The day after Toshio met with Ishida, it was abnormally sultry. Of the patients who came into the hospital, all of them were conspicuously weary. At any rate, it seemed like a shower was approaching. In the midsts of that, from the Monzen Yasumori family came Nao. The instant Nao entered the examining room, Toshio had a feeling.
What is it, Toshio asked as a formality, though Nao's complexion was clearly poor, and indeed she looked worn down. Even if the fatigue was the same, there was something different from the patients suffering from the heat and the humidity. Nao moved her lips faintly as if to answer but even that seemed to be too much and stopped.
"What's up? You look tired." While pushing her again for a response, Toshio took Nao's hand. She was powerless and felt cool to the touch. Her pulse was pretty fast but not enough to qualify as tachycardia. Peering at her face up close, those eyes of hers had the impression of someone somehow possessed. It was the way her conjunctiva was so blueish.
"I'm tired... My mother-in-law said I had to go to the hospital no matter what, so."
"I see. Doesn't look like you have a fever, does it? So with that, it probably isn't a cold. When did you start feeling like this?"
"Yesterday... No, this morning."
"Which one?"
"This morning, as soon as I woke up I was very tired. It was hot at night so I didn't sleep well... But, my mother-in-law asked me I don't know how many times since yesterday if I was all right."
Toshio tilted his head. She was talking strangely.
"And Nao-san yourself, you didn't think you felt particularly sluggish at any point yesterday?"
"...I don't know. If I have to say it one way or another I think I had the feeling I was tired. ... Like, my head was heavy. I was dazed."
"Looks like it," Toshio nodded. "Any shortness of breath or palpitations?"
While asking he took her pulse. Her blood pressure was a little weak, so he couldn't get it clearly by touch.
"No, yes,.... I don't really know."
"Did you eat?"
Her voice answering that she hadn't seemed to die out. Lifting up her eyelid to look at the membrane, the color was faint. Her nails were white, and just to be sure he had her open her mouth to confirm that her oral cavity too had lost its healthy reddish color. It was similar---to Megumi's.
"Dizziness when you stand?"
"Yes, some."
"Your period's been regular, right? Are you menstruating now?"
Yes, Nao nodded.
"That's good. Looks like you have a case of anemia," Toshio said, then added on. "Just in case let's do a full examination. Do you have any other pains anywhere?"
"No... not really."
Really, Toshio murmured, telling Nao to head into the other examining room and strip. He instructed the nurse Kiyomi to take her height, weight, pulse, blood pressure and temperature.
While he was seeing other patients, Kiyomi finished taking the measurements. Her blood pressure was pretty low, her pulse pretty high. There was a slight fever but, at any rate nothing abnormal.
At a glance her skin was losing its healthy glow but she wasn't particularly jaundiced and had no particular purple spots. Her nails and tongue seemed normal, and there was nothing abnormal about her hair.
"Raise both your knees if you could. ---Any problems going to the bathroom or difficulties passing urine?"
"No..."
Nodding, he felt the lower region of her liver. Nothing felt abnormal.
"Nothing unusual about the color? A brownish color or a reddish color or..."
"...I don't think so."
Nao's responses sounded incredibly labored. While asking her medical, life and family history, he performed palpations. There were no particular signs of a swollen spleen, the lymph nodes at her neck and underarm were slightly swollen. Listening with a stethoscope, there were no particular disruptive sounds in her heart or veins. ---As expected, it looked like simple anemia.
"I think it's anemia, but," Toshio stated while instructing her to put her clothes on. "Still, since anemia can occur due to internal bleeds, I'd like to do an X-ray, is that all right?"
Nao nodded, so he gave instructions to Kiyomi.
"An X-ray of the chest and abdomen. Also, run a blood and urine test. Take enough for us to run an analysis here. And a bone marrow sample."
"Bone marrow? From the sternum?" Kiyomi blinked.
"Mm. And then take a sample for a peripheral smear too." Bearing the questioning gaze of Kiyomi, Toshio gave a smile to Nao. "I'll be taking a little bone marrow sample. It might hurt a little, but it's not really a scary test or anything. Anyway, for today we'll run the labs and prescribe some vitamins, so come back in three days. But," Toshio added on firmly. "If tomorrow morning, you feel more tired than today or you have a fever or you feel anything's going wrong, come in tomorrow. Got that?"
Nao nodded but her face was indifferent. She looked like it was somebody else's business. It seemed like she wasn't feeling any distress at all but maybe it was weighing on her.
Watching over Nao as she was urged into the treatment room by Kiyomi, Yasuyo quietly called to him.
"Doctor--is it something bad?"
Nah, Toshio shrugged his shoulders. "If it was bad, I'd refer her to the national hospital. This's just in case."
"But."
He waved a hand to stop what Yasuyo was going to say. "If it was just a cold or just nephritis, I wouldn't be watching it this close. It looks like Nao-san is showing signs of anemia. And 'just anemia' at that. If that's the case it's nothing to get neurotic about. ---But, Megumi-chan was like that."
Yasuyo nodded, with an understanding look. "You don't want to have any regrets."
"That is correct."
"Tanaka-san, I'm sorry but could I ask a favor of you?"
Tanaka Yoshikazu blinked as the health department's Ishida asked of him. Ishida suddenly said he'd wanted to know the deaths that had come in since July. It wasn't the right time of year for a demographic survey, and the time for the month's census was long past. When he tried to ask the reason, his words were unclear and not very satisfying but at any rate he nodded.
"You'd like me to prepare the names of the deceased and make copies of their death notices, then. In secret?"
"It isn't anything especially suspicious. There was something bothering me that I wanted to investigate is all. It isn't something to make a fuss over so if you could do it without drawing attention to it."
Tanaka nodded and during the lunch break when the branch office staff were all out, at his own discretion he took the death notices out of the binders. With a dry sound, a water droplet splattered against the public office's window. The moisture that had been building all morning at last passed the saturation point and fell as drops of water---that was the impression Tanaka had. Large drops of rain scattered, soon changing into a shower that sounded like water in the bottom of a bucket. It was shaping up to be the rain they were long overdue. The public office devoid of any signs of anyone else quickly grew dark.
Tanaka brought the binder back to his own desk. The one in the top binder was Shimizu Ryuuji. Tanaka didn't know that man. Fourty one years old, his death certificate was issued from Mizobe's General Hospital. Before that was an old woman named Gotouda Fuki. Before that was Ohtsuka Yasuyuki.
Without thinking much of it, Tanaka gazed at the face. It was the Ohtsuka sawmill's son. He was in a different mourning group but as he lived right next door to him, Tanaka himself had attended his service.
(Come to think of it, this year there have been serial funerals...)
Before Otsuka Yasuyuki, Shimizu Megumi had died. The one beneath the death certificate of the old woman man who died in Monzen was Megumi's. She was his daughter's childhood friend, a year older, just a tenth grader. He had sympathies for the Shimizu household for their despondency but his daughter's grief over losing her friend was terrible, too.
Before that the three people in Yamairi died, which had been a big fuss. Three old people died---.
Tanaka's hands stopped over the binder. What Ishida said he had wanted to investigate was this, he thought. Yes, it was clear there were too many deaths.
Before Shimizu Megumi was the young man in Naka-Sotoba, and the three old people in Yamairi. Before that somebody in Kami-Sotoba had died. This was all since August started.
(...This many?)
Tanaka was in charge of the family register and certificates of residency but in practice whoever was free manned the front window to take any report for processing. The Sotoba office was small. In all it was a six person organization. Even if their areas of duty were defined, that was how things were, so he hadn't noticed. But, for just coming into August, these numbers were abnormal.
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, Yuuki 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.