Shiki: Volume 2

by Fuyumi Ono

  Tanaka felt like the blood was being drawn from him as he turned the pages of the binder. Before the death in Kami-Sotoba, an old man in Sotoba, was on July 3rd. It was at the Mizobe National Hospital where he died of esophagus cancer, and it had been five months before that without a death.

  Something unusual was happening. Starting at the beginning of August.

  Tanaka gathered the files and called Ishida from the staff members who were having lunch in the locker room. He must have noticed Tanaka's expression, as Ishida's face stiffened as he came out.

  "Ishida-san, here."

  Ishida expressed his thanks and took the pile of copies. Ishida looked at Tanaka's imploring expression.

  "Ishida-san, is something happening?" Tanaka asked in a quiet voice. In the sounds of the rain like an earthly tremor, thunder crashed. "Since the beginning of August, what's happening to this village? Is this what Ishida-san wanted to investigate?"

  "How many people was it?"

  "It's ten."

  Ishida looked over Tanaka's stiff expression. It was far more than he imagined.

  "Tanaka-san, I understand your feelings. But where we're at right now, I can't say anything. At any rate, we are taking appropriate measures."

  "But...."

  Ishida stared into Tanaka's eyes, brimming with fear.

  "Please keep this close to the breast. You understand, don't you? If this leaks out, it will become bigger. In exchange I will tell you of our progress. Just as I've asked you today, from now on can I ask you for copies of any death certificates that come in?"

  Tanaka, swallowing down his breath, nodded.

  "Oh, is it coming down?"

  Hasegawa asked this of the young man who entered the shop.

  Yuuki turned to look at the window. That said, creole had but one window, and it was stained glass. It wasn't one through which you could see the scenery beyond the window but outside of the window was dark. In between the BGM the sounds of the rain striking could be heard.

  "It's turning out to be a real downpour," the young man laughed, putting down his case beside the counter. "Here's the voucher. Is there anything else?"

  Just a moment, Hasegawa said as he headed into the kitchen coming back with a memo.

  "I'll leave this to you. It has the numbers written down. Where's Mikami-kun today?"

  "Mikami-kun's quit. Since he'd moved all of a sudden."

  "Heh? Last week when he came by, he didn't say anything about that."

  The young man nodded. "That's right. It was really sudden. Quitting as suddenly as that was a burden on everyone, actually."

  "I'd bet," Hasegawa said, throwing away the packing tape. "Things being what they are. Be careful driving back."

  Thank you, the young man said flashing white teeth and leaving the store. As the door opened and closed, the sound of the rainfall drifted in even more strongly.

  "It is coming down hard," Yuuki said as Hasegawa, case in hand, turned his eye to the window.

  "It's been so humid. With this it should start to cool off some. About time, I say."

  "It will be nice if it does," Hirosawa said with a wry smile. "Until now we've missed out on the rain after all."

  Hirosawa was at the counter with an open text book and notebook. It was August twenty fourth. He must have been preparing for the new school term. Beside him, as usual the bookstore owner Tashiro was having a late lunch.

  "Really," Hasegawa said with an exaggerated sigh. "I wonder what to make of this year's summer season. Not much rain, oppressive heat. Heatstroke was it, I believe? Somebody in Mizobe had died of it. A person working at the JA warehouse had died, it said in the newspaper."

  Yuuki's face scrunched without thinking. The word dead, in regards to a person, somehow hit close to him. Just the day before, he had just come out of the funeral service for his mourning group for Gotouda Fuki. Thinking back, the first time he had come into creole had been after a funeral. Fuki's son's funeral---his first time participating in his mourning crew. The old woman who slouched into the the chief mourner's seat was half a month later buried near her son.

  Yuuki let out a light sigh.

  "Somehow... it's like there's a lot of deaths." As Yuuki spoke, Hasegawa, Hirosawa, and at last Tashiro looked to him. "Is this just how it goes?"

  In the town Yuuki had lived in, there hadn't been that many deaths in a row. In a mere half a month, Gotouda Shuuji, Fuki, and Shimizu Megumi made three funerals Yuuki had attended. And there was the incident in Yamairi. As the deceased were old people who lived in Yamairi, it had nothing to do with Yuuki and Yuuki's mourning crew but, he had heard that Gotouda Fuki's brother had died. In half a month four houses, six people dead seemed a bit too much. Especially when thinking of the population, this rate wasn't something he thought could be normal.

  "It isn't quite how it goes, but," Hirosawa said with a forced smile. "It's just it's something that happens, you could say, as there are, fundamentally, many elderly. When the weather changes, it is common to see a line of deaths in a row, often enough."

  On top of that, Hasegawa laughed. "The population is small here, and the relationships between people are intimate, so if somebody or anybody from anywhere dies, it will spread around before you know it. There are the mourning groups, and if there's a funeral nearby it isn't like "who died?" or anything. Not like it is in the city."

  "Ah, certainly."

  "But well, it does feel like there have been a lot of deaths. In truth, in regards to the size of the population, it is a lot, isn't it? Since it's all elderly out here."

  Hirosawa nodded. "Mysteriously, the thing which we call death comes in rows. Once the mourning group sets out, it feels like they've just been out, the saying goes. Once that ceases, for a while nothing will happen, and then again another run of them. It's akin to---it's like a wave."

  Indeed, Hasegawa and Tashiro agreed.

  "There's some polarization to it," Tashiro nodded enthusiastically. "In a given season, a mourning group's duties will keep coming, and even though we're running about like crazy, the neighboring group is quiet and tranquil."

  "Heh?"

  Hasegawa smiled. "True, I mean, it's been rather long time no see with my local mourning group. To begin with, I've only participated in a mourning group once myself. Since moving to Sotoba."

  "Is that right."

  "It was when I'd first moved in, and only once. Before we moved, my wife's father died, so that's two all together. For that I wasn't particularly involved with the mourning crew. In regards to mourning groups, Yuuki-san has become more experienced than myself."

  Is that how it is, Yuuki thought. Hirosawa smiled softly.

  "I, too, haven't seen the mourning group in some time. When we set out for Shuuji-kun's case, it had been five years. Since the one before that was my mothers funeral. It was consecutive at that time, too. To be sure, it's unusual for it to be within half a month but in about one month's time two houses had them in a row. As soon as I thought it wouldn't continue, next it was my own mother's turn. They were drawing each other along, I'd thought then. "

  "Drawing each other?"

  Hirosawa nodded. "The one who died before my mother was a person my mother had gotten along with. They were lonely and called my mother to join them, I thought. Drawing her to that world..."

  "Ah, so pulling along, you mean."

  "That's superstition though. It's just, grief is something that comes in cycles. Though that kind of explanation feels completely ridiculous. It isn't a theory, it's a feeling."

  Hasegawa spoke as if laden with a particular emotion. "Shuuji-san may have pitied his mother he left behind and pulled her to him."

  Hirosawa forced a smile. "Though we know that couldn't be, in our heads. Murasako's Hidemasa-san pulled along his beloved nephew, and the pulled along Shuuji-san pulled his mother who had been left behind. If you present it like that, it somehow feels like an explanation. It's satisfying, so to speak."

  As that was how it really went, Y
uuki nodded wordlessly. At the same time, it was incomprehensible, he thought.

  Death was a universal phenomenon. If they were born, there was no human who wouldn't die. Even though a person's death was a given, to the people surrounding them, it wasn't generally felt as the natural taking its course. Just the opposite. They embraced the sensation that something that should not have happened occurred. That continued. Something that shouldn't have happened happened again, feeling almost like they were caught up in a disaster. Always, something which you had no consciousness of was thrusting you into a fabricated and unreasonable reality, the sensation of discomfort, dread and unease, a sense of mystery. Can this keep happening, a feeling says, the uneasiness of what to do if it carries on, and the original fear that goes 'I knew it' when it does. It wasn't a sensation that could easily be explained but if you turned your words about enough, that could at least express it.

  Even knowing it was the work of chance, one couldn't think it was anything other than the work of something's choice. Something distinctly outside of one's self, called "death." Impossible to control or even to be influenced, the merciless divine providence. The vague and ambiguous unease towards it, you met with it as if being "drawn" and were liquidated. ---Mysteriously.

  "Humans are strange beings," Yuuki murmured. As Hirosawa tilted his head dubiously, Yuuki smile. "Or maybe that death in regards to humans is the way to phrase it. "I have the feeling humans have a strange way of behaving when it comes to death."

  That's true, said Hirosawa, showing a peaceful smile.

  Even as evening fell the rain hadn't stopped. On the contrary, it grew gradually stronger, showing signs of being a downpour. In the thick curtain of clouds and rain, despite being before five it was already dark. Takami stood and turned on the light.

  Even trying to look out from the door window, even the row of houses just across the street was hazy. A water current ran over the surface of the road. As expected the human traffic died out, the residential police box isolated in the rain.

  The sound of the rain reverberated as if shaking the earth. The sound somehow fanned his unease. The flickering florescent light too blinked as if to spur that on further still. Like signaling a bad omen, the phone rang.

  Takami lifted the old fashioned style black receiver. The one calling was Yasumori Tokujirou.

  "Ah---Takami-san. It's really coming down, isn't it."

  "You said it. What's the matter?"

  "Nothing really, I just saw the river though and the water level's pretty high. The water's a muddy color too. Seems a lot of dirt's being swept away. Even without that, with the long drought we've been having, the grass and the roots all dried up, and the slopes have been getting fragile. If the rain goes on like this, just to be prepared, I was thinking we should call the fire brigade together."

  Takami nodded. "That might be good. I'll open the station for you."

  The fire brigade's station was right next to the residential police box. Takami was given a spare key just for such occasions as this.

  "I don't think the mountain stream's riverbanks are so fragile they'll break for nothing, myself. It's just, it might overflow downriver or at the drainage channel, and all."

  "Yes. Then there's the mountainsides. It will be fine if we don't have a landslide, but."

  "You said it. We'll have the Ward Headmen go around giving the announcements to be careful."

  Tokujirou apologized two or three times before hanging up the phone. Takami took the station's spare key and put on warm clothes and a raincoat. He couldn't see the point in bringing an umbrella. Mumbling that it was terrible, Takami undid the station lock. He turned the light on. Before long, the brigade members would start showing up as time permitted. Returning to the station while thinking he'd have to help his wife at the soup kitchen, he left the station. Just on the verge of returning, his feet suddenly stopped on a whim. The water was flowing past the shell of his rubber boots. He couldn't say Tokujirou's concerns were baseless fears. If things went poorly, the slopes really were liable to give.

  Takami looked towards the western mountains. With the curtain of rain, of course the mountain couldn't be made out.

  "....It could be bad, huh." Takami mumbled to himself. He thought of the Kanemasa house. To begin with it was a house on high grounds, and worse, last year the foundations had been tampered with. Luxurious garden trees were transported in. In other words, the roots and the ground were dug up, then leveled out. Tokujirou said they would go around giving notices but was there anybody who would go about to contact that household?

  Takami hesitated somewhat.By all rights, if someone had moved in he would have had to do door to door canvasing. He had to ask the family structure and phone number and mark it down in the ledger but Takami had neglected to do such until today. There was the fact that the house's structure seemed to reject outsiders, making him nervous. But secondly there was also the fact that even when he did ask, there was no answer at the intercom. Then there was the fact that earlier that summer, wanting to confirm whether anyone had moved in or not, he'd snuck in, and had felt a little guilty. But, if that was the case for even Takami, then there might not have been anyone at all who had their phone number in order to call them and tell them. Even if that wasn't the case, in the event someone were worried about a landslide, was there anybody who'd remember Kanemasa? In this rain, was there anybody who would take the trouble to go say something to them?

  "I'd best go on then, with it like this."

  Takami drummed up his courage and started off by foot towards the west. While the tempestuous streaks of pouring rain battered his shoulders and back, he hurried over the fording roads. It was for the best that somebody contacted them. Even if two people did, there wouldn't be anything wrong with that.

  After Takami set out, the office was left unmanned. The surroundings were blurred in ink-black. Amongst that, the station's doorway was open, light tinged yolk-yellow leaking out.

  4

  That night Toshio received contact from Ishida, frantic voice wanting to meet urgently. Outside of the hospital it was literally pelting rain, and all the older timers who had come into the examining room were, to a man, worried about the water levels or land slights.

  Finishing up his examinations and scarfing down dinner, Toshio was picked up by Seishin who had gone to Mizobe for a Buddhist memorial service. Returning to the temple in rain so heavy the wipers were useless, Ishida was already seated in the tatami reception room waiting on Seishin and Toshio.

  "It's ten."

  "---Ten? Hold up. That many?"

  Toshio was astonished, making to pull the documents towards himself.

  "Shuuji-san, Gigorou-san, Hidemasa-san, Mieko-san. Then on August 11th, Hirosawa Takatoshi, acute heart failure---who the hell is this?"

  Seishin tilted his head. At the very least, it wasn't a name Seishin remembered hearing. As he didn't remember being requested for services, they weren't of the parish. The address was Naka-Sotoba, the age was twenty eight. Did Ishida not know either? He shook his head.

  "It's a big world after all, this village. August 15th, Shimizu Megumi. Then the Yasumori Sawmill's Giichi-san," Toshio nodded to himself. "August 18th, Ohtsuka Yasuyuki---isn't this the Ohtsuka sawmill's son?"

  "It is. Their oldest son."

  "That right, over there there into some new religion, huh?"

  Seishin nodded. The Ohtsuka sawmill had formerly been parishioners but he remembered that their ties were cut now.

  "35 years old, huh. Death by blood loss from a GI bleed, it says. Overseen at the National Hospital. GI hemorrhaging stemming from acute liver failure. And then on the twenty first, Gotouda Fuki was dead yesterday. Shimizu Ryuuji---who is he?"

  "You can't mean from Shimizu Gardening?" Seishin asked, to which Ishida nodded.

  "That's right. The eldest son from Shimizu Gardening in the upper part of Sotoba."

  "Parishioners?" Toshio asked, to which Seishin shook his head.

  "No, the
y aren't in the parish but we have had Shimizu Gardening perform maintenance on the garden trees countless times for us. Their boss Masaji is already pasty his sixtieth birthday, I think. The one who comes here is the Boss, in fact I believe his son works in an office but I think he's come who knows how many times to help his father. That's Ryuuji-san, isn't it?"

  "Forty-one, huh? Died at the hospital in Mizobe. Accute heart failure. He collapsed with heart failure and was brought in to the hospital, artificially revived, held out for a time, then after that his heart stopped due to PVC, and attempts to revive him failed. Time of death was yesterday at 4:00 AM."