The eighth month of the standing order came due in the spring.
Ren made it at the long bench, in the morning's good light. The bench ran under the window, clear of the counter's work. Twelve sachets took shape there, one after another. Each one was filled from the same weighed leaf. Each one was tied with the same doubled thread. No sachet left the bench without its label. The label carried the name, the drying week, the mark.
The leaf for the month was weighed before the tying began. It was weighed a second time after the tying ended. The two weights were read against the month's measure. Nothing had been lost to the bench's cracks. Nothing had been added from another bin. The powder was the shop's standard powder, ground fine. Its colour was even, its smell clean and sharp. A sachet that failed the eye never reached the thread. None failed that morning, and the bench kept its clean run.
He laid the finished sachets in a flat case. The case was shallow, with a lid that latched. Straw lined its floor in a thin bed. The sachets rested on the straw in two rows. Six in one row, six in the other, labels up.
Then he shut the lid and took the hill road. Spring mud softened the lower lane. Higher up, the path had dried to dust. The case rode level in both his hands. He walked at a pace the labels could survive.
Osamu took the case at the office door. Osamu was the office clerk, keeper of the month's file. He carried the case to the side table himself. The side table caught the window's light full on. That light was why the table was used. Nothing hid in it, and nothing was hidden by it.
He opened the lid and lifted the sachets out. He laid them on a clean mat, labels up. Then he read the labels, working along the mat. His voice was low and even. Name, drying week, mark, then the next sachet. Ren listened for a wrong word. None came.
The clerk chose six sachets for the scales, of his own choosing. His hand moved without asking leave. That was the office's right, written into the order. Each chosen sachet went onto the brass pan. Each weight settled where the standard said. None settled light. None settled heavy.
Under the mat's edge lay the month's inspection sheet. Osamu drew it out when the reading was done. The sheet held the month's lines in the office hand. Sachets counted, labels read, weights agreed. At its foot, the sheet asked for two names. One was the clerk's own, in its usual place.
The second name was new.
Below the clerk's line ran a second line, ruled fresh. On it, a hand Ren did not know had signed. The name written there was Serizawa. Beside the name, the sheet named the bench. The hospital's preparation bench, countersigned.
Ren looked at the second line a long moment.
"The bench has its man now," Osamu said. "Since the new year. His name goes on the sheets. The sheets come down to us with it on."
It was a fact of paper, and it arrived as paper. No man came down the hill with the name. No voice carried it into the shop. The post had been empty through the winter's months. Now the sheets bore a second hand. The bench was filled, and the filling showed first in ink.
Ren had seen seven months of these sheets before this one. Every sheet until now had closed with one name. The file's folder held them in their order. Any hand could turn them and see the change. Before the new year, a single signature ended the page. After the new year, the page ended with two. The work above the names had not changed at all. The sachets were counted the same way. The labels were read the same way. Only the paper had grown a second hand.
Osamu ruled the month's line complete on the sheet. He wrote the count where the count belonged. Twelve sachets, of twelve asked. Accepted, all twelve.
The eighth month: twelve of twelve, accepted.
The money came out of the office drawer. Osamu counted it into a wooden money tray. The tray had a raised lip on three sides. One thousand, four hundred and forty, in the month's coin. Ren counted the tray's contents where they lay. Then he counted them again into the case's money fold. Both counts said the same sum. The tray went back empty to its shelf.
The wholesaler's paper was waiting at the shop when he came down.
A cart from the house had left it that morning. With it came the spring parcels, wrapped in oilcloth. Seed for the beds, in its parcels. Plants for the spring setting, in theirs. The paper priced the whole delivery in the house's column. Six hundred and twenty ryō, for seed and plants together.
Paper of that kind was paid in its month. That was the house's way, and the shop's. Ren opened the strongbox on the counter. He counted six hundred and twenty out of it. The count was made once, then made again. Then the coin went into the house's return pouch. The pouch would travel down with the next cart. The paper was marked paid in his own hand. The parcels went to the back room shelf, labelled side out.
That evening the day book took the month in two lines. Hill money in, house money out. Each with its source beside it. Neither line touched the street's coin.
The eighth month, delivered and accepted: in, one thousand, four hundred and forty. The house's paper for the spring seed and plants, paid in its month: out, six hundred and twenty. The box holds eight thousand and ten ryō.
Seven thousand, one hundred and ninety, to begin. One thousand, four hundred and forty added. Six hundred and twenty taken away. Eight thousand and ten, and the book's sum matched the box.
The winter list had its turn in the same days.
Seven names waited on its page, in their order. The seventh name was the next to be served. Ren read the page before he reached for the shelf. Order was the list's whole law. No name was served before its turn.
The seventh name was Rui, of the rope walk. Rui came in the afternoon, rope fibre still on his sleeves. The fibres were pale and fine, like dry grass. He set his price on the counter without fuss. Ren took the jar from the front of the shelf. The summer month gave it, the oldest leaf first. He told Rui the course across the counter. Three days of it, morning and evening. The cup hot, each time. Rui repeated it back in his work voice. Then the jar went under his arm, and the rope walk had its man back.
The eighth name followed in its turn. Old Bunta, the tile-mender, came slowly up the street. His knees had their own weather, everyone knew. He rested a hand on the door frame while he caught his breath. No one hurried him, least of all the shop. His jar also came from the summer month. The course was told at his pace, in short parts. He gave each part back before the next was spoken. His price was counted from a purse worn thin at the folds. The jar rode home in his tool basket, among the tile tools. It sat there like it belonged to the trade.
Two names served, in their order, off the front row. The page's count changed, and Ren wrote it so.
The list's servings did not close the counter's day. Spring fevers kept their own hours, list or no list. A house sent word at midday, by a neighbour's mouth. Another door knocked in the last hour of light. The shop answered both from the same front row. The oldest leaf went first, as the rule now ran. Each jar's label was read before it left the shelf. Each reading put the summer month in the book again.
Two more jars from the summer month went to the street. They went in the ordinary way of the counter. A fever named at a door, a course told and repeated. A jar carried home in daylight, in spring air. The book gave each its line and its month. No line on the page borrowed another jar's month.
That night he counted the front of the shelf.
The summer month's row had gaps in it now. He counted the row by its labels, left to right. Seven jars remained of the summer month. Seven, where fourteen had been counted in spring's first week.
The whole shelf counted after it, row behind row. Behind the front, nothing had moved all month. Eighteen jars filled the second summer month's length. Sixteen jars filled the first autumn length behind it. A last sixteen closed the shelf at the back. Seven and eighteen and two rows of sixteen. The shelf held fifty-seven jars.
The list's page took its own count beside the shelf's.
The winter list: two names served in their order, Rui seventh, Bunta eighth, both from the summer month. Five names stand on the page, in their order. The shelf: fifty-seven jars. The summer month: seven.
Five names still waited for their turns. The front row was thinner, and still the front. Its last weeks were running, and the book kept count of them. Outside, a spring wind worked at the shutter. Inside, the counts agreed, page with page, shelf with book.