The winter set in hard, and stayed.
Frost lay white on the shop's step before dawn. Thin ice made star shapes on the water bucket. Breath showed white at the door and was gone. Inside, the stove took its morning wood without hurry. Thirty-nine jars were of the second month of summer. Forty-seven were of the first month of autumn. Thirty-seven were of the second month of autumn. One hundred and twenty-three jars in all. The winter plan had said one hundred and thirty-two. The shelf held nine less than the plan. The gap had its cause written, and the count did not argue with it.
The oldest month stood at the front. That was the rule of the shelf. The winter would be served by it.
Ren made the nineteenth month before the shutter went up.
Twelve sachets of wound powder, of the shop's standard. No knot was drawn until its label was on it, whole. The name, the drying week, the mark. He tied them in the cold light from the door. He carried the box up the hill through the frost. The path shone where feet had polished the ice. At the office, the clerk set a shallow basket on the table. Ren lifted the sachets out one by one. Each sachet landed in the basket on its label side. The clerk read each label whole as it landed.
For the scales, the clerk chose six sachets from the basket. Three lay uppermost, where his hand first fell. Three more came from beneath them. The six went up, one at a time. Each came down agreed with the standard. The clerk ruled the month's line on the file's page. In label, all twelve had passed, read whole. In weight, the six he had chosen had passed as well.
The clerk took the month's money from the office drawer, in hundreds. One thousand, four hundred and forty. The clerk stacked it on the table's cleared corner. Ren gathered the stacks into the box, counting as he gathered. The two counts were the same count. He carried the box down the hill in the bright cold. It was the last month of the year of months. It had run on sachets and labels, never on a promise.
The wave took the street in the days that followed.
It did not come as one day of asking. It came as all the doors at once, and then again the next morning. Coughs sounded behind shutters that stayed shut. Carriers came with names on their lips and coin in cloth. Houses that had held out a week sent word at last. The fever walked the street the way cold walks it.
Ren changed the serving for the wave's days.
He set the low bench just inside the door, across the draught. At the bench's near end, the day book lay open. The ink pot sat in a ring cut for it, so it could not spill. At the bench's far end, a clear space waited for jars. Walk-ins stepped past the bench to the counter. Carriers stayed on the step, in the day, with the door open between them. Ren worked the two paces between bench and counter.
Jars came down from the shelf in armfuls of six. They were set on the bench's clear space, labels outward. No jar left the bench until its line was written. Ren wrote the line first, while the carrier waited. The house, the jar's month, the price. Then the jar was handed over, and the course was told. Then the coin was counted, on the bench or on the counter. After every fifth line, he ruled a short double line under it. A page of the wave could be counted by fives, at a glance. The ink held it, as the day went.
The first day, thirteen jars went out that way. The second day, fifteen more. The book's double lines grew down the pages. Twenty-eight jars, counted by their lines, in two days of open door.
On the first day, near noon, Hana came from the noodle house.
Her mother had the fever, she said. Ito, of the noodle house. Ren turned a clean page in the day book. He ruled it for the winter list, the new one. Ito's name went down first on that page. It was the first name the wave had written there.
The jar for Ito was taken from the bench's armful. Its line was written before it left the wood. Ren told the course to Hana, there at the door. The whole course, three days, morning and evening, the cup hot. Hana said it back to him once, plain. Then she carried the jar down the street at a walk. Ito's name stood first on the list, and served first.
Before the light went, the well keeper came up the street herself. Her son had the fever. Sōta, the well keeper's son. His name went down second on the list's page. His jar was taken in its turn, second, from the same month's rows. The well keeper took the course standing at the counter. She repeated the days back without a fault. She paid the board's price out of her sleeve. Then she went down toward the well house, the jar held level in both hands.
The rest of the page was still blank. The street was still coughing behind its shutters.
The other names came in over the next two days, as the fever found their doors.
The rope walk sent word by a carter's hand. Dai, the rope walk's second boy. His name went down third. The thread counter's widow sent her name by the girl who swept the stall. Chie, the widow of the thread counter. Her name went down fourth. Genza, the gate sweeper, gave his name at the door himself, at dawn. His name went down fifth. The dyer brought her grandmother's name at midday, with the price counted ready. Ume, the dyer's grandmother. The name went down sixth. The candle counter's keeper brought word of her second daughter. Kiku, of the candle counter. Her name went down seventh. The roofer's yard sent word by its water boy. Renji, the roofer's apprentice. His name went down eighth. Last, the charcoal seller brought his mother's name with the week's charcoal. Old Sada, the charcoal seller's mother. Her name went down ninth, and the page held nine.
The names stood in their order on the page. They would be served in that order, as the days allowed. No name was jumped, and none was hurried ahead of its turn. The list was a page, not a promise of speed. The shelf and the days would say the rest.
On the third day, eleven more jars went out by the book's lines. The count of the wave reached thirty-nine. The last jar of that day came from the front row's end. Ren read its label before he wrote its line. It was of the second month of summer. It was the last jar of that month in the shop. The second month of summer was gone out whole, to the street, in the wave's first three days. No jar of it had been burned. No jar of it had outlived its life.
On the fourth day, the armfuls came from the next month's rows. Seven jars of the first month of autumn went out by the same lines. The wave's count reached forty-six. The double lines on the pages said so, by fives, with one over. Forty jars of the first month of autumn were left. The second month of autumn stood untouched behind them, at thirty-seven.
The paper came on the fourth day, toward evening.
A runner from the office brought it down, folded and sealed. Ren broke the seal at the counter, after the last carrier had gone. The seal gave him two sheets. One was the requisition, in the office's hand. The other was the keeper's copy of the shop's line, written out whole:
Aoyama Yakusōten — outside supplier. The fever cure, in jars of the shop's standard. The wound powder, in sachets. At the board's prices, as posted.
Under the copied line, the shop's two conditions stood copied as well, in full.
Nothing goes up the hill without its label — the name, the drying week, the mark. No label, no lot, in any month, for any asking.
No date set by the office skips the drying. A lot is ready when the making is ready. If the hill wants a thing faster than the leaf dries, the hill waits, or does without.
The conditions had travelled with the line again.
The requisition was short. Ren read it, set it down, and read it again after a breath. It asked the shop for twenty-seven jars of the fever cure, against the line. The price it named was the board's own: three hundred the jar. The place it named was the register office. The morning it named was the third morning of the solstice week. Every jar it named was already sealed and labelled on the shelf. The morning came after the making, not before it. The paper asked for no speed. It named no price but the board's.
Ren spread the copy flat with one hand. With the other, he laid the requisition next to it. He checked one sheet against the other, word by word. The line was the same line. The conditions were the same conditions.
"The jars will be at the office on that morning," he told the runner. "Counted there, against the paper."
The runner left with that word, for the hill. Ren creased the requisition and tucked it into the day book. It lay at the wave's pages. He left the copy out on the counter's shelf. It would climb the hill with the jars.
That night he wrote the round of days in the book, in his workaday hand.
The nineteenth month stands delivered and accepted: twelve of twelve. In: one thousand, four hundred and forty. The box stands at twenty-one thousand, two hundred and forty.
The wave has taken forty-six jars to the street. Thirty-nine were of the second month of summer. That month is gone out whole. Seven were of the first month of autumn.
The shelf stands at seventy-seven. Forty are of the first month of autumn. Thirty-seven are of the second month of autumn.
The new winter list stands at nine names entered. Two are served, in their order. Seven stand.
A paper has come against the line, the third since the name was written. It asks for twenty-seven jars, at the board's price. Its morning is the third morning of the solstice week.
Behind the counter, the shelf stood at seventy-seven, in two months' rows. The list's page held nine names, two of them served. The wave was not done with the street yet. Its count stood in the book, by fives, ready to be gone on with.