“That’s interfering with arrest.”
“He hasn’t done anything!”
“It’s 7:05 p.m. You are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent—”
“Stop!”
“Let go!”
“Surely someone will object violently to what I’m saying. They’ll call me a starry-eyed idealist. But I want to tell those people that they are caught up in a different idealism, one that beautifies war. The world is just that kind of cruel and heartless place, they’ll say. But against this tide of popular opinion, I will continue to raise my weak voice. If voices like mine vanish, the world will speed off in the wrong direction. I will continue to say that no one has the right to erase our stories. I will continue to tell the world to open its eyes, even after I die. I will continue to say that we can’t allow people to die for profits. I will continue to say that this world is here for us to enjoy.”
“Hurry and take them.”
“Stop it! Look what you’re doing to that old woman. Why? Why are you being so rough?”
“Stop!”
“Stop it! No one’s resisting. Are you really so insecure you have to be that rough? Do you have to be violent because you know what you’re doing is nonsense?”
“Take them. They’re terrorists. They’re terrorists!” the police screamed.
“We don’t know if they’re armed. If they resist, shoot.”
“Stop it!”
“Our nation should devote itself to peace. And when our way of thinking has spread throughout the world, when that giant stone pillar has fallen in the other direction . . . Then no one will be able to stop this world from flowing in the direction of peace. I want to believe that is possible.”
“Stop resisting!” Yoshiko shouted. “And stop being so violent!”
One by one the members were dragged off. The ground was speckled with blood. The TV had been knocked over. Matsuo’s voice continued to ring out, but there was no one there to hear it.
“We cannot let our precious lives be swallowed up by totalitarianism. We must not let our stories be worn away . . . Our bodies are constantly changing, and are eventually replaced entirely. All of you watching—if we go back far enough, we all have just one ancestor. If we go back hundreds of millions of years, the fishes far off in the tropics also share a common ancestor with us. Some amoeba drifting through the water. In other words, we and that fish somewhere were once one.
“Everyone born of that astounding system is precious. When you think you’re about to be done in by your daily routine, please try to open your mind, even if it seems impossible. Let’s live with great pride in this astounding universe and system of particles. Laugh and cry with all your heart, live with all your might. Please, live actively. You were given something from nothing. And finally, I want to tell you all . . .”
Someone shouted. Yoshiko was crying as she looked at the bleeding members.
“Thank you for everything. I don’t care what anyone says. I love you all. I love all the diversity of this world.”
In the Cabinet’s Emergency Operations Center, a phone rang.
“Fighter jets.” The voice was shaking. “Two fighter jets running drills have vanished from our radar . . . They are heading toward China.”
24
The automatic doors were locked and iron barricades were propped in front of them. How hard would the riot police have to work to break through this sullen wall? Ryoko Tachibana had never imagined that the day they’d use those barricades would actually come.
In front of the barricades forty believers waited, armed. The guns looked wrong in their hands. When they saw Tachibana, they lowered their guns and bowed slightly. Everyone was excited. They could never experience this sort of excitement in everyday life. Their excitement might eventually reach their fingertips and pull those triggers.
“Everything is secured,” said one of the believers, in a strangely formal tone. Was he enjoying the pageantry? Their faces were all flushed. Not a single person felt depressed by what was happening. There was no way she could convince them. They were in too deep. The only person in their right mind here, who hasn’t been affected by the turbulent atmosphere, is Narazaki-kun. No, I’m not even sure if he’s in his right mind. I’m not even sure about myself.
She retreated to the hallway. She could hear a woman’s moans coming from one room. Did the people need each other that way now, in this time so full of unnatural exhilaration?
Tachibana stopped a woman who passed her in the hallway. “Where are you going?”
“To comfort those guarding the entrance.”
She was a Cupro girl, not a believer. But her cheeks, too, were flushed.
“I see.”
What else should I say? Tachibana wasn’t sure. But the elevator door opened, and Sugimoto, a female officer the leader was particularly fond of, stepped out. Tachibana knew Sugimoto judged her for never trying to sleep with the leader, even if she never let on.
“Rina-san, the leader has summoned you.”
She was excited, too. The believers had praised her for her speech to the riot police.
Tachibana nodded slightly and didn’t ask why she was being summoned. If she had, Sugimoto wouldn’t have answered.
She took the elevator to the twentieth floor, then the stairs to the twenty-first. There were two believers in front of the door. They bowed to her.
“The leader is waiting for you.”
The door opened, and as soon as Tachibana walked through, it closed again behind her. It had been a long time since she had seen Sawatari. She tried to contact him when she returned to the facility because she learned the Public Security Bureau was investigating the cult, but even then, he wouldn’t meet with her.
“You’ll leave,” Sawatari said quietly. He sat in his chair lifelessly and stared blankly at the space in front of Tachibana.
Whenever she was in front of him, she couldn’t help but get nervous. “Leave?”
“We said we’d release one of the two hostages they say we have . . . Mm. We will release you.”
“Why?”
“Pretend you were a hostage . . . Tell them that we never harmed you . . . Give them proof.”
Tachibana realized that her mouth was open, but she was too nervous to speak. Rage bubbled up inside her. This man, she thought. This man must have planned it all. She opened her mouth again.
“Why are you getting rid of me? What are you planning?”
Sawatari seemed to be smiling slightly. Tachibana was never sure what kind of feelings he actually had.
“You never change . . .” he said listlessly. But his interest seemed to have been faintly aroused. “You take life so seriously. So seriously that you suffer. That’s your way of living.”
“I pledge my allegiance to you.”
“You don’t need to lie.”
Tachibana felt her body stiffen.
“I don’t care about that at all. Mm. Just leave . . . Sugi . . . Sugimoto will negotiate over the megaphone.”
“What!” Tachibana screamed. She didn’t even know what she was trying to say. “What should I do?” Her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t want to let them die. I don’t know why I care. I’m probably just pretending to be a good person. But I don’t want to let them die. No. I don’t know. Takahara-kun.”
What am I saying?
“I just wanted to be with Takahara-kun. That’s all. But why am I in this position? Why am I standing here paralyzed with a monster like you in front of me?”
Sawatari raised his right arm slightly and Tachibana fell silent. “Is that all?”
“What?”
“You want to suffer,” he said in his empty voice. “That is your wish for this life. You just want to suffer. You want to be dragged around by some man, and face his problems with all of your own seriousness. All that suff
ering will comfort you. That’s what you are. That’s your only desire in this life.”
Tachibana’s mind was blank.
“I’ve met your mother before.”
“What?”
“You look quite alike. You and that mother you hate.”
The door opened, and men ushered Tachibana out. Her mind was still blank.
When she came to, she was in a different room and Sugimoto was speaking to her. They’re trying to kick me out, Tachibana realized faintly. I won’t be able to save anyone. Sugimoto was giving her a concerned smile. That woman hates me. She’s making a worried face, but she’s happy that I’m being kicked out. Tachibana noticed that Sugimoto’s face was carefully made up.
Tachibana excused herself and went to the bathroom. She didn’t really have to go; it was like her body was resisting something. I am me. I won’t be just carried along at that man’s pace. I am me. I am . . .
In the hallway, she passed a believer. He was holding a small gun.
“Hey. Let me borrow that.”
“What? Oh, here.”
The believer passed the gun to Tachibana politely. She slipped it into her pocket.
“It’s going to be very dangerous,” Sugimoto was saying when Tachibana returned. “You will exit the building with both your arms raised. At that moment, they may try to force their way in.”
But Tachibana wasn’t listening.
I’m going to leave here. Tachibana tried to remain aware of what was happening. I’m going to leave here and find Takahara-kun. Tachibana’s eyes slipped down, and she stared at the gray floor. I used to think we could do anything. Even when he was suffering from his bad memories, we held each other in that small bed and made it through. No matter how cruel the world was, no matter what it did to hurt us, we’d be fine together, we could bear it together. We thought we could do anything. Tachibana quietly stroked the pistol in her pocket.
I must free him from the spell of his god. If he’s set free, we can change the ending.
Tachibana held on to those thoughts.
In the Cabinet room, a man was screaming, but his face was vacant. “What are you talking about? Self-Defense Force planes in training? How could that happen?”
“But it’s true. We must take care of this right away.” The face of the man who answered was also vacant.
“Judging from the direction they’re heading, it looks like they’re going to Beijing . . . There has also been a report that this may be connected to the current terror attack,” said yet another man with a vacant face.
A rustling ran through the office.
“In other words?”
“It is possible that a certain radical group within the country took in two members of the Special Defense Forces, brainwashed them, and they are now trying to attack China.”
There was a silence. But eventually yet another man with a vacant face began to speak. “If that’s the case, if Japanese planes attack Beijing . . . We’ll be forced to go to war . . .”
“Shoot them down,” said another man. “Scramble the Defense Forces, and shoot those planes down as soon as we find them.”
“. . . That’s our only choice. But can we really do it? I’ll say this just to confirm: We incited them. We encouraged them to see our neighbors as enemies. To make this country work the way we wanted, we turned our neighbors into the enemies of our people. They felt anger, just as we told them to, and attacked on their own. And we old men are going to shoot those boys down?”
The meeting room was filled with silence. Eventually another man opened his mouth. “That’s right,” he said quietly. “That’s what we’re going to do.”
25
Takahara was in bed, staring at the clock.
The clock’s wooden frame was large and square. Time flows on without paying any regard to us. Takahara felt the intense pressure of the situation bearing down on him. In two more hours, he would become one of the most prolific murderers of the century.
He felt himself wanting to smoke. He got up, and a sharp pain ran through his right shoulder. He had just taken what looked like painkillers, but they didn’t really seem to work.
He got in the elevator and left the hotel. The lights of a convenience store, those common, everyday lights, struck his eyes forcefully. Takahara sat on the ground in the busy part of town and watched people pass as he smoked a cigarette. Countless legs passed before him. With his eyes at that level, he got a sense of déjà vu. He remembered running away from home.
When he was five, Takahara had left the apartment he lived in to get away from the father who would hit him when he was drunk. On the street, all the big strangers would walk right by him. Takahara didn’t cry; he just watched them pass. But he’d felt fear then. Maybe he could have saved himself by asking the police for help, or won someone’s sympathy by crying. But at the time Takahara didn’t know that. So he just continued to feel scared watching all those strangers pass in front of him, just moving through their lives. The world didn’t care that he was alive. This memory overlapped with memories of his mother leaving him. People who looked like his mother walked past him without looking, one after another. One after another.
After running away, Takahara was locked up. His father vanished, and he starved. Back then Takahara was even scared of the TV that was always left on. He couldn’t help but fear the people on TV who laughed and cried without any regard to him. It was Tachibana’s mother who’d saved him. She came into the apartment one day and opened the door to the room Takahara was locked up in. But she didn’t do it out of love. She came because she was worried that if Takahara died, her boyfriend, Takahara’s father, would be arrested.
Even when Takahara’s father and Tachibana’s mother married, his father almost never came home. Tachibana’s mother raised them, but not because she loved them. She seemed to think that by raising them and working herself to the bone she could get revenge on Takahara’s father. She always acted like a pitiful woman, tormented by life. Sometimes she would demand thanks from Takahara and Tachibana. When anything bad happened to her, she seemed to feel strangely happy, as though she had received some proof of the fact that her life was unhappy. After she officially divorced Takahara’s father, she never bought new clothes. When Takahara and Tachibana were sixteen, Tachibana’s mother died of a heart attack from overwork. Ryoko found her body in the narrow hallway in front of the bathroom. Her eyes were full of hatred for the world, and yet, she seemed as though she was about to smile.
Takahara stared at the people passing as he smoked. He recalled one of the poems he read long ago in a holy book.
Master, show me the way.
Please give me a pure heart so I may worship all people.
Takahara always carried this poem inside him. He could never respect anyone around him, but he tried to make himself respect them. Eventually he learned that he had misread the poem. The word he thought was “all people” actually meant “holy name.” What the poem praised was the name of god. For Takahara, that didn’t change the meaning much. To believe in the god that everyone believes in, one must be modest.
Master, show me the way.
Please give me a pure heart so I may worship all people.
People walked by. Takahara certainly didn’t feel like blessing those who passed. He could never get rid of his feelings of condescension. Even though he didn’t consider himself particularly talented, he could never abandon his bad habit of immediately judging everyone around him as useless. But when he looked at humans suffering, a desire to save them welled up inside him. He thought he saw his old self in them. It was as if the more people he saved, the further back in time he could go, the more likely it was that eventually he’d be able to save himself.
But he was trying to put his past behind him. I have to blow up this city and die. Be despised as a criminal by all those I’ve looked down on.
W
hat was my life? Takahara kept wondering.
Ryoko Tachibana approached Kurita quietly. He was a tall man, the one who’d first carried Mineno to the “down room.” Tachibana knew the Cupro girl had taken Mineno’s flash drive, but she imagined that wasn’t all Mineno had brought with her. She’d probably had at least a wallet and a cell phone.
When she asked Kurita, he said he had them. “I thought I had better give them to the leader right away, but I forgot because of all of this commotion.”
Ryoko Tachibana took the wallet and phone from the confused man.
Back in her room, Tachibana told Sugimoto, “We should call an ambulance.”
“Why?”
“That way I’ll seem more like a hostage. And for the leader I’m just a smoke screen. He doesn’t care about me at all. It’s also less dangerous for medics to come here than the police.”
Sugimoto stared at Ryoko Tachibana.
“Come to think of it, that’s certainly true. But . . . No, that’s true. And getting the hostage medical care looks better than giving in to the police.”
Hostage negotiations were carried out over megaphone. Many TV cameras were waiting to get footage of the hostage leaving. The ambulance arrived, and everyone inside the facility grew tense. But the police didn’t move. It would be bad for their image if they broke in when a sick hostage was being released humanely.
The faces of the paramedics were cramped with tension when they arrived in front of the barricades. Whatever they didn’t know about this organization, they knew that they were still terrorists.
“Thank you. She’s in a lot of pain,” Sugimoto said to the medics, a false expression of concern on her face. Tachibana held her stomach as the medics laid her down on a stretcher.
The believers took down one barricade so the stretcher could pass through, replaced that barricade, then removed the second. When she was finally outside, Tachibana covered her face with a cloth. She was loaded into the ambulance. The riot police made a path and let them through.