Chapter 5.5

Toshio received notice of Mizuguchi's Ohkawa Shigeru's death at the usual time, early in the morning. September 19th, Monday. By the time he had hurried to the telephone, Shigeru had already died. Ohkawa Shigeru had been 33, one grade higher than Toshio, with 34 close at hand when he'd suddenly died.

Shigeru had been bedridden since three days prior, his breathing fizzling to a stop without anyone to care for him in the grey hours of the morning. When his family had come in the morning to try to wake him they finally noticed Shigeru was dead.

"To think that this could happen!" Shigeru's mother threw herself over the corpse sobbing. Toshio looked over that in irritation. Why, if he was ill, was he not made to go to the hospital, not brought into the hospital?

---Of course, he knew. Because it was over a weekend. It wasn't that Shigeru's parents weren't worried about their son. Nor were they indifferent to his health. Shigeru became far worse than his parents feared. At first, they couldn't think it was something to call the doctor out for on his day off. All the same, because they were worried for their son, they planned to bring him in first thing at the beginning of the week. And that wasn't soon enough. The illness did not give Shigeru until Monday.

It'd be better to open the hospital even on days off, Toshio knew. Those in the village were intimately familiar with Toshio. But that was why all the more they couldn't exploit him on his days off. There's no excuse for that, they thought, most considerably. They meant well--it was absolutely nothing but the best of intentions but for those patients braving this disease, the two days of the weekend, just those two days, were a fatal procrastination.

It wasn't just his patients. Toshio himself was inconvenienced by it. Every time he was called out for an examination it was of a corpse---and unable to even do an autopsy, he couldn't observe its progress or observe it, leaving him unable to determine the source of the disease. Anyway, saying that he needed to fill out a death certificate, he asked about Shigeru's medical history, both parents medical history, his habits past and present, pushing with all his might for who he'd seen recently, where he went, if there was anything there that could have infected him but nobody but the man himself could know all that. If he could at least ask Shigeru himself. While he was still lucid.

Lately the death reports had stopped. It was an incredibly short break. And then in came Shigeru's death notification. It was possible this was a beginning. After a small break ended the peak was coming. The coming wave would probably be greater than the last one.

It would be good to open the hospital on the weekend too. He knew that. All the same, if he did decide to open the hospital, he would need staff. It wasn't as if he could tell his already busy staff to work any harder, and they weren't exactly surrounded left and right by places to try and recruit new staff from.

Toshio looked down at the Ohkawa husband and wife crumpled and crying, in a dark, somber mood.

Seishin received notice of Ohkawa Shigeru's death also at the usual time right after the morning services. Returning to the office for a short break Seishin and the others heard the phone ring and looked to each other. That a phone call in the morning was not a good thing was something all of them had come to feel in their bones this summer.

The one to take the call was Mitsuo, the one to say "again" in a small mumble was Tsurumi. Nobody else said a word beyond that.

When he went to the Ohkawa household in Mizuguchi for the bedside sutras, there unfolded the usual pathetic scene.

"If I'd known that it would come to this, I would have drug him to the hospital on Saturday!" His mother Norie broke down sobbing. "It was because he said himself that he was okay!"

What happened with Fuki---when Gotouda Shuuji died, was repeating itself here. His father Choutarou and Norie both looked to have rounded and become smaller too. Shigeru wasn't yet married. Seishin didn't know whether he should say that the two having no daughter-in-law or grandchildren was fortunate or unfortunate.

For Ohkawa Choutarou and Norie, their son Shigeru's death was a disaster on par with their own deaths. It was a death so sudden they couldn't even imagine it in their dreams. The shock and significance was likely immeasurable to them, and yet to Seishin this was nothing more than another stereotypical scene he'd seen repeat so many times he felt nauseous this summer.

And so he found himself failing to ask indirectly about Ohkawa Shigeru's latest movements, too. Either way it there wasn't going to be any visible point of connection, he'd sensed from the beginning in his heart. ---And, practically speaking, he couldn't find any point of contact between Shigeru and the dead to now.

(Is this going to keep happening.... for how long?)

Wondering to himself in that dark and somber mood he'd fallen into, Seishin asked suddenly whether Shigeru had retired from work just before he died.

Norie made a face as if she didn't understand why she was being asked such a thing. "Of course not."

That's right, Seishin said with a wry internal smile. Yes, there was no significance to that. It was only something he'd noticed as an observer. As if not fully understanding his self-derisive silence, Norie piled on more words.

"He could not have. This morning, when we had notified his workplace in Mizobe, they didn't say anything about that."

"No, pardon me. It was just bothering me a bit, I am truly sorry to have troubled you over it."

Seishin apologized thusly and said that he would see them again at the all night vigil, then took his leave of the Ohkawa house. The next time he visited the Ohkawa house was a little before the all night vigil; sitting aside in the tatami room Seishin, as usual, listened to the grieved voices of condolence callers for the dead and the jumbled conversations passing through. Fixedly in wait through this, amongst the faces of the mourners he saw Ohkawa Tomio's face. Come to think of it the master of the Ohkawa Liquor shop didn't have strong blood relations with Ohkawa Shigeru but he remembered that there was some connection.

"Ah, it's the Junior Monk. You are workin' hard as usual. To think I'm meeting you at it today again after yesterday."

"It must be hard on you as well, Boss."

"That's two relatives now. Honestly, man." Ohkawa gave a sigh and with a bow of his head returned to his relatives. The main mourners, the Ohkawa couple, sat deeply discouraged, receiving the visiting mourners.

"My condolences for your sudden loss." said a man in the prime of his life in a dark suit, behind him many likewise in mourning clothes in waiting. "When I had been told, I was surprised. I am sure that you must be depressed. If at tomorrow's funeral there is any way that I may be of service, please do not hesitate to ask."

To this Choutarou and Norie both nodded in silence.

"Thank you very much. ...Those of the neighborhood will do everything, so, your feelings alone are enough."

Is that so, the young man sighed. "Even so, it really was sudden. Was there anything the matter with Shigeru-kun?"

No, Norie said dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief, shaking her head.

"Is that so? ....Ah, it's just, everyone," the man said turning back towards the number of people behind him. "had thought: Ah, Shigeki-kun probably quit suddenly for treatment or recuperation."

Norie's face lifted, the eyes she had been sobbing out blinking. Choutarou too suddenly started to stand as if pricked. Seishin too took another, more serious look at the man's face.

"Uhm... What might you be talking about?" Norie crushed the handkerchief in her hands. This time it was the man who blinked as if bewildered.

"No, uhm. Last week on Friday, Shigeru-kun took his retirement leave, and at that time he had said that it was for personal reasons but we were thinking that it was surely because he was sick and that he had quit in order to focus on recovery, we thought." The man said, looking at Choutarou and Norie's flabbergasted faces. "Uhm.... Did you not hear about it? He had quit, Shigeru-kun did. And very suddenly. He said that he had his reasons and that he was giving up any rights on inheriting anything and all of this and that, so he had to quit, by the end of the day and that was that." The man looked at the number of people behind him--colleagues, likely---as if seeking support. "He was very forceful, for Shigeru-kun, so we were saying he really must have had quite the circumstances, and then when we had received notice of his death, that must have been it, we.... uhm, that is..."

"That---that can't," Norie was at a loss for words and then looked towards Seishin who was waiting his turn in the side tatami room. "That boy, he didn't say anything about---"

They looked at each other in bewilderment. Perhaps overhearing the conversation, the people around again exchanged looks.

Sinking down to the floor, Choutarou who had stood up was again seated. "I don't know anymore.... what's what. ---Why, such a thing."

And at such a loss for words, he began a fit of crying.

Seishin, still seated, fell as if he were thrown into the middle of an absurd play.

Shimizu Ryuuji, Hirosawa Takatoshi, and Ohkawa Shigeru. Each of them were young men who worked out of town. Who suddenly died. Dying was no longer odd, not in this village anymore. ----But.