“I have it ready here.” He took the envelope from his pocket but didn’t hand it over right away. “And this will fully purify it, correct?”
“We will take full responsibility for calming the spirits. I speak in terms of decades, not days. Once we are entrusted with a duty like this, it is passed down across generations. Think of it as building another grave.”
From that perspective, maybe the fee wasn’t so expensive after all.
Just as he was about to agree, the wound on his left hand began to sting again. He scowled at it. Araki took the envelope, put it in his pocket, and looked back at Mitsuhiro, puzzled.
“I’m sorry… I cut myself on that stone. It still hurts a little.”
Araki’s gaze fell on the gauze covering Mitsuhiro’s left hand. “That might be causing an issue. Can I see the stone?”
Mitsuhiro took it out of his bag, wrapped in newspaper—but the stone slipped out of it. It was the part that had torn through the newspaper last time, when Mitsuhiro was going at it with a hammer.
“Ah!” As he cried out, the stone jabbed into Araki’s right thigh.
Mitsuhiro shuddered. It must have just jabbed him. But thanks to the newspaper he had wrapped around the tip, it didn’t break the skin at all.
“I… I’m sorry! I should’ve been more careful!”
He apologized frantically, but Araki calmly picked up the stone by the bit covered in newspaper.
“Yes… It’s looking very troublesome.”
Araki took a towel from the pocket of his work clothes, wrapped the stone in it, removed the newspaper covering the tip, and handed it back to Mitsuhiro.
“I’m really sorry about this.”
Completely flustered, Mitsuhiro took the remaining newspaper and wadded it back into his bag. His heart was still pounding. He had almost injured someone he was relying on for everything right now. If it had turned out any worse, who knows how much compensation would have demanded for that, too? He dreaded the thought.
“Don’t worry about it. These things happen. Are you okay to drive?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
Mitsuhiro caught his breath, balling his left hand into a fist to try to chase away the pain. It didn’t completely disappear—it was still throbbing, in fact—but it wasn’t bad enough to affect his driving.
So he turned onto Meiji-dori Avenue and headed toward Shinjuku, calmly driving through the congested streets. Neither of them spoke. When Mitsuhiro glanced to the side, he saw that the stone, now wrapped in that towel, was on Araki’s lap and being held down with both hands.
They turned right at Koshu-kaido Highway and parked in the Shinjuku Imperial Garden lot. Mitsuhiro left his bag in the back seat, got out of the car, and went to the entrance with Araki, paying the admission fee. Fortunately, he didn’t have to pay for them both.
Once they were inside the Imperial Garden, he meekly followed Araki as they walked to the pond on the easternmost side.
“This is the pond where a water god lives. It’s the source of the Shibuya River that flows underneath the East Wing. Originally, the river flowed from here all the way into Tokyo Bay. The ritual hall in the East Wing was placed there in order to summon the power of the water god here, appease him, and keep him in place right here.”
“Okay,” Mitsuhiro replied. He had read about the source of the Shibuya River many times in the construction documents, and he didn’t find the water-god story strange at all. Unlike his first visit to Tamai Construction, Mitsuhiro was now fully convinced. This was just how things were.
“Considering your duties and connections, the previous president said it’d be best to seal your father’s gravestone here. Is that acceptable with you? If so, we can drop this stone into the pond right now.”
“Really? Won’t someone get angry if we just drop it here?”
“This pond and ritual site are jointly managed by Tamai Construction and several other organizations. Either myself or our previous leader will inform them beforehand.”
“So there’s one of those ritual sites here in the Imperial Garden?”
“Where we stand right now was originally the site of a mansion belonging to a prominent samurai clan. There used to be a rather large ritual site on this spot. Are you ready? I will now drop the stone into the pond. The waters are regularly purified, so as long as this imperial garden exists, the grave will continue to be properly honored.”
“…All right.”
Mitsuhiro looked at the stone that Araki was now holding up in offering. He’d wanted to drop it into the pond himself, if that was allowed, but Araki didn’t give him the choice. He had almost injured him with it a moment ago. This wasn’t just a chunk of stone any longer. In the hands of an amateur, it might be downright dangerous.
Araki faced the stone and the pond and began to chant something.
“Kakemakumo kashikoki Izanagi no ookami, tsukushi no himuka no tachibana no odonoahagihara ni misogi haraetamaishitoki ni narimaseru haraedo no ookamitachi, moromoro no magagoto, tsumi, kegare, aramuoba haraetamai kiyometamaeto maosukoto o kikoshimese to kashikomi kashikomi mo maosu.”
It sounded like a shrine prayer, but Mitsuhiro had no idea what it meant.
Then Araki tilted the stone, removing the hand towel covering it. The stone slipped out of his hands, much like how it had shed the newspaper in the car, and fell into the pond tip first. It didn’t make as loud a sound as he expected, and none of the few other visitors in the garden seemed to notice.
“This completes the purification ceremony,” said Araki.
“All right,” Mitsuhiro replied weakly. He stared at the ripples in the pond as they gradually faded away. He should have felt relieved that it was finally over, perhaps, but instead he felt like he had lost something he didn’t need to.
Just like that, the piece of his father’s gravestone was gone, out of his reach.