Shipwrecks Read online

  The sedge hat didn’t move from where it had been hung on the wooden post. Isaku wanted very much to wear it, but the prospect of attracting his mother’s attention held him back. Not only that: to Isaku this was no ordinary hat but a hat too precious to expose to the elements.

  But the light rain on the first day of the saury season was enough for him to muster the courage to grab the hat, securing it firmly on his head by tying the strings under his chin. He felt exhilarated at the thought that he was wearing a hat Tami had made with her own hands.

  He stopped the boat and dropped the anchor when he got to Crow Point. First he draped a straw mat over the side, then he let another drift out from the stern. Isokichi was all eyes as he studied what was to him a brand-new way of fishing.

  The two of them pressed themselves low as they watched the straw matting drift behind the boat. By the end of the previous year’s season, Isaku had more or less mastered grabbing the fish with his hands, but now he felt anything but confident that he still had the knack, and the last thing he wanted was to be shamed in front of his younger brother. For ten days the best he could do was grab two or three fish a day, and some days he couldn’t even get one. But gradually his catch increased, and before very long he was bringing home more than a dozen fish a day.

  On several occasions, in the evening Isaku had caught sight of Tami carrying a catch of saury home. Tami’s father was known for his skill in making dugouts, but he was also quite a fisherman and would routinely bring in large catches of saury for his family. Tami would fill two wooden pails with saury and carry them off the beach suspended on either end of a carrying-rod. Occasionally their eyes would meet, but she would quickly avert her gaze; her expression gave nothing away.

  With the start of the rainy season, the summer heat intensified. The sun turned Isokichi’s skin a dark shade of brown, and the sea breezes made his hair dry. About the time their mother finished preparing two big wooden tubs of salted saury, the catch suddenly fell away. A poor season in comparison with the previous year, the villagers said.

  The Bon festival was a more lively celebration than usual. Rice was served in all the houses; they even put offerings of little rice balls on their family altars. But in Isaku’s house, it was rice gruel, with some boiled seaweed to go with it.

  Blistering-hot days continued, and at times there were thunderstorms, engulfing the village in a white mist as the skies opened wide. After the squid started biting again, Isaku spent his days on the water with Isokichi. At times he would look at the line of mountains towering above the village. The midsummer sun beat down on the leaves of the trees, creating a deep green cloak of vibrant colour. The narrow path carved into the face of the mountain disappeared into the trees. Isaku’s heart raced at the thought that he would see his father come down that path the following spring. They said his father was fit and well; no doubt he would come down the path practically running. He would grieve over Teru’s death, but he would not blame Isaku’s mother. He might even be relieved to hear that Teru was the only one. His father was passing his days without any word of his family. How happy he would be if he knew that they had been blessed with a visit by O-fune-sama.

  ‘Wonder if O-fune-sama’ll come again this winter?’ said Isokichi as he worked the oar.

  ‘Maybe she will, or maybe we won’t see her again for a few years yet,’ replied Isaku. He stopped jiggling the cloth-baited spear in the water and turned his eyes toward Crow Point. He could picture the scene he had looked down on from the top of the promontory: the villagers in little boats converging on the wrecked ship, ferrying the cargo to the shore and dismantling the hull. It had been a bustling scene, played out at a brisk pace. Isaku wondered whether his brother would be right and this winter would see such a scene repeated, or whether he would never set eyes on O-fune-sama again as long as he lived.

  Above the point crows circled in the sky. Like little black dots.

  7

  As summer came to an end the village was lashed by one squall after another. One day, starting around noon, a warm, damp wind rose and black clouds sped across the sky. The rain began as large, distinct drops, but before long increased in intensity until veritable torrents of water were pouring from the heavens. As dusk came and went the tempest redoubled in strength. Rain pelted the wooden walls and thatched roof. Inside, Isaku and Isokichi propped a board against the straw mat in the doorway and tied the mat over the window in place with twine.

  Isaku huddled in his straw bedding, but his sleep was disturbed as the wind gusting down from the mountains dashed pieces of broken branches and leaves noisily against the roof. The house shuddered, and at times felt as if it was being lifted off the ground; Isaku was afraid that the wind would blow the roof off.

  The next morning the wind was still strong, but the rain had stopped. The ground was covered with broken branches, and a sea of leaves mixed with dirt washed down the slope. The sky had cleared by noon, but the waves were still high and each line of crashing breakers glistened in the bright sunlight. The signs of autumn became more pronounced with each passing day. The squid catch swelled as the sea grew calm.

  Isaku’s mother worked hard, cutting squid and hanging them up to dry, but she still found time to pick wild vegetables in the mountains behind the village. She put bamboo shoots in their vegetable porridge and fed them dry-roasted buds picked off the runners of yams she had found up in the forest. Isaku looked forward to mealtimes because this season provided them with the widest selection of food in the year.

  And yet his mother looked thoroughly dejected. Though they used the rice sparingly in gruel, they had already eaten their way through one of the straw bales and were now on the second. At times she would scoop up some rice with a bowl, only to pause in thought before pouring it back into the bale. Once this and the remaining six full bales were finished, they would again be faced with the prospect of starvation. For Isaku, too, the thought was frightening.

  His mother went up to their little patch of dirt carved out of the hillside and came back with a bag holding what little grain had survived long enough to ripen. Sitting in a corner of the room, she ground it into flour with a stone mortar. The next day she joined the women going to the next village. Each carried on her back a load of dried squid to barter for beans. There was a look of foreboding in her eyes with winter looming and, with it, the prospect of gathering no more food.

  Around the time the ears began to appear on the eulalia grass, the men started to go out after octopus, and the village became decidedly more animated. Isaku took Isokichi out with him and taught his brother how to catch octopus using a barbed fishing-spear.

  Isokichi at last mastered the oar. Cautious by nature, if he sensed they were getting too close to the reef, he quickly turned the little boat away to a safe distance. The younger boy was growing fast, and it was clear that by the time he matured he would surpass his brother in physical size. He followed his elder brother’s instructions without question, and he learned quickly. There was no doubt that Isaku admired his little brother and loved him dearly.

  Their mother called Isokichi ‘Iso’. Before he started fishing, she had used this diminutive as though she were talking to a young child, but more recently her tone had implied that she now took her younger son seriously as a worker. Isokichi might be a boy of few words, but he certainly applied himself diligently to his assigned tasks.

  The temperature dropped by the day, and out of nowhere red dragonflies appeared in incredible numbers: droves of them flew through the air or alighted to rest their wings. There seemed to be many more of them than in previous years. The octopus started to leave the shore, and the eulalia ears dried up and were blown away by the wind.

  When the sea turned rough, Isaku and Isokichi went into the mountains to gather firewood, enough to see them through the winter. As they made their way along the mountain path, Isaku looked around in the hope that he might meet Tami, but though they passed other villagers on the trail they never once saw he
r. Maybe she was at home weaving cloth from linden bark, he thought, or maybe she was busy making something useful out of bamboo.

  One day Isaku thought they would go off the trail and down to the stream. They found Sahei sitting on the bank beside a pack-frame loaded high with bundles of firewood. Sahei turned round; the bristles on his upper lip and chin gave him a decidedly adult look.

  Isaku drank water from the stream and sat down on a rock next to Sahei. Red dragonflies buzzed past his head.

  ‘No more fish this year,’ said Sahei, turning to Isaku.

  Isaku nodded. The octopus had been just as scarce as the previous year, and had all but disappeared now. This year’s trade with the next village wouldn’t bring them much grain.

  ‘How much of your rice have you gone through?’ asked Sahei.

  ‘We’re on our second bale. And that’s down to about two-thirds full,’ said Isaku dolefully.

  ‘That all? You must be really going easy. We’re onto our fourth bale, and that’s already half gone. Grandfather’s to blame. He could die any day, but he asks us to keep feeding him. Legs are all swollen and he’s wasting away, but he’s still selfish,’ Sahei said, frowning.

  Isaku listened apprehensively. Sahei’s family must have been given at least ten bales of rice; at the rate they were going, their supply would probably last only another three years. Getting used to the taste of rice could only lead to more being consumed, bringing even closer the day when it would run out.

  ‘Not just us, either. There are quite a few who’ve already gone through more than half their store. Not many families around who’re only on their second bale,’ said Sahei enviously.

  Isaku thought of his mother’s frugality. The only times she cooked rice for them were at New Year and the Bon festival, when she would place some before the family’s altar. Even then it would be as gruel, with water added for good measure. No doubt her prudence stemmed from her fierce determination to see the rest of her children survive, even though their father was away.

  ‘Hope O-fune-sama comes again this year,’ murmured Sahei.

  ‘They say she often comes two years in a row,’ Isaku offered, appraising Sahei’s expression from the side.

  ‘So they say,’ Sahei agreed, nodding. The two of them sat there for a while, gazing into the water. Sahei got to his feet and shouldered his pack-frame load of firewood. Isaku and Isokichi did the same, and they moved away from the stream up the slope and back to the path.

  By the time the village was enveloped in autumn colours, the red dragonflies had disappeared. With the sea turning colder by the day, the catch was reduced to small fry.

  The person chosen to act as that year’s pregnant woman in the ritual ceremony for O-fune-sama was a slightly built girl of sixteen. She threw the straw festoon into the sea and overturned the table in the village chief’s house. But it was a weak performance in comparison with the previous year’s, the food in the bowl barely spilling onto the floor.

  The leaves on the trees turned from red to yellow and fell to the ground, but still no fires were lit on the beach. The sea was unusually calm for the time of year, so there was little point in lighting the fires under the cauldrons.

  Isaku took his boat out every day, occasionally catching a large fish, almost a foot long, that he had never set eyes on before. This was a bony fish called gin, which was said to appear in early winter once or twice every ten years. True to its name, it was a brilliant silver. The older fishermen thought it strange that not only were there so many calm days but also gin should be appearing.

  No sooner had the leaves stopped falling than the village had its first snow of the winter. At first it was little more than a flurry, but as night fell it became heavier, and by the next day it was a violent storm. The sea at last moved with the change of season, and the sound of the breakers pounding the shore assaulted the village.

  The snow stopped after three days, leaving the village covered in a white sheet. That night the fires were lit under the salt cauldrons. Folklore had it that the winter sea would be rough for four days, then calm for the next two, and indeed this proved to be the case. On the calm days Isaku took his boat out and again caught nothing but gin. It was a thin-fleshed fish with a bland taste. Rather than grilled, it was best tenderised with a knife to break up the little bones, and then either eaten raw or used to make dumplings for soup.

  When Isaku’s turn on the cauldrons came, he kept the fires blazing from dusk to dawn. As he sat in the little hut warming himself by the fire, he looked out into the darkness, picturing in his mind’s eye the scene at the end of the previous year with O-fune-sama leaning to one side as she sat wrecked on the reef.

  He could make out no more than the dull white of the waves breaking on the shore, and as he looked out into the darkness he wondered whether O-fune-sama might not indeed be already sitting out there hard and fast in the grip of the reef. The thought that the rice in those bales lying on the floor at home would eventually run out made him feel helpless and ill at ease. But Isaku and his family were indeed fortunate compared to Sahei’s, who must surely be distressed at their situation. Getting used to the taste of rice made the prospect of life without it unbearable.

  Snow fell most days, and the village was buried beneath a thick white blanket. When the sea was rough, Isaku stayed and worked at home, mending his fishing-tackle or cutting wood for the fire. Isokichi went into the woods behind their house to set traps and occasionally came back with a rabbit, which he skinned and cut up according to his mother’s instructions.

  At times, when Isaku was half asleep, he would suddenly sit up, imagining that he could hear shouting. He would look out the door thinking that maybe O-fune-sama had come again, but there was nothing but the sound of the waves. Shivering in the bitter cold, he would hurry back to his straw bedding.

  The fires on the beach were lit without fail every night when the sea ran high, and at dawn Isaku’s mother would carry the salt from the cauldrons to the village. The chill in the air was much more severe than in a normal winter, and the snow on the ground was frozen hard. Ships on the coastal run passed within sight, while vessels from the clans plied the deeper waters farther offshore. Some, with sails trimmed, would speed past, bobbing up and down in the heavy seas.

  As the year drew to an end, all the villagers’ faces took on the same despondent expression, because they had now reached the time of the year when no more cargo ships would be passing their shores. Yes, some said that in the past O-fune-sama had come in successive winters, but to Isaku that appeared to be nothing more than wishful thinking.

  The year came to an end, and a new one began. Their chances of being visited by O-fune-sama had gone. Each household prepared the New Year meal of boiled rice and grilled fish. Isaku’s family was no exception, and they, too, placed their offering of rice in a bowl in front of their altar and lit a candle.

  Isaku accompanied his mother and younger brother and sister through the snow to pay their respects at their ancestral graves. His mother scooped the snow away from the gravestones, then stood for some time, palms pressed together in prayer. She could only be praying that his father would return safely to the village after his term of bondage ended in the spring.

  They had rice again with their evening meal, this time in gruel. As his mother sat there, sipping away, she turned to look at the remaining bales stacked on the dirt floor. ‘Your father’ll be surprised when he sees bales of rice sitting here.’

  After New Year there was an unseasonal spell of calm weather, but by the middle of January the heavy seas were back with a vengeance. Isaku and Isokichi spent their days either collecting shellfish and kelp washed up on the shore, or cutting firewood. Their mother was busy making straw mats or weaving on her loom.

  One night at the end of January, Isaku awoke suddenly from a deep sleep. His feet felt like blocks of ice in the intense cold. Looking at the straw matting hanging over the window, he sensed that dawn was not far away. Snuggling into his straw bedd
ing, he shut his eyes, only to open them again. He thought he could hear voices mingled with the sound of the waves. Maybe he was imagining it; but then he made out what was unmistakably the sound of someone yelling, a full-bodied roar, closer to the bellowing of an animal than of a human.

  He sat bolt upright and looked around: the rest of the family were sound asleep. Getting to his feet he poked the last embers in the fire and put on a few pieces of wood. The fire sparked into life, and the light threw dark shadows about the walls. Still thinking that his senses might have been playing tricks on him, Isaku sat in front of the fire warming his hands and straining to hear what might be going on outside.

  This time he heard a strident voice, a man shouting ‘Oooi’. Isaku flushed with excitement, crawled over to his mother’s bed and shook her awake. She raised herself on one elbow and stared bleary-eyed at him. She remained motionless as she strained to make out the noises in the night, then jumped to her feet. Trying to keep up with his mother, Isokichi hurriedly threw his clothes on and pulled a straw cape over his head.

  Isaku swung an axe onto his shoulder, grabbed a long-bladed hoe and a hatchet, and ran out of the door behind his mother and Isokichi. The first signs of dawn were in the air, and the stars were beginning to fade. He could just make out the horizon. Voices came from the shore as Isaku, his mother, and Isokichi hurried along the path through the knee-deep snow.

  He could see a boat not too far out from the shore, where a number of villagers had already gathered, some holding firebrands. The waves crashed onto the shore, throwing white spume into the air. A chant of sutras rose as the village chief arrived, accompanied by half a dozen people.

  ‘O-fune-sama’s come,’ said Gonsuke, who had been on duty at the salt cauldrons, his voice trembling as he knelt in front of the village chief. The chief nodded back, unable to disguise his excitement.