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the cause of death was unknown
. None of their tests had ever determined what was
wrong with him. The closest the doctor could say was that Tengo’s father died of old
age—but he was still only in his mid-sixties, too young for such a diagnosis.
“As the attending physician I’m the one who fills out the death certificate,” the
doctor said hesitantly. “I’m thinking of writing that the cause of death was ‘heart
failure brought on by an extended coma,’ if that is all right with you?”
“But actually the cause of death was not ‘heart failure brought on by an extended
coma.’ Is that what you’re saying?”
The doctor looked a bit embarrassed. “True, until the very end we found nothing
wrong with his heart.”
“But you couldn’t find anything wrong with any of his other organs.”
“That’s right,” the doctor said reluctantly.
“But the form requires a clear cause of death?”
“Correct.”
“This isn’t my field, but right now his heart is stopped, right?”
“Of course. His heart has stopped.”
“Which is a kind of organ failure, isn’t it?”
The doctor considered this. “If the heart beating is considered normal, then yes, it
is a sort of organ failure, as you say.”
“So please write it that way. ‘Heart failure brought on by an extended coma,’ was
it? I have no objection.”
The doctor seemed relieved. “I can have the death certificate ready in thirty
minutes,” he said. Tengo thanked him. The doctor left, leaving only bespectacled
Nurse Tamura behind.
“Shall I leave you alone with your father?” Nurse Tamura asked Tengo. Since she
had to ask—it was standard procedure—the question sounded a bit matter-of-fact.
“No, there’s no need. Thanks,” Tengo said. Even if he were left alone with his
father, there was nothing in particular he wanted to say to him. It was the same as
when he was alive. Now that he was dead, there weren’t suddenly all sorts of topics
Tengo wanted to discuss.
“Would you like to go somewhere else, then, to discuss the arrangements? You
don’t mind?” Nurse Tamura asked.
“I don’t mind,” Tengo replied.
Before Nurse Tamura left, she faced the corpse and brought her hands together in
prayer. Tengo did the same. People naturally pay their respects to the dead. The
person had, after all, just accomplished the personal, profound feat of dying. Then the
two of them left the windowless little room and went to the cafeteria. There was no
one else there. Bright sunlight shone in through the large window facing the garden.
Tengo stepped into that light and breathed a sigh of relief. There was no sign of the
dead there. This was the world of the living—no matter how uncertain and imperfect
a world it might be.
Nurse Tamura poured hot roasted
hojicha
tea into a teacup and passed it to him.
They sat down across from each other and drank their tea in silence for a while.
“Are you staying over somewhere tonight?” Nurse Tamura asked.
“I’m planning to stay over, but I haven’t made a reservation yet.”
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“If you don’t mind, why don’t you stay in your father’s room? Nobody’s using it,
and you can save on hotel costs. If it doesn’t bother you.”
“It doesn’t bother me,” Tengo said, a little surprised. “But is it all right to do that?”
“We don’t mind. If you’re okay with it, it’s okay with us. I’ll get the bed ready
later.”
“So,” Tengo said, broaching the topic, “what am I supposed to do now?”
“Once you get the death certificate from the attending physician, go to the town
office and get a permit for cremation, and then take care of the procedures to remove
his name from the family record. Those are the main things you need to do now.
There should be other things you’ll need to take care of—his pension, changing
names on his savings account—but talk to the lawyer about those.”
“Lawyer?” This took Tengo by surprise.
“Mr. Kawana—your father, that is—spoke with a lawyer about the procedures for
after his death. Don’t let the word
lawyer
scare you. Our facility has a lot of elderly
patients, and since many are not legally competent, we have paired up with a local
law office to provide consultations, so people can avoid legal problems related to
division of estates. They also make up wills and provide witnesses. They don’t charge
a lot.”
“Did my father have a will?”
“I can’t really say anything about it. You’ll need to talk to the lawyer.”
“I see. Can I see him soon?”
“We got in touch with him, and he’ll be coming here at three. Is that all right? It
seems like we’re rushing things, but I know you’re busy, so I hope you don’t mind
that we went ahead.”
“I appreciate it.” Tengo was thankful for her efficiency. For some reason all the
middle-aged women he knew were very efficient.
“Before that, though, make sure you go to the town office,” Nurse Tamura said,
“get his name removed from your family record, and get a permit for cremation.
Nothing can happen until you’ve done that.”
“Well, then I have to go to Ichikawa. My father’s permanent legal residence should
be Ichikawa. If I do that, though, I won’t be able to make it back by three.”
The nurse shook her head. “No, soon after he came here your father changed his
official residence from Ichikawa to Chikura. He said it should make things easier if
and when the time came.”
“He was well prepared,” Tengo said, impressed. It was as if he knew from the
beginning that this was where he would die.
“He was,” the nurse agreed. “No one else has ever done that. Everyone thinks they
will just be here for a short time. Still, though …,” she began to say, and stopped,
quietly bringing her hands together in front of her to suggest the rest of what she was
going to say. “At any rate, you don’t need to go to Ichikawa.”
Tengo was taken to his father’s room, the room where he spent his final months. The
sheets and covers had been stripped off, leaving only a striped mattress. There was a
simple lamp on the nightstand, and five empty hangers in the narrow closet. There
wasn’t a single book in the bookshelf, and all his personal effects had been taken
724
away. But Tengo couldn’t recall what personal effects had been there in the first
place. He put his bag on the floor and looked around.
The room still had a medicinal smell, and you could still detect the breath of a sick
person hanging in the air. Tengo opened the window to let in fresh air. The sun-
bleached curtain fluttered in the breeze like the skirt of a girl at play.
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