The air was a diluted indigo, the green of the firs on the mountain surface coming out of their pitch blackness. The silence, wrapped in morning dew, gave birth to the cries of mountain doves. Seishin exited the head priest's quarters with a broom in hand, onto the temple grounds awash in blue light, in white light. The sky couldn't be seen through the haze of morning dew. Looking as if it were etched with diluted ink, the stone pathway spread out, the temple gate that rose beyond it a blot of deep black.
The turtledoves murmured, but those murmurings seemed unusually well enunciated, sharp in the ear as Seishin crossed the temple grounds, the very picture of tranquility, towards the temple gate. The fulcrum of the gate he rested the broom against was also damp. He extracted the bolt that was profoundly moist and, just as he was opening the gates from the inside, the entrance beside the gate front opened. The one who entered the side door, back bent, going 'Oh ho?' as his eyes narrowed as if spying something amusing was Mitsuo.
"Good morning."
Just as Mitsuo bowed his completely receded hairline in greeting, Seishin gave his own greeting at that same moment. Their voices overlapped. Mitsuo's laughed out loud, perhaps finding that funny as well.
Tadokoro Mitsuo did odd jobs around the temple. He wasn't a monk, so he didn't chant sutras, but he took on all sorts of various tasks. Every day, he'd come from his home at the base of the mountain and pass the whole day breaking down whatever jobs needed to be done. Along with his mother who helped out in the office, the family was a part of the temple, and Seishin couldn't recall a single day to his memory that Mitsuo hadn't been seen here.
"It seems today will be hot again," said Mitsuo, taking hold of one of the gate doors. That was when he tilted his head, taking a look at Seishin's face. "Junior Monk, your eyes are red. Let me guess, staying up late again?"
Having it pointed out by Mitsuo, Seishin gave an ashamed nod. His father had a cerebral hemorrhage last year, and since then Seishin had taken over the management of the temple but, due to his side job, he kept many late nights. Morning at the temple was around five o'clock so, there were plenty of times when he'd go without sleep altogether.
"Will you be all right? Aren't there quite a few memorial services today?"
From the Saturday of the Mushiokuri or rather from to the early hours of its Sunday morning, maybe even from the preceding Shinkousai to please the gods, the village was focused on summer Shinto rituals. During that time, everyone put off the Buddhist memorial services while the Bon festival to see off the dead quickly approached. The half month between the mushiokuri and the Bon Feast of Lanterns would always be busy with arrangements for memorial services. Today was heavily booked as well. There were two monks taking charge of services, and during busy times the head monk from the neighboring temple would come so in theory there were substitutes, but the acting head monk of the temple couldn't very well take a shameless daytime nap.
"If you're so inclined, how about asking Tsurumi-san to oversee the services and getting a bit of sleep?"
Tsurumi was a monk who came in from the village. Seishin quickly shook his head.
"No, I'm all right."
"It's going to be a busy season, so we need you to take care of yourself. Please, rest. I will make arrangements with Tsurumi-san."
"I really am fine."
"If you're sure," murmured Mitsuo as he took the bamboo broom in hand, a figure ascending the front temple steps visible through the morning haze. It was Chiyo of the general store at the base of the steps. The old woman carried a broom in place of a cane, sweeping step by step as she climbed the stairway, turning towards Seishin and Mitsuo with a silent and formal bow.
"Good morning."
"You're early as always."
When Seishin and Mitsuo called out, Chiyo gave another wordless bow.
About how old was she now, that old woman of few words and scant expressions? Seishin had seen her every morning since he was a child but he had had so few conversations with her, they could probably even be counted by memory. This was her burden to bear, a free service provided; the time she had spoken of it with embarrassment still left a profound impression on him. She had promised to the Buddha that if her husband returned safely from the war, she would clean. That husband had passed on long ago but Chiyo herself was still healthy and every morning came in said good health, sweeping the steps that lead to the front gate, attending the morning services, then returning home.
Faith was alive in the village. The elderly in the neighborhood would come to every morning service, many handling the odd jobs around the temple. It certainly had the appearance of a temple in a village where the grand majority of the villagers were parishioners who supported the temple, being a very large variety of temple. Even with three monks, Mitsuo and his mother Katsue, Seishin and his mother Miwako, there weren't enough people to manage it. To put it simply, the temple could not function without the families that supported it.
With another light nod at Chiyo who silently began sweeping, Seishin took up his own broom again.
The temple was at the northernmost point of the village, on a fir covered southern facing slope of a northern mountain. He could take in the spread of the village through the morning haze at a glance from the mountain gate.
Sotoba was packed into a triangle between complicated mountain ridges.
The village spread around the mountain stream is contained in a triangle like the tip of a harpoon by a forest of firs.
Seishin had used such a simile to describe Sotoba's terrain. The tip of the harpoon was like an arrow drawn on the map denoting north. The northern mountain was situated at the tip of that, and the temple looked down over the village from that spot. The ridges that spread off of the northern mountain formed the western bank of the village, which made a right angled turn capping the south. At the shaft of the arrow was the eastern spur, running parallel to the flow of the mountain stream. The temple was at the summit of the triangle, facing the southern ridges with the highway beyond them, the expressway piercing through the south. That was the southern boundary of the village.
From where Seishin was at, at the temple gate, he could survey it all at a glance. Wedged between spurs of mountains, it spread out like a paper fan with the temple as a base, covered in fields and houses. Some houses were spread out, some were crammed together into communities, all gradually descending to and opening out to the southern mountain spurs. Looking out over it, it was as if the whole lot could be held in the palm of his hand.
Seishin narrowed his eyes as he heard a sound like a scream emitting from the scooter that scaled the mountain. Riding up the private pathway, coming from the side of belfry side of the temple towards the temple grounds was the temple monk Tsurumi. Tsurumi, in his black robes with his helmet still on, gave Seishin a nod and continued towards the grounds. Seishin returned his greeting and lowered his eyes to the stone path. Broom gripped in hand, he devoted himself to sweeping.
When the schedule was busy, after the morning services, Sumi would come from the neighboring temple and Mitsuo's mother Katsue would come to help in the office. Just before noon, the temple monk Ikebe returned to the temple from his off season summer vacation.
The busy day passed, Seishin headed to the meditation dojo, an enclosure within the priest's family quarters. He met his mother just at the entrance, bringing a tray with tea cups and tea cakes. Behind Miwako was Mitsuo, a large kettle in hand. In the dojo, past the open sliding door, were the mere fifteen supporters of the temple taking a break.
"Thank you very much for today."
Seishin entered the dojo and nodded his head as Miwako knelt to say their thanks.
"You are truly appreciated. Everyone, please enjoy a short rest."
As Miwako spoke, the people surrounding the low table bowed their heads. They interrupted their pleasant chat to say thank you, still wiping their necks with towels, others still wearing their aprons.
Many performed their memorial services in their own homes but there were parishioners who had moved far away, or who had other circumstances that lead to them using the temple. At times like these, in a village with no takeout or delivery services, the duty of preparing meals between parishioners and priests fell to the temple. When it came to doing the yard work for the grounds and the building maintenance, the temple was chronically short handed. When there were events or functions, a meeting could be had beforehand with all of the helpers to pass on duties but they couldn't do that for daily memorial services. The temple was sustained in ordinary times by unspoken attentiveness.
"The Junior Monk must be worn as well. It is hard work after the mushiokuri, isn't it!" said Yasumori Setsuko with a smile. "And thank you to you as well, Madame." she said nodding towards Miwako.
"We truly manage because of the help like this that you all provide."
"I do try not to get in the way," Setsuko said with a bright laugh. Setsuko was member of the parishioner's committee Yasumori Tokujiro's second wife. She wasn't yet at the age at which one commonly concentrated so heavily on faith but she organized the women parishioners and regularly looked after the temple. Today was another day spent organizing the female laborers towards overseeing the temple kitchen work for the meals shared between the priests and the mourners, from setting the placements to the clean up afterwards.
"It's going to be like this until Obon, isn't it? Isn't tomorrow's schedule busy with the Buddhist memorial services too?"
"That it is," Miwako answered Setsuko with a smile.
"Then, I wonder if I might count on everyone's help again tomorrow?"
In response to Setsuko's words, about nine women gave a nod.
The elderly, in a fashion befitting the elderly, called out to Mitsuo as he went about filling their tea cups.
"Mitsuo-san, we're sure you'll be busy tomorrow, yourself."
"The cemetery's walkway is getting pretty overgrown, I think I'll be mowing," Mitsuo said with a smile floating to his face.
"Yes, indeed. Obon is close; I was thinking the cemetery needed to be mowed. We should at least make sure the walkways are kept up, yes?"
The village buried their dead, and while they didn't necessarily construct the tombs themselves, there were those within the parish who didn't have a place to bury their dead, or those who had other circumstances which lead to cremation who would still want a grave site built. For just such circumstances, the temple had a graveyard on its western slopes but while it was thought to be the community's duty to provide its upkeep in truth it was Mitsuo alone who did it, and only in his spare time.
"Then, guess tomorrow I could mow."
"Well, if you do it bit by bit, you ought to have it done by Bon."
Light laughter broke out. Setsuko bowed her head to the laughing people.
Miwako herself had come from a nearby temple, succeeding this house by arranged marriage. Being a woman of temples herself, she wasn't unfamiliar with the strain of managing a temple home. But it was a temple whose attendants only totaled around two hundred, so it wasn't even in the same league as her parent's temple, where it was barely full time work. When she'd heard it was large despite being a countryside temple, she was prepared but when she had stepped into the reality of it, it had surpassed her imagination. There was quite an age difference between herself and her husband, who had a late marriage, so Miwako had only borne one child. They were but a family of three. The cornerstone of the temple labor should be those of temple family, but that temple family itself was minimal. While the temples patrons were many, it was the country, so the alms and offerings didn't amount to much, thus there was a limit to how much help they could hire. If it weren't for the good will of the people willing to lend a hand and a smile, the temple would not be. She held a visceral gratitude.
"Come to think of it," said the old man Takemura Gohei to nobody in particular. "Yesterday, no, I guess it's today, huh? Did you hear about the truck that came through?"
"A truck?" repeated a few others.
"A moving truck. Old man Matsuo came by and mentioned it when cutting the grass."
"Oh my, for the Kanemasa house?" Setsuko said, surprised. Where the northern mountain of the temple and the western mountain met was a Takemura family mansion called Kanemasa. It was demolished and afterwards a strange house was built. It was finished during the rainy season and yet its inhabitants had yet to move in.
"I don't know, it's just. They said the yuge-shuu saw the truck. The truck came in as they were burning the Betto, and then turned back."
"Ah, their eldest son was a yuge-shuu. --But, isn't the Betto burned in the dead of the night?"
"That it is."
Seishin faintly knitted his brows. Before the break of dawn, he had seen the lights of a car coming into the village from his window. He had thought at the time that it was not a suitable time for such a thing.
"People don't normally move in in the middle of the night, do they?"
"Are you sure they didn't take the wrong road?" Mitsuo interjected, though Setsuko did not seem satisfied with his explanation.
"Could one make such a mistake, I wonder?"
Seishin tilted his head slightly. Where the village road along the stream came to the highway there was indeed a three way fork but surely nobody would mistake the village road for the highway.
Old man Gohei nodded, too.
"But then, they didn't move in after all, so we can only assume it was a mistake. But, there were two cars behind it, so it's a pretty strange story either way," said Setsuko, earning a nod from Mitsuo.
"They haven't moved in, have they, now that you mention. Even though that building's been finished a while now. --What were those people called again?"
"Nobody knows! There's no nameplate. I mean, even the ones who built the house were from an outside company, so they must not have any connection to Sotoba at all. So, nobody knows anything about them. Though, I did hear that they were from Tokyo or somewhere around there."
Setsuko's household was often called The Contractors, working in construction. In the village most construction was taken up by the Yasumori contractors but, come to think of it, the Yasumoris had nothing to do with that home, Seishin recalled.
Setsuko looked towards Seishin, giving a troubled smile. "My, but after they've moved all this way, it would be nice if they were good people."
After looking over the people who nodded their assent, Seishin turned his eyes towards the dojo window. The summer sun shone in. Through the southwesterly window was the graveyard spread over the temple's western slope, overlooking the storage house for the sawmill at the foot of that slope. At the side of the sawmill's storehouse was a concrete building that served as the village's one and only hospital, the Ozaki Clinic, and on the mountain slope beyond that was the Kanemasa mansion. Between here and there were the fir trees blocking off that building from sight. Above the tree tops he could just barely see a black slate roof and part of the gables peeking up.
The Takemura house popularly called Kanemasa was formerly the estate of the village headman, built there in order to look down on the village as the founding family they were. The headman took the opportunity to transfer into the neighboring town of Mizobe's administration, moving into the town's territory itself but it wasn't as if all ties to Sotoba were cut. Two generations of the family had inherited the duties of the town headsman, and they held considerable influence in the parliament; furthermore, with their strong ties to Sotoba, Kanemasa even now held considerable weight as Sotoba's mouthpiece, carrying on as leader of the village. That is, until that Kanemasa family head passed on last year in July, with the Kanemasa mansion being demolished in August. It seemed the late predecessor sold the land before he died. Afterwards an odd house was built.
There was nobody who knew what kind of people its masters were. Kanemasa was still considered a supporting family of the temple so Seishin had known the heir for some time, but even that heir said he didn't know why the land was sold. It seemed the predecessor had arbitrarily taken it on himself to make the sale in secret. As for why he would do such a thing, nobody could make sense of it. Releasing the estates was tantamount to severing ties with Sotoba. For the Kanemasas who had set up a stronghold in Sotoba, it was too senseless, and even the heir was at his wits end try to make sense of it.
Why did the new owners move out into the country side was one question, another was what kind of people were they and under what circumstances did they purchase the plot of land, and another still was what was the Kanemasa predecessor thinking when selling the land off, the house and the territory around it. There were so many unanswered questions.
Then there was the moving truck that came in the deep of night. In its own way, it was fitting for that house. But, whoever was going to move in, they wouldn't have been Kanemasas. Seishin continued to gaze up at the mountain.
Probably---no, certainly.