The Aosawa Murders

by Riku Onda

They don’t realize that every single thing that goes into their mouths has been handled by any number of nameless people first.

The minute we got there I could tell something was wrong. I don’t know how else to express it – something wrong.

When I picture it now, I see people lying on the floor, like black amoebas. I can’t recall their faces or facial expressions. The thing that sticks in my mind is black amoebas writhing about on the floor.

The thing I remember most is the anxiety I felt. I was the one who had pushed the switch to set all that in motion. A train of action suddenly moving at high speed. If anything, that frightened me more than when I had entered the house. Whatever had happened in there became acknowledged fact, and the world was reacting to it because of me. The way I see it, it was like a merry-go-round had started, spinning faster and faster, and though I was the one who had started it, I was instantly left behind. I’m not someone who ordinarily initiates action.

But I did have one thought about the whole affair. The way I see it is, it was inevitable. Yes, that’s the sum of my thoughts on it. Inevitable.

We understand instinctively that invisibility is the best strategy for survival.

Because being visible carries appalling risk. Conversely, however, those who want to set themselves apart from others actively seek to become visible. That house was visible. And so were the people who lived in it.

But there’s a fine line between respect and contempt, admiration and jealousy.

But the way I see it, is that she was symbolic of that family at the time, because the people who waited on her were literally invisible, in all senses of the word.

Of course I admired her. You’d walk on air too if you could play chess with such a beauty. She was bewitching – intelligent and graceful. Simply being in her presence put you under her spell. Everybody was her servant. You couldn’t help but marvel at the existence of a person like that. To sit down opposite her made me as happy as I’d ever been.

The Aosawa family was a product of invisible people who desired its existence. Which is exactly why this was inevitable. Nothing in this world is as we would wish it to be.

But my sister didn’t quite fit that category either. She wanted to be someone else. Literally. That gave me an uncomfortable feeling.

Come to think of it, the day of the murders was the last time the three of us ever all played together. I know that can’t actually be right, but setting out for that house is the only memory that comes to mind of the three of us doing something together. Siblings really are a mystery.

My sister wanted to understand one person alone. When she said she wanted to become someone else, she meant a specific person. The only person who committed the crime. The murderer who sent the poisoned drink and indiscriminately killed so many people.

In his mind’s eye he could see Toshi’s handsome profile, visible beneath the shade of his cap. He was sure of it; his uncle’s eyes were like this too: old beyond his years. Still eyes suffused with torment and uneasiness, as if he alone bore the weight of the whole world on his shoulders.

The Young Master felt a sense of déjà vu. He might well be one of those children, and the tiny garden filled with soft sunshine a corner of heaven where he used to play with Uncle Toshi. But unlike his uncle, this man did not appear to be especially engaged with the children. Though he smiled at them as they milled at his feet chattering among themselves, his expression was remote and hinted at sorrow. Unexpectedly, his appearance brought the word saint to the Young Master’s mind.

“He seems to be interested in Buddha statuary rather than Buddha’s teachings. In particular the Urna. You know, the dot that represents a third eye on the forehead in Buddhist images? That’s what seems to attract him most.”

The sound of the rain increased in volume until the radio next to the cash register became inaudible. All the while, however, there was a quiet, still space inside the Young Master’s head, where that cool young man walked in tranquillity, moving steadily, all alone, caged in by the rain.

Another thing about him was he didn’t change his attitude just because you were a kid. Kids know instinctively when someone treats them as an equal. That’s why he was popular with them.

Sometimes he said some weird things, but he was never scary or twisted. He was more the dreamy type, off in his own world. The type to get hurt rather than hurt anybody else. More likely to be bullied than bully somebody.

Yeah, sometimes he’d be talking and suddenly jerk, then look at the ceiling or out the window for a moment. If I asked what was up, he’d say, “There’s a voice.” I told him he was hearing things, but he’d say no, and shake his head. Then he’d say, always with a dead serious look, “I hear the flower’s voice.”

“White,” he said once. “Beautiful, white flowers. In full bloom. Lots and lots of them.” That’s all he ever said.

But when I look back now, there’s one thing I’m sure of. He was set up. I know it. Uh, the real culprit? No doubt about it. A woman.

Uh, before then he seemed kinda insecure. Like a leaf in a puddle, spinning in circles, with nothing to focus his life on – if you wanna get poetic. Battered by the elements, even. Hah, that’s a good one too. But you know, in that time before the murders he seemed different, like he’d found a purpose in life.

But you know, the strange feeling I had when I stood outside that door stayed with me. It was like the Big Brother I knew wasn’t in there any more.

Then out of the blue I heard a voice say, “In that case, go and die.”

“Look, everything’s gone all hushed again. It’s unusual to last this long.” “In Spain they say ‘an angel passed by’.” “Really? What a lovely expression. Does it mean a quiet moment like this?”

I could hear some kind of background noise, which I had noticed from the first but was unable to identify, although it crossed my mind that she may have been speaking outside. In that brief period of silence, however, it suddenly struck me what the sound was. The sound of waves. The woman must be calling from somewhere very close to the sea. And for the life of me I cannot say why, but at that moment I had an image of the ocean on the Hokuriku coast.

There are also people walking around down there with the seeds of ideas in their heads that have not yet germinated into words on the page. I always feel heartened to look out of this office window onto a street lined with second-hand bookshops.

There is an old saying to the effect that when an elderly person dies a library disappears.

It was my feeling that a woman wrote the letter. There was something about the writing and choice of words that did not seem quite masculine to me.

But in that moment, I did think it conceivable that she had an idea of the perpetrator’s identity. She appeared to think it over for a while and then spoke again, in a manner that suggested the thought had only just occurred to her: “The person who wrote this letter is in darkness.”

Then she pointed at the letter. “Look at the second half. ‘The song that rises to my lips / The insects of the woods crushed beneath my shoes in the morning.’ See how it continues, ‘And this tiny heart of mine ceaselessly pumping blood.’ I think these are sounds the writer hears.” “Sounds?” I asked her, then reread the poem. “Don’t you think the writer is describing what he or she is hearing, not seeing?”

“Point taken,” I told her. Then I put it to her that the long ago dawn in the first half suggested a visual sensation. Once again she shook her head in answer. “Before that comes the word shivering. Which suggests that this writer senses changes in time and the nearing of dawn, through changes in the temperature. A person in darkness perceives the passage of time through their skin.” Once she had said that much, even I could see who she suspected. The girl who survived, the one who had lost the light.

She had a certain aura, as if there were a grey mist hanging over her that warded off anything more than superficial interaction. I always felt slightly uneasy when speaking with her.

In one sense, something can only be recognized as having happened if there is a record of it.

In fact, if I’m really precise it was the first time I came face to face with her – in the hospital. That’s the moment. My zero hour.

If my life were a book, the thickest section, the one with the most dog-eared pages, would be the one about that case. The spine would be bent from being opened to those pages so often. And the book would always fall open to that place.

All I can say is I knew the moment I laid eyes on her. I could feel a kind of transparent malice, exactly the same as I found at the scene of the crime – that’s all.

When I look back now on that case, I think of the moment I met her in hospital as my zero hour, and the rest was simply footwork, plodding the streets in the heat. Fed up, knowing it was useless, but not knowing what else to do. That summer I nearly lost heart.

I suspect a part of me still walks those summer city streets. Sometimes that’s what it feels like.

The existence of that delivery slip was evidence of an accomplice. I maintained that considering the mental state of the man who had actually carried out the crime, the main culprit must be tied in with that somewhere.

She was already back at home by then, without her family of course. I still think about it sometimes. I wonder if in truth she really could see. I couldn’t help thinking that, and I know a few other people who thought the same. That day was no exception.

When I opened the door, there she was, standing there, waiting in the entrance hall as if she’d seen me coming. And she called me by name before I could give it myself.

It was a piece called the Dream Path, two cranes joined at the stomach and facing each other, as though one has landed on a lake and sees its own reflection. I explained this to her and she felt it to check the shape for herself. Then she looked at me with a smile. “Detective, we’re like these cranes, aren’t we,” she said.

After a bit she asked if I thought people’s dreams are connected. I told her that the dreams of people who are thinking about each other are.

You’re always seeing places you know are new, but you can’t quite remember what used to be there before.

Heaven’s vengeance is slow but sure. Lately that saying often pops into my head.

I believe what she said the last time we met. That we’re like those two origami cranes.

It’s true, we are alike. The way we think and see things. Our actions mirror each other’s, like the two cranes facing one another. In a sense, we think of each other more than anyone else in the world. There’s a part of her that I understand better than anyone else in the world. That’s why we connect in our dreams.