"Junior Monk," said Tamo Sadaichi coming to the temple just as Seishin was deep in his own room researching something. Sadaichi who had a long standing relationship with the temple came in as far as the office without particularly bothering with calling out. He also frequently came across the yard to poke his face into the living room.
"Ah, good day. ---No, good evening, is it now?"
"Right now is good for you, isn't it? I'm sure you must be busy over Higan, and I know you must be eager to rest but, it's about yesterday's matter."
Seishin nodded and pulled out a seating cushion to offer to Sadaichi. Sadaichi wore a grimace as he settled into place.
"How was it?"
"How was it nothing. What's happening, here in this village. I tried asking here and there and, well, if I wasn't surprised. Probably since this number the number of houses that have moved are greater than twenty! The number of people are decreasing with a surprising vigor!"
As suspected, Seishin murmured in his mind. Sadaichi put out his notes.
"I've come with what I've heard so far but in actuality, there are many, many more, I do believe."
Seishin took the notepad and his eyes fell over the names recorded. A total of 22 households had moved. In the list were names Seishin had never recalled seeing before but many were parish families. Normally in this village, when someone of the parish changed residences, word would be given to the temple. None the less, even from those on the list who were parishioners he hadn't heard that they were moving.
"This many..."
"Just what's happening do you think? All the families suddenly moving out. About the old woman of Hasekura, do you know of her, Junior Monk?"
"Yes."
Hasekura Itoko was an old woman who lived alone in Kami-Sotoba who frequently came to morning services. Thinking back, he hadn't seen her face in some time.
"It seemed that she was saying she was going to live with her son and then left, so it went, yes? But the old woman had a big fight with her son and his wife in the past. They originally did live together but the wife ran out and her son went away with her was how it went, wasn't it? Well, she may have made up with his wife, or perhaps things went sour between the son and his wife but if that were the case he would come back here. To say she'll be living with him, so suddenly."
Seishin nodded. The antagonism between Hasekura Itoko and the wife was rather famous. After all on the occasion of their fight, the wife had wielded a kitchen knife in her frenzy. That said, it wasn't that she had attacked Itoko; she had grabbed the knife and went running out screaming that she was going to die, so the story went, but it was nevertheless an incident that had been worth talking about within the village. After that the son took his wife and left the home and, angry over that, Itoko had mostly cut ties, he had heard.
"If she herself says so it must be the case but.... but, it is strange, isn't it?"
"Isn't it? Same as the Sakaimatsu case, it's an odd story. I was surprised when I heard it as well. Things like this do happen, I guess is how it goes."
"That is true...."
To begin with an old person living alone in the village had circumstances that went beyond being a matter of their wishes, and indeed she'd had a reason which was why she remained alone in the village. Of course if those circumstances changed living together became a possibility, which seemed to be the case but that it wasn't connected to the numbers moving out in such a short time was a bit hard to believe.
"Come to think of it, have you heard that the wife of the San'Yasu family ran away?"
"San'Yasu---do you mean Yasumori Seiichirou-san of Naka-Sotoba?"
Yes, Sadaichi nodded. "The wife is called Hinako you see and when they woke up in the morning, they say she wasn't there! That household too was like old woman Hasekura's, Maiko obaa-san and the wife didn't get along well either, so the bunch in Naka-Sotoba thought that it might turn out like it did at the Hasekuras' but it looks like it was the wife who threw out the husband and ran away."
"There is no chance that it was an accident or some such?"
"Doesn't seem to be. Not since they were all together when they went to bed. Even though they were sleeping beside each other, when they awoke in the morning the futon was like an empty shed skin, the wife nowhere to be seen in the home. In the middle of the night she gathered her luggage and left it looks like. This too was a surprising story."
"So it is..."
In the middle of the night, Seishin ruminated in his mind. It pulled terribly at his chest.
"Did Hasekura-san move in the night?"
"Can't say. It seems there were folks who had seen her say she was moving in with her son and gathering her bags but when she actually did move out it seems they don't right know. That old woman is just a little bit eccentric, so it seems there wasn't anybody too close with her. Her house is in the community of Kami-Sotoba, a little out of the way. It probably happened the next day or a few days later, I'd imagine."
Is that so, Seishin murmured. What was it, this somehow unconvinced feeling?
"Well, there are a lot of elderly living on their own. There are plenty of holdsholds like Kami-Sotoba's Shinoda where the parents and children live together too, but. More importantly, look here." Sadaiichi bent forward to point on the note. "On top of Shita's Old Lady Yasumori, the Maebara's Setsu-san, and the old man from Inoda too. Naka-Sotoba's Mimura."
Seishin looked to Sadaichi, having difficulty following his meaning when Sadaichi nodded towards something. "With this, the real end of Yamairi is only natural, too."
"---Eh?"
"See, those Mimuras in Naka-Sotoba, they own the mountains under Yamairi, don't they? Just at the other side of the northern mountain. The old man worked hard to keep going into the mountains even now. That is until his son changed jobs, they said; the five in the family have moved now. Yasumori's Misuzu-san owned all of the mountains of Yamairi itself. It looks like she's stopped working the mountains though. When the old man her husband died, it was quite the payment in kind. Maebara's Setsu-san owns the area with the woodland path, doesn't she? It seems Setsu-san too had stopped working the mountains but Maruyasu would come bit by bit to cut down the trees still. At the end of that woodland path is the mountain area owned by old Inoda-san. The old man still earned his bread in the mountains."
Seishin furrowed his brows.
"With this, there's basically nobody left who goes into the mountains. All that's left are the mountains either abandoned or used as payment in kind. The three from Yamairi have died too, with nobody coming and going, it's the same as if the place called Yamairi didn't exist anymore at all! --Well, that old man of the Inodas, he'd always said he'd be at it until he died but, after something like that happened, it'd feel unsettling, I'm sure he didn't feel like going into the mountains anymore. Lately, there've been a lot of wild dogs in the mountains too. Before, there was someone who'd been bitten and severely injured by being bitten by a wild dog, wasn't there? I wonder if that was finally the last straw for him to give it up?" Sadaichi said, breathing a deep sigh. "This too might be a sign of the times. Until now this village didn't feel too much like it was shrinking. Despite people saying depopulation, depopulation, in Sotoba, there were plenty of people left. I'd thought it was something special but I guess you can't buck the trends. But with that said, when people are dropping out one after another, how to put it, well, doesn't it feel more complicated?"
That is true, Seishin answered while having the feeling his understanding was growing dimmer. He couldn't put it into words well. Something he couldn't comprehend was right before his eyes, as if luring him into vertigo. The mounting number of deaths, dread of an illness, and the movers should have had some connection between them. None the less, it was as if people were synchronized in leaving the village. Whether they were dead or moving, different as they were, it made no difference in how much it decreased the resident population. He had the feeling it meant something but what meaning---what connection could he say there was? They couldn't have noticed the disease and been fleeing from it, their mobilization was too sudden for that.
Thinking as he saw Tamo off, Seishin came to a sudden realization and set out by car.
Anything and everything was failing to come together. It might not have been a bad idea to go back to where it all started to try to think it over fresh. Everything started in Yamairi. That was the only thing for certain. If he tried going to Yamairi, he might find something, he thought vaguely.
Feeling admittedly as if his mood were bringing on the clouds, driving towards Yamairi, Seishin couldn't help but be terrified all over again.
---The road, gone.
Part way along the cut out road to Yamairi, a landslide had occurred, a considerable span of the roadway stopped off. The road that Seishin had traveled not even two months ago at most had vanished. It must have been the rain some time ago. The brief rainfall was amazing but it wasn't exactly a rain bringing great blessings to the area's water supply. They had said that the dried slopes were caving in everywhere from the heavy rain.
Was Yamairi this isolated, he thought solemnly. Beyond the dirt and sand of the mountain, an uncounted number of small lights flickered. The lights like reflectors may have been the eyes of small animals. Or they may have been stray dogs.
Seishin clutched the steering will, his jaw set as he gazed at the earth and sand mountain. Of course that the road had disappeared was one, but that nobody had noticed that until now was also a shock. There was the fact that nobody had a need for it anymore. There was also the danger from the infestation of the wild dogs. ----But even so.
Yamairi really did die that day in the boundary. The inhabitants lost, and aside from wild dogs and small woodland animals, it had lost any who would visit. It vanished from people's consciousness and now existed nowhere but in people's memories. It really was like it had died out.
(If I don't report this....)
While thinking that he must report that the road had been blocked off to the town hall, he also thought whether or not that would even have any meaning if he did. A road that had lost those who would travel it was another thing which had died out.
The village is surrounded by death.