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CHAPTER 19
Aomame
WOMEN SHARING A SECRET
“The Little People?” Aomame asked gently, peering at the girl. “Tell us, who are
these ‘Little People’?”
But having pronounced only those few words, Tsubasa’s mouth clamped shut
again. As before, her eyes had lost all depth, as though the effort of speaking the
words had exhausted most of her energy.
“Somebody you know?” Aomame asked.
Again no answer.
“She has mentioned those words several times before,” the dowager said. “ ‘The
Little People.’ I don’t know what she means.”
The words had an ominous ring, a subtle overtone that Aomame sensed like the
sound of distant thunder.
She asked the dowager, “Could these ‘Little People’ have been the ones who
injured her?”
The dowager shook her head. “I don’t know. But whatever they are, the ‘Little
People’ undoubtedly carry great significance for her.”
Hands resting side by side atop the table, the girl sat utterly still, her opaque eyes
staring at a fixed point in space.
“What in the world could have happened to her?” Aomame asked.
The dowager replied almost coolly, “There is observable evidence of rape.
Repeated rape. Terrible lacerations on the outer lips of her vagina, and injury to the
uterus. An engorged adult male sex organ penetrated her small uterus, which is still
not fully mature, largely destroying the area where a fertilized egg would become
implanted. The doctor thinks she will probably never be able to become pregnant.”
The dowager appeared almost intentionally to be discussing these graphic details
in the girl’s presence. Tsubasa listened without comment and without any perceptible
change of expression. Her mouth showed slight movements now and then but emitted
no sound. She almost seemed to be listening out of sheer politeness to a conversation
about a stranger far away.
“And that is not all,” the dowager continued quietly. “Even if some procedure
managed to restore the function of her uterus, the girl will probably never want to
have sex with anyone. A good deal of pain must have accompanied any penetration
that could cause such terrible damage, and it was done to her repeatedly. The memory
of that much pain won’t simply fade away. Do you see what I mean?”
Aomame nodded. Her fingers were tightly intertwined atop her knees.
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“In other words, the eggs prepared inside her have nowhere to go. They—” the
dowager glanced at Tsubasa and went on, “have already been rendered infertile.”
Aomame could not tell how much of this Tsubasa understood. Whatever her mind
was able to grasp, her living emotions appeared to be somewhere else. They were not
here, at least. Her heart seemed to have been shut up inside a small, dark room with a
locked door, a room located in another place.
The dowager went on, “I am not saying that a woman’s only purpose in life is to
bear children. Each individual is free to choose the kind of life she wants to lead. It is
simply not permissible for someone to rob her by force of her innate right as a woman
before she has the opportunity to exercise it.”
Aomame nodded in silence.
“Of course it is not permissible,” the dowager repeated. Aomame noticed a slight
quaver in her voice. She was obviously finding it difficult to keep her emotions in
check. “This child ran away, alone, from a certain place. How she was able to manage
it, I do not know. But she has nowhere else to go but here. Nowhere else is safe for
her.”
“Where are her parents?”
The dowager scowled and tapped the tabletop with her fingernails. “We know
where her parents are. But they are the ones who allowed this terrible thing to happen.
They are the ones she ran away from.”
“You’re saying that the parents approved of having their own daughter raped?”
“They not only approved of it, they encouraged it.”
“But why would anyone …?” Aomame could not find the words to go on.
The dowager shook her head. “I know, it’s terrible. Such things should never be
allowed to happen. But the situation is a difficult one. This is not a simple case of
domestic violence. The doctor said we have to report it to the police, but I asked him
not to. He’s a good friend, so I managed to convince him to hold off.”
“But why didn’t you want to report it to the police?” Aomame asked.
“This child was clearly the victim of a savage, inhuman act. Moreover, it was a
heinous crime that society should punish with severe criminal penalties,” the dowager
said. “But even if we were to report it to the police, what could they do? As you see,
the child herself can hardly speak. She can’t properly explain what happened or what
was done to her. And even if she were able to, we have no way to prove it. If we
handed her over to the police, she might just be sent back to her parents. There is no
place else for her to go, and they
do
have parental rights. Once she was back with
them, the same thing would probably be done to her again. We cannot let that
happen.”
Aomame nodded.
“I am going to raise her myself,” the dowager declared. “I will not send her
anywhere. I don’t care who comes for her—her parents or anyone—I will not give her
up. I will hide her somewhere else and take charge of her upbringing.”
Aomame sat for a while, looking back and forth between the dowager and the girl.
“So, then, can we identify the man who committed such sexual violence against
this child? Was it one man?” Aomame asked.
“We can identify him. He was the only one.”
“But there’s no way to take him to court?”
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“He is a very powerful man,” the dowager said. “He can exert his influence on
people directly. This girl’s parents were under his influence. And they still are. They
do whatever he orders them to do. They have no individual character, no powers of
judgment of their own. They take his word as the absolute truth. So when he tells
them they must give him their daughter, they cannot refuse. Far from it, they do his
bidding without question and hand her over gladly, knowing full well what he plans to
do to her.”
It took Aomame some time to comprehend what the dowager was telling her. She
set her mind to work on the problem and put things in order.
“Is this a special group you are talking about?”
“Yes, indeed, a special group that shares a sick and narrow spirit.”
“A kind of cult, you mean?” Aomame asked.
The dowager nodded. “Yes, a particularly vicious and dangerous cult.”
Of course. It could only be a cult. People who do whatever they are ordered to do.
People without individual character or powers of judgment.
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