by Fuyumi Ono
Was it his imagination, he wondered. The night road was dark, maybe he'd mistaken which house on which side of it he'd seen them go into. While thinking as much, Masao went towards the back door. Putting his hand on the door, as expected the back door was unlocked. Opening the door, entering into the house, Masao heard a sound from somewhere in the garden. Somewhere from the scant garden tree shadows. A sound of shaking branches.
Masao stopped and turned around.
6
By the time Toshio was freed from his patients, the wake was already long over. He hurried to show his face at the Mutou household, to give his condolences to Mutou and Shizuko once again. From there, at that spot, he got ahold of old man Koike.
He asked about what happened with his son and the others but, when he tried that, old man Koike made a cool face. He still forced the issue, following Koike home to ask him about it in more detail. Were the family members who left really showing signs of being in bad health, concretely what kind of condition were they in? The more he asked, the more he could only think Koike's son's family had an outbreak.
(Outbreak--Moving.)
There shouldn't be any association between them. And yet a clear cause and effect relationship was drawing itself out. Something was strange. Something impossible was happening.
By the time he returned home caught up in his thoughts the date had changed. Seishin was waiting in his bedroom.
"You're here?" he asked nonchalantly, seeing the other's stiff expression, he grasped that the situation had taken a bad turn. "....You look like you wanna say something."
"What did you say to Ishida-san?"
Ah, that, Toshio muttered to himself. He figured he'd be found out at some point but the timing was just awful. Toshio's was already at a stalemate. It was like an investigation making no progress. Not only that, something of unknown substance was present on a secondary level, and the depths of confusion were growing. Nevermind if he'd been having results or findings, in their current state, if he were blamed for hushing up Ishida now, even Toshio didn't have anything to counter with.
"I don't plan to ask why. Just allow Ishida-san to pass on the data that's been assembled to Kanemasa and the assembly."
"Seishin---listen?"
"It's urgent."
Toshio sighed. "In cases like these, there's no choice but to confine it. Even if it stops the spread of the disease, it won't save the village."
"That's sophistry."
"Sophistry? I'm not kidding around. What other means are you trying to say there are besides that? Something like an epidemic is passing through Sotoba. We don't know its real form but at the very least it's not a known infectious disease. If there's no legal bases, the administration can't move. They can't provide any relief measures or anything."
"Then I'll ask you this; what would be the basis for that confinement?"
"That's,"
"How, specifically, will they quarantine us? You're surely not planning to say that the city is going to dispatch police and defense forces here to blockade the highway, right?"
Toshio kept silent as his weak point was thrust into.
"It isn't realistic at all. Even if and no matter how much Mizobe might wish for it, they can't do it in practice. Nevermind blockading the road, aside from that how on earth are you saying they're going to keep people from leaving the village? What about the people who work outside the village? What about the people who commute to school. And the people who just go out shopping? How are you going to keep them from entering shops and making direct contact? Are they going to do like the Nazis and put labels on them like the Jews?"
"....Indeed," Toshio sighed. "Even I don't seriously think that the administration can take that drastic of measures. But, there's no doubt people'll hurry to protect themselves. Sotoba will be closed off below the radar. With tangible and intangible pressures."
Seishin's response was low. "If the existence of the disease is known, Sotoba will be discriminated against and avoided. That's only natural, and doesn't change whether the administration takes action or not. It's something that will inevitably happen, unavoidably."
Toshio kept silent. Toshio knew full well that his friend who seemed mild mannered at a glance could become frightfully severe when a line was crossed. Toshio himself would admit that he was quite the nihilist but there were times when he thought that Seishin was even more of a nihilist than himself. He had to wonder if he himself was aware of that.
"....There's no meaning to it. Forbidding him from reporting it doesn't change a thing. Even after it's reported, I can't imagine the administration is going to dispatch a team of doctors to save Sotoba. All the more because we can't even name the disease. Even so, they can't proactively disadvantage Sotoba either. It'd be impossible to quarantine. Even you should know that."
Toshio clicked his tongue in his mind. Yeah--He knew. It was exactly right.
Seishin looked at Toshio with a a blunt expression. "The quarantine is an excuse. Even you don't believe that. You wanted to keep the situation under your control."
Toshio sighed. "....I dont want outsiders butting in."
"That's why you kept the information hushed?"
"That's right." Toshio looked at Seishin. "That's exactly right. Of course they're not going to quarantine is. But, if we send up a formal report, sooner or later people'll realize the abnormality. They'll think there's an unknown disease in Sotoba and know that it's spreading. That said, you think they're good enough people to offer out any assistance? Unless there's a fire under their own asses they won't do a thing, definitely. But, doesn't it make you uneasy? We don't know when it's going to flow from Sotoba and start infecting Mizobe. So they'll start interfering and butting in. It's obvious that's how it'll go."
"The government will start giving word and you won't be able to take initiative."
"That's exactly it. The three pillars system is an unofficial one. It doesn't reach outside of Sotoba. The government's not going to leave the situation to me. It's obvious they'll start sending in annoying orders. And worse they're going to talk nonsense."
For example, Toshio said, confirming something he imagined many times over. The mountain stream that flowed through the village poured into the Omi River which cut through Mizobe. The Omi River was Mizobe's fountainhead. The town's first thought would be not to contaminate the water. They'd run about the village to manage waste water and check the water quality, not doing much of anything for the patients suffering before their eyes. Countless things like that would doubtlessly begin happening.
"To them saving Sotoba's going to be secondary. Their own safety comes first, making sure it doesn't get out of Sotoba will be their top priority. They'll give minute instructions to that end. I'll get worked to death with ineffective tasks, taking time away from curing the essential patients themselves." And furthermore, Toshio spit out. "While that's happening, the situation will get even more stringent. Look at the bunch in the village. Lately they've finally started to realize that it's abnormal. Even just within the village it's taken this long. How long is it going to take for people outside of Sotoba, to people we're ultimately just the other shore to to sense that things are off? By the time the bunch of them outside acknowledge it, inside the village is going to be in such a state of disarray, completely over a barrel. Then in they'll come nonchalantly having us put out reports, giving out nonsense orders to bog us down. Despite that, they'll run their mouths but won't take any action. They'll just hold us back. So I kept it hushed."
Seishin's voice was curt and cold. "If you think that is a sound argument, why did you not say that to persuade Ishida-san from the start?"
Toshio was at a loss for an answer.
"It is true the town will have their say. I understand completely that their say will seem like nonsense to those on the scene. ---And? How is that different from you throwing a fit, saying that it will be a pain to deal with them at every turn and so claiming you don't want to?"
"That's."
Toshio fell silent and averted his gaze.
"Put a report in order for me. I'll go to talk with Kanemasa. No matter what reason you make for it, you've shirked your duties. And furthermore intentionally. I can't forgive something like this."
Toshio sighed and hung his head. "Seishin..."
"You condemned the administration as useless. So their interactions and support will be useless, you're saying. ---Am I wrong? You want them to be useless. You want them to provide foolish measures. Telling yourself that they must be, you made up a just cause to fail to report it. There's no reason or any such to it, you want to control your own situation. You don't want outsiders to have their say. You don't want them to come in from the sidelines and snatch away what's yours."
Toshio looked at Seishin's bluntly stiff expression.
"In other words, I was driven by ambition to push Ishida-san to keep his mouth shut? I'm pretty untrustworthy to you, huh."
Seishin shook his head with the same cold expression. "This is more simple than that. No human being can escape the idea that they are the center of the universe."
"Seems like you think I'm a hopelessly egotistical, selfish person."
"I don't. Whatever person we may be talking about, they believe that they themselves are the one and only core of the world. Everything outside of themselves is merely recognized like an object, they can't escape the idea that they are the only true center. They can't accept that they are nothing but one of the masses that claim to be the center. So they get caught up in the situation and refuse to be relegated to a minor role."
Is that how you see people, Toshio wanted to ask but didn't give voice to. Inside of Seishin was a vacant hole even Toshio couldn't understand. He thought he caught glimpses of it in the occasional acridity that showed itself, an extraordinarily pessimistic attitude towards man and society, but he wasn't sure. He thought that that was the very reason that his friend who at a glance didn't seem to have any problems at all would choose death but he'd never asked the other himself about it. Toshio never brought the topic up.
"....My bad." Toshio sighed lightly and raised a hand. "It might be just like you say. I'm not especially looking to be a hero but it's true I don't want to end up being in a position of just being told by others what to do. I can't deny that I felt like I'd do something about this situation," Toshio said with self derrision. "To be honest, I'd underestimated the situation. I was thinking if I investigated it, I'd be able to see the cause, then I'd know how to treat it. So I thought somehow or another I could pull it off. But, it isn't something that simple. ---Just before I came back from meeting with Koike-san."
"The Koike's Masaharu-san?"
Toshio nodded, telling him that Hirosawa Toyoko had an outbreak, that regardless of how much Toshio pushed on her to come to the hospital, she moved. The same with Maebara Setsu. There was a connection that shouldn't be between the people moving and the illness.
"I've realized it's probably out of my hands, isn't it? I get the feeling it's too dangerous for me to be cocky enough to think I can do it alone. ....There's what happened with Mutou-san and all."
Seishin nodded.
"I'll man up and admit my crime. I'll tell Ishida it's urgent and consult with him for a written report. I'll take that and go explain the situation to Kanemasa. Urgently. ---Is it fine with that?"
Seishin nodded. And then at last, as if returning to his senses, a disturbed expression rose to his face.
"That was some way to talk to you," he said as if ashamed. "I know that Toshio is exhausting himself over this as best as he can.... I'm sorry."
Toshio showed a forced smile but at the same time he felt a chill in his spine. Toshio still didn't understand the nature of his childhood friend who could apologize like this while harboring that emptiness within him.
7
Hearing the sound of the slightly slanted door opening, Seishin knew he had been waiting impatiently.
"Good evening," said a smiling childish face which Seishin looked attentively at.
"....What's wrong?"
Nothing, Seishin shook his head. It was a complicated feeling, being self conscious of his emotional dependance now on a girl young enough to be his daughter.
"You're depressed again aren't you? What happened this time?"
"Toshio and I.... well."
"You two had a fight? What trouble you cause," Sunako said with a laugh. Indeed, Seishin smiled bitterly. "Did Doctor Ozaki attack you again?"
"Not quite," Seishin forced a smile looking towards the empty altar. With some hesitation, he summarized the situation.
"I know. Toshio isn't me. Toshio is doing good by Toshio's own thinking, so even if that isn't the best by me, I don't have the right to condemn him. ....But."
Seishin lost sight of the words to come after that.
"You're angry?"
"Saying no wouldn't be very honest. Yes, I'm angry. Why would he do such a thing, I think. I know myself that I don't have any right to be angry. But I can't overlook it. In the end I attacked him, and am sick with myself for having attacked..." In fact, Seishin said casting his gaze to his own palm. "I think that Toshio is more normal. That's right, I'm just as you said, sentimental. Toshio says that I'm an idealist. I think that's exactly right. I'm more of a singularity. Toshio is more obvious. If you asked who was more in line with the majority, Toshio is more with the majority than I am, and from that vantage point, what I say is too pure and immature. So it's true, I really have no right to criticize Toshio. And yet I ended up attacking him."
"And so you are depressed over that and came here, then."
Seishin tilted his head.
"I wonder if Muroi-san wants to be a martyr?"
"If I do?"
"Yes. One who offers themselves up to God in sacrifice, you want to become such a person. But you cannot see God. ....As to why, it is because you have been abandoned by God."
Seishin gave a wry smile and shook his head.
"No? But, that is how it looks to me. Muroi-san really is a romantic. as if you want to carry out an absolute justice, an ideal. An absolute justice or ideal would be another name for God, wouldn't it?"
"Aa.... Right. Yes, it would."
Sunako nodded.
"Muroi-san wants to be one who is loyal to God, don't you. There is an illness spreading in the village. If you abide by God's will, the spread of the disease will be in check, it is the right thing to do to save the people of the village. That is why Muroi-san is cooperating to do so. You are the same as Doctor Ozaki in wanting to save the people of the village. But Doctor Ozaki is not as much of a romantic as Muroi-san."
Seishin stayed quiet watching Sunako's face.
"It isn't only Doctor Ozaki, I think you could say that of all people, though. Anyone would think that if a disease was spreading, they must stop it, wouldn't they? But among them, there are people who would take any means, and also people who, even knowing what the just thing to do is, would be cowardly and take actions to protect themselves. They want to preserve their safety, and so they will handle the disease from a distance at which they can be safe. They cannot do more than that. To other people, they may wish to carry that out as their meaning in life, or something like that perhaps. If so, their own will and pride take precedence. A distance at which those don't conflict. That is how they align their priorities.
But, Muroi-san wants to offer himself up to a single absolute God. You cannot bare not to be loyal towards an absolute justice. There cannot be anything prioritized above God. ---But, what is absolute about a God that none but you hold faith in?"
"Aa..." Seishin buried his face in both hands. "That's it exactly."
"Muroi-san belie
ves in God, doesn't he? I think you want to do ministry by him. You wish to be diligent enough to sacrifice yourself. But no one else believes in the God that Muroi-san believes in. Each time you affirm this, Muroi-san comes to know that there is no God, that it is nothing more than the values you choose to abide by---nothing more than one set of values, of which everybody has their own. That is not Good. Each time Muroi-san loses sight of God." Sunako laughed lightly. "That is why Muroi-san comes here when he is down, isn't it? You resonate with somebody who could this place. You want to believe in God, to sacrifice yourself to it, and yet you cannot find God. Together with that altar."
Seishin looked up at the altar. The altar with an emptiness where the God it should have enshrined would be.