The Isle of South Kamui and Other Stories (3 page)

“I'll show you a thing or two…” She grinned.

Just then, I caught sight of a demon outside the window, his whole body bathed in the blue-white moonlight. He stood staring down at me and the woman.

“Otaki!” the demon called to her, in a low, faltering voice.

“So the god is pleased, huh?” As if spurred on by his voice, the woman pressed her body against me all the harder and started unbuttoning my shirt. I was overwhelmed by her weight, her body odor with a hint of the sea, and the cloying fragrance of the southern flower.

The demon's face disappeared abruptly from the window, but the shock had drained all the energy from my body. Even so, the woman continued to thrust against my private parts and ground her hips with a seriousness that truly befitted serving a god.

I felt as though I had been caught up in a nightmare, but it was two days later that the real nightmare began.

Life on the island was monotonous and dull. And there was also something ominous about it, although I could not put my finger on exactly what. I knew the demon I had seen was just a young man wearing a devil mask, but it still gave me the creeps.

The natural beauty was the island's one saving grace, but the fierce sunlight made me feel dizzy. I did not go out all that much, but my face and arms still smarted with sunburn.

It was almost midday by the time I finally awoke. The strong sunlight dropped white spots up as far as my pillow, promising another hot day.

I got up and went through to the dispensary to find that breakfast was already laid out on my desk. The mayor had taken the trouble of arranging for the woman called Otaki to bring me breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

The dishes were arranged on an old-fashioned black lacquered tray. It was an extravagant feast for an island as destitute as this. The rice was from the mainland, and the miso soup with pork was not made from the local sago palm miso, but from real soybean miso. That alone was probably out of consideration for me, but I did not have much of an appetite.

I ate a little, but soon threw down my chopsticks, left the dispensary, and headed for the seashore. On the beach near the wharf the women, cotton towels covering their hair, were hanging out fish, their bellies split open, to dry in the sun. The smell of fish permeated the small beach.

As they worked, the women sang to a slow rhythm. It was the same song they had been singing as they hauled the fishing boat up the beach when I first arrived on the island. I sometimes heard that song carried on the breeze when I was in the dispensary. The salesman translated the lyrics for me.

C'mon, let's have a ball

Until the strings tying the pantaloons of all the women rip.
C'mon, let's have a ball
Until the strings tying the loincloths of all the men rip.
And when we've finished our work
Let's all enjoy doing
maguhai.

Yes, let's all revel in doing it.

If I had heard about this song in Tokyo, I would probably have admired its rugged simplicity. At least I would not have found it offensive. But on this island, when I thought about how many more times I was going to be forced to listen to it, the monotonous, melancholy melody grated on my nerves. My urbanized ears were just not on the same wavelength.

I walked past the women to the small inlet from where I could see the coral reef. Two canoes were moored there, one painted red, the other white.

There was nobody around. I could no longer hear the women's singing, perhaps because I was upwind. White wave crests rose like bared teeth over the coral reef some two hundred meters out to sea, but the inlet itself was as calm as a mirror. A breeze blew over the reef, yet standing there motionless I broke out in a sweat. I stripped down to my undershirt and dipped my toes in the water. It felt good. But as I watched a shoal of richly colored tropical fish swim past in the limpid water, I recalled the police officer's warning not to paddle barefoot in the pools or go swimming. There was apparently a highly poisonous fish that had been known to kill people with its sting. For all the natural beauty, it did not strike me as much fun.

I lit up a cigarette, but I suddenly felt a wave of nausea. I hurriedly threw away the cigarette and clamped my hand over my mouth. Cloudy white spittle stuck to the palm. I washed it off in seawater. Why was the nausea continuing, I wondered.

There was no way I should feel seasick any more. Perhaps the overly strong sun was to blame? Here it was the heat of midsummer. My nerves could also have something to do with it. No doubt that accounted for my lack of appetite, too.

I moistened my handkerchief in seawater and was just wiping my flushed face and arms when I heard a loud voice calling, “Doctor!”

I turned to see the officer racing towards me. Gasping for breath, he said, “Doctor, they've fallen sick.”

I tensed, forgetting my nausea. I did not much care for this island, but as long as I was here I had to fulfill my duties as a doctor.

“Who are ‘they'?”

“The mayor and the people from the inn.”

“What are their symptoms?”

“A touch of diarrhea and a slight fever. They all say they feel unwell.”

“Sounds like food poisoning.”

“Well, please come,” he said before hastening back.

I returned to the dispensary, stuffed some medical supplies in my bag, and headed for the inn.

It was the mayor, the landlady of the inn, and the young serving girl who had fallen ill. I had no idea why the mayor should have taken sick at the inn, but seeing the officer's odd smile I inferred there must be something going on between the mayor and the landlady.

All three patients were presenting practically the same symptoms. They all had a temperature of almost thirty-nine degrees, and the mayor also complained of painful joints, probably due to the fever.

At first I dismissed it as a simple case of food poisoning. The islanders often ate raw fish, so probably that was the cause. But then I discovered red spots on the landlady's breast that were not consistent with this diagnosis. The spots were livid and round, quite unlike hives. Furthermore, if it was hives then it was unthinkable that three people would present the same symptoms all at once.

“Does it itch?” I asked.

“A little,” the woman responded in a small voice.

“How did it start?”

“To begin with I felt something awful queasy—”

When she said this, the officer next to her said to me, as if backing up her story, “Come to think of it, the mayor was retching at the washbasin earlier.”

Nausea?

I recalled the nausea that had plagued me ever since arriving on the island.

“Can you think of anything you ate that might have been bad?” I asked all three of them, just in case, but they all replied that they could think of nothing.

The mayor suddenly started vomiting at the sink next to his bed. The officer hastily rubbed his back. It seemed his stomach was empty, for all that he vomited was cloudy white sputum.

I examined him again. On his scrawny old chest, I saw the same red spots as on the landlady's breast. I hurriedly brought to mind a number of clinical cases and compared them. I felt a growing sense of unease.

“Do you know what it is, Doctor?” the officer asked me with a worried look.

To put his mind at ease, I told him, “It's probably something they ate. I'll prepare some medicine for them, so please come and collect it later.”

I went back to the dispensary for the time being. The sun was blazing down as fiercely as ever, and it was stifling inside the room.

I sank down into the wooden swivel chair, which made an unpleasant grating noise, and cast my eyes over the medical supplies shelf. There was a jumble of bottles of medicine, boxes of bandages, syringes, and suchlike. The medicine log appeared to include just the standard medicines. No doubt they had hastily sent away for supplies from the main island two hundred fifty kilometers away in preparation for my arrival. If what we were dealing with were an infectious disease, however, these medicines would be of no use whatsoever.

Just then I heard a cat mewing. The same white kitten I had seen before had again crawled under the desk. When I stood up from the chair to shoo it away, I was again overcome by powerful nausea.

I rushed to the sink and threw up. All that came out was some cloudy white sputum, the same as that spewed up by the mayor at the inn. It was the same symptom. I felt a sharp pain stab my lower abdomen, as if launching a follow-up attack. I rushed to the toilet and passed a watery stool. Maybe I was imagining things, but my body felt feverish. I took my temperature and it was over thirty-nine degrees.

What on earth could it be? It was clearly not a simple case of food poisoning.

Suddenly I was gripped by an intense sense of dread.

It can't be
…

What I had in mind was a contagious disease notifiable by law. It was terrifying even to utter its name. The fact that I was the only doctor on the island, that I had no satisfactory medicines and that we were far from the main island, let alone Tokyo—the sheer number of similarly unfavorable conditions plunged me into a state of panic.

However, I had to confirm it one way or another. That was a doctor's job, and also knowing the truth was the only way to overcome fear.

Once again I looked over the stock of medical supplies. There was only a small microscope of the type you might see in a science class at middle school. I doubted I would be able to detect the pathogenic microorganism with this. Even if I sent saliva and urine samples to Kamui for analysis, it would take ten or more hours just to get there, and even longer to get to Tokyo. The only other method was to test it on an animal.

I glanced at the kitten cowering under the desk. It drew back in alarm, but I used a stick to chase it out and grabbed it by the scruff of its neck. It set up a high-pitched mewling, but I paid it no heed as I bound its four limbs to the desk.

I washed my hands and picked up a syringe. I felt shaky, perhaps because of the fever. Probably the red spots were already appearing on my body too.

I sucked up some of my sputum from the washbasin. The kitten bound to the desk bared its teeth and raised a wail that set my nerves on edge. I dabbed its tender skin with alcohol, and then plunged the needle in. Its body shuddered slightly. After injecting it, I set it free on the floor. Once again it crawled under the desk and looked up at me with dazed eyes.

Afterwards, there was nothing to do but wait for the reaction. For the time being, I gave the people at the inn some medicine to control diarrhea.

The sun went down with no particular change in the kitten's condition, but in the early hours its movements became increasingly sluggish. I tried giving it some milk, but it made no move to drink it. Even if I prodded it, its response was dull. It just wailed feebly, but made no attempt to move.

Dawn broke and the sun came streaming in. Just as I was inadvertently nodding off, weary from having stayed awake all night, the kitten abruptly started chasing around as if it had gone quite insane. It appeared to have lost its bearings as it dashed haphazardly at the wall, crashed into it, and collapsed in a heap on the floor. It got up again, but its back swayed and saliva drooled from its mouth. It tottered five or six steps more but again collapsed on the floor. It appeared to have no energy for crying and left long trails of cloudy white spittle across the floor.

These were the typical textbook symptoms. A chill ran down my spine. There could be no doubt about it. Soon the kitten's body would lapse into convulsions and it would die.

I took off my shirt and examined my own body. As I expected, vivid red spots had erupted on my chest and abdomen.

I'm done for now
.

I chewed my lip at the thought. Suddenly I was startled by a shadowy figure.

The Otaki woman was standing outside the glass door staring at me openmouthed. I hastily put my shirt back on.

She stood looking at me a while longer, but then dropped her gaze and, opening the door, brought in the breakfast tray as usual. She put it down on the desk without a word, bowed to me, and went out.

I turned my gaze to the kitten. It lay there motionless on the floor. I picked it up, but it was already dead.

I took a towel and wiped away the sweat from my body. I glanced at the breakfast, but had absolutely no appetite.

I had just finished disposing of the kitten's body when the officer arrived, weariness showing on his face.

“Two more people have fallen ill. The headmaster and the postmaster.”

“It isn't food poisoning. It's a contagious disease.”

I felt shaky, and leaned on the desk with my hands to steady myself. The young officer paled.

“Doctor, are you sure?”

“I don't joke about things like this. Take the new cases to the inn immediately, and keep them isolated from everyone else.”

I quickly prepared an antiseptic solution before rushing with the officer to the inn.

At any rate, we had to contain the infection. Then we needed a serum, which in the case of this disease had to be injected within at least twenty-four hours of the symptoms appearing. Would it be possible to get hold of the serum in time?