The reception room door was still not opening. It was taking quite a bit of time for Eri to boil water and make tea.

Tengo said, “I gather Eri dictated the story Air Chrysalis to Azami. Is that correct?”

“As I said before, Eri and Azami would always shut themselves in their room at night, and I didn’t know what they were doing. They had their secrets. It does seem, however, that at some point, Eri’s storytelling became a major part of their communication. Azami would take notes or record Eri’s story and then type it into the computer in my study. Eri has gradually been recovering her ability to experience emotion since then, I think. Her apathy was like a membrane that covered everything, but that has been fading. Some degree of expression has returned to her face, and she is more like the happy little girl we used to know.”

“So she is on the road to recovery?”

“Well, not entirely. It’s still very uneven. But in general, you’re right. Her recovery may well have begun with her telling of her story.”

Tengo thought about this for a time. Then he changed the subject.

“Did you talk to the police about the loss of contact with Mr. and Mrs. Fukada?”

“Yes, I went to the local police. I didn’t tell them about Eri, but I did say that I had been unable to get in touch with my friends inside for a long time and I feared they were possibly being held against their will. At the time, they said there was nothing they could do. The Sakigake compound was private property, and without clear evidence that criminal activity had taken place there, they were unable to set foot inside. I kept after them, but they wouldn’t listen to me. And then, after 1979, it became truly impossible to mount a criminal investigation inside Sakigake.”

“Something happened in 1979?” Tengo asked.

“That was the year that Sakigake was granted official recognition as a religion.”

Tengo was astounded. “A religion?!”

“I know. It’s incredible. Sakigake was designated a ‘Religious Juridical Person’ under the Religious Corporation Law. The governor of Yamanashi Prefecture officially granted the title. Once it had the ‘Religious Juridical Person’ label, Sakigake became virtually immune to any criminal investigation by the police. Such a thing would be a violation of the freedom of religious belief guaranteed by the Constitution. The Prefectural Police couldn’t touch them.

“I myself was astounded when I heard about this from the police. I couldn’t believe it at first. Even after they showed it to me in writing and I saw it with my own eyes, I had trouble believing it could be true. Fukada was one of my oldest friends. I knew him—his character, his personality. As a cultural anthropologist, my ties with religion were by no means shallow. Unlike me, though, Fukada was a totally political being who approached everything with logic and reason. He had, if anything, a visceral disgust for religion. There was no way he would ever accept a ‘Religious Juridical Person’ designation even if he had strategic reasons for doing so.”

“Obtaining such a designation couldn’t be very easy, either, I would think.”

“That’s not necessarily the case,” the Professor said. “True, you have to go through a lot of screenings and red tape, but if you pull the right political strings, you can clear such hurdles fairly easily. Drawing distinctions between religions and cults has always been a delicate business. There’s no hard and fast definition. Interpretation is everything. And where there is room for interpretation, there is always room for political persuasion. Once you are certified to be a ‘Religious Juridical Person,’ you can get preferential tax treatment and special legal protections.”

“In any case, Sakigake stopped being an ordinary agricultural commune and became a religious organization—a frighteningly closed-off religious organization,” Tengo ventured.

“Yes, a ‘new religion,’ ” the Professor said. “Or, to put it more bluntly, a cult.”

“I don’t get it,” Tengo said. “Something major must have occurred for them to have undergone such a radical conversion.”

The Professor stared at the backs of his hands, which had a heavy growth of kinky gray hair. “You’re right about that, of course,” he said. “I’ve been wondering about it myself for a very long time. I’ve come up with all sorts of possibilities, but no final answers. What could have caused it to happen? But they’ve adopted a policy of such total secrecy, it’s impossible to find out what is going on inside. And not only that, Fukada, who used to be the leader of Sakigake, has never once publicly surfaced since they underwent their conversion.”

“And meanwhile, the Akebono faction ceased to exist after their gun battle three years ago,” Tengo said.

The Professor nodded. “Sakigake survived once they had cut themselves off from Akebono, and now they’re steadily developing as a religion.”

“Which means the gunfight was no great blow to Sakigake, I suppose.”

“Far from it,” the Professor said. “It was good advertising for them. They’re smart. They know how to turn things to their best advantage. In any case, this all happened after Eri left Sakigake. As I said earlier, it has no direct connection with Eri.”

Tengo sensed that the Professor was hoping to change the subject. He asked him, “Have you yourself read Air Chrysalis?”

“Of course,” the Professor answered.

“What did you think of it?”

“It’s a very interesting story,” the Professor said. “Very evocative. Evocative of what, though, I’m not sure, to tell you the truth. I don’t know what the blind goat is supposed to mean, or the Little People, or the air chrysalis itself.”

“Do you think the story is hinting at something that Eri actually experienced or witnessed in Sakigake?”

“Maybe so, but I can’t tell how much is real and how much is fantasy. It seems like a kind of myth, or it could be read as an ingenious allegory.”

“Eri told me the Little People actually exist,” Tengo said.

A thoughtful frown crossed the Professor’s face when he heard this. He asked, “Do you think Air Chrysalis describes things that actually happened?”

Tengo shook his head. “All I’m trying to say is that every detail in the story is described very realistically, and that this is a great strength of the work as a piece of fiction.”

“And by rewriting the story in your own words, with your own style, you are trying to put that something the story is hinting at into a clearer form? Is that it?”

“Yes, if all goes well.”

“My specialty is cultural anthropology,” the Professor said. “I gave up being a scholar some time ago, but I’m still permeated with the spirit of the discipline. One aim of my field is to relativize the images possessed by individuals, discover in these images the factors universal to all human beings, and feed these universal truths back to those same individuals. As a result of this process, people might be able to belong to something even as they maintain their autonomy. Do you see what I’m saying?”

“I think I do.”

“Perhaps that same process is what is being demanded of you.”

Tengo opened his hands on his knees. “Sounds difficult.”

“But it’s probably worth a try.”

“I’m not even sure I’m qualified to do it.”

The Professor looked at Tengo. There was a special gleam in his eye now.

“What I would like to know is what happened to Eri inside Sakigake. I’d also like to know the fate of Fukada and his wife. I’ve done my best over the past seven years to shed light on these questions, but I haven’t managed to grasp a single clue. I always come up against a thick, solid wall standing in my way. The key to unlock the mystery may be hidden in Air Chrysalis. As long as there is such a possibility, however slim, I want to pursue it. I have no idea whether you are qualified to do the job, but I do know that you think highly of the story and are deeply involved in it. Perhaps that is qualification enough.”