The Gate of Sorrows (19 page)

Not far from Shinjuku National Garden was a small neighborhood of old apartment houses built of reinforced concrete. House of Light occupied the first floor of what was probably the oldest building in the area. Perhaps it had once been a large shop. The listing on the residents’ directory simply said
HOUSE OF LIGHT CHILDREN’S ASSOCIATION
.

Kotaro had expected House of Light to have security. Religious groups often did. He was wrong. The doors were wide open. Outside on the step, a tall, heavyset man was smiling and talking to an older man in a windbreaker and cap. A battered pickup was parked at the curb. The cargo bed had a canopy and was piled high with vegetables in cardboard boxes. The old man was selling them out of his truck.

“See you soon, then.” The old man touched his cap and got into the truck. The heavyset man called to him from the steps.

“Everyone’s looking forward to it. Give my regards to your family.”

The old man waved. Kotaro watched from the other side of the narrow street as the truck pulled away. When he looked back at the man standing on the step, their eyes met.

“Hello there,” he said amiably. “Are you a student? Live around here? We’re having a little neighborhood get-together here tomorrow. If you have time, why don’t you join us?” That must’ve been what he was chatting about with the greengrocer.

Kotaro felt a sudden inspiration. Kenji had been here. If that sketch was important to him, he must have found his way here. And he must have spoken to this same man.

It’s a lead. I have a real lead. It reached out and found me.

“Sorry to trouble you.” Kotaro bowed and crossed the street. “I’m actually looking for someone, a friend of mine. He seems to be missing.”

He had to show the man Kenji’s sketch. He took his laptop out of its case. “Let me show you something. My friend sent this last month on the thirtieth. Right now this is the only clue I have to go on.”

The man interrupted him. “Let’s not stand out here. Come on in.”

“You don’t mind?”

“Not at all. Please.”

He seemed genuinely friendly. Kotaro should have been grateful, but then again he wondered if it was smart for the man to welcome a stranger. Kotaro might have been a pedophile. He had a younger sister, which made him sensitive to things like this.

The first-floor office was spacious. There was an area with office furniture and cabinets, but the center of the floor was empty. It was big enough to hold a small gathering.

Kotaro peered around the room and saw an array of twenty or more sketches on the wall. The pictures were colorful and full of life, except for one.

It was gray and black, with a touch of dark green. There was no mistake.

“I should introduce myself. I’m responsible for the association. My name is Masao Ohba.” The man offered Kotaro his card. Kotaro hastily retrieved his student ID.

“Kotaro Mishima, is it? I’m pleased to meet you.” He bowed. Coming from him it was a big bow. His card was simple and unadorned:

MASAO OHBA

CHAIRMAN, CHILDREN’S ASSOCIATION

HOUSE OF LIGHT

House of Light was one of the newest of the Buddhist sects in Japan. Kotaro had checked out their web page; it seemed like a legitimate organization with a gentle, friendly feel. Its three thousand members probably made it a medium-size group of its type.

“I’m sorry to show up suddenly like this,” Kotaro said. “There wasn’t much about the association on your web page. I was in the area, so I decided to just come over.”

Masao nodded. “We try to put as much information as possible on the site, but we have to be careful when it comes to the children.”

“I totally understand,” Kotaro said. “Please don’t worry about me. I’m just interested in that picture over there of the winged figure—that birdman, or whatever you call it.”

Kotaro pointed to the sketch. Masao strode over to the wall and stood close to it, almost protectively. “This was one of the pictures in our Little Artists exhibit at the post office. It ran for ten days from the twentieth.” Masao furrowed his brow slightly. “Another young man about your age was here, asking about this picture. A week ago, maybe. Is he the friend you’re looking for?”

Yes!

“I think so. Did he tell you his name?”

“Kenji Morinaga.”

Everything was falling into place. Kotaro could barely control his excitement. “He must’ve been here on the thirtieth,” he said. “He took the picture at three, so it would’ve been after that.”

“Yes. Now that you remind me, I think it was around four.”

The post office had closed at five on the thirtieth. After that, someone from the post office arrived with the pictures. Kenji had waited and examined it himself before leaving. By then it was almost seven in the evening.

“The Sakae Post Office lends out their front windows for exhibits like this. It’s free—if your application gets picked. A lot of people want to exhibit during the Christmas season, so we were lucky this time.”

Masao must have noticed that Kotaro was itching to talk about more important things. He turned to the picture and detached it from the wall. “Be careful with this.” Kotaro accepted it reverently.

He began examining it closely. It was certainly the sketch Kenji had seen. The long hair was easier to see, and the fact that the figure was facing away.

“You’re devouring that picture with your eyes just like your friend did,” Masao said.

“This is supposed to be hair, isn’t it? A human with the wings of a bird. The lines in the background are probably the wind blowing by.”

“I think it’s rain.”

Kotaro looked up from the sketch. “Is that what the artist said?”

“No, that was Kenji’s theory. He thought it looked like a downpour.”

As though he realized he didn’t have to keep standing, Masao pulled up a chair and clasped his hands in his lap. He peered at Kotaro.

“Let me ask you something. Are you and your friend really students?”

What’s this, all of a sudden?

“Sure—I mean, of course we are.”

“Is that all you are? Kenji said he worked at Kumar.”

Kotaro was surprised that Kenji would have disclosed that much. “You’ve heard of Kumar?”

“It’s well-known in its industry. The president is a woman. That’s unusual.”

“Yes. Kenji was there when I joined.”

Masao kept staring at Kotaro thoughtfully. “What is your real purpose here? Are you sure someone didn’t ask you to get information about us?”

Kotaro blinked in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

Masao lowered his gaze and frowned. “If you two really have the skills to work at Kumar, you could dig up anything if you really wanted. Couldn’t you?” His tone implied that Kotaro knew exactly what he was talking about. “We work with a company like Kumar. They monitor what people say about us on the web. Religious organizations are easily misunderstood. We try to be careful, but if someone with an ax to grind wants to spread lies, there’s not a lot we can do.”

“I think you misunderstand, Mr. Ohba. Kenji and I do work for Kumar. Kenji’s specialty is unofficial school websites. We’re part-timers, but we get the same strict training as full-time employees.”

Masao was silent.

“I’m not surprised you’re suspicious about the way we suddenly showed up here, but neither of us are looking for skeletons in your closet. We’re not that kind of people.”

Masao’s expression was still wary. “I wonder why your friend is missing?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m looking for him.”

“Maybe because he had something juicy and took off with it? Took it to a higher bidder?”

“Something … juicy?”

Kotaro was stuck. This was not going well. He’d have to tell Masao everything. If Kenji gave him a hard time later for being loose-lipped, he’d just have to deal with it. He’d had enough of going in circles trying to gain this man’s trust.

“Mr. Ohba, I’m going to tell you everything. Could you just listen?”

Kotaro told Masao everything that had happened so far. The office was quiet. The phone didn’t ring. No one came to the door.

“I don’t know …”

Masao drew his hand slowly down over his face and looked at it for a long moment, as if he were expecting to find something there. Finally he dropped it into his lap. “All those people vanishing … it’s eerie, isn’t it?” He looked genuinely unsettled. “I hope nothing’s happened to your friend.”

He finally seemed to understand. He was more in tune with Kotaro’s feelings than Seigo or Narita had been.

“I apologize for being so suspicious. It’s just that I have my own reasons for being cautious. Religious organizations often find it difficult to gain people’s trust. If we step out of line for any reason, the media is right there to beat us up. House of Light is not a big organization, and we do have some internal differences of opinion.”

“Still, you seem pretty open,” Kotaro said. “You had that exhibit at the post office. And that greengrocer just now. You’re having an open house for the neighborhood.”

Masao laughed wryly. “We try. We have to stay very close to the local community.” He scratched his head awkwardly. “So when your friend Kenji came to the door, he seemed very sincere. Lots of students live around here. I thought he might’ve had an apartment in the neighborhood.”

Masao had been friendly to Kotaro from the start, too. He was trying to be friendly to everyone.

“I understand why you’d be suspicious, with me and Kenji showing up like this, asking strange questions about this picture. This was done by a child of one of your members, I guess. Could I meet this child? If I can’t talk to him directly, could you introduce me to his guardian? I really need to get more information. It may give me a hint, even a small one, about where Kenji is. Please.” Kotaro placed his palms flat on the table and bowed deeply.

“I’m sorry,” Masao said, nonplussed by this request. “I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

Kotaro looked up. Masao’s face was contorted into an expression of genuine discomfort. “The artist is a little girl. She’s only five.”

So the sketch was by a preschooler after all.

“She lived with her mother, just the two of them. They were very poor. The mother died of pneumonia without ever seeing a doctor. To make things worse, their utilities were cut off. The girl didn’t even know her mother had died. They found her hungry and cold in an apartment without gas, electricity, or water.”

Kotaro was stunned. “When did this happen?”

“They found her on December 6. They think her mother passed away sometime early on the fifth.”

The little girl had spent the night of the fifth huddled next to her mother, not realizing she was dead, in a room without light or heat.

“The power was off. The meter reader was worried about them. When he went round to check, no one answered the door.”

The meter reader contacted the landlord. When they entered the apartment, they found the little girl.

That is the way of the world. No matter how much you might worry about someone, without the right or the qualifications to help them, you can’t go breaking down the locked doors of cheap apartments. Yet without the formalities that stand in the way of rescuing someone, people can’t be safe. That’s life in the city.

“Where’s the child now? Is someone taking care of her?”

Masao looked uncomfortable again. “Fortunately they were able to contact her father. But he’s unwilling to take the child back. It’s not surprising. He runs a busy bar—” As if it sufficed to answer Kotaro’s question, Masao finished the sentence by scrunching up his round nose.

“If things end there, the child will end up in an orphanage. But the landlord took pity on her. He probably feels guilty that he didn’t realize what was going on. He could’ve done something.” The only thing to do was for the landlord to care for the little girl until her father could be persuaded to take responsibility for her. “The apartment is in Ida, but the landlord lives near here. He’s one of our members.”

So that’s why you know so much about the little girl.

“So if I ask the landlord, can I meet her?”

“I’m sorry, I told you. It’s impossible.” His face darkened. “You see, she hasn’t uttered a word since she was found.”

The little girl was being taken care of and her health had improved. But she was mute—and most of the time, expressionless.

“Is that because of the shock of losing her mother?”

“Well, that has to be part of it, but apparently that’s not the only reason. She never attended nursery school or kindergarten. She had no contact at all with the outside world, so her communication skills never developed. She should be much more communicative for a five-year-old. But she loves to draw. Give her crayons and a sketchbook and she’ll draw all day.”

Kotaro looked at the sketch of the birdman with its long hair and imagined the little girl drawing.

“She keeps drawing the same thing, over and over.”

“What?” Kotaro looked up.

“It’s all she draws. I’ve seen four or five of these pictures myself.”

“She must’ve seen something that made an impression on her. Or something that frightened her. She’s only five. Something on television, or in a picture book.”

“No one knows. She won’t say a word.”

The children’s association was working with the landlord to get the child to start speaking, but so far nothing they’d tried had been successful.

“Did you tell all this to Kenji?”

“He was very inquisitive, but no, I didn’t tell him. All I said was that a child of one of our members had drawn it.”

So Kenji had left empty-handed.

“He said something interesting, though.” Masao touched the edge of the sketch gently with a fingertip. “He said he thought this was a straightforward depiction of something the girl had actually seen.”

Kotaro’s eyes opened wide. “She saw this?”

“I was surprised too. But once he mentioned it, I have to say I tend to agree. Look at the pose. Five-year-old children always draw facing figures.”

“But don’t they say that if children suffer some kind of trauma, it might be reflected in what they draw? A child like that might draw anything.”