Part 6 (1/2)

When they got home, his mother poured Isaku some wine from a jar. He put it to his lips and felt its warmth spread through his mouth.

His mother took a sip. 'It's good stuff. I've never had anything like this before. Wine made from rice is so different,' she said, shaking her head in wonder. The full-bodied wine not only made Isaku feel hot all over but also put him in a buoyant mood.

'Next spring Father'll be back. I hope he comes back fit and well,' said Isaku to his mother, who quickly turned round.

'Don't be so stupid! Of course he'll come back fit and well. Your father's a cut above any normal man. He's not the sort who gets ill,' she said angrily.

Isaku held a sip of wine in his mouth. Thoughts of how he wanted to become a good fisherman before his father came back to the village pa.s.sed through his mind. Also strong enough to lift one of those bales of rice easily.

The wine started to go to his head, and everything seemed to sway. Drinking the rest of his wine in one gulp, he staggered over to his straw bedding and lay down. He was asleep in no time at all.

When he woke up, the room was almost in darkness. The smell of rice gruel cooking hung in the air, and he could see his little brother and sister sitting beside the fire.

His mother stepped over to the ancestral table and lit the wick protruding from a dish containing some oil. His brother and sister stood up and moved over to the little platter, their eyes glued to the light. It was luminous. Isaku raised himself and gazed at the light; a thin plume of smoke drifted from its flickering flame.

The gay atmosphere in the village continued beyond New Year. Wine in hand, the men visited each other's houses for drinking parties, while the women indulged in chatting over tea. There was even talk of an old man who had said he would happily meet his maker now that he had tasted white sugar.

Every time his mother heard that other families were steaming their rice and eating it, she would shake her head and frown.

'These things don't last for ever. Those who aren't strong-minded in fortunate times will be the ones crying in the end,' she muttered, as though telling herself as much as anyone else. In their house the rice was used sparingly, and only in gruel.

Even on calm days they saw fewer s.h.i.+ps pa.s.sing. Most of the rice s.h.i.+pments would be made before the end of the year, and it was rare now for a s.h.i.+p to set sail and risk stormy seas. Not too long after New Year they sighted a large vessel, clearly a clan s.h.i.+p from its crest in the middle of the sail, as it tossed and pitched its way across the horizon before disappearing behind the cape.

At the end of January, Kura gave birth to a girl. Takichi had wanted a boy, and at first seemed disappointed. But he soon came around when the village chief not only gave them a gift of rice and wine but named the baby Tama, or Jewel.

Isaku went with his mother to Takichi's house; she carried a bowl containing a handful of rice. There was a sacred straw festoon hanging in the doorway, and the baby lay asleep beside Kura on the tatami matting lent to them by the village chief. Isaku's mother put the bowl down in front of the baby, where several other offerings had been placed, and then pressed her hands together in prayer. It was said that the souls of dead ancestors would return from across the sea to take shelter in the wombs of pregnant women in the village. Kura's newborn was therefore the reincarnation of such an ancestor: hence the relatives gathering to give offerings.

Isaku sat beside his mother with the other relatives around the fire. They exchanged celebratory greetings and filled each other's cups with wine. Isaku's mother seemed to be thinking of Teru, who had died a year earlier, as she cast her eyes toward the baby. It was said that many years were needed before reincarnation could come about, so no doubt Teru would now still be in the tranquillity offered by death.

The relatives talked about how Kura's performance in the ritual was the reason for the village's having been blessed with O-fune-sama and how joyous an occasion it was to have the village chief naming the baby.

'Tama's certainly lucky to be born when we've got rice from O-fune-sama. If she eats rice, she won't get ill; she'll grow up healthy,' said one of the relatives, to nods of agreement from those listening. Kura looked contented as she lay resting on her side.

The salt-making continued, and Isaku took his turn, spending the night tending the fires on the beach in the middle of a snowstorm. In the morning, after he had put out the fires under the cauldrons, some women came down to the sh.o.r.e carrying wooden tubs. Tami was among them.

Isaku watched as the women scooped the salt from the cauldrons into the tubs. His eyes naturally focused on Tami's body. Her face had become long and thin, and it seemed she had grown a little taller. She was slender now but more solid around the hips, and had suddenly taken on a more womanly air.

A painful, stifling feeling came over him. Isaku knew that Takichi had had relations with Kura when they had happened to meet in the forest, and he longed to approach Tami in the same way. But he could not imagine being able to get near Tami, let alone speak to her if the opportunity did arise.

Tami attached two tubs full of salt to her bucket yoke and walked off through the snow towards the village chief's house. Isaku put out the fire in the little hut and made his way up the path from the beach.

With no more s.h.i.+ps pa.s.sing, salt-making lost its meaning. The village was buried in deep snow. At times Isaku and his family would try to warm themselves against the freezing cold by sitting with their backs to the fire. A straw mat hung in the entranceway; by morning it would be as stiff as a board and frozen to the doorposts, so they would have to beat it with a stick to get it free.

Once February came the cold became a little less severe and the sea was calm for several days at a time. When the first sightings of plum blossom were made up in the mountains, the village chief ordered the salt-making stopped. The season for O-fune-sama had come to an end.

6.

The first signs of spring grew more p.r.o.nounced as the days pa.s.sed and the snow covering the village started to melt. The houses shuddered as snow slid off the roofs. Steam floated up from the wet straw of the thatched roofs.

With the coming of spring people became more lively. As the temperature rose the fish came nearer to sh.o.r.e, too, and sh.e.l.lfish started to appear among the rocks. Each household's stock of rice meant that there was no shortage of grain, and with the fruits of the sea also ripe for picking, the villagers could eat well indeed.

Isaku noticed the change in people's faces. A look of contentment replaced the stern expression in their eyes. Some men sat in the sun in front of their houses smoking, while others lay idly on the sh.o.r.e.

Isaku heard that some of the villagers were secretly talking about a trip to sell salt to neighbouring villages. A middle-aged man Isaku met on the path looked dolefully up towards the mountain path and muttered, 'I wonder if we have to go and sell salt this year, too?'

Every year, at the end of February, the salt made during the winter would be carried to the next village and exchanged for grain. But with bales of rice stacked up in each household, there was no need to go selling salt for a measly amount of grain.

The salt was heavy, and carrying it up the mountain path and over the pa.s.s was an unenviable task. People had slipped and broken their legs, and, even walking from sunrise to sunset, it took a full three days to reach the next village.

Isaku's mother would be the one to go from his family, and even she frowned silently when Isaku said, 'Seems quite a few people say they don't want to sell salt.'

One day when the sea was running high, Isaku made his way to the village chief's house, where a meeting was to be held. The earthen floor area was full of men and women. The chief was sitting at the fireside, and beside him was the elder, who rose to his feet and stood in front of them.

'Those chosen to sell salt will leave at dawn tomorrow. I hear, though, that some of you don't want to go. Do you realise how stupid that would be? We go every year. What would the people in the next village think if we didn't this year? No doubt they'd think we'd got hold of something that meant we didn't need any grain. It'd soon be known that O-fune-sama had blessed us with her bounty. Didn't that occur to you?' The old man's voice bristled with rage.

The faces of those a.s.sembled took on an ashen look and they nodded solemnly.

The elder silently surveyed the villagers before saying, 'You'll leave tomorrow morning. The only food you'll take with you will be millet dumplings and dried fish. Not one grain of rice! Don't do anything to suggest that we're not on the brink of starvation.' The old man's eyes again took on a steely glint as he returned to his position by the fire.

The villagers dispersed and Isaku headed home. He told his mother about the elder's speech and then said, 'I'll go this year.'

'A weakling like you carry salt?' his mother snapped.

The humiliation Isaku had felt when he was unable to lift the bale of rice returned. His mother had laughed when she called him a sissy, but this time he could sense contempt and annoyance in the word 'weakling'.

The next morning his mother got up at the Hour of the Ox (about 2 a.m.), made some millet dumplings, and wrapped them in seaweed along with some dried saury. At the Hour of the Tiger (about 4 a.m.) she put on her shoes, picked up a stout walking-stick, and left the house.

Isaku stood in front of the door and watched the line of people emerge from the village chief's house and head off on their journey to sell salt. The sky turned a shade of blue. With bales of salt on their backs, the people steadied themselves with their sticks and advanced with deliberate steps.

By the time they reached the mountain path the morning sunlight was spreading over part of the sea. Eventually the line of people disappeared into the trees, past the last patches of snow on the trail.

They reappeared off the mountain trail seven days later in the early afternoon. Isaku rushed towards the path with the others. The line of people seemed to notice them and stopped. They put down their loads and spread themselves along the path, sitting down or lying flat on their backs. Isaku ran over to his mother. There were bloodstains on her shoulders, and her feet were caked with dirt and blood from burst blisters. Her lips were dry, and her chest was heaving. Isaku and the other villagers used bucket yokes to carry the bales of grain from there. His mother stood up and made her way falteringly down the slope.

The straw bales of grain were stacked up in the yard at the village chief's house. Isaku's mother and the others dragged their sticks wearily into the house and sat down, their legs folded formally underneath them.

Isaku was standing in the yard, but from the atmosphere in the house he sensed that something was amiss. With frightened looks on their faces, every one of the people inside seemed to be clamouring to report something to the village chief. The chief's face turned pale.

Before long the news spread that when the people selling salt had visited the labour contractor, who also doubled as a salt merchant, they had been questioned by two men. These men were from a s.h.i.+pping agency in a port at the southern tip of the island that ran s.h.i.+ps on the western circuit; they had come to inquire about a twelve-hundred-bale s.h.i.+p which was missing. The s.h.i.+p, fully laden with rice and pottery, had set sail at the end of the previous year with favourable winds behind her. It seemed that the weather had turned foul along the way, but the people at the s.h.i.+pping agency had not been particularly worried, because the s.h.i.+p's captain was a veteran sailor who had weathered many a storm in the past. But they did mention that the previous spring the s.h.i.+p had undergone major repairs, with rotten timbers, rusty metal fittings and so on being replaced. She was an aging vessel known as the Old Granny; it was thirteen years since she had been put into commission.

The s.h.i.+p would have headed north along the west coast of the island, but had disappeared along the way. She failed to reach her destination, and there were also no signs of her having taken shelter in another port. The s.h.i.+p's captain was an honest man; it was unthinkable that he should have made off in the s.h.i.+p in order to steal the cargo. Either she had been blown far out to sea, where she sank, or she had been smashed to pieces on the coast.

If the s.h.i.+p had been wrecked along the coast, it should be possible to retrieve part of the cargo. Because they a.s.sumed that their search should be limited to the western coastline, this was where the s.h.i.+pping agency had dispatched their men.

The timing of the s.h.i.+p's disappearance more or less matched the appearance of O-fune-sama, but since the vessel that rode up on the reef in front of the village had a capacity of around three hundred bales, it was clear that these men were searching for a different s.h.i.+p. Of course, even if the s.h.i.+ps were different, the fact that these men were looking for a missing s.h.i.+p put the village in terrible jeopardy.

Isaku and the others looked anxious as they jostled their way into the dirt floor area and stared at the village chief's face.