Chapter 8.1

The next day, Toshio was woken by a phone call. It was a phone call to notify him of the death of Maeda Iwao who lived in Kami-Sotoba. They said even if the family called his name, he wouldn't wake up. They didn't think he was breathing, and that it was possible he was dead. He replied that he'd go right away but until that day Toshio had never gone on a house call to the Maeda household. They must have been a family without much need for a doctor but at any rate he asked for directions on the phone. 

While preparing to go out, his mother Takae awoke and came in.

"Another  one?"

Even Takae understood that an early morning phone call meant a death notice. The deaths had continued to the point where she couldn't not know. 

"Seems like it," Toshio answered.

"Just what is going on?" Takae's voice was pregnant with urgency. Toshio looked back at his mother's face which was a mixture of anger and unease. 

"This is how many times you've gone out like this? Something is happening in the village. Why are so many one after another...."

Who knows, Toshio answered coldly while moving to leave the main wing of the house when his mother grabbed his arm.

"It can't be that it's an epidemic, right?"

Toshio turned back to look at Takae in surprise. ---Right, if it came this far, it'd be stranger not to suspect it. 

"....I don't know."

"You don't know! This many people are continuing to die, you realize?"

"I won't deny it looks like an epidemic. But running the tests nothing turns up a positive result. Going by the rest results it's not an epidemic. So all I can say is I don't know."

"But it's spreading isn't it?"

"This is just between us but probably." 

Takae pulled the white coat from Toshio's hand. "You will not be going. You tell them to call an ambulance!"

"Mom."

"It's contagious isn't it? And not knowing what it is means that you cannot take preventative measures, doesn't it? You do know that running around like that every time someone dies puts you in the most dangerous position of all?"

Toshio sighed and patted Takae's shoulder lightly. 

"I'm being careful enough. ---Now that I've been called, I can't not go."

"It can be someone other than you can it not?"

"The bunch in the village still haven't realized anything. I can't give them any inadvertent warnings, so I can't so easily just leave it to another doctor."

"This is no joke! Why should it be you who has to do something so dangerous? If by some chance something happens, what then!"

"But,"

"You are an only child, do you realize that? If you die, what will happen to the hospital. You still don't have a successor you know. Kyouko-san won't stay in the home, and---"

Toshio sighed. He took back his white coat from Takae's hand. "If it comes to it, you can adopt one who's turned out well from one of the relatives," Toshio said with a smile. "Or if not that, how about you get remarried, Mom?"

"Toshio!"

"....I'm going off." Toshio turned back around and took off in a small jog towards the hospital. He took his bag and got into the car. It was about to be six o'clock but the surroundings were a little dark. The nights were getting longer.

To Takae she was "worrying about her son," he thought as he drove. It wasn't as if she particularly saw a son as a tool to continue the family. For Takae, it was impossible to consider herself separately from the family. Takae was a part of the Ozaki line, and Ozaki was the foundation on which Takae stood. Her son would succeed the Ozakis of which she had been swallowed as a part of. For Takae she was entrusting the most valuable thing to her own son, and because it was her son, she thought it appropriate to hand it over to him. Toshio as the successor was to accept that, and to share in participating in the honor of continuing the Ozaki line; this was nothing more than the manifestation of love itself, to Takae.

Unfortunately for Takae her son did not share in her values. Toshio had no attachment to Ozaki. In fact he came to feel it as a restraint. Toshio was no longer a child who cursed it to the point of saying Ozaki should just die out but he thought that if it was going to die out, he wouldn't mind if it did. At the very least he didn't appear to be taking any proactive measures to prevent it. 

Even so the reason Toshio returned to the village wasn't for the sake of Ozaki but for the villagers who were depending on Ozaki. He didn't want to let them down. He chose a lifestyle of being needed and thanked by the villagers for his own sake rather than staying at the University while being absorbed in political considerations. 

---We aren't tools to continue the family. 

Yes, that was what the successor of the mountain temple had said. It was when they were still kids unsure of their life course. 

--We are individual human beings with free will. So, we have the right to live as we like, I think. 

It wasn't just their families but the villagers too had expectations of Toshio and Seishin to continue the family. But neither Toshio nor Seishin had the obligation to bare that. One's own future should be decided by their own free will. But, Seishin had said, is choosing another future in order to disobey other's expectations ultimately really free will?

It was only natural that the villagers held expectations for Toshio and Seishin. Anyone would wish for there to be a doctor and anyone would wish for a head monk. Indeed the doctors and the temple were better to have than not. Nevermind if they were something unnecessary, they were clearly a necessity, and continuing to provide that was up to each of them. ---In the end, Toshio chose the path of remaining in the village as a doctor.

The village was isolated in the mountains, and just like villages all over Japan the young people were migrating out with nothing but old people left behind. They needed a doctor. So he became that. It wasn't self-sacrifice. He chose the life of being needed and thanked by others. 

(And yet, I can't do anything....)

Toshio gripped the steering wheel. Since summer, the vigorously increasing number of deaths, that many people dying, were so abnormal that even Takae was suspicious and yet even now he couldn't find a plan for resolving it. The patients continued to increase. Since it started the fatality rate was one hundred percent, and he couldn't even grasp the mechanism by which it lead to death.

He arrived at the Maeda house in a dark mood. A middle aged woman stood waiting impatiently in the lit entryway of the prototypical farm house. After driving the car onto the property he hurried up.

"Doctor, I'm sorry."

"You're...."

Bowing her head quickly was Maeda Motoko. She was the mother whose child was hit by a car in the middle of the summer who came rushing in.

"For that time... thank you." Motoko said as if embarrassed, her head down. 

"It's been a while. How's Shigeki-kun been after that?"

"Thanks to you it was nothing in particular. Truly, I was very rude at that time."

Maeda Shigeki was carried in in July, wasn't it? He already thought of that as a long time ago. It was already October, so more than two full months had passed since then. 

"Glad it wasn't anything serious."

When Motoko motioned him into the house there was a middle aged man standing alone in the entryway, standing as if to close off the path. It was probably Motoko's husband. 

"The one who's not moving is your father-in-law?"

Yes, Motoko nodded and lead further inside. Crossing over the six tatami mat living room, there were two futons spread out, and at the side of one of those an elderly woman sat. 

"Aa---Doctor, his breathing, the old man's breathing is...."

The one on her hands turning to face him was probably Motoko's mother-in-law. Toshio nodded and sat beside the bed. Laid out was a man past sixty. The shadow of death was already showing itself on him. For the time being Toshio took his pulse. There were no palpitations, his blood pressure was zero, and his pupils dilated.

"....He is gone."

His wife suddenly broke down crying. Seeing that, Toshio turned his eyes to Motoko who was hiding her face.

"Was he sick?"

Yes, Motoko nodded. 

It was about three days ago that Motoko noticed her father-in-law Iwao's change in state. He seemed very sluggish, and he had no appetite. She thought his pallor was poor too. A long while ago, there were leaflets being passed out. Motoko remembered what they said, so she thought that Iwao might have had anemia. The leaflets instructed to go to the doctor. So Motoko also suggested to Iwao how about going in. But, "I won't," Iwao said.

Iwao was healthy, proud of the fact that since becoming sixty even at his age he had never once been sick. Maybe that was why he had an inclination to criticize anyone who slept but whose illness wasn't managed with that. In truth, he didn't have any specific illness, no cold nor stomach ache nor anything keeping him bedridden. Every day, he was health and went out into the mountains and paddy fields. Iwao who was like that looked sluggish even to outsiders, so Motoko couldn't stop worrying about it but it seemed that Iwao didn't care for that. He had no need of a doctor, he insisted obstinately. 

"I am not hurting anywhere." 

The one who agreed with this was her mother-in-law Tomiko. 

"That's right. Ojii-san is of a strong nature. In the first place you worry too much. You're kicking up a fuss right away."

"But..." 

Tomiko raised her voice. "Well, Ojii-san is a child of man, of course he will get just a little sick from time to time! But, it can be cured by going into the mountains and sweating it off! Those who get sick? It's because they're not taking care of themselves! Ojii-san has been working hard all this time, getting up early, and not staying up late. He neither drinks nor smokes. So what in that would you say is ill?!"

"Yes.... but...."

"Enough," Iwao said frankly in poor humor. "I'll go to bed early tonight. That will cure it."

After that Motoko kept her mouth closed without pushing strongly anymore but as expected she couldn't help that it was on her mind. Iwao wasn't just healthy, he was in high spirits for an old man, and when he was in poor humor he was nagging and critical. It wasn't like him to keep his mouth shut aside from saying the minimal amount necessary, and while when he was displeased it was enough for Motoko and others to cower in fear, he wasn't aspiring to be terrifying. And the next day he didn't look to be cured. Iwao and Tomiko persisted as ever that it was nothing but when Motoko couldn't bare her unease and, flustered, opened her mouth, the two became angry with her. 

Neither Iwao nor Tomiko had liked Motoko's timidity to start with. Being fearful and prone to worry was to Iwao and his wife a weakness, and weakness was not a good thing. You don't speak clearly, you hem and haw whenever talking about anything, you worry too much, you're always getting headaches and stomachaches, Motoko's in-laws complained of her. Motoko was like that, so their grandchildren were also neurotic, they always shouted at Motoko. She herself was actually quite aware that she was too faint hearted, so Motoko was eager not to worry, not to brood, but she never did manage her father and mother-in-law's approval. 

"In what way was he sick?" Asked by Toshio, Motoko said he 'felt' off. Toshio sighed. "Medically speaking?"

"No... Ojii-chan had said that it would improve if he slept, so...."

Tomiko's face snapped up. "That's right. It's true, he has never once been bedridden. Well, he was a sturdy person, he'd never taken poor care of himself!"

Okay, was all Toshio said. "Probably acute heart failure. Beyond that, I won't know unless I do a medical autopsy."

"Autopsy..." Motoko felt her color drain. "Uhm, you're doing to disect Ojii-san?"

"That is not funny!" Tomiko sobbed as her voice raised. "It'd be preposterous to mangle Ojii-san!"

"It's because he hadn't seen a doctor. Essentially, since he didn't die within 24 hours of the last time I saw him, I can't write out a medical certificate."

Tomiko glared at Toshio. "I understand. ---Then, how much do I have to put out for you to write the medical certificate?"

"Mother-in-law!" Motoko cried out, looking between Toshio and Tomiko.

"And what could you mean by that?"

"Isn't that what this is about? If I don't put out what's to be put out, you're saying you won't put out a medical certificate."

"That isn't what I'm saying." Even an outsider could tell that Toshio was in a foul mood. "You're the one saying your husband was healthy. Just why is it that a healthy person would suddenly die? Something was wrong with him. But I guess that you don't want to know what was wrong with him."

"Knowing something like that doesn't make it something we can take back now.."

"Well, that's true." Toshio's voice held naked thorns. "You can't take back not bringing him to a doctor when he was sick."

Tomiko glared at Toshio and then turned to face Motoko. 

"It's because you're always being such a burden!"

Without thinking, Motoko stepped back, blinking.

"Go to the hospital, the hospital, you say that on a daily basis! Because you make a big fuss over nothing! That's why Ojii-san--that's why!"

Tomiko fell prostrate to the ground as if losing her words, voice raising up in a sobbing wail. Motoko's husband Isami rushed over to pat his mother's back. Toshio patted Motoko's shoulder as she huddled into herself. He quietly ushered her out of the room.

"....It'd be best not to mind too much. Obaa-chan's on edge."

"Yes...."

Toshio sighed. "It's because I blamed her. I have no excuse. Well, Iwao-san himself is probably regretting having too much faith in his own health."

That's true, Motoko mumbled. "Uhm, the autopsy?"

"I won't force it. To be honest I want to push it but, I can't very well ignore the wishes of the bereaved family. It's just, I can't write 'cause unknown' on a medical certificate, that is the truth."

"Yes... I am very sorry."

"I wonder if I can at least get a blood sample, though. I'd like even the smallest amount you can give me. If I can't have that, it's going to be a problem on my end too, so."

"Yes, but," Motoko looked towards the six mat room. Would Tomiko really give the okay?

"I'll be doing post-death procedures, so if you could just get your mother in law out of her seat. At that time, I'll manage something."

Motoko felt unsure but nodded. Toshio said his thanks and returned to the six mat room. He explained it to Tomiko and had her leave her seat. Told to bring a change of clothes, Motoko went to seek them out.

"Mom, did something happen?"

When she went to the second story, Shigeki and Shiori were uneasily peeking their faces out from their room.

"A little bit," Motoko said as if she were talking in her sleep. "We have a guest, so don't come out of your room."

Looking over the two as they nodded, Motoko felt something in her stomach. 

She should tell them properly. That grandpa died. But, she didn't know how to convey his sudden death. She cramped at the idea of hurting them by telling them artlessly. ---Wasn't it unjust of her mother in law to say like that that she worried too much? Actually, Motoko herself thought that she over-thought some things. Wavering like this, telling a lie for the time being, might have done them unnecessary harm. In the end, she couldn't come to a decision on what to do without consulting someone to tell her 'let's do this.'

Breathing a heavy sigh, Motoko entered the closet. Until he was placed in the coffin in the white funeral robes, it was customary for them to wear normal sleepwear, a yukata, or otherwise a kimono. Tomiko had said a yukata, so a yukata would likely be fine. Digging through the drawers, she took out as nice of one as she could find. 

(And now, we're having a funeral too...) Motoko thought absently.  It was summer when the old people had died in Yamairi. Just a while ago there was another funeral. An acquaintance of her friend Kanami---to be more specific, someone Kanami's mother had gotten along well with had died, it seemed. At Kanami's Chigusa, since summer, gossip of the continuing deaths and many funerals flowed. Actually, Motoko had heard frequent talk of a funeral here or there, and had actually caught sight of the scenes of people coming out of funerals. This year is strange, so everyone was saying. Each time Motoko only responded with "It is." It was true that there were many casualties. --At least, it was true that there was a lot of talk of death.

(But...)

Motoko suddenly felt oncoming goosebumps. It had just been a matter of talk before but it became a truth in her very presence. This was death. It was what was continuing, since this summer. 

Motoko turned to see the scene behind her. Her uneasily nodding two children.

(Outsiders have come...)

Motoko shook her head. This and Iwao's death had no connection. It wasn't as if Iwao had died in an accident.

(Outsiders... in the village...)

Unrelated. So, there shouldn't have been anyone to come and snatch Motoko's children away.

---As long as they don't go near the national highway it'll be all right.

Motoko firmly convinced herself.