前のエピソード――Part Ⅰ　The Son Suddenly Ended his 24 Year's Life

　2 Kazuo's body returned to his room

　While preparations were being made at the temple for the vigil, the body had been brought to his prefabricated dormitory room near the site of accident. Subsequently I had been told that there had been problems in finding a coffin for him as he was much taller than was common in the district. (In fact he was 190 cm tall.)

　And he was very handsome, indeed. In fact, as he was walking along the street, he was scouted if he would be a fashion model. I am not familiar with Jesus Christ but thought that he was lying with a soft and tender look like Christ. Inside the prefabricated dormitory room, it was gloomy and cold now after the autumnal daylight. Hisako was sitting still as a stone as the various ominous things Kazuo had told her over the previous month passed through her mind, like image following each other and fading as in a revolving lantern. *

(* Note: revolving lantern, or soumatou in Japanese, is a cylinder with a candle at the center. On the surface, for example, there are pictures of running horses to create an image of running while it turns round. Hence the soumatou (running horse lantern.))

　Kazuo's neighbor to the right was a not very bright Javanese man called Katu-chan, who had been Kazuo's very close friend. He wailed repeatedly as he caressed the head, "Suzuki-sa-a-a-n, what has made yon like this ?" And he uncovered the blanket and stroke Kazuo's hand with his both hands. "Suzuki-san was such a good person. Why should such a good person meet an accident like this?" He was weeping and his voice was sobbing.

　Another friend of Kazuo was a third generation of Peruvian-Japanese. Mr. Takagi was Kazuo's left-hand neighbor. Mr. Takagi was sitting on his legs with his hands fitting close and shoulders dropped he kept praying long time. He had relied on Kazuo as an elder brother.

　3 Bullying at the workplace.

　Prior to the accident (probably in early October), a fierce bullying targeted at Kazuo took place.

　The 'scary man', whose name was Maruki, his immediate supervisor, verbally or with actual action, bullied Kazuo. He yelled at Kazuo that "Foreigners are stupid dummy", "Eat the snake", "Beat the pregnant dog to death", "Drop the swallow's nest and soak it to kill" etc. Further, from an unknows reason he almost hit Kazuo with a hammer and threw a stone at him, and in such a time Katu-chan was running about in terror. Further, Kazuo was ordered to enter the dangerous place or being poked and pushed. Hereinafter the 'scary man' was absent from the work about a week. Perhaps he was reprimanded. Then he was changed from the upper machine room to lower sand putting in and out job. Since then, Kazuo had been ignored by the 'scary man'.　

　　But as October 24's Y. Daily's column 'Help Line' reported that they have found Hisako's relatives* and that Kazuo and Hisako were going back to Brazil, the attitude of the 'scary man' suddenly changed to a benign one. The report, however, added that Kazuo would come back to Japan again. Kazuo said over the phone that he could not foretell what might happen the next day. To have heard this Hisako could not help feeling some unknown thing that makes her sick surging within her.

(*Note: Hisako's friend asked the column to search for them. Cf. part II-5)

　Did the 'scary man' feel threatened by Kazuo's abilities and bullied him for that reason? But after the news of Kazuo's returning to Brazil his attitude toward him may have changed.

　4 Kazuo visited ex-colleagues in Kanagawa (Water pollution)

　Kazuo, who had been working without taking any vacations suddenly took a leave for three days from October 29th. It was quite rare thing for him. He visited his Japanese-Brazilian friends, with whom he had worked before he changed to present work, to Kanagawa Prefecture and stayed there.

　These friends, there were five of them, came immediately to hear of his accident. They said, "Kazuo must have been killed". Hisako suspected he might have talked about something related to his work.

　At that time there was a rumor that the industrial waste which is carried in the Shirakaba Crushed Stone factory from elsewhere was treated there and eventually discharged into local river (Takamatsu River) and caused the death of a lot of fish. Hisako little thought that Kazuo should have been involved in the discharge. But according to what Mr. Takagi has said Kazuo may have taken part in polluting the water. Mr. Takagi said that two types of chemicals were used to sediment the sludge and the contaminated supernatant was discharged through the discharge ditch of the paddy field into the Takamatsu River. He also said where this was done was obscured by a billboard so that outsiders could not see what was happening.

　Kazuo had said "You should not drink the raw water here" time and time again. Hisako showed me the sketch map where the sedimentation took place behind the machine room which she had heard from Kazuo. Social influence labor attorney (Kitagawa) owned half of the company's land including the paddy field in question and involvement in the discharge of industrial wastes was suspected.

　Kazuo must have taken part in water pollution under the instruction of Kitagawa. He should have regretted to have done such an absurd deed in his grandparent's fatherland which he liked so much.

　A local resident had said that the stone crashing factory never used such chemicals in their sedimentation pool. A woman who has known the company long years suspected that they were secretly treating industrial waste. She also said that the company with shady back street origins had been working in unusual ways.

(Note: I was buying locally cultivated rice through an acquaintance. There was no knowing to what extent it was contaminated by now. Was it safe rice? )

　There were many dump trucks ran roaring on the national toad in Gumma prefecture. There were many female drivers too. They earned fabulously. They carried soil, sand, industrial waste etc. Once my car's front glass was hit by a stone flipped by a dump truck, the split had become larger and larger in time. So, when I come across a dump truck, I used to stop the car and waited until it went away.

　On October 31, Hisako met Kazuo who has come from Kanagawa, and they ate out together. She took the newspaper which reported that the reporter has found the relatives for them successfully. Hearing what was written in the paper he said, "I am going back to Brazil once, but after all I may be in Japan for good". He also said "When I should die burn me to ashes. And play livery music at my funeral." Hisako admonished him saying, "Don't be silly, you are the Brazilian." And as she said on November 2nd, she was going to meet five of the relatives who were found this time, he said "Come back with the envelopes of money." She had taken it as Kazuo's top notch joke then. But after his death, she realized that it meant the condolence money, and that this might have been for his own death.

　It is possible that there has been a discussion between Kazuo and Kitagawa's side, or that Kazuo may have abandoned his plans. But it had not been known now what it was because of Kazuo's death.

　The next morning, he had phoned again and said that it had turned out to have been a joke, a joke. She asked if anything wrong had occurred. But he had replied nothing had happened. Or was it because of Kazuo's consideration not to make her worried on the matter.