THE AFTERNOON BURNS his forehead. He has left his phone charging in his room but doesn’t care. He has just set a goal for himself that enthuses him: to meet every remaining inhabitant of this abandoned village. Given that he has already seen at least a dozen of them, he thinks this is achievable.
He wants to see, greet, approach those people. Mr. Watanabe feels they all belong to the same family, a small gathering of the last ones.
As he walks through the emptiness of Hirodai, he feels he is fulfilling an ancient fantasy. To contemplate what life looks like when there should be no one left. A posthumous perspective.
For a few minutes, he follows an elderly man with a green plastic watering can who is inspecting the houses in the town center, window by window. He pauses at every flowerpot, raises his arm, and sprinkles slowly. He goes from the houses to a garage, where he refills the container time and again. His movements convey a recognizable type of effort: when one’s will prevails over physical limitation.
During one of his breaks, Watanabe walks over to the garage and says hello. Surprised and pleased to see a visitor, the old man invites him inside. He offers him a cup of tea, which Watanabe gladly accepts. If his taste buds aren’t deceiving him, it is the same green tea that he normally drinks in Tokyo.
The old man’s name is Ariichi. When he was young, he explains, he put his savings into the garage, the first in the town. Later on, his sons took it over. Now it belongs to no one. Every day, he does his rounds in the different parts of the village, to look after the outdoor plants of the neighbors who have left. Unlike Mr. Satō, he is convinced they’ll be returning shortly or at least that if he does the watering, they’ll come back sooner. The few who have stayed behind seldom leave their houses. He thinks this is foolish. Watanabe asks him about the radiation.
The radiation doesn’t scare me in the slightest, says Ariichi. Before the cancer gets me, I’ll die of old age. The others think they’re scared of the nuclear plant but believe me, it’s not that. What frightens them is death and they won’t avoid it by shutting themselves away in their bedrooms.
Over his second cup of tea, Watanabe discovers that Ariichi’s apparent calm belies a different anxiety. His main concern is for the graves of his ancestors that lie in a burial ground a little farther north, two or three kilometers inside the prohibited zone. He has visited them there all his life and envisaged his grave next to theirs. Although he has had no trouble gaining access to the cemetery, what if all of a sudden they refuse to let him in? Recent rumors have made him fear this possibility. That’s why he thinks that, when the next Obon comes, all the neighbors should gather on the shore to light bonfires in honor of their dead.
I don’t feel ready yet, he says, to cross the frontier. I need them to wait, do you see? To wait for me a little longer.
Wandering away from the town center, Yoshie makes out in the distance a tiny old woman in a doorway, wrapped prematurely in a shawl, as if the chill to come at nightfall could make her catch a cold beforehand.
As he draws nearer and his tired eyes start to focus on the old lady, Mr. Watanabe realizes she is positioned differently than he’d first thought. Or rather, even if he had perceived her correctly, his mind modified the image to make sense of it. She isn’t facing the street leaning against the door, but rather the exact opposite. She has her back to him and her face is pressed up against the door, like a salamander.
He is able to discern her movements only once he is a few meters closer: the old lady is trying to force the lock using some sort of implement, pushing the door with an aggression incongruous with someone her age. (And gender, thinks Watanabe; then he recalls his arguments with Lorrie and feels ashamed in midthought.)
Hearing his footsteps, she stops pummeling the door and turns toward him, giving him her sweetest smile. She asks if he’s connected with the police. He introduces himself, explains that he is passing through and that he is staying at the Hinodeso guesthouse. She welcomes him to Hirodai. Declares that she is pleased to meet him, but doesn’t mention her name.
I’ve run out of rice, the old lady explains, concealing the implement beneath her shawl. No rice and no preserves. I know that my neighbors have some. They left weeks ago, or was it months, I don’t remember. They have some, I’m sure. It’s difficult to cook here. What would you do without rice?
I’d order sushi over the phone, replies Watanabe, failing in his attempt to crack a joke.
She fixes him with her stern gaze.
They don’t need the rice, she says, or the preserves. Don’t you think it’s a waste? All that food in there. I’ve seen it from the yard, on the shelves. If they come back one day, I’ll apologize and thank them. There are several jars, all full.
He nods, preoccupied by the blotches on her hands, her raised knuckles: an archipelago with five stony islands.
Now, sir, the old lady adds with a bow, if you’ll excuse me …
And she brusquely resumes her hammering, paying him no more attention, as if Watanabe had vanished into thin air.
What about the trains? he wonders sometime later, what’s become of the trains that no longer depart, the cars no one enters, the platforms waiting for someone to wait on them? What fraction of the world’s journeys is lost each time a train remains in place?
All the lines that used to run through the region, a couple of incalculable age informs him in wispy voices, have been suspended. It is suspected that the tracks linking the town to Hirono, Hisanohama, and other places might contain high levels of radiation due to the transport of waste from the nuclear power plant.
Mr. Watanabe asks for directions and heads for the station.
No sooner has he entered the building than a rumble of metal startles him. A screech in motion, rotating, growing.
A moment later, he sees the man in a wheelchair.
The man coming toward him, screeching as he smiles.
His name is Mr. Nakasone, a former ticket collector at the station. He worked here all his life, he says, until he had the accident. He has never lived anywhere else. In his present condition, moving out of his home would create more problems than it would solve. He now depends on the few families who have stayed behind. While there’s at least one neighbor willing to help, he prefers to remain. He has two homes, counting the station. The trains are his family, he explains.
Those trains that he has seen depart and arrive so often he has lost count, he recalls, motioning into the distance. He means this literally: for many years he kept a precise tally of the number of train services he supervised. Not out of vanity, he adds, but just to be aware of the passage of time.
Afterward he names the few living relatives he has left, including a cousin in Futaba. The other day, two soldiers came to her house and took her away. They had an evacuation order. At first, his cousin slammed the door in their faces. The soldiers read out a decree. His cousin argued that by staying in her house she was harming no one but herself. They told her that wasn’t the issue. Of course it is! she protested.
They move together toward the platforms. Watanabe offers to push the wheelchair, Mr. Nakasone refuses with an abrupt gesture. He immediately changes his mind, and rubs his forearms.
It’s not because of my arms, he clarifies, but because it’s comforting.
They advance in silence along the station walkway. The only noise is the screech of wheels, like a stream of rodents.
Watanabe notices the old clock presiding over the entrance to the platforms. It is speckled with shadows.
Isn’t it a bit behind? he comments.
That clock hasn’t worked for years, replies Mr. Nakasone.
Lifting some caution tape out of the way, they emerge into the open air. The heat is starting to subside. The light divides, rectifies the tracks.
It’s very strange, says the former ticket collector. The platforms seem smaller when they are deserted like this.
They approach the tracks. Look down at them.
Are there only these two platforms? Watanabe asks.
Only these two, Mr. Nakasone nods. One to arrive and the other to leave. No need for more.