The village looked as if it had been forgotten since the war.
Even the roads were barely paved. It wasn’t so much that there were roads as it was that the trees hung down from overhead, hemming in the dry earth from all sides, with the occasional ramshackle house scattered in between.
“This place is incredible. Almost none of it is on the map. Other than the train station, everything here is shown as woods,” Miyaki muttered in amazement as she spread out the yellowing guidebook.
“We’re going to have a hard time interviewing anyone if there’s not actually anyone here to interview.”
Glancing around, I spotted a red mailbox about as tall as my own shoulders. Next to it, hidden in the shadows, was a little tobacco shop, so small that it could have almost been mistaken for a phone booth. It looked like we could probably borrow a phone from there.
Walking around to the other side, I discovered an old man sitting inside, his skin so brown that it almost blended in with the wooden counter. It felt wrong not to purchase something, so I asked for a pack of cigarettes. The proprietor pushed forward a pink telephone along with my pack of cigarettes, neither a smile nor a frown visible upon his face. I placed the receiver to my ear and dialed Rokuhara, but it continued to ring. Along with the packs of short Hope, Golden Bat, and MINE laid out in the tobacconist’s display case, there were also rows of souvenirs that didn’t seem to have much of anything to do with the village, such as kokeshi dolls and papier-mâché inuhariko dogs.
Miyaki dutifully got to work, making small talk with the proprietor. The man was sitting behind glass. Watching them talk through the small hole at the bottom of the glass, meant for handing over packs of cigarettes, reminded me of someone being interviewed in a prison—
“I feel like I’m conducting a prison interview…”
Who had said that? It had been a woman’s voice. A long time ago. Not Misaki’s, though, or that of some other acquaintance. So where had I heard it? And from who? I remembered being somewhere remote, just like here, and the woman’s shoulder-length hair held back with a black ribbon barrette—
“Yes, this is Rokuhara speaking.”
My thoughts were interrupted by Rokuhara’s familiar monotone voice.
“Oh, Rokuhara… It’s me, Katagishi… No irregularities so far, just like always. To be thorough, however, we thought we might check out the residential district and the spot where the cult building used to be, if that’s okay with you.”
I could hear Miyaki laughing with the shopkeeper. A faint smile had surfaced on the severe old man’s face behind the glass.
“I know you young people from the city love to come out to the country now and again, but trust me, now and again is plenty. Try living here. Snakes and weasels get into the house.”
The old man’s shoulders shook, a cigarette clutched between his suntanned fingers. Something about his stifled way of laughing and his unique way of holding a cigarette between the middle and ring finger seemed strangely familiar. But I was fairly certain I had never visited this tobacco shop or met this old man before. The last time I was here, I believed we’d just checked out the abandoned train tracks before heading home.
“What’s wrong?”
Rokuhara’s voice sounded muffled over the phone.
“Nothing… It’s just…”
I went back and forth in my head over whether or not to say it.
“This is my second time here…right?”
After a moment of silence, Rokuhara answered with a clipped “It should be.” The phone chimed, demanding another ten-yen coin. I was already pulling the receiver away from my ear, ready to tell Rokuhara I was hanging up, when I heard him speak again, barely audible at this point.
“Prior to Miwasaki’s hospitalization in that village, he asked the exact same thing.”
Before I could ask Rokuhara to repeat himself, an impersonal, robotic tone played, indicating that the call had ended. I hung up the phone, trying to hide my dismay.
“Trust me, there’s nothing worth seeing in this village. There’s a hot spring, sure, but it’s always jam-packed with all the local old geezers and biddies.”
Miyaki and the old man were still engaged in small talk.
“There must be at least a shrine, though, right? In a place like this? I love those kind of spots.”
Miyaki was certainly earning her keep.
“No, no such thing around here.” The old man groaned, his chin in his hand. “Our local god doesn’t leave behind statues and shrines. When you build structures like that, everyone winds up praying to things instead of to the god itself. The god looks after us, even without all that stuff. That’s what matters.”
The old man tapped his cigarette on the edge of his ashtray, knocking the ash into the tray. So there were no false idols in this village. I had yet to hear even the name of the god supposedly worshipped in this village, let alone any local legends. Miyaki glanced my way. It looked like this investigation was going to be an uphill battle. For now, our only choice was to head toward the old cult building.
We found what remained of the Silent Voice almost immediately.
It was the only part of the mountain road that was shrouded in gloomy forest and paved in asphalt. Signs were still in place proclaiming, PRIVATE PROPERTY, NO TRESPASSING. As we climbed up the road, I stared at the viscous pools of sunlight seeping like amber through the gaps between the leaves. A giant set of feet, cloaked in the hem of a long, long robe, waited beneath the light. It was the same idol we had seen from the abandoned tracks.
Miyaki and I moved to take a closer look. Just as I thought, the craftsmanship was clearly substandard. Carving the toes must have seemed like too much effort, because the hem of the robe had been fashioned to extend forward in an unnatural fashion, like an accordion divider. The statue had deteriorated significantly over time, worn down by wind and rain, and I was worried it might collapse. The impression it gave off was far from imposing. A fallen tree lay sideways across the cracked asphalt. A large stonework staircase waited beyond.
“This must be the place…,” Miyaki muttered.
I could see a tan-colored three-story building hidden among the trees and surrounded by an iron railing.
“It kind of looks like a hotel, doesn’t it?” she said.
“It kind of does…”
Small Western-style windows were arranged at regular intervals along the building’s ivy-covered exterior. The door where the main entrance seemed to be was hanging off its hinges, the doorway yawning into darkness. The trunk of the giant statue peeked out from behind the building as the wind strummed a ghostly scale among the broken stained glass windows. The area beyond the stairs was surrounded by a sturdy enclosure. It didn’t look as if we would be able to force our way through.