,” Fuka-Eri replied.

“Shall I see you home?” Tengo asked. “To your Shinano-machi condo, I mean. I suppose you’ll be staying there today?”

“I’m not going there,” Fuka-Eri said.

“Why not?”

She did not reply.

“Are you saying you feel you’d better not go there?”

Fuka-Eri nodded, saying nothing.

Tengo thought about asking her why she felt she had better not go there, but he sensed that it wouldn’t get him a straight answer.

“So, will you be going back to the Professor’s?”

“Futamatao is too far away.”

“Do you have somewhere else in mind?”

“I will stay at your place,” Fuka-Eri said.

“That … might … not … be a … good idea,” Tengo said. “My place is small, I live alone, and I’m sure Professor Ebisuno wouldn’t permit it.”

“The Professor won’t mind,” Fuka-Eri said with a kind of shrug of the shoulders. “And I won’t mind.”

“But I might mind,” Tengo said.

“Why.”

“Well …,” Tengo started to say, but no further words came out. He was not even sure what he had intended to say. This often happened when he was talking with Fuka-Eri. He would momentarily lose track of what he was going to say. It was like sheet music being scattered by a gust of wind.

Fuka-Eri reached out and gently grasped Tengo’s left hand in her right hand as if to comfort him.

“You don’t get it,” she said.

“Don’t get what?”

“We are one.”

“We are one?” Tengo asked with a shock.

“We wrote the book together.”

Tengo felt the pressure of Fuka-Eri’s fingers against his palm. It was not strong, but it was even and steady.

“That’s true. We wrote
Air Chrysalis
together. And when we are eaten by the tiger, we’ll be eaten together.”

“No tiger will come out,” Fuka-Eri said, her voice unusually grave.

“That’s good,” Tengo said, though it didn’t make him especially happy. A tiger might not come out, but there was no telling what might come out instead.

They stood in front of Shinjuku Station’s ticket machines. Fuka-Eri looked up at him, still gripping his hand. People streamed past them on both sides.

“Okay, if you want to stay at my place, you can,” Tengo said, resigning himself. “I can sleep on the sofa.”

“Thank you,” Fuka-Eri said.

Tengo realized this was the first time he had ever heard anything resembling polite language from Fuka-Eri’s mouth. No, it might not have been the first time, but he could not recall when he might have heard it before.

“The Little People?” Aomame asked gently, peering at the girl. “Tell us, who are these ‘Little People’?”

But having pronounced only those few words, Tsubasa’s mouth clamped shut again. As before, her eyes had lost all depth, as though the effort of speaking the words had exhausted most of her energy.

“Somebody you know?” Aomame asked.

Again no answer.

“She has mentioned those words several times before,” the dowager said. ” ‘The Little People.’ I don’t know what she means.”

The words had an ominous ring, a subtle overtone that Aomame sensed like the sound of distant thunder.

She asked the dowager, “Could these ‘Little People’ have been the ones who injured her?”

The dowager shook her head. “I don’t know. But whatever they are, the ‘Little People’ undoubtedly carry great significance for her.”

Hands resting side by side atop the table, the girl sat utterly still, her opaque eyes staring at a fixed point in space.

“What in the world could have happened to her?” Aomame asked.