Locked Doors

あの夢この夢　君にみえるかな

青い花を咲かすノヴァーリスのトビラを

明日が生まれるのは僕ら次第だって

世界がつながるよ 

「君の思い描いた夢 集メル HEAVEN」（Garnet Crow）

Can you see it in all of your dreams /

The Door of Novalis where the blue flower blooms

It is up to us to create tomorrow

Our worlds are connected

"The MÄR HEAVEN Where We Collect Your Dreams" (Garnet Crow)

There are quite some Japanese mystery stories with titles based on And Then There Were None, now I think about it. More than in English, I even suspect.

Two men and two women wake up to find themselves locked inside a nuclear bomb shelter. The last thing each of them remember is having tea with the mother of their friend Sakiko, who died three months ago in a car accident. Sakiko had invited her two friends, and their boyfriends for a triple date to the holiday villa of Sakiko's family (one of the boyfriends couldn't make it, so they ended up with five people). A big row between the friends resulted in Sakiko leaving the villa in her car, which was later found beneath a cliff. Sakiko's body was only retrieved from the sea much later, and the police deemed it an unfortunate car accident. It appears however Sakiko's mother disagrees with the police, as one can guess from the fact that she has taken her daughter's four friends prisoner as well as the message "You Killed Her" painted on the walls. The four friends think Sakiko's mother has gone out of her mind and try to escape the shelter, but as they talk about Sakiko's death, they realize that their assumptions about her demise might be horribly wrong in Okajima Futari's Soshite Tobira ga Tozasareta ("And Then The Door Was Closed", 1987).

Okajima Futari is the pen-name of a writing duo consisting of Inoue Izumi and Tokuyama Junichi, who wrote mystery novels together between 1981 and 1989 until they disbanded again. The name is derived from okashina futari, or "Two curious people". I had never read any of Okajima's novels before, though the few novels published have been received quite well by the Japanese mystery community and even experimented a bit with the genre, as they also wrote a mystery gamebook in 1986. Soshite Tobira ga Tozasareta is one of their later works.

In theory, I should've liked this novel a lot more than I actually do. The closed circle setting, where a group of people (among them the culprit) is isolated from the outside world is a a classic trope of mystery fiction, and for a good reason. The core mystery plot is combined with suspense elements as we know the murderer is among the group, and that any of them might fall victim without a chance to escape from their predicament. Many of the books I discuss here (especially Japanese ones, now I think about it) use this setting. Soshite Tobira ga Tozasareta at first seems to go the traditional way by locking everybody up in a bomb shelter, but this time, the characters are forced to think about a case that happened in the past, with no direct danger threatening the group. The setting is a highly original one (strangely enough, it's not the first time I've seen it in mystery fiction), and as time passes by, you can really feel how tense the atmosphere must be inside the small rooms, with the pressure building as each of the characters starts to doubt the others.

As the story is set inside the shelter from start to finish, the four characters are forced to rely on their memories of the day Sakiko died, occassionally helped by some "useful" objects they find inside the shelter that are also connected to the case. The book is thus completely built around the discussions the four characters have, and the deductions and recollections they have as they put their minds together. Ocassionally something mentioned by one person will help the memory of someone else, or one character remembers seeing the other acting awfully suspicious, etcetera. As the story progresses, what appeared to be an accident will take on the form of murder, and while I wouldn't say the plot is bad, it's also not especially engaging or exciting. The four recall things, talk a bit, fight a bit, and repeat. The revelations made are never shocking. In fact, it takes ages for the story to really move (it's probably only around the halfway point when you get enough material to deduce yourself), and everything up to that point is more filling in blanks in the tale, as each of the characters look back at the day of the accident. As for the truth that is revealed in the latter half of the book, it's a bit predictable.

What I myself really did not like however were the four characters, and especially the protagonist. While not in equal measures, I'd say each of them are in fact horribly selfish and selfishly horrible people and none of this would've happened if any of them had acted in a more decent way towards each other. None of them even needed to be good people, they just needed to be more thoughtful of each other to avoid all of this! The story has a rather melodramatic streak to it, with love triangles and more, but it kinda falls flat with this cast, as each time you learn more about the group, you realize how being just ever so slightly more considerate to the others would've resulted in well, an outcome without any death at all, and at least more persons with some happiness. Note also that these four are the only characters who appear in person in the book (other people only appear in flashbacks), and the whole story is driven by the conversations between the four, you may imagine how each page made it even more difficult for me to continue with this cast of characters.

So my first experience with Okajima Futari was not a particularly good one. Soshite Tobira ga Tozasareta has an original setting, but a mediocre plot, and horrible characters who are also sadly the focal element of the story, as everything is built around their conversations and interactions. I understand that the whole book is plotted around the fact that these four characters are being held prisoner, but I think I would've enjoyed the plot better without this plot device, without me having to deal with these characters all the time. Being locked up with them from start to finish can really drive a reader insane.

Original Japanese title(s): 岡嶋二人　『そして扉が閉ざされた』