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formalities
that have to
be taken care of.”
“Formalities,” Tengo said. “Is there anything in particular I should bring with me?”
“Are you Mr. Kawana’s only relative?”
“I’m pretty sure I am.”
“Then bring your registered seal. You might need it. And do you have a certificate
of registration for the seal?”
“I think I have a spare copy.”
“Bring that, too, just in case. I don’t think there’s anything else you especially
need. Your father arranged everything beforehand.”
“Arranged everything?”
“Um, while he was still conscious, he gave detailed instructions for everything—
the money for his funeral, the clothes he would wear in the coffin, where his ashes
would be interred. He was very thorough when it came to preparations. Very
practical, I guess you could say.”
“That’s the kind of person he was,” Tengo said, rubbing his temple.
“I finish my rotation at seven a.m. and then am going home to sleep. But Nurse
Tamura and Nurse Omura will be on duty in the morning and they can explain the
details to you.”
“Thank you for all you’ve done,” Tengo said.
“You’re quite welcome,” Kumi Adachi replied. And then, as if suddenly
remembering, her tone turned formal. “My deepest sympathy for your loss.”
“Thank you,” Tengo said.
721
He knew he couldn’t go back to sleep, so he boiled water and made coffee. That woke
him up a bit. Feeling hungry, he threw together a sandwich of tomatoes and cheese
that were in the fridge. Like eating in the dark, he could feel the texture but very little
of the flavor. He then took out the train schedule and checked the time for the next
express to Tateyama. He had only returned two days earlier from the cat town, on
Saturday afternoon, and now here he was, setting off again. This time, though, he
would probably only stay a night or two.
At four a.m. he washed his face in the bathroom and shaved. He used a brush to
tame his cowlicks but, as always, was only partly successful.
Let it be
, he thought,
it
will fall into place before long
.
His father’s passing didn’t particularly shock Tengo. He had spent two solid weeks
beside his unconscious father. He already felt that his father had accepted his
impending death. The doctors weren’t able to determine what had put him into a
coma, but Tengo knew. His father had simply decided to die, or else had abandoned
the will to live any longer. To borrow Kumi’s phrase, as a “single leaf on a tree,” he
turned off the light of consciousness, closed the door on any senses, and waited for
the change of seasons.
From Chikura Station he took a taxi and arrived at the seaside sanatorium at ten thirty.
Like the previous day, Sunday, it was a calm early-winter day. Warm sunlight
streamed down on the withered lawn, as if rewarding it, and a calico cat that Tengo
had never seen before was sunning itself, leisurely grooming its tail. Nurse Tamura
and Nurse Omura came to the entrance to greet him. Quietly, they each expressed
their condolences, and Tengo thanked them.
His father’s body was being kept in an inconspicuous little room in an
inconspicuous corner of the sanatorium. Nurse Tamura led Tengo there. His father
was lying faceup on a gurney, covered in a white cloth. In the square, windowless
room, the white fluorescent light overhead made the white walls even brighter. On top
of a waist-high cabinet was a glass vase with three white chrysanthemums, probably
placed there that very morning. On the wall was a round clock. It was an old, dusty
clock, but it told the time correctly. Its role, perhaps, was to be a witness of some
kind. Besides this, there were no furniture or decorations. Countless bodies of elderly
people must have passed through here—entering without a word, exiting without a
word. A straightforward but solemn atmosphere lay over the room like an unspoken
fact.
His father’s face didn’t look much different from when he was alive. Even up
close, it didn’t seem like he was dead. His color wasn’t bad, and perhaps because
someone had been kind enough to shave him, his chin and upper lip were strangely
smooth. There didn’t seem to be all that much difference from when he was alive,
deeply asleep, except that now the feeding tubes and catheters were unnecessary.
Leave the body like this, though, and in a few days decay would set in, and then there
would be a big difference between life and death. But the body would be cremated
before that happened.
The doctor with whom Tengo had spoken many times before came in, expressed
his sympathy, then explained what had led up to his father’s passing. He was very
722
kind, very thorough in his explanation, but it really all came down to one conclusion:
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