Cult X Read online

  He made one loop around the building. I am walking now, Narazaki thought. Walking, without paying attention to anything. How can I walk this way? Like my heart and other organs just keep moving on their own. Like they’re strangers wriggling in my body. Narazaki took a deep breath. What am I thinking? It’s because of that gate—it’s messed up my mind.

  He was here to find out what he could about Ryoko Tachibana.

  He was back in front of the gate. It was still too big. Just as he was about to open it, he noticed the intercom. His finger reached toward the button. He wasn’t ready. What will happen if this is a cult? Maybe they’ll lock me up. His pulse quickened. Maybe I’ll be brainwashed and go mad. Maybe I’ll wind up one of those paranoid nut jobs without even realizing I’ve been brainwashed into acting that way. Narazaki pressed the button. He heard a dull chime. I pushed it. It’s too late now.

  “Yes?” It was the voice of a middle-aged woman. Not what Narazaki had expected.

  “Is Shotaro Matsuo in?”

  “To whom am I speaking?”

  Narazaki’s body tensed up. No going back now.

  “My name’s Toru Narazaki. I’m . . . I’m not really anyone.”

  If I ask where Ryoko Tachibana is right away, they probably won’t tell me. I’ll just pretend I’m interested in their group, and ask about her a little at a time. I’m not going to join them or anything. Narazaki realized he was smiling.

  “Not anyone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you’re not with the media?”

  “No. If you want, you can look through my things.”

  “You need to see the old man—I mean, Matsuo-san—about something?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a pause, and then the gate finally opened from the inside. Three people came to meet Narazaki: a middle-aged man and woman and a younger woman. Narazaki had imagined they’d all be dressed in white shrouds or something, but all three were wearing normal clothes. The middle-aged woman had on an apron printed with Rilakkuma, the brown cartoon bear. Narazaki was a bit surprised.

  “Please, come in.”

  Narazaki entered. On the other side of the gate was a large open space. Faintly blue gravel covered the ground, which was scattered with stepping stones. It looks like a Shinto shrine, Narazaki thought. But there were no torii gates. There was also a large pond, but there didn’t seem to be any koi.

  The middle-aged woman in the Rilakkuma apron said, “I’m sorry for asking, but you really aren’t with the media?”

  “No. I’m just curious about your religion.”

  “Religion?” asked the middle-aged man. There was a little white in his short-cropped hair, but the expression on his face was youthful. “Well, we don’t practice any religion here.”

  “You don’t?”

  “It’s hard to explain,” the younger woman said. “Do you want to learn about healing power?”

  “Healing power?” Narazaki asked. He was a bit surprised.

  “You’re not interested in that? Well then, we should start with his talks.”

  “Yeah, that’s a good idea.” The middle-aged man laughed at Narazaki’s confusion. “We can let him inside the house, can’t we? He doesn’t look like he’ll cause any harm.”

  Several people were sitting on the wooden veranda that ringed the mansion. Narazaki felt their stares as he was led from the gate into the house. Is this okay? Narazaki wondered. How are they letting me through so easily? He had no choice but to follow.

  The mansion was large but old, and, compared to the exterior, the inside was unimpressive. Narazaki was taken to a spacious tatami sitting room at least forty square meters in size. Its stillness seemed to be in direct proportion to its size. He took a seat on a cushion.

  “Your name was Toru Narazaki, right? I’m Yoshida,” said the middle-aged man.

  “My name is Mineno, and the woman in the apron is Tanaka-san,” the young woman added. Mineno had thin eyes. She was beautiful.

  “Where did you hear about us?”

  “From a friend.”

  “A friend? Ah, I see.”

  What did she see? He had hoped they would press him further. He had answers prepared for them.

  The young woman spoke again. “I know you went out of your way to come here, but I’m sorry to say Matsuo-san isn’t in.”

  “He’s not here?”

  “No. He’s been sick.”

  Yoshida laughed. “It’s funny, right? The man heals others, but then goes and gets sick! And on top of that, he can’t use his healing powers on himself, so he winds up in a university hospital, getting treated with Western medicine!”

  “Shut up!” Mineno told Yoshida. But she was holding back her laughter, too.

  What was going on? They were laughing at their leader getting sick?

  “We should explain,” Mineno said. “Healing power is mostly just a joke. Matsuo-san doesn’t really think he can heal people.” She smiled. “And it’s a bit strange for us to let you in even though he’s in the hospital, but we have a rule to not send anyone away.”

  “How much do you know about this place?” asked Yoshida, as the woman with the Rilakkuma apron came in, carrying tea.

  Narazaki thanked her. He still didn’t have the courage to say what he wanted. “Honestly, I don’t know much.”

  “That’s impressive, showing up without knowing anything,” Yoshida said, laughing. “So, shall we tell you a little about this place? Don’t get your hopes up. We’re not a religion, so we can’t be sure we’ll meet your expectations. The people who’ve shown up lately have come expecting too much. We have to make sure they don’t get disappointed and cause any trouble.”

  Here was what they told him.

  Shotaro Matsuo, the owner of the mansion, often meditated alone in his garden.

  Long ago, there were no walls, and passersby could see him meditating. He was known in the neighborhood as a weird old man. No one knew about his past, or even if he’d always lived there. It seemed he had just appeared one day in this old mansion that everyone had assumed was abandoned.

  One day, an old woman suffering from an inexplicable pain in her legs stopped by. She asked Matsuo to pray over her. Even doctors couldn’t figure out what was causing the pain, so she visited every faith healer she could, but she saw no improvement. “You’re always sitting here, meditating,” she said. “You might have some kind of power. Won’t you pray for my legs, just to see?”

  Matsuo was surprised, and said he didn’t have that sort of power, but he invited the old woman into his mansion for tea. Matsuo lived with his wife, Yoshiko. The three of them talked about many things. Both Matsuo and his wife, Yoshiko, sympathized with the woman’s pain. Matsuo tried rubbing the woman’s legs, but nothing happened.

  “Thank you anyway,” the woman said. “Can I come again?”

  The Matsuos nodded. She visited for several weeks, and the woman’s legs began to get better.

  “But, like I told you, don’t get your hopes up. The cause of that woman’s pain was stress,” Yoshida said. “That’s how religious healers have been treating illnesses forever. Sure, there may be some people who have actual powers, but I can tell you that Matsuo-san isn’t one of them. Like Jesus said, faith will save you. That’s at least partially true. There are legends that when Jesus Christ first appeared, he cured tons of sick people. It’s probably true. If you really believed from the bottom of your heart that this man had the power to cure, that he really was the son of God—well. The human body’s ability to cure itself is truly amazing, and stress causes so many ailments. If you’re overcome by emotion from seeing God right in front of you, that emotion may activate something amazing inside you.”

  Yoshida smiled.

  “And I think exorcisms are the same sort of thing. Some exorcists may actually drive out evil spirits, but some j
ust convince the subject that all the stress inside their body is a single spirit that they can banish. Look, I’m not criticizing anyone for their beliefs. As human civilization has progressed, we’ve given up on those methods of healing. We no longer recognize gods and spirits as causes of illness, so we don’t try to activate the body’s own immune system by invoking those things. I’m sure before modern medicine this was an incredibly important form of healing for people.”

  The woman whose legs healed spread Matsuo’s praise through the town. Gradually, people started visiting, then claiming their mysterious heart palpitations and their stiff necks got better. Matsuo continued to tell everyone that he didn’t have any special power, but his insistence began to offend the people who believed in him. Matsuo truly wanted everyone to get better, so he found himself in a dilemma. He was being made a religious figure against his will.

  Of course, many people didn’t get better. Those who didn’t began to censure Matsuo. It must be awful to not be healed when others are. Matsuo didn’t take money or anything, so there wasn’t too much of a problem. But little by little this organization began to change.

  “Don’t you feel calm here?” Mineno asked.

  Looking at their smiling faces, Narazaki found it more and more difficult to breathe.

  “There are plenty of trees,” Mineno went on, “and with the gravel garden, all the sound gets sucked up. It’s so peaceful, like being at a shrine.”

  “That’s very true,” Narazaki said, his voice emotionless.

  “More and more people started saying that just being here makes them feel good. They said maybe instead of healing power, there’s just something about being here . . . Maybe this place is what they call a power spot. People have even come from other prefectures. They never seem particularly religious. They’re just like, ‘We heard there’s something here.’ Matsuo-san and everyone opened up the garden, and people would say, ‘If you got a torii, it would be just like a shrine.’ Matsuo-san has always had something about him that attracts people. We started holding an event once a month. We set up a bunch of folding chairs and everyone listens to Matsuo-san speak. It’s almost like a natural phenomenon. We’ve been doing it since the end of the bubble, when society seemed so uneasy.”

  Narazaki nodded, although he didn’t really want to hear more about Matsuo.

  Yoshida began speaking again. “Whether you find Matsuo-san’s talks interesting or not, they’re unique. He never says, ‘Believe in this god.’ It’s more like, ‘I wonder if this god’s out there.’ Even young people like the talks, since he’s always questioning. It doesn’t cost anything to attend our gatherings, so it’s rather low pressure.”

  Narazaki nodded again. What should I do? he thought. Why is Ryoko Tachibana involved with this kind of group? He couldn’t see why she had to vanish. He had no interest in the history of this group. It was not the religious fringe organization Narazaki had imagined. He’d hoped to stumble into something wilder, something that would change him completely. Something that would make him lose all concern for morals and ethics and the confused human condition. Something that would obliterate him and the life he had lived until now.

  Narazaki had no business with these kind people. There was no need to listen to these boring stories. There was no need to hesitate anymore. He spoke up. “There’s a woman, Ryoko Tachibana, who I think came here.”

  They all looked at him.

  “What? You’re looking for someone? You didn’t come to hear about Matsuo-san?”

  “Well, that, too. But I’m also looking for this woman.”

  “We wouldn’t know her by that name,” Yoshida said. “There’s no membership or registration system here. And people also use fake names.”

  “This is her,” Narazaki said, taking out a photo. Everyone in the room looked at the picture. It was just a few seconds, but it felt infinitely long to Narazaki. The uneasy silence seemed to make the room grow even larger.

  “This woman?” Yoshida stared at Narazaki. He was no longer smiling. “How do you know this woman?”

  “Wait,” Mineno said, as if to stop Yoshida. But she was clearly unsettled. “I’m sorry, but—are you involved with this woman?”

  What happened? They’re all looking at me. Narazaki took a mindful breath. “It’s a bit difficult to explain our relationship. But I’m looking for her.”

  “Why?” Yoshida asked quietly.

  Should I tell them everything? Will I get tangled up in something strange? Narazaki caught himself smiling. “She ran away.”

  “Ran away? Do you know what kind of person you’re looking for?”

  “What kind of person? What do you mean?”

  “He doesn’t know,” Mineno said to Yoshida. “If he knew about her, he’d know he wouldn’t find her here.”

  “You’re right.”

  The room grew quiet again. The woman in the apron stared at the floor, unsure of what to do.

  “Whatever happens, you should probably listen to what we have to say,” Mineno said. “It’s probably easiest to understand if we explain from the beginning . . . About what happened to Matsuo-san, and the people who came here. I think that will be the easiest way to explain who this woman is . . . And I think you’ll want to hear this.”

  2

  The wind began to blow gently, causing the windows of the sitting room to rattle as if in pain. The air is dry, Narazaki thought. If I lit a fire, I wonder if it would all burn. The pillars, the ceiling, everything holding this mansion together.

  “Yeah, we should start from the beginning,” Mineno said. “It’s pretty complicated . . . You were very serious when you showed us this picture. So we should be serious, too, and explain everything thoroughly.”

  All sorts of people would gather to hear Matsuo-san speak on the second Saturday of every month. Some people were drawn to his personality, but others saw something sacred in him. Most of those people had been involved with some other religion but had lost hope in their various faiths. There were also suffering youths. People who had been failed by their friends, or lovers, or the companies they worked for, or maybe even another religion. There weren’t many, but a few came to study—study how to start their own religion. To use Matsuo’s talks as references for their own sermons. Anyone who had been attending the talks for a long time could spot those types immediately. They were always focused on results, and they had voices that cut right through you. They left unpleasant impressions.

  There was one man who appeared to be in his fifties who called himself Sawatari, but that may not have been his real name. Five years ago, there was an incident at one of Matsuo’s regular Saturday talks. The talks were the most popular they’d ever been. About two hundred people were gathered in the garden. In the middle of speaking, Matsuo suddenly collapsed. Later we learned he’d had a stroke. The moment he fell over, Mineno and the other long-time attendees panicked and rushed to the stage. But from the audience a voice declared that Matsuo had been possessed by god. I’ve seen this before, the voice said. A god has descended upon him.

  Everyone grew frantic. The person who said they’d “seen this before” revealed they meant they’d seen it at a service at another church. Others who were new to the talks misunderstood, and assumed the person meant Matsuo had collapsed before. When some people tried to help Matsu, others shouted, “Don’t get in the way!” and, “If you interrupt he may die.” Some attendees thought the collapse was part of a staged act, that this was proof that we were some shady cult, and they were shouting out of anger and disillusionment. There was total chaos.

  “It was something of a blind spot we had,” Mineno said quietly. She seemed scared. “Since we didn’t get too involved with the participants and simply gathered instead, no one really knew anyone else . . . If we’d had officers to manage the group, it probably would have been easier to handle the situation. And at the time, Matsuo-san’s wife, Yo-chan-san, w
as out . . .”

  Those who tried to rush to Matsuo were stopped by force. Folding chairs collapsed and confusion spread. Thanks to Yoshida, who called an ambulance, medics soon arrived, but some of the audience members tried to stop them from coming in. Fights broke out. The paramedics must have been confused. There was screaming and weeping. But gradually attitudes changed as people realized the old man really had collapsed. Eventually, they managed to get Matsuo on a stretcher.

  Matsuo’s life was saved, but he could no longer move his left arm. If he had made it to the hospital a little sooner, they might have been able to prevent that. But Matsuo didn’t blame anyone. No one had done anything wrong. Those who‘d mistaken what was happening for a spiritual phenomenon—those people who had experienced so much unhappiness and hoped to be saved—they only wished it could be the truth. They saw things the way they did because of their pure desire to be saved by something great. One could even say that Matsuo’s paralyzed left arm was born out of their suffering. “This isn’t enough,” Matsuo later said. “One left arm can’t take on all their suffering. Not that I have the right to do that, anyway.”

  Since that incident five years ago, the talks had changed. Many people were disappointed that Matsuo was not holy, and others put distance between themselves and the group after experiencing that strange disturbance.

  While Matsuo was in the hospital, people still assembled every second Saturday, hung around for a while even though there were no lectures. That’s when Sawatari showed up. He’d watched the uproar when Matsuo collapsed, unmoved. He saw that those frantic people who believed Matsuo had actually been possessed would be easy to manipulate. Yoshida watched from afar as Sawatari made his way among the gathered crowd, talking to people. In less than a half hour, he had collected a group of people who were crying in front of him. That day, Sawatari took about fifty participants with him and vanished. Many of the people who followed him were highly educated. Later they would realize they still had more to learn about him.