Black Rain

At the end of June, during a time of seasonal festivals, Yasuko receives a letter from a prospective romantic interest named Gentaro Aono from the nearby Yamano village. Before Yasuko reads the letter, Shigematsu decides the existence of the letter is a good omen “that the young man himself in interested” (83), so he returns to his diary transcription. He works quickly to finish the work and misses that day's festivities.

On August 7, the day after the bombing, the factory's badly hurt employees rest in the company dormitories, and those with only minor injuries are sent back into Hiroshima to help anyone they can. Shigematsu wakes up in agony but does what he can to organize help for the refugees at the factory. There are so many dead bodies that there are no priests, administrators, or doctors to tell anyone what to do. The crematorium is “jammed” (85), so the dead are burned anywhere “away from human habitation” (86). Shigematsu is given the task of reading a small funeral rite for each body, so he reluctantly visits an old priest to find out how to perform the ceremony. Back at the factory, he performs the ceremony with “a sense of vacancy and unreality” (88).