Shiki: Volume 2

by Fuyumi Ono

  There he was truly fulfilled. And yet none the less, there inside of him like a hard pit, a single sadness was born.

  Though the world was this beautiful, it was not for him.

  If asked why, it was because he was a heretic.

  Chapter Eight

  1

  September ended and turned to October. Toshio tore off September's page from the calendar.

  There was a call from Ishida that morning. Yesterday, Takemura Michiko from Monzen died. Just before noon, Hirosawa Toyoko who lived in Naka-Sotoba had come. Her color was poor and he was taciturn. Toshio had seen that face and realized it was that.

  He askind into his patients history thoroughly. That was how he came to be told that her son had died recently, one named Takatoshi.

  (Did she catch it from her son---considering that possibility, that's quite an interval...)

  Toshio peered into Toyoko's face, telling her that there was something bothering him, so he would run in-depth tests, and that he wanted her to come in for certain tomorrow to hear the results of those tests.

  "Haa."

  Toyoko, like all the others who had it, gave a vague nod.

  "I'm thinking it'd be better to see how this progresses. I'm making you an appointment and will keep that time open, so don't make that a waste. Tomorrow, I'd like to have you be absolutely sure to come in for me."

  "But... I think that I am just tired, though? My son died, my energy is just..."

  "That's why I'm worried. It'll be at your convenience. If the morning is inconvenient for you, noon, evenings, even at night is fine. If you prefer I'm not even opposed to a house visit, so can you be sure to come for me?"

  Toyoko at last nodded.

  Toshio nodded, exchanging looks with Kiyomi who was at his side and giving her instructions. Take her vital signs, blood and urine samples, bone marrow samples and an EKG, a chest and abdomen XP. Kiyomi gave an understanding nod and pressed Toyoko to please come with her.

  On the brink of the noon break one more person, an elderly person who lived in Mizuguchi, came in with the expected symptoms. The patients were many, and while the morning patients weren't yet all in order, a request for a house call came in. It went without saying for Toshio, and even the nurses didn't have the time for a break.

  When Ritsuko finally was able to eat lunch it was past three in the afternoon. The afternoon examinations would run late, and the time to return home was slowly being pushed back.

  "It's become a real hassle, hasn't it." Yasuyo spoke of it while laughing.

  It really has, Kiyomi laughed, cleaning up her boxed lunch leftovers and bringing her tea cup to her mouth. It was now the season where teas hotter than barley tea were most satisfying.

  "But at least we can take a break like this. The doctor won't have any breaks this evening or tomorrow, it's a hassle."

  "Uhm," Ritsuko gazed into her teacup as she spoke. "I'd like for this not to be taken the wrong way but...."

  Turning a doubtful gaze to Kiyomi and Yasuyo, they gave her a weak smile.

  "I am thinking of asking the Doctor if we could be allowed to come into work on Saturday afternoon and Sundays. I.... think that it's just too much for the doctor to do alone."

  Kiyomi and Yasuyo exchanged looks. Ritsuko quickly added on. "I know that Nagata-san and Yasuyo-san have households to run. If you don't have a weekend it will be a hassle, won't it? But, I don't have anybody whom I have to take care of, and my house is nearby. So, if even I'm here at least, I think the doctor might be able to have a small break now and then. So, I was thinking of asking, like..."

  Kiyomi gave a light burst of laughter. "Well, that's! We were thinking the same thing. ---Right?"

  Kiyomi looked to Yasuyo.

  "That we were. Ricchan, you've caught it from us, haven't you!"

  "Eh?"

  "Because you know? I was saying the same thing to Kiyomi-san. That wouldn't it be better to have the hospital open on Sunday too. The Junior Doctor is surely considering our feelings and not saying anything so, it might not be a bad idea if we all here are the ones to put the idea out there, like."

  "....My."

  Kiyomi smiled.

  "The doctor's that kind of person so unless the circumstances are extremely dire, he won't say something like don't take a day off, come in. But on the other hand, the doctor himself's going to get worn down. He really hasn't had any break in all of this, driven all night until dawn."

  "Yes... he is, isn't he."

  "So that's why, I think we here need to remember that we're supposed to be like some type of angel of mercy for him too. I was saying that to Yasuyo-san. But, if we did that, what about Ricchan? Yuki-chan and Sato-chan live far away so it's natural that they couldn't come, but it's not like that for Ricchan. But, there's the matter of interfering in a young girl's chances at dating, too."

  "Uhm..." They turned to face Yuki and Satoko. "We were talking about that too, actually."

  "Well, oh my."

  Ritsuko and the others looked to the two young nurses.

  "I mean, really, the doctor's in having a hard time, though. Lately, doesn't he look tired and all tense? There are this many nurses, and since the hospital is closed over the weekend, there are people who won't bother the doctor and don't get a doctor's care at all."

  "Right, so. We should try talking it over with the doctor, we said. Should we come in on the weekends too? In exchange, please make arrangements for us to use a hotel in the village. Even Towada-san is renting an apartment from the doctor, so it isn't something he can't do is it? If it comes down to it, there are at least the sick rooms. If we do that, it'll be closer, it'll be easier on us...."

  "I'd get to try living on my own too," Yuki said fleetingly sticking out her tongue "My parents know it's busy right now, so I thought they'd let me go. I want to try living on my own but they absolutely won't allow it."

  "That's just like Yuki-chan. How calculating you are."

  "Hehehe. So like, we were talking about trying to talk to him."

  The one whose quiet voice spoke up was Shimoyama. "If the Doctor will accept those conditions, I might try having a talk with him, too."

  Ritsuko's mouth popped open. "But, doesn't Shimoyama-san have a wife and child..."

  "That's what I mean. I don't want to bring anything strange home. Either way it probably won't last that long anyway. Once the doctor gets the data together, if he can get the administration to take action for us, there won't be any more of a rush for me to do anything. Changing posts to leave my family behind until then wouldn't be so bad."

  After the consultation, Ritsuko and the others called in Toshio and stated their conditions. Toshio was for a moment wide-eyed as he looked around at the faces of all who had gathered.

  "Oi, oi. Are you all trying to bankrupt me?" Toshio said with his habitually abusive tone. "Even if you're not, what about the exams for over-time examinations? Living expenses and allowances'll make me declare bankruptcy."

  So he said, but looking at his face it was clear that wasn't his true sentiment.

  "It might be best for you to go ahead and do that."

  Told such by Yuki, Toshio wore a broad smile.

  "But, Shimoyama-san will be a problem. I'm gonna end up strangled to death by his wife."

  "Then, it's good that you're prepared to be strangled to death. If you need help, please say as much."

  Shimoyama smiled, Toshio laughed, and then lightly bowed his head.

  "---Thank you."

  2

  The next day, Toshio was woken by a phone call. It was a phone call to notify him of the death of Maeda Iwao who lived in Kami-Sotoba. They said even if the family called his name, he wouldn't wake up. They didn't think he was breathing, and that it was possible he was dead. He replied that he'd go right away but until that day Toshio had never gone on a house call to the Maeda household. They must have been a family without much need for a doctor but at any rate he asked for directions on the phone.

  Whi
le preparing to go out, his mother Takae awoke and came in.

  "Another one?"

  Even Takae understood that an early morning phone call meant a death notice. The deaths had continued to the point where she couldn't not know.

  "Seems like it," Toshio answered.

  "Just what is going on?" Takae's voice was pregnant with urgency. Toshio looked back at his mother's face which was a mixture of anger and unease.

  "This is how many times you've gone out like this? Something is happening in the village. Why are so many one after another...."

  Who knows, Toshio answered coldly while moving to leave the main wing of the house when his mother grabbed his arm.

  "It can't be that it's an epidemic, right?"

  Toshio turned back to look at Takae in surprise. ---Right, if it came this far, it'd be stranger not to suspect it.

  "....I don't know."

  "You don't know! This many people are continuing to die, you realize?"

  "I won't deny it looks like an epidemic. But running the tests nothing turns up a positive result. Going by the rest results it's not an epidemic. So all I can say is I don't know."

  "But it's spreading isn't it?"

  "This is just between us but probably."

  Takae pulled the white coat from Toshio's hand. "You will not be going. You tell them to call an ambulance!"

  "Mom."

  "It's contagious isn't it? And not knowing what it is means that you cannot take preventative measures, doesn't it? You do know that running around like that every time someone dies puts you in the most dangerous position of all?"

  Toshio sighed and patted Takae's shoulder lightly.

  "I'm being careful enough. ---Now that I've been called, I can't not go."

  "It can be someone other than you can it not?"

  "The bunch in the village still haven't realized anything. I can't give them any inadvertent warnings, so I can't so easily just leave it to another doctor."

  "This is no joke! Why should it be you who has to do something so dangerous? If by some chance something happens, what then!"

  "But,"

  "You are an only child, do you realize that? If you die, what will happen to the hospital. You still don't have a successor you know. Kyouko-san won't stay in the home, and---"

  Toshio sighed. He took back his white coat from Takae's hand. "If it comes to it, you can adopt one who's turned out well from one of the relatives," Toshio said with a smile. "Or if not that, how about you get remarried, Mom?"

  "Toshio!"

  "....I'm going off." Toshio turned back around and took off in a small jog towards the hospital. He took his bag and got into the car. It was about to be six o'clock but the surroundings were a little dark. The nights were getting longer.

  To Takae she was "worrying about her son," he thought as he drove. It wasn't as if she particularly saw a son as a tool to continue the family. For Takae, it was impossible to consider herself separately from the family. Takae was a part of the Ozaki line, and Ozaki was the foundation on which Takae stood. Her son would succeed the Ozakis of which she had been swallowed as a part of. For Takae she was entrusting the most valuable thing to her own son, and because it was her son, she thought it appropriate to hand it over to him. Toshio as the successor was to accept that, and to share in participating in the honor of continuing the Ozaki line; this was nothing more than the manifestation of love itself, to Takae.

  Unfortunately for Takae her son did not share in her values. Toshio had no attachment to Ozaki. In fact he came to feel it as a restraint. Toshio was no longer a child who cursed it to the point of saying Ozaki should just die out but he thought that if it was going to die out, he wouldn't mind if it did. At the very least he didn't appear to be taking any proactive measures to prevent it.

  Even so the reason Toshio returned to the village wasn't for the sake of Ozaki but for the villagers who were depending on Ozaki. He didn't want to let them down. He chose a lifestyle of being needed and thanked by the villagers for his own sake rather than staying at the University while being absorbed in political considerations.

  ---We aren't tools to continue the family.

  Yes, that was what the successor of the mountain temple had said. It was when they were still kids unsure of their life course.

  --We are individual human beings with free will. So, we have the right to live as we like, I think.

  It wasn't just their families but the villagers too had expectations of Toshio and Seishin to continue the family. But neither Toshio nor Seishin had the obligation to bare that. One's own future should be decided by their own free will. But, Seishin had said, is choosing another future in order to disobey other's expectations ultimately really free will?

  It was only natural that the villagers held expectations for Toshio and Seishin. Anyone would wish for there to be a doctor and anyone would wish for a head monk. Indeed the doctors and the temple were better to have than not. Nevermind if they were something unnecessary, they were clearly a necessity, and continuing to provide that was up to each of them. ---In the end, Toshio chose the path of remaining in the village as a doctor.

  The village was isolated in the mountains, and just like villages all over Japan the young people were migrating out with nothing but old people left behind. They needed a doctor. So he became that. It wasn't self-sacrifice. He chose the life of being needed and thanked by others.

  (And yet, I can't do anything....)

  Toshio gripped the steering wheel. Since summer, the vigorously increasing number of deaths, that many people dying, were so abnormal that even Takae was suspicious and yet even now he couldn't find a plan for resolving it. The patients continued to increase. Since it started the fatality rate was one hundred percent, and he couldn't even grasp the mechanism by which it lead to death.

  He arrived at the Maeda house in a dark mood. A middle aged woman stood waiting impatiently in the lit entryway of the prototypical farm house. After driving the car onto the property he hurried up.

  "Doctor, I'm sorry."

  "You're...."

  Bowing her head quickly was Maeda Motoko. She was the mother whose child was hit by a car in the middle of the summer who came rushing in.

  "For that time... thank you." Motoko said as if embarrassed, her head down.

  "It's been a while. How's Shigeki-kun been after that?"

  "Thanks to you it was nothing in particular. Truly, I was very rude at that time."

  Maeda Shigeki was carried in in July, wasn't it? He already thought of that as a long time ago. It was already October, so more than two full months had passed since then.

  "Glad it wasn't anything serious."

  When Motoko motioned him into the house there was a middle aged man standing alone in the entryway, standing as if to close off the path. It was probably Motoko's husband.

  "The one who's not moving is your father-in-law?"

  Yes, Motoko nodded and lead further inside. Crossing over the six tatami mat living room, there were two futons spread out, and at the side of one of those an elderly woman sat.

  "Aa---Doctor, his breathing, the old man's breathing is...."

  The one on her hands turning to face him was probably Motoko's mother-in-law. Toshio nodded and sat beside the bed. Laid out was a man past sixty. The shadow of death was already showing itself on him. For the time being Toshio took his pulse. There were no palpitations, his blood pressure was zero, and his pupils dilated.

  "....He is gone."

  His wife suddenly broke down crying. Seeing that, Toshio turned his eyes to Motoko who was hiding her face.

  "Was he sick?"

  Yes, Motoko nodded.

  It was about three days ago that Motoko noticed her father-in-law Iwao's change in state. He seemed very sluggish, and he had no appetite. She thought his pallor was poor too. A long while ago, there were leaflets being passed out. Motoko remembered what they said, so she thought that Iwao might have had anemia. The leaflets instructed to go to the doctor. So
Motoko also suggested to Iwao how about going in. But, "I won't," Iwao said.

  Iwao was healthy, proud of the fact that since becoming sixty even at his age he had never once been sick. Maybe that was why he had an inclination to criticize anyone who slept but whose illness wasn't managed with that. In truth, he didn't have any specific illness, no cold nor stomach ache nor anything keeping him bedridden. Every day, he was health and went out into the mountains and paddy fields. Iwao who was like that looked sluggish even to outsiders, so Motoko couldn't stop worrying about it but it seemed that Iwao didn't care for that. He had no need of a doctor, he insisted obstinately.