Chapter 1 Part 3 | Contents | A Break, and a Short Conversation
June 5, 1991 (Heisei 3) – Tuesday
The weather forecast was right on the money, and the rain finally stopped in the afternoon of the third day. As I was preparing to leave after school, Shirakawa came over to talk to me.
“Maja says she’ll be coming over, and Machi will also be going. What about you, Moriya?”
I was under the impression that I would be accompanying them when they were going to the graveyard, so I was at a momentary loss for words when she asked that question. Since I did want to go I could have just said so, but some pointless pride got in the way and warped my response.
“I see. I suppose I’m free, so why not?”
Shirakawa did not notice anything strange about my choice of words.
“Really? Please wait for a short while, then.”
While waiting, I paid a visit to Fumihara’s class. Their homeroom period seemed to have dragged on, and many students were still in the classroom. I peeked in to see if he was there, and caught him just as he was about to leave.
“Maja will be coming over. You going?”
Fumihara’s eyebrows twitched, but he answered immediately, taking almost no time at all to consider.
“I’ll pass.”
“Got it.”
“Tell Maja I said hi.”
I’d only invited Fumihara the other time because it wasn’t a good look for a guy to be alone with three girls. He had no obligation to join us on a strange event like touring a graveyard after school. I also didn’t push him to join us.
I returned to my classroom to find Tachiarai leaning next to a window, looking outside over her shoulder. When I approached, she glanced at me in recognition, but didn’t open her mouth. I called out to her.
“Did you hear?”
“About Maja? Of course I did.”
“Did you need something?”
Tachiarai finally faced forward.
“Need? No, nothing. It’s just that I can’t see the school gate from my classroom. I only intruding here because I think it’s the best spot to wait for Maja.”
“I see.”
I also stood by the window, but instead of monitoring the school gate, I gazed at the streetscape. It was white and gray, a scenery I’d long grown tired of seeing.
It would be boring to just wait silently, so I asked a question for no reason.
“You’ll be going today, right?”
Tachiarai answered with a frown.
“Of course. That’s why we’re waiting, isn’t it?”
“That’s true, but…”
Tachiarai seemed to sense something from my inarticulate response.
“Is that bad?”
“I didn’t say that. It’s just that you’re being more sociable than I expected.”
Tachiarai’s aloofness was as certified as folded paper. It wasn’t unnatural for Shirakawa to offer to accompany Maja, but it was out of place for Tachiarai to do something as friendly as that. I thought she would have been more distant, so her presence on last Sunday also felt surprising.
Tachiarai put on a light grin.
“Oh? I also find it fun to hang out with friends, you know?”
“But you don’t normally do so.”
“That’s because I have few friends.”
Based on her tone and body language, I could tell that she was just fooling around.
I pulled away the window and slumped against a nearby table.
“Friends, huh. From a girl’s perspective, what’s good about Maja?”
It was a casual question, but it caused Tachiarai to snap her gaze back to the window, as if she were avoiding my eyes.
“What’s good about her? I’ve never become friends with someone thinking about their pros and cons.”
That made sense. I scratched the tip of my nose with my little finger.
We didn’t need to wait long for Maja. She must have left Kikui at the right time to reach our school just as lessons ended. Upon hearing Tachiarai say, “She’s here,” I stood up to see Maja walking with quick steps against the waves of students leaving school. The day we first met, she’d assessed Japan as warm, but was Yugoslavia really colder than Japan? Or was she simply sensitive to heat? She was currently wearing a shirt that anyone could tell was summer attire in a glance. Incidentally, the start of June marked a change in our uniforms, so we were both clad in formal shirts.
We grabbed our bags and headed downstairs. Shirakawa was already waiting outside.
Since it was a day after rain, the weather was humid enough to block our pores, just like on Sunday, but the cool wind made it quite a lot more pleasant today. However, probably because she’d rushed to get here, Maja’s forehead was glistening with sweat, which she used the handkerchief embroidered with dandelions to wipe off. Seeing the dandelions led me to think about hydrangeas, and I noticed that Maja was also wearing the barrette today. Come to think of it, I hadn’t given Tachiarai anything even though Shirakawa had told me to. But upon further consideration, she wouldn’t want a gift, anyway.
After looking at me, Tachiarai and Shirakawa, Maja tilted her head.
“What about Fumihara?”
“Ah, he’s not coming. He says hi, though.”
“Hmm, what a shame.”
This time, we followed the current of people leaving school, and headed for Tsukasa Shrine. We were about fifteen minutes away, and it would take less than five minutes to the mountain from there.
Since there were many people around, I refrained from taking up too much space on the pavement, and followed behind the other three, who were walking side by side. In almost no time at all, we reached a big road, and after waiting for the signal and crossing the road, the crowd of students became sparse. Our formation naturally became a horizontal line.
Maja was all smiles.
“I have been waiting such a long time for the weather to be clear. I heard that there is a lot of rain during this season in Japan, and it is true. It made me wonder when it would stop raining. I was brimming with anticipation.”
Shirakawa teased Maja while looking at her side profile.
“Maja kept asking me if the weather would be clear the next day, or the day after that. How would I know!”
“Mm, Izuru, sorry about that.”
But it didn’t make sense for her to be so excited. Tachiarai transformed my thought into a question.
“Hey Maja, I don’t mean to rain on your parade, but what are you looking forward to so much?”
“Rain on my parade?”
“It means to spoil one’s excitement. Thinking about it normally, Nakano Town should be a lot more worth seeing than an ordinary graveyard.”
Maja suddenly sank into thought.
“Hmm…”
“That said, I don’t think all actions need to have a reason.”
Maja shook her head.
“There is a reason, but I cannot say it in Japanese. I can explain it with Srpskohrvatskom, but you will not be able to understand me.”
A grin formed on Tachiarai’s face.
“Srpsko…”
“Srpsko, hrvatskom.”
“By Srpskohrvatskom, you mean Yugoslavia’s language, right? Even if we start learning it now, you’ll be gone by the time it amounts to something.”
Right, we’d met Maja in the last third of April. She was supposed to stay for two months, so there wasn’t much time left. I was suddenly filled with the regret of throwing away something valuable.
On the other hand, Maja was still cheerful.
“Da… um, in that case, let me use an analogy to explain.
“Before coming to Japan, I was in China. My friends there took me to all sorts of places, and I saw many places like Nakano Town. I found that to be very interesting.
“But I did not always want to always see places like that. I kept thinking that I wanted to see the country’s usual appearance. Um, I wanted to see places that have not been prepared for others to see. Does that make sense?”
Each of us nodded, and after seeing that, Maja also nodded in relief.
“One day, I got lost, and accidentally entered some place that was not very orderly. I do think that no preparation was done for that place, but I do not like to intentionally visit dangerous areas. I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.
“But there, I ran into a bad person. Um, what do you call this in Japanese?”
Maja performed the action of trying to snatch Shirakawa’s bag. Shirakawa cocked her head and hazarded a guess.
“A purse-snatcher?”
Tachiarai also gave a suggestion.
“A swindler.”
“That can’t be, they’re completely different.”
“A robber, then.”
“Mm, that last one sounds good. So, that person demanded that I leave behind my money and belongings.”
That would make him a bandit, but I did not voice that thought.
For some reason, Maja giggled.
“After that, he showed me the weapon he was holding. It was this big.”
She clenched her fist and raised it to eye level.
“It was a rock.”
“A rock?”
Shirakawa spontaneously repeated, and Maja nodded in response.
“Yes, a rock. He said, ‘I’ll throw this rock at you if you don’t leave your things.’ Do you find that funny? But at that time, I was scared. I am also scared of guns, but being hit by a rock is painful.
“On that day, I witnessed a scene that was not prepared. I was in China for three months, but that was the moment I remember the most.
“Today, I feel that I will experience something like that. That is why I am brimming with excitement.”
I knew what she was getting at, but at the same time felt that I didn’t fully understand. Tachiarai seemingly shared this sentiment, rather than being convinced. All she did was reply, “Is that so.” Then again, such a response was very characteristic of her.
“Ah!”
Shirakawa abruptly let out an exclamation. We stopped altogether, wondering what was wrong, and Shirakawa pointed at an intersection we’d just passed.
“Sorry, I think we were supposed to take this road.”
Heeding her words, we doubled back a little. Shirakawa’s memory turned out to be correct, and that road instantly led to the mountainous area.
The path gradually became more narrow until the asphalt ended, and before we knew it, we were on a mountain where it was dark even in the day. The trees growing here were mainly cedars. Other than those old trees, the ground was crammed with gravestones. Compared to a graveyard in a forest clearing, the graves here were placed as if to fill the gaps between cedars, making this graveyard give off a more primeval vibe. A narrow path snaked up the gentle slope. It was big enough for one person to walk through at a time, and it would be difficult for people to pass each other. A multitude of graves lined both sides of this narrow path. The words carved on those gravestones had been eroded by the wind and rain, making them impossible to read unless you stopped to do so. In the long time that had passed, headstones without their foundation stones, perhaps of people with no living relatives, had been discarded, and lay piled up in a heap. Each of these gravestones was small, at a size that I could easily hold one under each arm. The weathered stones were either dark brown like stained tea or red like azuki beans, but none of them were free of white moss growing on their surface.
Many of them had no inscription, or had their inscription worn away, but a few of them still contained some text. Besides “XX Family Tomb”, there was “Ancestral Grave”, “Seek Refuge in Amida Buddha1”, “All Things Return to One”, “Lotus Sutra2”, “Nirvana”, “Abode of Stillness”, among others. I didn’t know the story, but there was even one with the inscription “Vengeful Ghosts of the Ancestors”. The names of people who had left the world were carved on the sides. How many names were there on this mountain altogether?
Maja let out a deep sigh. When it ended, she shut her mouth tightly, as if bad things would rush in if she kept it open.
“Shall we climb it for a bit?”
Following Shirakawa’s suggestion, we climbed the mountain. Whenever there were spaces between the graves, they were mainly covered with piles of withered flowers. The flowers that people left behind when they came to pay respects to the deceased were not left to rot, but were consolidated in one place. Meaning that even this mountain, which had allowed its graves to run wild, had some people doing cleaning and maintenance. Come to think of it, there was a temple at the foot of the mountain.
I spotted a gravestone that had fallen on its side. It must have been a long time since someone went to pay respects to it. Or perhaps it had only toppled over today or the day before.
Tachiarai, who was walking right in front of me, suddenly stopped, softness exuding from her usually stern eyes for just one instant. I also stopped in my tracks, and she spoke to me.
“I can read the year of death… so the past really existed, huh.”
I looked at it to see the words “Bunka 13”. It would be a lot easier to understand if the Western date was written on the side, but the residents of Fujishiba at the time probably didn’t even know of the solar calendar.
Whenever I come to a place like this, I become unable to suppress this gnawing anxiety. I’m definitely not a person eager for fame, or at least that is what I think of myself. Even so, when I think of the thousands of people buried in the ground, I get the feeling that I don’t want to simply survive and die. Though it’s not at a very high level, I received more education than that person who died in Bunka 1. Moreover, the Heisei era is probably more complicated than the Bunka era was. Abraham died when he was “weary of living”4, but even if someone from the Bunka era hated their life, they couldn’t have “grown weary” of it… Where did I read that line? The world of that Bunka era person was likely only three miles in radius, and they might have had a thorough understanding of that world. On the other hand, though I have many advanced tools in the palm of my hand, I have not grasped anything. With my surroundings being so complex, I don’t know what to reach for first. If so, I’d at least like a signpost. Or signposts.
At my feet was a jizo with its palms put together.
Shirakawa, who was at the front, turned around and spoke to no one in particular.
“I just realized it, but the graves on this mountain were built starting at the foot. So they get newer as we go up.”
Tachiarai replied.
“You’re right. There should still be some land at the peak.”
Some rays of light streamed through the gaps between cedar trees. I looked down the mountain to see Fujishiba City laid out below, split into its northern and southern halves by the Atotsu River. In a space that looked like it was filled with junk, the colors that stood out were white and gray. The places I could clearly make out were the parking lots of highway stores, and the sports fields of schools.
We climbed, and climbed.
Thanks to Tachiarai’s words, I’d started paying attention to the years of death, and when we were about halfway up, I realized that many of the graves around here were from the Meiji, Taisho or Showa eras. I also spotted ranks of the Imperial Japanese Army carved on gravestones here and there. The graves of lieutenants had stars engraved on them, and were especially magnificent. In comparison, the graves near the foot of the mountain didn’t have any titles.
“This is completely different from a Yugoslavian graveyard.”
Maja slowly muttered.
“Not one thing is exactly the same, but there are some similarities, like the smell of soil… in Japan, what is believed to happen to people after they die?”
Tachiarai answered, also in a small voice.
“That’s a difficult question.
“…Reincarnation is often mentioned. If you do good deeds, you get reborn as a human, or even as a deity. If you do bad deeds, you get reborn as an animal. And if you do even more atrocious things, you become a creature of hell. I’ve also heard about being reborn in the Pure Land, a paradise ten thousand billion worlds away, where people don’t die. Yet we keep trying to get into contact with the dead. Every year in summer, the ghosts of the dead return. These are called the ‘honored ancestors’, and it is thought that they watch over their living kin.
“This contradicts the reincarnation theory, and I’m not sure about the Pure Land either.”
“Hm, so the ghosts are everlasting?”
“Well…”
I helped Tachiarai fill in the gaps.
“Since there are many theories, there might not be any common sense to it.”
Maja did not reply. She’d claimed to have no religion, but her beliefs about the dead should still come from Christianity. Did she fall silent because she was digesting the differences between the two schools of thought?
…No, that wasn’t it. I was careless. It was probably…
“Moriya-san.”
“Yes?”
“What does ‘common sense’ mean?”
Probably just that she didn’t understand English phrases.
This mountain was more like a hill, so it wasn’t that challenging to climb, and we were already almost at the top. Many of the gravestones here were new, with many being of a modern design, or rather, with ornate patterns carved into them. At some point, there was no longer the sense that graves had been crammed together to fill the gaps between trees, and each grave had their territory properly designated. That said, we were still in a forest.
There was no difficulty in reading the words engraved on these new gravestones. For no reason at all, I read them while we ascended, and the phrase “Tachiarai Family Grave” entered my view.
“Sendou.”
I called out, causing her to turn around irritably and follow my gaze.
“Yeah. If I don’t get disowned by my family, this is where I’ll end up.”
She replied.
The path gradually widened, and became big enough to fit two people walking side by side.
In front, Maja and Shirakawa were talking about something else.
“This means that Japan has no vampires, right?”
“I guess so. I haven’t heard about vampires here.”
Shirakawa answered while tilting head, then turned around.
“Hey, Machi. Have you heard stories about vampires in Japan?”
Tachiarai looked up at the sky, as if searching her memories.
“…I don’t know. There are probably some stories, but not any major ones.”
“Hmm, what about corpses that get up and move?”
Seemingly having thought of an interesting point, Shirakawa responded eagerly.
“Right! The dead are cremated in Japan, so corpses don’t move or get reanimated!”
But Tachiarai instantly corrected her.
“That’s only for modern Japan. Corpses were abandoned out in the wild until the Kamakura period5, or even the Muromachi period6, and cremations were rarely performed until the Meiji era.”
“Oh, is that so.”
Shirakawa wilted. I wondered if this mountain was one of the places where people dumped corpses, and was chilled by that thought. Then again, I didn’t even believe in wondering ghosts, so there was no reason for me to be so unsettled.
At that moment, I realized that I did know a story of a reanimated corpse.
“How about a corpse that starts moving and attacks someone, then?”
“Huh? What are you on about, Moriya-kun?”
“Izanami7. She was supposed to be dead, but her body came alive and attacked her husband. But her body was rotted and crumbling, so it’s not exactly like a vampire8.”
Upon hearing that, Maja turned around and raised her index finger.
“Moriya-san, Yugoslavian vampires are also have rotting bodies.”
“Really?”
“Da. There is also a vampire that takes on the shape of a bloated sack.”
A vampire shaped like a bloated sack? I couldn’t imagine that at all, which was a good thing. Didn’t that just sound unreasonably scary?
Shirakawa groaned and tilted her head.
“Izanami’s somewhat different, I think.”
“In what way?”
Shirakawa groaned again, so Tachiarai answered on her behalf.
“Because it’s a motif introduced from the outside, isn’t it?”
“Izanami? What kind of story is it?”
“It’s a myth like Orpheus9.”
As always, Tachiarai’s explanation was a few phrases short, but Maja nodded, visibly moved.
“A myth, huh…”
She muttered.
“What kind of myths are there in Yugoslavia?”
Tachiarai asked, causing Maja to face her with a troubled smile.
“Um…”
“Is it difficult to express it in Japanese?”
“Ni… there are just no myths in Yugoslavia.”
“No myths?”
Even Tachiarai had a dubious look on her face.
“Is there even a country like that?”
But I knew. I knew that such a country existed. I knew that the reason for the absence of myths lay in Maja’s Yugoslavia, in Yugoslavia’s seventh culture. It was similar to why a federation wouldn’t have myths. Maja’s Yugoslavia was still in the process of being created.
Would Maja and her people create even myths and legends?
We were about 80 percent up the mountain when the forest suddenly disappeared. The sunlight and early summer winds that had been blocked off now returned.
“We’re back in Heisei after our time in Bunka.”
Exactly as Tachiarai mused, we were indeed back in modernity at last. The forest in this area had been cleared, and the slope had been leveled, allowing for modern allotment and demarcation of space. Some of this space had already been sold, for I could see five or six brand-new graves, separated by white ropes. In contrast to the densely packed graves in the damp forest, the graves built at the peak of the mountain were brightly lit by the sun, and had enough room around them. This area was a lot more open compared to the area at the foot of the mountain, and one could have a comfortable life here after retirement.
“Hmm, so it became like this.”
Shirakawa commented as she scanned her surroundings.
“It’s beautifully constructed.”
With no tree cover, there was a better view from here, compared to below when we had to squint at the gaps between the leaves and branches. Moreover, the wind was cool, making us forget the annoyance of the earlier plum rain. Looking down at Fujishiba City, Tachiarai muttered.
“It looks amazing. This sure is a hole-in-the-wall.”
Well, this being a graveyard, there were certainly many holes dug in the ground.
Right behind me, Maja hummed, impressed by the sight.
“Mmm, this is certainly different from Yugoslavia… I only heard about it from others, but now I think I have seen Japan’s ancestral veneration. I never thought that being buried can be an auspicious thing!”
Ancestral veneration is…
Auspicious?
Hearing a mix of words that felt out of place, I turned around. Maja was intently observing a granite grave that looked like it was glowing. Looking at it, I understood why Maja would say those things.
There were red-tinged salvia flowers, and a pair of red-white manju10.
“…Huh?”
I doubted my own eyes for a moment, but it was actually a red and white manju. It could be nothing but red-white manju. The vibrant red of the salvias also didn’t really belong in front of a tablet of the deceased.
“Red-white is auspicious, right… hm, this is really interesting.”
Maja was all smiles from making a new discovery.
Noticing this state of affairs, Tachiarai came over next to me and spoke in a slight whisper.
“Seems like there’s a bit of a misunderstanding.”
Exactly.
Shirakawa was also shocked at the sight of those unusual offerings.
“What? Red-white manju and salvias?”
She mumbled the obvious in a somewhat dumbfounded manner.
On the other hand, Maja happily retrieved her notebook.
“Is this flower also auspicious?”
“U-Um, Maja, I can’t say I know that much about Japan’s view on life and death, but death is definitely not auspicious.”
Shirakawa tried explaining, but Maja tilted her head in puzzlement.
“But is red-white not auspicious?”
“It is, but…”
“And is that not red-white?”
“It is red-white manju, but…”
“And is that not a grave?”
“It is a grave, but…”
“So graves are auspicious, right?”
Maja had a satisfied look on her face, as if to say, “Exactly as I thought!” In contrast, Shirakawa couldn’t say anything, but that was understandable. It was impossible to deny what was right in front of our eyes.
“Sendou…”
I called out to Tachiarai. This was clearly weird. Something was up, but I didn’t know what it was. But Tachiarai would know, right?
Either in response to my call or in spite of completely ignoring it, Tachiarai folded her arms in a laid-back manner and stood right in front of the grave in question, then murmured to herself, “Interesting.”
I followed her gaze and carefully studied the grave.
It was new. It should have been attacked a great deal more harshly by the rain and wind due to the forest that could have acted as a shield being cleared away, but the white granite surface still kept its gloss. There were no sotoba11.
At the front of the grave, a step down from the main gravestone, were two metal incense holders. Right in front of them sat the red-white manju, which was the appropriate position for offerings. Unlike the daifuku I’d received at the hot dog store on Sunday, these manju were well-shaped and were exactly the same size. Unfolding her arms, Tachiarai pinched the red manju. From what I could see, it was still quite springy.
Next to each of the incense holders was a metal can one size larger. Those were flower holders. Only the one on the right was filled with a bunch of salvia flowers, while the one on the left had nothing in it at all.
“…”
Tachiarai circled around the grave, and I followed. The year of death carved on the gravestone was some time during the Heisei era. A bunch of old flowers had been haphazardly tossed at the back. These were flowers one would normally leave at a grave, like chrysanthemums and globe amaranths.
I quietly peeked at Tachiarai… and was taken aback. Unlike her usual lack of facial expression, her eyebrows were tightly knitted, and she even seemed to be biting her lip.
“Sendou, is something wrong?”
“You could say so.”
“Hm? What is?”
“If only Fumihara was here.”
She muttered, ignoring my question, then addressed Maja.
“It’s a shame since we just got here, but we should go back down.”
“Eh? What’s the matter?”
“It won’t end well for us if we stay here, I think.”
Leaving those words, Tachiarai took the initiative and headed back to the forest. On the way, she turned around and beckoned us to come quickly. Shirakawa and I exchanged looks.
“…What do you think?”
“If only Sendou was willing to explain it to us.”
“Then again, I can’t imagine Machi being patient and thoughtful.”
Well, she was right.
I spoke to the bewildered Maja.
“There seems to be something bad going on. Shall we leave for now?”
I assumed she would be reluctant to leave right after arriving here, given that she’d been looking forward to it so much, but contrary to my expectations, Maja nodded readily.
“I understand.”
Without thinking, I replied.
“You sure?”
“Hmm, it has been interesting enough already… and also, I predict that her prediction will come true.”
Tachiarai’s prediction? What was it even about?
“Let’s go, then.”
On Shirakawa’s order, we hurried towards Tachiarai.
Tachiarai was waiting for us where the cedars and gravestones were densely packed. After jogging carefully down a slippery slope, I stood next to her.
We started to slowly descend the mountain.
“What’s…”
…Going on? I was about to ask, but stopped myself. I’d known her for two years already, so I should be able to tell if she was willing to give an answer.
Tachiarai seemed to be waiting for me to continue, but after confirming that I’d swallowed my words, she grinned.
“What is it?”
“No, nothing…”
She shook her head, causing her long hair to sway gently.
After that, she spoke in a somewhat satisfied manner.
“Moriya-kun, you want to ask, ‘What’s going on?’, don’t you?”
Doubting my ears, I instinctively looked at Tachiarai’s face. Our eyes met.
Her eyes were relaxed, and she had an amused expression on her face, which was a rare sight, or rather, something I hadn’t seen before. That was when the penny dropped, and I realized that I was being teased by her.
I averted my gaze from her face.
“No, it’s fine.”
“You sure?”
“I haven’t thought anything yet.”
This time, she laughed in a suppressed voice. After a bout of laughing, she cleared her throat deliberately.
“Fine. But there’s not much time. We need to explain the situation to Maja before we get down the mountain.”
“What, you were planning to explain it from the start?”
“Of course. I’m not as cold as you take me to be, Moriya-kun.”
I felt a little miffed by her statement.
“It’s not about you being cold, it’s that you’ve never explained anything to me.”
Upon hearing that, Tachiarai’s laugh deepened, and she whispered.
“Oh? I thought you’d be pleased at getting special treatment.”
“…”
I didn’t say anything. What should I have responded with in this situation?
I could see the sky in the gaps between trees. A gust of wind blew past. In order to meet the time limit that Tachiarai had set, I focused my thoughts on the grave we’d just put behind us and those eccentric offerings.
The path narrowed as it descended, and eventually it got to the point where we had to walk in single file, just like we’d done while ascending the mountain. I was in the lead, and behind me was Tachiarai. Maja was supposed to follow after her, but she restlessly called out to Tachiarai.
“Machi-san, I would like you to tell me why we had to go back down the mountain.”
I didn’t turn around, so I didn’t know what countenance Tachiarai wore. However, she didn’t immediately answer and took some time before answering, so she apparently had to think about it.
“Right, but before that…”
“Yes?”
“I’m surprised you know that red-white manju are auspicious.”
“Yes!”
The liveliness of Maja’s voice made me imagine that she nodded with all her might.
“The other day, we got separated while you were showing me around the Historical Preservation District. During that time, Moriya-san taught me about it. When red and white are used together, it is called a special term, red-white. We also ate red-white daifuku.”
Shirakawa seemed to have already heard that story, so she added a comment.
“They got the daifuku from the hotdog store.”
“I see.”
“It was just really sweet.”
Was Tachiarai buying time for me? But that was unbelievable. Perhaps she was still teasing me.
The red-white manju was a set of red and white… Come to think of it, the offering was red-white manju, yet the flower offerings were only made up of red salvia flowers. Wasn’t that bad in terms of balance?
“So you had sweet daifuku. But not all of them are sweet.”
“Hm, I know. I cannot say that I understand the taste of something just by eating one of it.”
“Did Moriya-kun tell you why red-white is considered lucky?”
“No.”
“I see. The first…”
I could hear the sound of fabric rubbing against each other. For a moment I wondered what it was, but immediately realized that it was just Maja taking her pen and notebook out of a pocket.
“Yes. Go ahead.”
“The first time red-white was used was for mizuhiki. I heard that because red-white was used for mizuhiki, red-white came to be considered auspicious.”
“Mizuhiki…?”
Shirakawa explained it to her from the back.
“It’s the string for tying up gifts. I think I showed it to you before.”
“Hmm, please show it to me again later. So, why was mizuhiki red-white?”
Tachiarai spoke plainly.
“In the past, imported goods from China were tied with red and white string. It didn’t mean anything to China, but the Japanese who received those goods thought it to be meaningful, and assumed that gifts always came with red and white string. A long time after that, it changed to red-white representing auspiciousness.”
The first to respond was not Maja, but Shirakawa.
“Oh, really? I didn’t know that mizuhiki came before.”
I was curious about Maja, so I turned around to see that her mouth was wide open and the hand holding her pen was not moving. Finally, she spoke.
“So, it was a mistake? Red-white is actually not auspicious?”
“No, it’s not a mistake. This kind of thing happens often. Trump12, pumpkin13, curry14, kangaroo15…”
“Hmm?”
“They started out as mistakes, but gradually became the truth.”
She then added another line.
“That said, I think origin stories are completely unbelievable in general.”
With that, Tachiarai clammed up.
As we were passing the grave from Bunka 1 that we’d noticed on the way up, Maja mumbled to herself.
“I see, so that tradition was unintentionally created.”
The temple at the foot of the mountain came into view.
At the same time, some people appeared. It was a group of three. The one in front was a man who looked to be past middle age, and he was holding a plastic bottle in his hand. It most likely contained water meant to be poured on a grave. Behind him was a woman that seemed to be his wife. She was holding flowers. I couldn’t tell what type of flowers they were from this distance, but they were not something outlandish like salvias. At the very back was a young man. He was either the same age as us, or slightly younger.
Where we were at, the path was especially narrow. It would be quite troublesome if we had to pass each other, but it should widen a little downhill, so I wasn’t exactly worried. While I was thinking about that, I heard Tachiarai mutter from behind me.
“As expected, they came.”
“As expected?”
Unsure if I heard her right, I turned around and asked. Tachiarai gave a small nod.
“I didn’t want to bump into them.”
So she knew that people would be coming to visit the grave, and thought that meeting them there wouldn’t end well for us.
The wet, slippery downward slope threatened my concentration, but I pondered over it anyway.
On the way, we passed the trio. They seemed like completely normal people, and I didn’t think there was anything special about them.
I was thirsty.
There was a vending machine at the foot of the mountain, so we decided to take a break there. After each gulping down a green tea and catching their breath, Maja and Shirakawa surrounded Tachiarai. Maja already had her notebook and pen out.
“Hey, Machi. Mind if we ask?”
“I did not manage to ask you just now, but please tell me if there was any philosophical reasoning behind that.”
Tachiarai’s eyebrows furrowed slightly, then gave an uncharacteristically half-hearted reply, “Yep.” She then glanced at me out of the corner of her eye.
I looked away. Frankly speaking, I’d already organized my thoughts and come up with a theory, but if possible I wanted Tachiarai to explain it herself, so I ended up putting on a mask of unease.
But my acting skills were not enough to fool Tachiarai.
“Moriya-kun seems to know.”
“Eh?”
“Moriya-san, do you know?”
The spotlight was now on me. I choked on my green tea and coughed a couple of times. Not minding that, Maja pressed on.
“Please tell me. Was that auspicious?”
After waiting for my throat to settle, I put on a brave face and replied.
“There are almost no auspicious acts that can be done in front of the dead. I can think of one exception, but that wasn’t it.”
“Exception? I didn’t know, is there really such a thing?”
“Yeah. It’s called ‘Consecration’, and it’s done on the 33rd or 50th death anniversary, but in any case after that period of time a deceased person stops being an individual, and starts being a nameless ‘ancestral spirit’. In some areas elaborate celebrations are done on those occasions. However, that grave was from the Heisei era. 33 years haven’t passed since that person passed away.”
I had such an experience with my great-grandfather some years ago, which was how I learned about it.
“So, it was not auspicious.”
“Not exactly.”
Two confused faces stared at me.
“So it was auspicious?”
I vaguely nodded. It would be embarrassing if I was confident about it but got it wrong.
“Probably. Red-white manju are for auspicious occasions, after all.”
“I can’t see where you’re going with this, Moriya-kun.”
I glanced at Tachiarai, but she was looking away, perhaps intentionally, so I couldn’t tell if she agreed or disagreed with what I said.
I took another mouthful of green tea.
“What if I said that it was auspicious to the people who gave those offerings?”
“Hm…?”
Maja tilted her head.
But Shirakawa seemed to understand. I could see that she was slightly shaken by the revelation. Somewhat relieved, I said it all at once.
“By offering red-white manju, those people were saying that ‘it was a good thing’ or ‘it was auspicious’ for the person to die. I have no idea what kind of person the deceased was, but anyway, it’s not a pleasant topic.
“But, that…”
“Could absolutely happen.”
Shirakawa was lost for words. A heavy silence fell. Even Maja’s mouth was tightly closed.
“B-But.”
After a moment, Shirakawa broke the silence.
“So why did we have to hurry down the mountain? If what you say is right, it’s certainly a disturbing story, but it’s not like we couldn’t have escaped, right? Or did you think that the deceased would become a ghost?”
This time, it was my turn to be speechless. Indeed, Tachiarai had said, “It won’t end well for us if we stay here.” But was that just because it was unpleasant?
“Ah, about that…”
I only now realized that Tachiarai was standing behind me.
“I’m not the type to be frightened by ghosts, so that’s not it. We wouldn’t have had to leave if it those offerings were simply to desecrate the dead.”
I whirled around. For just one instance, Tachiarai’s lips formed a smile. I took it to mean that there was nothing wrong with what I said.
Shirakawa started talking to Tachiarai instead of me.
“If not the dead, then what?”
Tachiarai’s answer was short.
“The bereaved family.”
“…Bereaved family?”
”With the manju and those flowers, the message would become, ‘It may be sad for you but I’m happy about it.’ However, if the salvias dry up and the manju rot, the auspiciousness conveyed would be cut, so the offerings have to be set up close to the bereaved family’s grave visit for the message to be effective. If possible, on the same day.
“That’s why I thought they would visit today. If we ran into them there, we would be accused of setting up those offerings, which would be a pain to deal with.
“Another reason for why we had to leave was that there were no white tulips.”
Upon hearing an unexpected term, Shirakawa dropped the disgust that had been exuding from her and instead stared intently at Tachiarai’s face.
“Tulips?”
“It doesn’t have to be tulips, but some kind of flamboyant white flowers would do. Right, Moriya-kun?”
White flowers?
Ah, right. It all finally fell into place.
“There were two flower holders, but only one of them was filled.”
“Right.”
“If they were going for effectiveness, they should have split the bunch of salvias in two.”
“Exactly.”
“They didn’t do that because they were also going for red-white with the flower offerings. Even if they weren’t, they had prepared flowers for the other flower holder. But they weren’t able to do that, because…”
Shirakawa finished my sentence.
“…Because we came.”
Tachiarai nodded coolly.
“Not someone we’d like to get close to, right?”
In the graveyard overlooking Fujishiba City, in the shadows of the scattered graves, there was probably someone holding their breath and gripping onto beautiful flowers so tightly that they could snap. They offered the red-white manju and salvias, and were excited to witness the bereaved family seeing those offerings. They were likely cursing us for gatecrashing, and staring at us spitefully.
It was indeed an unappealing situation for us to be in.
“……”
Maja was holding her notebook, but her eyes were on the ground, and she wasn’t moving. As she was interested in many different aspects of Japanese culture, seeing firsthand such vicious harassment related to that culture must have come off as a shock to her.
Shirakawa muttered in a voice that was on the verge of tears.
“I… Maja, you said you were looking forward to it, and I thought it’d be a fun experience for you, but…”
Maja raised her head and shook it.
“No.
“Sorry, Maja. I’m really sorry.”
Maja spoke slowly as if to console Shirakawa.
“No, Izuru, I did have fun. This kind of thing should happen anywhere, but I am a person from Yugoslavia… a visitor. No country would want to show this to me. But today, I was finally able to experience a moment without masks. I am impressed. This is why I am grateful to you, Izuru.”
“Maja! I hope you don’t think that we’re all like that!”
Maja smiled and nodded to the downcast Shirakawa.
“Do not worry. As I said before, I will not make the same mistake twice!”
Right, Maja had plenty of experience under her belt. That was not for us to worry about. Even as someone living in Japan, today’s incident was an unpleasant but rare occurrence. Maja had become the way she was now by accumulating such experiences. After today’s experience, she would become a different Maja.
It was now about evening. Thinking that the group of three would have reached the grave by now, I looked up at the peak, to see that the sky beyond had become a picturesque red.
Chapter 1 Part 3 | Contents | A Break, and a Short Conversation
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- Also known as Amitābha, he is one of the main Buddhas of Mahayana Buddhism (the largest branch of Buddhism) and the most widely venerated Buddhist figure in East Asian Buddhism. He is said to have established a pure land of perfect peace and happiness, called Sukhāvatī, where beings who mindfully remember him with faith may be reborn and then quickly attain enlightenment.
- One of the most influential and venerated Buddhist sutras. It is said to contain all the teachings of Buddhism and offer a key to understanding the rest of the sutras because it integrates their teachings.
- Bunka is a Japanese era that spanned the years from January 1804 to April 1818, so Bunka 1 refers to 1804.
- According to the Bible, Abraham lived to be 175 years old.
- 1185 to 1333.
- 1336 to 1573.
- A primordial goddess who is the creator of both creation and death in Japanese mythology.
- For those interested in the story, Izanami’s husband Izanagi(also a primordial god and her brother) goes to the land of the dead to find her, but is terrified of her rotting appearance and runs away. After escaping, Izanagi performs a ritualistic cleansing, which is the traditional explanation of purification rituals done at the entrance of Shinto shrines.
- Orpheus was a bard, legendary musician and prophet, who according to legend descended into the underworld to recover his lost wife, Eurydice.
- A traditional Japanese confection, usually a small, dense bun with a sweet filling.
- Traditional Japanese wooden grave markers, tall, narrow planks inscribed with Buddhist prayers, posthumous names, and dates, placed near tombstones to honor the deceased and aid their soul’s journey
- “Trump” is the term used in Japan for the standard 52-card deck of playing cards, primarily due to the prevalence of trump cards (Playing cards which are elevated above its usual rank) in card games when they were introduced in the late 19th century.
- The Japanese word for pumpkin is “kabocha”, which comes from the Portuguese word “Camboja”, which actually means Cambodia.
- The origin of the word “curry” is a little murky, but it is possibly Tamil “kaṟi” (A spiced mixture with fish, meat or vegetable, eaten with boiled rice), or Hindi “Turcarri” (Something fragrant and delicious), and is not derived from the name of the curry tree.
- The word “kangaroo” comes from “gangurru”, which is the name given to eastern gray kangaroos by the Guuga Yimithirr people of Queensland’s tropical north.
Question how many chapters does the series have? Planning to read when its all done
It has 3 chapters, though there’s also an epilogue.