Chapter 4.3

On Tuesday at the end of the work day the band saw's roar was still echoing through the Ohtsuka Sawmill. Seishin looked at spectacle with deep emotion. The belt like band saw formed a bridge towards the rood of the sawmill building, sawdust falling and gathering from there; when he was small he would go into the Yasumori Sawmill and play, crawling under such gatherings. The pool of sawdust was more fascinating to children than a sand pit, and at the bottom of that pit were rhinoceros beetle and stag beetle larvae and pupa to be found.

There would be sawdust all over their bodies and of course they'd be scolded by their mothers, and the saw dust would get in beneath their clothing often, a feeling that was insufferably uncomfortable to a child, but it just meant that it held enough to be worth paying that price.

Gazing nostalgically at the sawmill, he didn't realize that Ohstuka Takayuki was nearby until he called out to him.

"If it isn't the Junior Monk!"

Called out to, at last Seishin returned to his senses. Meeting eyes with Takayuki who was still clad in work clothes, he hastily bowed his head.

"It has been a while."

When he raised his head, his eyes met with those of Ohtsuka Kichigorou who was supervising the saw. Kichigorou made an unpleasant face and averted his gaze.

The Ohtsuka Sawmill was a rival to the Maruyasu Sawmill. In the village there were several sawmill families but out of all of them it was these two who stood out from the rest in size. They had once been a parish family and he had heard they were even involved in the Parish Representative Committee but when Seishin went to college and returned from his ascetic training at the head temple to help here, they had already been extracted from the parish. Kichigorou's wife had entered a new religion, and Kichigorou had likewise joined into it. Seishni's father Shinmei apparently tried coming many times on foot attempting to pursued them. It was probably due to the antagonism from that time that Kichigorou didn't get on well with those of the temple.

In regards to that his son Takayuki was either unaware of the antagonism from those days or he knew about it but didn't think of it as anything to be effected by, as he didn't get along with him exceptionally poorly. Even though he'd seen him about the village here and there, he'd never made a particularly sour face at him.

"It has been a while, hasn't it."

Takayuki showed a smile.

"It has been some time since we have made contact. I apologize for intruding while you're working."

"What might be the matter?"

"Just recently, I had overheard that Yasuyuki-san had passed away, you see."

Yeah, Takayuki said, showing an expression as if he had thrust into a sore spot. "For that, you came all the way out. ---Thank you very much."

Takayuki took off his work gloves and put them in the pocket of his work suit. While wiping his sweat he motioned to the office. "Well, come in. We don't have anything to offer beyond tea, though."

"Are not you in the middle of work? I had only thought to come to offer incense."

"It's all right. I was just thinking of wrapping up for the day."

Takayuki smiled and conveyed something to someone nearby, then went to the previously gestured office. Entering the office at the edge of the sawmill, Takayuki's wife Hiroko was at office desk with an open account book. Noticing Seishin, she stood and bowed a salutation to him.

"Oh my, it has been a while!"

"He says he's come to offer condolences for Yasuyuki."

When told that by Takayuki, she had a seemingly troubled smile as she said her thanks.

"I'm sorry for being so sudden. I had thought that it might be to forward of me, but."

"It's quite all right. Thank you very much. To think that you would take the trouble to come all this way--"

Hiroko smiled, though she looked to be the definitive picture of someone crying, something that Seishin secretly felt with a pain in his conscience.

"For the time being, please enjoy the tea," Takayuki said, taking the pitcher of cold barley tea from the corner of the office and presenting him with a cup of it. He motioned towards an open seat.

"Truly, the occasion was very sudden...."

You've said it, Takayuki said with a forced smile. "He was a guy whose only good point was his heath, I couldn't imagine that he would go before me."

I'm certain, Seishin replied quietly. Going by what Takayuki and Hiroko said, as expected Yasuyuki was suddenly bedridden. It was probably a cold, and such stereotypical lines were heard around here as well. They took it lightly, not thinking that it could possibly come to this. In the middle of the night suddenly he thought he had heard groaning sounds, and he was convulsing, Takayuki puzzled. "We called an ambulance and had him brought to the national hospital. Our hearts were in our stomachs. He was rushed immediately into surgery but he did not come out alive. It seems we didn't make it in time."

"Is that so..."

"It seems there were problems with his liver. His jaundice was so faint, we didn't notice it ourselves, either. He wasn't a particularly heavy drinker, I didn't think there was any reason for there to be problems there. Really, this is what they mean when they say something is a complete surprise."

"This has been, I am most certain, a terribly difficult time. ....Have matters calmed?"

Yes they have, Takayuki said with a lonely smile. "When he first died, it was nothing but marital fights, though. I blamed his mother asking why she idn't notice anything, I was working with him, why didn't I notice, she said blaming me. On top of that, Father being Father said that it was because we didn't have enough faith, then the people around were blaming it on the new aged religion, we'd heard them saying showily, which didn't help."

That's, Seishin said, frowning. "That sort of thing isn't relevant at all, is it?"

"To have the Junior Monk say as much is, if I can speak honestly, very gratifying," Takayki said as if deriding himself. "The bunch in the village---Ah, please do not take this as criticism of the temple---they're, as expected, critical of withdrawing from the parish. The temple and the village really are monolithic, and all. Actually, here and there, you know, people have been dragging away from us.We're like exiled outsiders, so I've thought before!"

Hiroko gave an interceding smile.

"Especially when, you remember, the old man was taken out of his position as the ward chief, wasn't he? It wasn't because of anything our household did, it was just that the old man was at that age but he'd gotten his belly button in a twist and said some unfortunate things, so things became unnecessarily complicated."

"Is that so...."

"For a while there, we got into nothing but fights everywhere." Takayukii forced a smile. "It was bleak inside the home, we were trying to have proper faith in our own way. Yet whenever we thought about why this happened to us, we thought, maybe we should lower our heads to the temple and return to the parish, or something."

"You musn't," Seishin promptly interjected. "It is not good for you to begin thinking in such a way. Faith is something organic, it is not something that can be coerced. It is the fulcrum of one's personal freedom, and so we must not distort it unnaturally."

Takayuki gave a surprised seeming blink. Seishin returned to himself and unintentionally hung his head in shame.

"Pardon me. .... For speaking strangely."

No, Takayuki laughed. "To have you say as much is a relief. ---Yeah?"

Takayuki smiled and turned to Hiroko. Hiroko also nodded.

"Yes.... Really."

He imagined just how harshly condemned such a manner of speaking would be. Certainly the village was united around the temple. A firm sense of unity was built upon a firmly enforced exclusion principle. And of all things the Ohtsuka Sawmill had always served on the Parish Representative Committee. A so-called pillar of the temple to suddenly become estranged from the temple, so he could imagine how the parishioners would perceive that.

"....At the beginning it was like that, really, nothing but fights everywhere. Our successor had died, and we even talked about how we might as well close up the sawmill and move, but. When we said that, our second son who had gone to the city said he would inherit it for us. Ah, we really musn't give ourselves up to despair."

"That is truly so." As Seishin answered, he remembered the unpleasant face his gentle father had shown so many times. His father who had rarely made a displeased expression made a clear one whenever the conversation turned to the Ohtsuka Sawmill. He didn't particularly find fault with them but it was clear Shinmei had no patience when it came to this for the people around them. At those times Seishin, unable to comprehend why his father was angry, could not help feeling the faintest sense of something like despondency towards his father. Despondency may be too deep a word for it but he remembered thinking that he didn't need to make that face. Looking at the current case, it may have been precisely because Shinmei was so flagrantly unpleasant that the parishioners followed the head monk's will to criticize Takayuki and his family. When he thought of that, Seishin felt it inexcusable.

"Lately it's calmed down. It's a shame about Yasuyuki but, I have the feeling that the family can somehow get through this, you know? ....It is true that we miss him, but."

"I'm sure you must."

But somehow, you know, said Takayui looking out the window. "Maybe it's my age, but I've been missing a lot lately. A disheartened feeling or something. It might be the season, too."

Seishin, for some reason or other, nodded.

"The old man is getting to that age and all, I start to think he won't live forever, or things like that. A girl from the neighborhood had died on Bon, hadn't she?"

"Shimizu--Megumi-chan, you mean?"

"Yes, that's right. Shimizu-san's place's daughter. She was such a young little thing, too. Maybe it's because my own house has had a funeral; whenever I go walking in the village these days, I get the feeling I'm seeing too many funerals really. Thinking about it, the people of the village are mostly old people you know. The heat is hard on the elderly, and there must be many of them who are feeling down. A young one from the sawmill suddenly ran away from home and quit her job, too. The elderly in the neighborhood are disappearing before you know it too."

At Takayuki's recollection, Seishin's brows knit together.

"Now that you mention it," Hiroko interrupted. "Suzuki-san? He left, didn't he. He was the same age as Yasuyuki. The family moved, they said. Lately, there are a lot of stories like that."

Seishin blinked. Hiroko gave a lonely seeming smile.

"Has everyone come to hate Sotoba, I wonder?"

That might be the case, Seishin thought.

---Therefore thou art cursed, no longer one of the land, an eternal vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

The village was like the hill, removing foreign substances.

(...It wouldn't be strange to come to hate it.)