第十一章

25 August 2075

As Shoichi had been reminiscing about their trip to Fuji-san, he had leant back in his chair, closed his eyes and, such was the strength of the memory, momentarily forgot where he was.

Coming back around to the reality of the situation he wondered how much of his story was getting through to her. As Aoyagi-sensei had suggested, anything that might spark a memory for Kimiko could help with her recovery but as he looked at her face and the rest of her motionless body he began to doubt, even with the glimmer of good news about the detection of some low-level brain activity, that Kimiko was ever going to come out of this coma. Even if she did, what quality of life would she be left with?

He thought it would be a good idea to go and get himself a drink and have a walk around the hospital to clear his head. He could then decide if he would come back and continue talking about their anniversary trip.

There was a small cafeteria that sold drinks and light meals which was located in another part of the hospital, about a two minute walk from Kimiko’s ward. He got up from the chair to which his back had stuck such was the non-breathable nature of the material that covered the foam padding – functionality taking priority over comfort – and opened the door to the corridor which was at least five degrees warmer than the constant twenty degrees at which Kimiko’s room was being maintained. In the foyer, the light from outside shone through the glass doors and although the triple glazing prevented the foyer from heating up like a greenhouse, the sheer brightness of the rays gave away the fact that outside was going to be even hotter. The final relief, before the inevitable onslaught, came from a ceiling-mounted fan that blew a wall of cool air downwards to try to prevent the heat and humidity from outside entering the building. As the second of the doors slid open the transition was complete and beads of sweat formed instantly on Shoichi’s brow and the back of his neck.

The hospital grounds were tidy although lacking in any greenery. It gave the place an institutional feel that a few well-placed plants and other topiary would have significantly softened. A row of trees might have also helped to dampen the noise of traffic coming from nearby roads.In the two decades that followed the nuclear fallout from the reactor in Fukushima caused by the tsunami in 2011, the environmentally-sympathetic political parties, in particular Green Wind and  the Tomorrow Party of Japan had begun to gain some traction in a political system that had been traditionally dominated by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. During this time, the country had moved to urge political leaders to pay more attention to green issues and not just the usual manifesto promises around the economy, immigration and national security. There was significant interest in renewable energy and a big push from automobile manufacturers towards electric cars. There was also a boom in what was being called guri-tate which was a shift in architectural trends towards buildings that made best use of green technologies. The national mood change led to retro-fitting out of buildings across Japan and pictures taken by satellites showed a remarkable increase in the number of high-rises that had landscaped gardens on their roofs using mosses to cleanse and purify the air as well as adding a layer of organic matter to absorb some of the sunshine that would otherwise have heated up the concrete, turning the buildings of Tokyo and other cities into gigantic storage heaters.

For many in the country, this gave them hope that the warning sent out by nature from the Great East Japan Earthquake and the events that followed had finally been heeded. However, this was not permanent and a serious downturn in the economy from 2032 to 2040 nudged the political pendulum back the other way. Green adaptations and improvements were now seen as an unnecessary cost to businesses and modest family incomes. This fiscal pressure plus the discovery by a Japanese mining company of a fresh underwater oil field in the Gulf of Thailand that had potential to deliver forty-five billion barrels seemed to shake people awake from their temporary flirtation with green policies and the Liberal Democratic Party restored the tight grip on Japanese politics that they had held since 1955.

The signage to the cafeteria directed him around the side of Kimiko’s building and then across a wide courtyard which was also devoid of plant life save for a few stubborn weeds that had made their way up through cracks in the paving slabs. There were some benches that had been installed but Shoichi wondered why anyone would want to come out here to sit and stare at concrete.

A couple of minutes in the sun was enough and he was pleased to enter the single sliding door that brought him into the air-conditioned cafeteria which was a smaller-than-expected room with a functional counter and five rectangular tables that seated six people per table. Only four others were using the facility, at least one of whom was an in-patient on account of the drip he was wheeling beside him as a member of staff walked alongside carrying a green plastic tray on which a solitary cup of coffee was placed. It was the middle of the afternoon, so in all likelihood Shoichi had missed the lunchtime rush and was too early for those who would come in later for dinner.The lunch he had eaten was still sitting on his stomach so he did not need anything more to eat but even so decided on a cup of green tea and a slice of yōkan azuki-bean jelly. Wandering over to the ticket dispensing machine in the corner of the room, he pressed the on-screen button for “Japanese Teatime Set Menu” passed his wallet over the payment contact point and waited as the machine printed and spat out a ticket into the aluminium trough at the bottom of the unit.

He moved to the counter where he was greeted by a young and rather plump lady who was wearing the catering company’s sky-blue uniform that stretched across her ample bosom and stomach revealing her under shirt in the openings that formed between the straining buttons. Underneath the Tasty Food logo Shoichi saw that Ubakai-san had a full array of medals and he wondered what made for a five-star server.

‘Onegaishimasu,’ he said as he handed over the ticket.

‘Arigatō gozaimasu,’ Ubakai replied.

‘It’s really hot today isn’t it?’ Shoichi added to try to strike up a conversation as much for her sake as his. The thank you he had just received was politely delivered but barely veiled the underlying boredom she was experiencing in this repetitive job. It seemed that the robots which had replaced many of the manual jobs in Japan were fussy about their employment and increasingly only moved into skilled professions that utilised the full extent of their ever-expanding capabilities. It was as if the programmers did not want to waste their time writing code for machines to serve in restaurants, clean the streets or answer telephones in a call centre. Rather, as if to cement existing social strata, these types of jobs were left to human beings who, unlike robots, could not readily shut themselves off from the mundane nature of their daily tasks.

‘Oh, yes. I’m rather relieved to be inside where we have the air conditioning on. Could you imagine working outside in this heat?’ she said once she had got over the initial shock of someone actually engaging in a conversation with her.

‘It would be just unbearable, wouldn’t it?’ Shoichi agreed.

From across the kitchen that was beyond the counter, Ubakai’s supervisor shot out a stare that told her and Shoichi that non-scripted conversations were forbidden and Ubakai’s eyes glazed over as she snapped back into character, fearful of losing a star and subsequent drop in her already pitiful hourly rate of pay.

‘Your order will shortly be ready and served from the collection point at the end of the counter. Have a nice day and thank you for choosing Tasty Food catering today,’ she said monotonously.

Shoichi tried a smile but the supervisor was still watching and his last-ditch attempt to inject some warmth and friendliness into Ubakai’s day was scuppered. The green tea and yōkan was served, as he had been informed it would, from the collection point and Shoichi picked up the tray before walking over to a table at which none of the other customers sat. The tea was a pleasant surprise and tasted much closer to the sort that he would brew at home rather than the more bitter powdered kind that had permeated into most of the lower-end food establishments for reasons of convenience and no doubt cost. The yōkan had a nice firm consistency with a balanced sweetness and was filled with a generous portion of whole azuki beans added towards the end of the mixing process and that provided an interesting contrast of textures.

Nevertheless, the cafeteria had a depressing feel to it. Shoichi thought that this was because it was located in hospital grounds and therefore the customers were either recovering from illness themselves or visiting friends and relatives who were patients of the hospital. In other words, it served the purpose of providing somewhere to go for food and drink but made no attempt to create a friendly atmosphere where people would come just to have a chat. The silence was deafening and everyone there, including Shoichi, sat with a vacant expression on their faces as they stared into the middle distance in a contemplative state. If being happy helps with the recovery process then this was not a place where one should spend too long, he thought to himself.

Taking his own advice, having finished the rest of his green tea and yōkan, Shoichi stood up and winced as the metal legs from his chair scraped over the floor. It reminded him of the cacophony of noise in classrooms from his childhood as thirty students all stood up at the same time. In all the years that had passed since graduation from high school he still found that the sound sent shivers down his spine even more than the squeak of chalk on a blackboard.

‘Gochisōsama deshita,’ he said to Ubakai as he handed over the tray through a small hatch in the wall from where it was taken and dropped unceremoniously into a sink full of steaming, soapy water. 

He managed to raise at least the beginnings of a smile from her and decided that his good deed for the day was done, hoping that when she returned home from work she would have more to say to her family about her day than was usually the case.

Out through the sliding door, across the concrete courtyard and back into the Nakamura ward, Shoichi now felt somewhat refreshed. Kimiko lay just as he had left her. He pulled up a chair close to her bedside and gently held her hand before continuing.

***

As the coach drove out of the car park the sense of anticipation was palpable and, like children setting off on a school trip, excited chatter and laughter rose into the air; all the passengers were in good spirits and full of energy considering the early hour.

There was an abundance of food that had been brought onto the coach for breakfast and so a variety of homemade and homegrown products were passed up and down the rows of seats. Shoichi and Kimiko particularly enjoyed the unusually coloured tomatoes – yellow, purple and brown – that had been cultivated in someone’s garden greenhouse and brought along to share.

‘Wow, these really are delicious!’ Kimiko exclaimed and then said in a quieter voice, ‘I feel bad that we haven’t got anything to give back in return. Not really sure that we can share our convenience-store sandwiches with anyone.’

‘That’s true. You know, I wasn’t sure when I saw the colour but they are the sweetest tomatoes I think I’ve ever eaten,’ Shoichi replied. ‘Just goes to show how much our minds are conditioned on colours and tastes. I’ve eaten yellow ones before but not purple and brown. I was expecting them to taste like aubergine and chocolate!’

‘Well, now that we’ve starting eating, do you want one of these sandwiches?’ Kimiko asked as she dug into the cool bag containing their food.

‘Oh, yes please. Need to get my strength up.’

Kimiko unwrapped the sandwich by pulling the tab in the middle of the cellophane wrapper and guiding this around two of the three sides of the triangle before the packet opened up. She held the sandwich towards Shoichi who picked out one half gently so as not to spill its contents into his lap or onto the floor.

The crustless white bread sandwiches sold in convenience stores up and down Japan had not changed much in the last twenty years and although there were, on occasion, attempts to introduce new and more exotic flavours most places had stuck to the tried and tested formulae of ham and cheese, ham and lettuce, potato salad, fruit salad, tuna mayonnaise, egg mayonnaise and a variety of katsu breadcrumb-covered meats. Shoichi had always favoured the hamu-katsu sandwiches as these reminded him of a time as a child when his mother used to make such sandwiches at home for him, his brothers and Haruka when they went on picnics together. The sweet fruit sauce in these shop-bought versions was not a patch on the sauce his mother used to make by boiling down vinegar, sugar, tomatoes, apples, dates and spices but it was nevertheless a nostalgic taste for him.

Kimiko finished the other half of the sandwich and they both followed their food with the canned coffee which was sweeter and milkier than you would ever make at home.

After over two hours on the coach, Kimiko decided that she was going to shut her eyes and get some more sleep before they arrived. There was going to be a long stretch ahead of them before reaching the eighth station of the climb where they would bed down for a few hours to get used to the altitude and to time the final ascent to the summit in order to get there just before sunrise.

Whilst she slept, Shoichi looked out of the window of the coach at the countryside that passed before them as they travelled down the Tōhoku Expressway. They were now in Miyagi Prefecture and driving towards Sendai, the largest city in the northeast of Japan with a population of over one million and well known for woven silk, pottery and traditional washi paper. It also boasted something of a reputation for serving the best grilled cow tongue in the country and, on account of being close to major fishing ports, served excellent sushi and sashimi. If you wanted to come somewhere to eat, then you could do a lot worse than Sendai. However, like many villages, towns and cities in this part of Japan, the earthquake and tsunami in 2011 had left a permanent scar on both the landscape and the people who lived there. Shoichi knew that, like Ōfunato, the road to recovery was long.

The scenery outside had not changed dramatically since leaving Ōfunato although the topography was slightly flatter in this part of the Tōhoku region with the taller mountain ranges that ran up the spine and east coast of Japan visible only in the distance. The one thing that caught his attention, and he was surprised that he had not noticed this before, was the abundance of Japanese knotweed that had totally covered large swathes of the countryside, enveloping trees leaving monstrous hanging vines, with leaves shaped like the spades in a deck of playing cards, where the branches used to be. Rain had started to fall and streak across the windows. Shoichi was feeling tired himself having woken up earlier than necessary and so drawing the pleated orange patterned curtains across the window, he leant back into the headrest, closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

When Shoichi awoke, he found that he had managed to sleep right through Fukushima Prefecture and they were now in the north of Tochigi Prefecture just outside a small town called Nasu. The coffee he had drunk earlier had gone through him and he felt a familiar pressure in his bladder. Fortunately, the tour guide announced that they would be making the first of their scheduled stops at the Nasukōgen services to allow passengers to use the facilities, stretch their legs and browse the local produce.

‘Phew!’ Shoichi said in a quiet voice so as not to be overheard by the others. ‘I really need the toilet and was panicking there for a moment that I had missed the chance to go.’

‘Yes, you were sleeping really well,’ Kimiko replied ‘Thankfully you didn’t snore or dribble!’

‘How long have you been awake for?’ Shoichi asked ‘I thought that you would have slept for much longer yourself.’

‘Oh, I woke up about half an hour ago, just as we were passing through Sukagawa,’ Kimiko said. ‘It was getting uncomfortably warm in here.’

The coach pulled into the service station and most of those who were still sleeping awoke as the driver made a wide turn into one of the parking spaces. Rubbish from the morning’s sustenance was gathered together and placed in small plastic bags ready to be disposed of in the rubbish bins that lined up in the sunshine outside the entrance to the main building.

‘Right, let’s get out and stretch our legs,’ Shoichi said.

‘And go to the toilet,’ Kimiko whispered teasingly.

‘Do you think that we need some more food and drink to take with us?’ Shoichi asked, choosing to ignore her last comment.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ Kimiko said. ‘We don’t want to be carrying too much up the mountain with us. I’m sure that we have overdone it already looking at the size of others’ bags.’

‘You’re probably right about not getting more food and drink. However, don’t worry about what others have packed,’ he added. ‘I’ve followed the information we were given by the tour company and mountains are dangerous places, as you should well know. Do you remember when we got caught out on Mount Zaō?’

‘Oh yes, that was frightening,’ Kimiko said recalling the incident in her mind. ‘I can’t believe how quickly the clouds closed in. Thank goodness for the walkie-talkies or some of the group would have definitely got lost.’

‘Exactly, so although it might make our bags a little heavier than necessary, I’d rather be over prepared than under,’ Shoichi concluded his argument.

‘OK, point taken,’ Kimiko conceded. ‘Anyway, we’ve only got fifteen minutes so you’d better get off to the toilet. In fact, I need to go myself.’

Having used the facilities, they had some time left before setting off again, so Kimiko and Shoichi walked together to the market stalls that had been set up outside of the service station to see what local produce was on sale at a price at least double what you would pay in the local towns from where it came. Although it was late in the season for strawberries and a little early for pears, both were available and beautifully displayed in presentation boxes that carefully protected the fruits which clearly had been grown with a great deal of care.

‘They look delicious!’ Kimiko said. ‘Shall we get some strawberries to eat on the coach?’

‘They certainly do look good,’ Shoichi replied, picking up a tray to inspect it more closely.  ‘Little bit pricey though, don’t you think?’

‘Oh come on, live a little!’ Kimiko encouraged him. ‘They’re not going to break the bank and you do like strawberries.’

It was true, Shoichi had fond memories of the fruit as they had visited a strawberry farm for their first wedding anniversary and he had often talked about how they tasted much sweeter because he was there with Kimiko.

‘Alright then, but don’t get a large tray,’ he said trying to maintain the impression, to himself if nobody else and certainly not Kimiko, that he was in control of the decision.

Kimiko took a little time to select the tray that looked the closest to perfect she could find and paid the leather-skinned farmer who was tending the stall.The other products were nothing out of the ordinary, although there was a selection of micro-brewery beers that looked like they might be worth a try on account of the smart looking design of an owl on the label. The service station also drew much attention to the proximity of a variety of onsen hot springs and you could buy a box of bath salts that had been mixed to exactly the same mineral content as the nationally famous Shikano-yu Deer Spa.

‘Looks like the others are heading back to the coach,’ Shoichi said as he checked his watch.

‘Let’s go then,’ Kimiko said as she took hold of Shoichi’s hand and strode across the car park.