500-600 words short eassy

THE CRAB CANNERY SHIP

1

"BUDDY, WE'RE OFF TO HELL!"

Leaning over the deck railing, two fishermen looked out on the town of Hakodate stretched like a snail embracing the sea. One of them spit out a cigarette he had smoked down to his fingertips. The stub fell skimming the tall side of the ship, turning playfully every which way. The man reeked of liquor.

Steamships with red bulging bellies rose from the water; others being loaded with cargo leaned hard to one side as if tugged down by the sea. There were thick yenow smokestacks, large bell-like buoys, launches scurrying like bedbugs among ships. Bleak whirls of oil soot, scraps of bread, and rotten fruit floated on the waves as if forming some special fabric. Blown by the wind, smoke drifted over waves wafting a stifling smell of coal. From time to time a harsh rattle of winches traveling along the waves reverberated against the flesh.

19

..

21 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI 20

Directly in front of the crab cannery ship Hakkomaru rested a sailing ship with peeling paint, its anchor chain lowered from a in its bow that looked like an ox's nostril. Two foreign sailors with pipes in mouth paced the deck back and forth like automatons. The ship seemed to be Russian. No doubt it was a patrol vessel sent to keep an eye on the Japanese cannery ship.

"I don't have a damned penny left. Shit, look:' One of the fish­ ermen moved closer to the other, gripped his hand and pressed it against the pocket of the corduroy trousers beneath his jacket. The pocket seemed to contain a small box.

The other man silently watched his mate's face. "He, he, he:' chuckled the first man. "They're cards:' The ship's captain was smoking a cigarette and strolling along the

deck like an admiral. The smoke he exhaled broke into sharp angles as it passed the tip of his nose, and flew away in shreds. Sailors draggling wooden-soled zori were bustling in and out of the forward cabins, food pails in hand. Preparations had been completed and the ship was ready to sail.

The two fishermen, peering down through the hatch into workers' quarters in the dim bottom of the ship, saw a noisy commotion inside the stacked bunks, like a nest full of birds' darting faces. The workers were all boys of fourteen or fifteen.

"Where're you from?" "X District:' They were all children from Hakodate's slums. Poverty had

brought them together. "What about the guys in the bunks over there?" "They're from Nambu:" "And those?" "Akita:' Each cluster of bunks belonged to a different region. "Where in Akita?" "North Akita:' The boy's nose was running with thick, oozing

mucus, and the rims of his eyes were inflamed and drooping. "You farmers?" "Yeah:' The air was stifling, filled with the sour stench of rotten fruit.

'ft,"

The Crab Cannery

Dozens of barrels of pickled vegetables were stored next door, adding their own shit-like odor.

"From now on you can sleep hugging your old Dad here:' smiled the fisherman lewdly.

In a dim corner, a mother was peeling an apple for her son who lay prone on his bunk. The mother wore a triangular scarf and a la­ borer's jacket and trousers. She watched the child eat the apple, and ate the spiral peeling. While talking to him, the mother kept untying and retying a small cloth-wrapped package that lay next to her child. There were seven or eight mothers. Children from the main island whom no one had come to see off stole occasional glances in their direction.

A woman took caramels out of a box and handed two each to the nearby children, saying, "You be good to my Kenkichi, and work to­ gether like friends:' The woman's hair and clothes were covered with cement dust. Her hands were ungainly, large and rough like roots of a tree.

Other mothers were blowing their children's noses, wiping their faces with hand towels, and talking to them in subdued voices.

"Your boy looks so strong:' said one of the mothers. "I guess." "Mine's so weakly. Wish I could do something .. :' "We're all worried." With some relief, the two fishermen drew their faces back from the

hatch. Suddenly mute. they returned sullenly to their trapezoid-shaped "nest" situated closer to the prow than the hole that held the workers. With each rise and fall of the anchor everyone in the nest was tossed up and then thrown together, as if dumped into a concrete mixer.

In the dim interior, fishermen lay about like pigs. The nauseating stench itself was that of a pigsty.

"Damn. it stinks here!" "It sure does. thanks to us:' A fisherman whose head resembled a red mortar was pouring

sake from a half-gallon bottle into a chipped teacup. He munched on a cuttlefish as he drank. Next to him a man lay on his back eating an apple and looking through a pulp magazine with a torn cover.

.a.

22 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI The Crab Cannery Ship 23

Four men sat drinking in a circle. A man who hadn't yet had enough to drink wedged himself among them.

"Damn, we're going to be at sea for four frigging months. I knew I'd have no chance to get laid so .. :' The sturdily built man licked thick lower lip and narrowed his eyes. He raised a shrunken money­ pouch that looked like a dried persimmon and swung it at eye level. "Look at my wallet. That widow might be a skinny little slut but she sure knows how to fuck!"

"Hey, just shut up about that!" "No, no, we want to hear:' The man laughed merrily. "Look at those two over there. Isn't that a sight for sore eyes?"

A drunken man pointed with his chin, ftxing his bleary eyes on a bunk directly across. A ftsherman was handing money over to his wife. "Look at that!"

The two had laid out crumpled banknotes and silver coins on a small box, and were counting them. The man was writing something in a small notebook, repeatedly licking his pencil.

"For crying out loud, can you believe that?" "I got a wife and kids myself!" growled the fisherman who had

spent his money on the prostitute. A young ftsherman spoke up loudly from a bunk a little way off.

His face was swollen with a hangover and his hair hung long over his forehead. "1 thought I wouldn't set foot on a ship this time. But I got a runaround from the employment agency and ended up penniless. They'll keep me at this till I drop dead:'

A man with his back to him, evidently from the same region, whispered something to him.

A pair of bowlegs appeared at the top of the cabin stairs, and a man shouldering a large old-fashioned cloth bag came down the steps. His eyes darted around. Spotting an empty bunk he climbed into it.

"Hullo," he said, bowing to the man next to him. ''I'll be joining you:' His face was oily and black, as if dyed with a dark substance.

Later on, they were to learn the following story about this man. Shortly before coming on board. he had been working as a miner at

the Yiibari coal mine and had almost got killed in a recent gas explo­ sion. Similar things had happened many times before, but this time the miner had suddenly grown frightened and quit the mine. At the time of the explosion, he had been at work pushing a coal car along the rails. He had loaded the car with coal and was shoving it toward a man at a relay station when it happened. He thought that a hundred magnesium flares had burst before his eyes at once. In a fraction of a second he felt his body float up into the air like a scrap of paper. Several coal cars blown by the blast flew past his eyes more lightly than matchboxes. That was the last thing he knew. After some time, the sound of his own groans woke him up. Foremen and miners were building a wall across the shaft to keep the flames from spreading. At that moment he clearly heard other coal miners' voices from beyond the wall, pleading for help. Their cries tore unforgettably into his heart. There was still time to rescue them! He suddenly rose, jumped into the middle of his comrades, and began madly to scream, "Stop, stop!" (In the past he too had built such walls, but it hadn't bothered him then.)

"You damned idiot! If the ftre gets to us, we're dead:' Couldn't they hear the voices growing fainter and fainter? Hardly

knowing what he was doing, he began to run frantically along the mineshaft, waving his arms and crying out. He stumbled and fell countless times, struck his head against overhead beams, grew soaked with mud and blood. Finally he tripped over a railway tie, somer­ saulted like a thrown wrestler, and crashed against the tracks, losing consciousness.

Hearing the miner's story, a young fisherman said, "Well, things are not much better here either .. :'

The miner gazed at him with the yellowish, lusterless eyes com­ mon among people who toil underground, and said nothing.

Some of the "ftshermen farmers" from Akita, Aomori, and Iwate sat around with legs loosely crossed, arms akimbo, ignoring every­ one. The rest leaned against pillars, hugging their knees, innocently watching others drink and listening attentively to their idle chatter. The task of feeding their families, impossible despite working in the ftelds from before dawn, had forced them to come here. They had left the oldest sons behind, still short of food, and sent the daughters to

Ai

24 25 KOBAYASHI TAKIII

work in factories. Even the second and third sons had to go somewhere to work. Masses of such surplus people, like beans scooped up in a pan, were driven away from the countryside and flowed into the cit­ ies. All of them dreamed of saving up a bit of money and returning home. But once they began to work-in Hakodate, Otaru, and other cities-they struggled like fledglings trapped in sticky rice-cake until they were thrown out of work as stark naked as the day they were born. They could not go home again. To survive the winter in snowy Hokkaido where they had no relatives, they had to "sell" their bodies as cheaply as dirt. Though they had done it over and over, they would calmly (if such a word is appropriate) do the same again the follow­

ingyear. Three people now entered the workers' quarters: a woman with

a box of sweet bean-jam buns on her back, a druggist, and a ped­ dler who sold small daily necessities. They spread out their respective wares in the center of the cabin, in a place marked off like an outly­ ing island. The workers in all the surrounding bunks, high and low,

leaned forward to joke and tease. "Got something sweet for me, honey?" "Hey, what're you doing?!" The woman jumped up with a scream.

"Don't grab my butt, you pervert!" The man, embarrassed at drawing everyone's eyes to himself,

roared with laughter. "This here woman's a real sweetie;' he mumbled

through a mouthful of sweets. A passing drunk, tottering back from the toilet with one hand

holding onto the bulkhead, poked the woman's plump sunburned

cheek with his finger. "What do you want?!" "Don't get all sore .... I just want to get hold of you and show you

a good time;' he downed, to general laughter. "Hey;' shouted someone loudly from a distant corner. "Hurry up

and get me those buns!" "Coming right up!" The woman-a rarity in such a place-replied

in a dear, penetrating voice. "How many would you like?" "How many would I like? How the hell many do you have? Just

get your buns over here!"

The Crab Cannery Ship

Everybody burst out laughing. "The other day a guy called Takeda dragged that woman

someplace there was nobody around; said a young drunk man. "It was so funny. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get anywhere with her. She was wearing drawers, so Takeda ripped them off with all his might. But there was another pair underneath. Would you be­ lieve it, she was wearing three pairs!" The man shrugged and began to laugh.

This man worked in a factory during winter, making rubber boots. When he lost his job in the spring, he went to work in Kamchatka. Be­ cause both jobs were "seasonal work" (as was nearly all work in Hok­ kaido), whenever there was night work it went on without a break.

be thankful if I can live on for another three years:' His skin was the lifeless color of coarse rubber.

Among the company of fishermen there were some from Hok­ kaido's cultivated interior, others who had been sold into railway construction, wanderers who had gone broke in countless places, and still others who were content so long as they could just get enough to drink. Mixed among them were also farmers from around Ao­ mori who had been chosen by worthy village heads and were honest and ignorant as tree roots. It was highly convenient for the employ­ ers to assemble such a crew of unorganized migrant workers. (Ha­ kodate's labor unions were desperately trying to place organizers on crab cannery ships and among the fishermen who were heading to Kamchatka. The Hakodate unions were connected with the Aomori and Akita unions. This sort of thing worried bosses the most.)

A cabin boy in a gleaming-white starched jacket stepped busily in and out of the saloon called "Friends;' carrying beer, fruit, and glasses of foreign liquor. The saloon was filled with corporate honchos, the cannery ship's captain, the manager, the commander of the destroyer charged with keeping an eye on Kamchatka, the chief of the maritime police, and one or two walking briefcases from the seamen's union.

"Sons of bitches are drinking their heads off;' said the cabin boy sulkily.

The fishermen's shit-hole was lit by feeble electric lights. Its air was thick with tobacco smoke and the odor of crowded human bodies; the

27 26 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

entire cabin stank like a toilet. People moving about in their bunks looked like squirming maggots. With the fishing company's manager leading the way, the ship's captain, the factory agent, and the fore­ man came down the hatchway stairs. The captain kept patting his up­ per lip with a handkerchief, fretting about the tips of his upturned moustache. The passageway was strewn with discarded apple and banana skins, a crushed hat, straw sandals, and wrappers stuck with grains of rice. It was one clogged gutter. The manager glanced around, and unceremoniously spat. The visitors all seemed drunk, their faces flushed red.

''I'd like to say a word:' declared the manager. He had the power­ ful build of a construction worker. Placing one foot on a partition between bunks, he maneuvered a toothpick inside his mouth, at times briskly ejecting bits of food stuck between his teeth.

"Needless to say, as some of you may know, this crab cannery ship's business is not just to make lots of money for the corporation but is actually a matter of the greatest international importance. This is a one-on-one fight between us, citizens of a great empire, and the Russkies, a battle to find out which one of us is greater-them or us. Now just supposing you lose-this could never happen, but if it did-all Japanese men and boys who've got any balls at all would slit their bellies and jump into the sea off Kamchatka. You may be small in size but that doesn't mean you'll let those stupid Russkies beat you.

"Another thing, our fishing industry off Kamchatka is not just about canning crabs and salmon and trout, but internationally speak­ ing it's also about keeping up the superior status of our nation, which no other country can match. And moreover, we're accomplishing an important mission in regard to our domestic problems like overpopu­ lation and shortage offood. You probably have no idea what I'm talk­ ing about, but anyhow I'll have you know that we'll be risking our lives cutting through those rough northern waves to carry out a great mission for the Japanese empire. And that's why our imperial warship will accompany us and protect us all along the way .... Anyone who acts up trying to ape this recent Russky craze, anyone who incites oth­ ers to commit outrageous acts, is nothing but a traitor to the Japanese

•

The Crab Cannery Ship

empire. And though something like that could never happen, make damned sure all the same that what I'm saying to you gets through to your heads .. :'

The manager sneezed repeatedly as he began sobering up.

THE DESTROYER'S INTOXICATED captain, stepping jerkily like a spring­ loaded marionette, tottered down the gangway to a waiting launch. Supporting the skipper from above and below as if he were a canvas bag filled with rocks, sailors barely managed to get him on board. The captain was waving his arms, bracing his legs, shouting random non­ sense, and repeatedly spraying the sailors' faces with saliva.

"Always making fancy speeches:' murmured a sailor, glancing at the captain while untying the rope from the gangway, "and look at the sorry sack now:'

"Do we toss him overboard!? .. :' The two caught their breath for a moment ... and then simulta­

neously burst into laughter.

2

Far off to the right the light of the Shukutsu lighthouse, flashing each time it revolved, penetrated the gray expanse of sea -like fog. Its long and distant silvery beam swept mystically for miles around as it pivoted.

Off the coast of Rumoi a thin, drizzly rain began to fall. Fisher­ men's and laborers' hands grew numb as crab claws as they worked, forcing them to thrust them occasionally into their pockets, or to cup them over their mouths and blow on them. Endless threads of brown viscous rain fell into an opaque sea of the same color. As the ship neared Wakkanai, raindrops turned into grains, the sea's broad sur­ face began to wave like a flag, to swell, and to grow jagged and restless. Wind struck at the masts with an ominous howl. The ship creaked endlessly as though its rivets were coming loose. Entering the Soya Strait, this vessel of nearly three thousand tons began to move jerk­ ily as if seized by a fit of hiccups. Hoisted high by a wonderful force

28 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

the ship floated in space for a moment only to sink abruptly to its original position. Each time this happened it triggered a disagreeably ticklish sensation, an urge to urinate such as one experiences at the instant an elevator drops. Workers wilted, their eyes looked unhappy and seasick, and they vomited.

The hard outline of the snowy mountains of Karafuto could be glimpsed now and then through the round porthole windows streaked with spraying waves. But the sight was soon obscured by swelling waves that rose like icy alpine peaks. Deep cold valleys formed and rushed up to the portholes, crashing against them and breaking up into torrents of foam, then flowing away, sliding past the windows like a diorama. From time to time the ship's entire body shuddered like a feverish child. All sorts of objects fell smashing from shelves, things bent and squealed, the ship's sides boomed colliding with the waves. The constant throb of the motors ringing out from the engine room transmitted its vibrations through the motley utensils and sent mild tremors through bodies. Sometimes the ship rode the back of a wave, making the propeller spin in the air and stabilizer fins slap at the water's surface.

The wind continued to grow stronger and stronger. The two masts whistled and kept bending like fishing poles. The waves, like a band of rampaging thugs, swarmed unopposed from one side of the ship to the other. The cabin's hatchway abruptly turned into a torren~ tial waterfall.

Mountains of water rose up in a flash lifting the ship like a toy to the top of a huge slope and turning it slightly sideways. Tumbling for­ ward, the ship pitched to the bottom of the ravine. It was sure to sink! But in the depths of the valley a new wave heaved up high, slamming with a thud against the sides of the ship.

As the ship reached the Sea of Okhotsk, the color of the water be­ came a clearer gray. The chilling cold penetrated the laborers' cloth­ ing and turned their lips blue as they worked. The colder it became, the more furiously a fine snow, dryas salt, blew whistling against them. Like tiny shards of glass, the snow pierced faces and hands of the laborers and fishermen who worked on all fours on the deck. Af­ ter each wave washed over them, the water promptly froze, making

The Crab Cannery Ship 29

the deck treacherously slippery. The men had to stretch ropes from deck to deck, and work dangling from them like diapers hung out on a clothesline. The manager, armed with a club for killing salmon, was roaring like mad.

RUSSIA

~

Sea of Okhotsk

~.

31 30 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

Another crab cannery ship that had sailed out of Hakodate at the same time had gotten separated from them. Even so, whenever their ship surged to the summit of a mountainous wave, two masts could be seen swaying back and forth in the distance like the waving arms of a drowning person. Wisps of smoke torn by the wind flew by skimming the waves. Intermittent howls of the other ship's whistle were clearly audible amid the waves and shouts. Yet the next instant one ship rose high and the other fell away into the depths of a watery crevasse.

The crab cannery ship carried eight fishing boats. The sailors and fishermen were forced to risk their lives tying down the boats so that the waves, baring their white teeth like thousands of sharks, would not tear them off. "Losing one or two of you won't matter a damn, but if a boat gets lost it can't get replaced:' shouted the man­ ager distinctly.

The sea of Kamchatka seemed to be waiting for them, surprised they had made it this far. Its huge waves leapt upon them like greedy, starving lions. The ship seemed frailer than a rabbit. The blizzard cov­ ering the entire sky looked like an enormous white flag billowing in the wind. Night was approaching but the storm showed no signs of abating.

Once the work ended everyone crept back into their shit-hole. Hands and feet hung from bodies like radishes, frozen and devoid of sensation. The men all crawled into their bunks like silkworms, no one uttering a single word. Throwing themselves down, they grabbed hold of the iron rails. The ship bucked and shook desperately, like a horse struggling to drive a biting horsefly off its back. The fishermen cast hopeless glances at the ceiling whose white paint had turned yel­ low with soot, and at the bluish-black portholes that were almost sunk underwater. Some gazed blankly into space, their mouths half open as though they had lost their minds. No one was thinking of anything. A dazed, anxious awareness made everyone sullenly silent.

They drank whisky lying on their backs, straight from the bottle. Bottle edges occasionally glimmered in the dull and turbid amber of the electric light. Empty whisky bottles, thrown from the bunks with the drinkers' whole might, hit the aisles and burst like successive bolts oflightning. Other men merely turned their heads to follow the bottles with their eyes. Someone was angrily shouting in a corner.

The Crab Cannery Ship

Broken up by the storm, the words came through as incoherent fragments.

"Guess we've left Japan:' said someone wiping the porthole win­ dow with a sleeve.

The shit-hole stove merely sputtered and smoked. Barely alive human beings shivered with cold as though they'd been mistaken for salmon and trout and thrown into a refrigerator. Great waves splashed thunderously, sweeping across the canvas-covered hatchway. The re­ verberation of each blow within the shit-hole's iron walls was as deaf­ ening as the inside of a drum. At times heavy thuds rang out directly beside the sprawling fishermen, like mighty shoves from a powerful shoulder. Now the ship was writhing within the sea-storms raging waves like a whale in its death agonies.

"Chowtime!" The cook stuck his torso into the doorway and shout­ ed encircling his mouth with both hands. "No soup cause of the storm:'

"What'd he say?" "We're serving rotten salted fish!" The cook withdrew his face. They struggled to their feet as best they could, like convicts seized

by a voracious craving for food. Sitting cross-legged and placing plates of salted fish across their

legs, they blew against the steam, filled their cheeks with hot bits of fish, and rolled them around inside their mouths. The food was the first hot object they had been near all day, and their noses kept run­ ning, threatening to drip into the dishes. They were still eating when the manager walked in.

"Stop swilling it like pigs, damn it. You couldn't even do a decent day's work, and now you think you can stuff yourselves?" He glow­ ered at the upper and lower bunks before strutting out of the cabin, his left shoulder swinging forward as he walked.

"What the hell gives him the right to talk to us like that:' mum­ bled a former student, a youth gaunt with seasickness and overwork.

"That Asakawa acts like he owns the ship:' "The Emperor is up above the clouds so he can do whatever he

likes, but Asakawa better not think that he can do the same:' "You stingy fucker, like you give a shit about a bowl or two of rice!

Let's kick his ass!" shouted someone furiously.

6

33 32 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

"Wonderful, wonderful! Say the same thing in front of Asakawa, and it'll be even more wonderfull"

Though they were still angry, everyone laughed. It was quite late at night when the manager, wearing a raincoat,

stepped into the quarters where the fishermen were sleeping. Holding on to the bunk frames to steady himself against the ship's tOSSing, he walked through the aisles with a lantern. Sleepers' heads rolled from side to side like pumpkins. Rudely turning each face toward him, the manager shone the light on it. They would not wake up even if he stepped on them. Done with his inspection, the manager paused and clicked his tongue. He seemed puzzled but soon went on to the galley. With each sway of the lantern, the fan-like bluish shaft of light flick­ ered over segments of the squalid bunks, tall waterproof boots, hang­ ing jackets, and wicker trunks. Then the light moved on, trembled at his feet, stopped for a moment, and shifted the circle of its round projector-like beam onto the door of the galley. The next morning the men found out that one of the workers was missing.

Recalling the previous day's horrendous work, everyone concluded that the man had been swept away by the waves. It made them feel awful. They were forced to resume work before dawn and had no chance to talk about it.

"Who the hell would jump into that freeZing water? He's hiding someplace, that's where he is. I'll beat the living crap out of that son of a bitch when I find him." The manager searched through the ship, twirling his club like a toy.

The storm had passed its peak. Even so, each time the ship plowed into a swelling wave, the water swept over the foredeck as effortlessly as if stepping over a threshold. Looking badly wounded by a day and night ofstruggle the ship made an oddly limping sound as it advanced. Clouds resembling thin smoke drifted so low they seemed within a hand's reach, struck the masts, broke into sharp angles and blew away. A chilling rain continued to fall. With each rise in the surrounding angry waves, the pouring rain could be clearly seen pelting the sea. It felt more eerie than being lost in a rainstorm in a primeval forest.

Hemp ropes were hard and cold to the touch, like iron pipes. While cautiously crossing the deck and clutching the rope to keep

The Crab Cannery

from slipping, the student met the cabin boy who had come bounding up the gangway ladder two steps at a time.

"Come here a minute:' said the cabin boy, pulling him into a corner out of the wind. "I got something interesting to tell you:'

It was around two in the morning. Waves were leaping thunder­ ously onto the deck at regular intervals and pouring like waterfalls. At times the waves' bared teeth shone bluish-white in the darkness. No one could sleep because of the storm. That was when it happened.

The radio operator had rushed into the captain's cabin. "Captain, sir, awful news. We have an SOS!" "SOS? Which ship?!" "It's the Chichibumaru. They were running parallel to us." "That's a leaking old tub, that one!" Asakawa, still wearing his

oilskin raincoat, sat in a corner straddling a chair with his legs wide apart. Mindlessly tapping the floor with a tip of his shoe, he chuckled. "Of course, all the other ships are just the same:'

"They sound desperate, sir:' "Hmm, this is very bad:' In his hurry to get up to the bridge, the

captain reached for the door without bothering to put on his coat. He was about to open it when Asakawa grabbed his right shoulder.

"Who gave the order to change course and waste time?" Who gave the order? The captain would give it, of course. For a

moment the captain looked dumbfounded, yet he swiftly recovered. "I will, as captain:'

"As captain? You don't say!" exclaimed the manager with rising contempt, blocking the captain's way. "Who the hell do you think owns this ship, eh? The corporation chartered it, and is paying for it. The company agent Mr. Suda and 1 myself are the only ones who've got anything to say here. As for you, you may act big calling yourself captain but you're worth less than the shithouse paper. You got that? If we bothered with things like that worthless ship, we<l lose a whole week. Screw that! I'm not going to be even a day behind! Plus, Chi­ chibumaru's insured for a lot more money than the damned thing's worth. If that tub sinks, it'll actually turn a profif'

"Now we're in for a terrific fight!" thought the cabin boy. No way was this going to be the end of it. But the captain stood motionless

..

34 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

and mute as though his throat had been stuffed with cotton. Never before had the cabin boy seen him look like this. Damn, it just couldn't happen that the captain wouldn't have the last word! Yet it was happening. No matter how hard he tried, the cabin boy couldn't understand it.

"International competition is never going to be won by acting nice, and you got no business sticking your nose into this!" The man­ ager twisted his lips hard, and spat.

In the radio room, the receiver kept on transmitting signals, sometimes giving off little bluish-white sparks. Everyone crowded into the radio room to see what was happening.

"They're really keeping it up. Signals have gotten faster;' explained the radio operator to the captain and manager who were looking over his shoulder. Everyone's eyes were riveted on the radio operator's fin­ gertips, follOwing their nimble moves over the switches and buttons of the wireless. They all stood still, unconsciously tensing their shoul­ ders and jaws.

With each roll of the ship, the light that was precariously affixed to the bulkhead glowed and dimmed. The thud of the waves pound­ ing against the ship's flanks and the constant ominous hoot of the foghorn sounded through the iron doors, sometimes receding on the wind and sometimes approaching directly overhead.

Sparks scattered with a crackle, leaving long tails. Then the sound abruptly stopped. At once everyone's heart gave a jolt. The operator frantically twirled the knobs, anxiously prodding the apparatus to work. But nothing more was heard. The tapping had stopped.

The operator swiveled around in his chair. "They've sunk ... ;' he said, taking off the headset, and quietly

adding, '''Crew of four hundred and twenty five. It's all over. No chance of rescue. SOS, SOS'-they sent this message two or three times, and then the Signal broke off'

At his words the captain thrust his hand under his collar, shook his head as ifsuffocating, and tried to stretch his neck. Casting a gaze all around, he turned toward the door. Then he pressed his hand against his chest, dose to the knot of his necktie. The cabin boy not bear to look at him.

6

The Crab Cannery Ship 35

"1 SEE," SAID the student. The story amazed him. Yet it filled him with a dark feeling, and he averted his eyes from the sea. The sea was still heaving with great swells. Just when the horizon was about to sink underfoot, the ship would be dragged down till the sky looked as nar­ row as it might from the bottom of a valley.

"} guess it must have really sunk;' he said to himself. It troubled him to no end. And it infuriated him that the ship they themselves were riding was not a bit more seaworthy.

Crab cannery ships were all old and battered. It damn to executives in some building in workers were dying in the northern Sea of Okhotsk. Once capital­ ism's quest for profits in its usual places comes to a deadlock, then interest rates drop, excess money piles up, and capital will literally do anything and go anywhere in a frenzied search for a way out. Given those circumstances it was no wonder that capital's profit-seekers fell in love with the crab cannery ships, each one able to bring in count­ less hundreds of thousands of yen.

Crab cannery ships were considered factories, not ships. There­ fore maritime law did not apply to them. Ships that had been tied up for twenty years and were good for nothing but scrap iron, vessels as battered as tottering syphilitics, were given a shameless cosmet­ ic makeover and brought to Hakodate. Hospital ships and military transports that had been "honorably" crippled in the Russo-Japanese War and abandoned like fish guts turned up in port looking more faded than ghosts. If steam was turned up a little, pipes whistled and burst. When they put on speed while chased by Russian patrol boats, the ships began to creak all over as though about to come apart at any moment, and shook like palsied men.

But none of that mattered in the least, for this was a time when it was everyone's duty to stand tall for the Japanese Empire. Moreover the crab cannery ships were factories pure and simple. And yet fac­ tory laws did not apply to them either. Consequently, no other site offered such an accommodating setting for management's freedom to act with total impunity.

Brilliant executives wedded such work to "the interests of the Japanese Empire:' That way, fabulous sums of money rolled whole­

36 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

sale into executive pockets. Even so, while enjoying a drive in their automobiles these moneymen contemplated running for the Diet in order to make their bets doubly certain. And perhaps at the very same moment, in the dark northern seas thousands of miles away, the workers of the Chichibumaru were fighting their final struggle against the wind and the waves that were sharp as broken glass!

"This is not somebody else's problem," thought the student as he walked down the gangway toward the shit-hole. Directly at the bot­ tom of the ladder a piece of paper had been stuck to the bulkhead with grains of boiled rice used instead of glue. The lumpy, clumsily

written note read:

To all hands: anyone who finds Miyaguchi wins two packs of Golden Bat smokes and a hand towel.

MANAGER ASAKAWA

3 A misty rain went on drizzling for days. Obscured by the haze, the Kamchatka coastline was stretching out smoothly like an eel.

The Hakkomaru dropped anchor four nautical miles offshore. Russian territorial waters extended for three nautical miles, and it was

forbidden to enter them. Nets were ready, and all preparations for crab fishing had been

made. Dawn breaks around two in Kamchatka and so the fishermen, fully dressed and wearing hip-high rubber boots, were dozing in

wooden boxes. "It wasn't supposed to be like this:' grumbled a student who had

been tricked by an employment agency. "They told us we'd each get

to sleep alone!" "To sleep alone, sure. This is dozing:' There were seventeen or eighteen students. Having decided to

borrow a sixty-yen advance on their pay, they had been charged train fees, lodging fees, blankets, bedding, and agency fees, so that by the time they reached the ship everyone of them had ended up seven or eight yen in debt. When this first dawned on them, they felt more

The Crab Ship 37

astonished than if the money they thought they clutched in their hands had turned into withered leaves before their very eyes. At first they clung to each other among the fishermen, like dead souls sur­ rounded by blue and red demons.

Four days after sailing out of Hakodate, the students all grew sick from the daily diet of wretched food and unchanging soup. Suspect­ ing beriberi, they lay in their bunks flexing their knees and pressing each other's shins with their fingers to see if excess fluid had accumu­ lated beneath the skin. They did this over and over, their mood briefly brightening when the probing fingers did not sink in, and darkening when they did.

Two or three students felt their legs go numb, as though mildly shocked with electricity, whenever they stroked them. Letting their legs dangle from the bunks, they tested their reflexes by hitting each others' kneecaps with the edge of their hands. To make things even worse, they became constipated for four or five days at a stretch. One of the students went to the doctor to get a laxative. He came back pale with anger. "No such fancy medicine here, he says:'

"That's a ship's doctor for you:' said an old fisherman who was listening nearby.

"Doctors are the same everywhere. The one at my company was no different:' said the fisherman who had worked in a mine.

Everyone was lying down when the manager walked in. "Everybody taking it easy, I see. Listen up. We got a radio report

that the Chichibumaru sank. Seems they don't know who lived or died:' He twisted his lips and spat, as was his habit.

The student immediately recalled the cabin boy's words. This goddamned manager, he thought, could talk so calmly about the lives of four or five hundred workers whom he had as good as murdered with his own hands! Throwing the son of a bitch into the sea would be too good for him. Everyone raised their swollen faces. Excited talk erupted all around. Asakawa said nothing more but strode out, swinging his left shoulder forward.

The worker who had disappeared was caught while coming out of his hiding place next to the boiler. He had stayed hidden for two days but unbearable hunger finally drove him out. It was an older

-'

39 38 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

fisherman who nabbed him. An angry young fisherman threatened to beat the hell out of the old man.

"The annoying young fuck;' said the old fisherman, blissfully smoking a cigarette from the packs he had won as a reward. "Doesn't even smoke so what's he know about the taste of tobacco:'

The manager stripped the worker down to his shirt, shoved him into one of two adjacent toilets, and locked him up. At first every­ one hated going to the toilet. They could not bear listening to the cries next door. On the second day the cries grew hoarse with a cold. Then they grew intermittent. At the end of that day a worried fisher­ man headed for the toilet directly after work but the pounding from the inside had stopped. Though he tapped on the door from the out­ side there was no response. Later on Miyaguchi was discovered lying prone with one hand leaning against the toilet and his head in the box of toilet paper. His lips were the dead color of blue ink.

The morning was cold. It had grown bright though it was still only three o'clock. They all got up, hunching over and thrusting numb hands into pockets. The manager went from cabin to cabin dragging out workers, fishermen, sailors, and stokers, not caring in the least whether they had a cold or were sick.

Although there was no wind, working on deck made hands and feet as bereft of sensation as wooden pestles. The foreman, cursing at the top of his voice, herded fourteen or fifteen workers into the factory. The tip of the bamboo stave he carried had strips of leather attached to it. Its length allowed him to reach out and strike an idle worker even if he was standing on the opposite side of the machines.

"When they got Miyaguchi out last night he was barely alive and couldn't say a thing, and this morning they're saying he's got to work, and they were kicking him just now;' said a delicately built worker who had grown friendly with the students. He cast glances at the fore­ man as he spoke. "He didn't move at all so in the end they seemed to give up:'

Just then the manager came up, prodding a feverishly trembling worker from behind. Having been forced to work in the cold rain, the worker had caught a cold which turned into pleurisy. He was con­ stantly shivering, even when it wasn't cold. He looked like a sick child,

The Crab Cannery Ship

his young face marred by furrows etched between his eyebrows. His thin bloodless lips were strangely twisted. He had been found pacing about the boiler room, unable to put up with the cold.

The fishermen who were lowering the boats using winches fol­ lowed the two mutely with their eyes. A fisherman in his forties looked away as if unable to watch, and shook his head in disgust.

"We didn't spend all that money bringing you here just so you catch colds and stay sulking in bed. Quit gawking at what's none of your business, you sons of bitches!" The manager banged his club against the deck.

"If hell's any worse than this, better be sure never to go there!" "When we tell people back home about this, they'll never be­

lieve us:' "Damn right, they won't. There's nothing like seeing it with your

own eyes:' The steam-powered winches started to rattle and turn. The boats

began simultaneously to descend, swaying in space. The sailors and stokers who had been rounded up were running about on the slippery deck, trying hard not to fall. The manager strode watchfully among them like a bristling rooster.

Taking advantage of a break in the work, the students sat down behind some cargo to get a moment of relief from the wind. Just then the fisherman who had been a miner came around a corner, blowing on his hands to warm them.

"They're trying to kill us!" His sudden, piercing words struck at the students' hearts. "Hell, this is no different than working in a mine. Seems like you can't hardly live without dying while you're at it. Sure, gas is scary but so are these damned waves:'

In the afternoon, the sky subtly changed. It grew covered with an expanse of mist so thin and light as to be nearly invisible. Countless triangular waves stirred up, like raised squares of cloth. Wind sud­ denly began to whistle past the masts. Edges of canvas sheets that covered the cargo started to slap against the deck.

"Rabbits are flying! Hey, it's the rabbits!" someone called out loudly, running toward the starboard deck. The voice, instantly shred­ ded by the wind, sounded like a meaningless shout.

6

40 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

Triangular waves topped with white spray were speeding across the entire surface of the sea, like countless rabbits flying across a great plain. This was the harbinger of a Kamchatka gale. The flow of the tide suddenly accelerated. The ship began to move sideways. Kam­ chatka, which had been visible off starboard, shifted unobserved to port side. Fishermen and sailors who were still working on deck be­ gan to grow alarmed.

Soon there was a blast from the overhead horn. Everyone stood still and looked up. Perhaps because they stood directly below the jut­ ting smokestack, its massive and bucket-like form visibly trembled as it leaned aft. The horn attached to its side looked like a Tyrolean hat, and its blast sounded oddly pathetic within the raging windstorm. Its continuous call was meant to help the boats that were fishing far from the ship to find their way back through the storm.

Fishermen and seamen clustered around the dim entrance to the engine room, talking excitedly. With each sway of the ship, oblique shafts of feeble light escaped from below. The flickering light fleet­ ingly illuminated now one agitated face, now another.

"What's going on?" asked the miner, joining the group. "We'll beat that goddamned Asakawa to death!" exclaimed some­

one furiously. Early that morning Asakawa had actually received a gale warning

from a ship anchored some ten miles away. The warning added that ifany boats had left the ship, they should be urgently called back. Ac­ cording to the radio operator, Asakawa's reply had been: "If we pissed our pants every time over this kind of nonsense, we'd have no business coming all the way out to Kamchatka:'

"What the hell does he think human lives are, anyhow?" roared the first fisherman who heard this, as though the radio operator were Asakawa.

"Human lives?" "Yes, human lives:' "But Asakawa doesn't think of you fellows as human beings:' The fisherman tried to respond but could only stutter. He turned

crimson. Then he rushed back into the surrounding group. The men stood stock still, their faces bitter but showing signs of

The Crab Ship 4'

a clear turmoil gradually rising from deep within. A worker whose father had gone out in one of the boats paced restlessly outside the assembled circle of fishermen. The horn howled without a break. Lis­ tening to it tore at the fishermen's hearts.

It was close to evening when a great shout rose from the bridge. Those below rushed up the gangway two steps at a time. Two boats were approaching. They were lashed together with ropes.

The boats were quite near now. But big waves were attacking the boats and the ship from both sides, first Violently lifting them up, and then dropping them down. Large swells rose and rolled one after another. Though the boats were so very close, they could come no closer. It was maddening. A rope was thrown from the deck. But it did not reach and splashed into the sea sending up futile spray. The rope was reeled back in, twisting like a sea snake. The attempt was repeated many times. Everyone was shouting from the deck, but there was no reply from the boats. The expressions on the fishermen's faces were frozen and immobilized like masks. Their eyes too stared motion­ 1essly. The sight, too dreadful to watch, pierced their chests.

The rope was thrown again. Coiled at first, it stretched like an eel. A fisherman raised both hands to grab it and the rope struck him on the side of the neck. Everyone screamed. The fisherman was knocked flat on his side. But he grabbed the rope! Once tightly tied, the rope stretched in a taut line dripping with water. The watching fishermen spontaneously heaved a huge sigh of relief.

The horn kept on blowing without pause, its sound made alter­ nately shrill or distant by the shifting wind. Despite the wind, all the boats except two had managed to return by nightfall. Each return­ ing fisherman collapsed upon stepping onto the ship's deck. One of the boats had become swamped with water so the fishermen had dropped anchor and transferred to the boat that brought them back. The whereabouts of another boat and its crew remained a complete mystery.

The manager was in a huff. He kept going down into the fisher~ men's cabin and coming back up. Each time he did so everyone's eyes followed him, brimming with a burning hatred.

The next day, partly to search for the missing boat, the ship moved

43 42 KOBAYASHI TAKIII

on in pursuit of the crabs. The loss offive or six people matter," but losing the boat was painful.

THE ENGINE ROOM was filled with commotion from the early morn­ ing. The vibrations set off by hoisting the anchor made the fishermen whose cabin adjoined the anchor chamber rattle like roasting beans. The iron plates covering the ship's flanks were worn out and flaking at every tremor. The Hakkomaru sailed north to the latitude of fifty­ one degrees and five minutes in search of anchored Boat Number 1. Chunks of ice floated nonchalantly by like living creatures, bobbing in the troughs of gentle swells. Yet here and there those fragments of ice formed great masses that stretched as far as the eye could see. They spouted foam, and were capable of surrounding a ship in a flash. The ice was giving off a steam-like vapor. The freezing cold assailed the ship as ifblown by electric fans. Crunching sounds suddenly rang out all across the ship as its wet deck and handrails grew coated with ice. The ship's sides, seemingly sprinkled with powder, glittered with frost crystals. Sailors and fishermen covered both cheeks with their hands as they ran across the deck. The ship advanced, leaving in its wake a long trail like a straight path across a plain.

The missing boat was nowhere to be found. Close to nine o'clock a boat was spotted from the bridge, drift­

ing far ahead. The manager agitatedly paced the deck shouting with delight: "Son of a bitch, we found the damned thing at last!" A mo­ torboat was promptly lowered. However, what they found was not the Boat Number 1 that they had been looking for but rather a newer boat, with number 36 embossed on it. It was clear from the iron buoy attached to it that it belonged to ship X. The ship X had left it there to mark the spot to which it intended to return.

Asakawa tapped the boat's hull with his fingertips and grinned broadly. "WhyCl they leave this one behind? Haul it up:'

And so Number 36 was hoisted by a winch to the Hakkomaru's bridge. The boat swung in the air, dripping heavily onto the deck. Looking up at the rising boat with a magnanimous air as if to say Well done, the manager mumbled: "This is terrific, just terrific!"

Fishermen working on the nets were watching him. "Look at the

The Crab Cannery Ship

thieving fucker! Wish the chain would break and the boat smash his goddamned head!"

Sweeping the workers with a murderously contemptuous stare, the manager strode past them. He called for the carpenter, his hoarse and impatient.

"Yes, what is it?" The carpenter's face popped out from an unex­ pected hatch.

Startled, the manager turned around and barked, "What is it? Idiot! Scrape off the number. Get the plane, the plane:'

The carpenter looked at him blankly. "You fool, come over here!" The diminutive carpenter, a plane in hand and a saw handle

tucked into his belt, followed the broad-shouldered manager across the deck, his steps unsteady as though he had a limp. The number 3 was planed away from the boat's side, turning it into Boat Number 6.

"This is perfect, just perfect. Ha, that'll teach them!" Twisting his mouth into a sharp grin, the manager seemed to grow taller as he roared with laughter.

Though they continued to sail north, they failed to discover the missing boat. The ship that had been standing still while hoisting up Boat Number 36 now began to move in a wide, gentle curve so as to return to its original position. The sky cleared up, turning transparent as though washed. The Kamchatka mountain range shone crisply, like Swiss hills in a picture postcard.

THE MISSING BOAT did not return. Fishermen collected the belongings left behind in the deserted bunks and looked up the family addresses so that they could act quickly if the need arose. It was not a pleasant duty. Going about it, the fishermen had the wrenching feeling that their own wounds were being peered into. Thinking to send the items once the supply ship arrived, they came across packages and letters whose return addresses bore names of the men's female relatives. One of the letters was clumsily and painstakingly written in pencil. The letter was passed from one rough hand to another. After reading it haltingly yet avidly, each fisherman shook his head as if having seen something painful, and handed it on. It was a letter from a child.

A

45 44 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

One of the men blew his nose loudly, and looking up from the letter said in a barely audible voice, "This is Asakawa's doing. If it turns out that this man's dead, I'll avenge him." The speaker was a large and burly man who had done all sorts of things in the Hokkaido interior. A young fisherman with bulging shoulders said even more quietly, "I can knock him down myself'

"Ab, this letter is too much. It brings back everything:' "Listen:' said the first man. "He could easily have done us in too.

This is not somebody else's problem:'

A man who sat in a corner with one knee drawn up, chewing on a thumbnail and glancing up as he listened, now nodded vigorously. "When the time comes, leave everything to me! I'll fix that bastard with one blow."

Everyone was silent. the same, they felt relieved.

THREE DAYS AFTER the Hakkomaru returned to its original position, the missing boat came back with everyone alive and well.

The instant the boat's crew emerged from the captain's quarters and came into the shit-hole a veritable whirlpool of people encircled them.

The great storm had snatched away from the men any ability to steer the boat, making them more helpless than a child gripped by the scruff of its neck. They had gone out the farthest, and now the wind was blowing them even farther. All were prepared for the worst. Fish­ ermen are trained to bid life good-bye at a moment's notice.

But something exceptional happened. The follOWing morning their boat, half-filled with water, washed up on the Kamchatka shore, and they were all rescued by Russians who lived nearby.

The Russian family consisted of four people. The fishermen, thirsting for home and women and children, were entranced. What is more, these people were all very kind and gladly did everything they could to help them. Yet at first, as might be expected, the incompre­ hensible words they spoke, and the foreign, different color of their hair and eyes struck everyone as eerie.

However it soon dawned on them: "Hey, they're human beings same as us!"

The Crab Cannery Ship

As the news of the shipwreck spread, many villagers gathered. The place was quite a long way from Japan's fishing grounds.

They spent two days there recovering their strength and sailed back. "Not that we wanted to come back;' one of them said. "Who'd want to come back to this kind of hem" But there was more to their story than this. The "interesting part" had not yet been told.

It was the very day when they planned to return. They were gath­ ered around a stove, dreSSing and talking, when four or five Russians came in. There was a Chinese among them too. A slightly stooped man with a big face and short red whiskers suddenly began to speak loudly and to gesture with his hands. The boat boss waved his hands in front of his eyes to let him know that they did not understand Rus­ sian. At a word from the Russian, the Chinese who had been watching him began to speak in Japanese. It was a jumbled sort ofJapanese, with words out of sequence, scattering and staggering about as if drunk.

':All you, sure thing, no have money:' "That's right:' "All you, is poor:' "That's righf' "So, all you, is name proletariat. Understand?" "Sure:' The Russian, laughing, began to pace about. Sometimes he

stopped and looked at them. "Rich mans do this all you:' (He grabbed himself by the neck, as

if in a chokehold.) "Rich mans get more, more big." (He indicated an expanding stomach.) "All you, no good, get more, more poor. Under­ stand? Japan, no good. Working people, this:' (He frowned, making a face as though he were ill.) "Rich man boss, this. Ahem. Ahem:' (He strutted about.)

"That's right, that's right!" said a young fisherman, beginning to laugh with amusement.

"Working people, this. Rich man boss, this:' (He repeated the previous gestures.) "That no good. Working people, this!" (Now he proudly thrust out his chest.) "Rich man boss, this:' (He mimicked an old beggar.) "This good. Understand? Russia, have all working peo­ ple. All working people, this:' (He stands proudly.) "Russia, no have

6

47 46 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

rich man boss. No tricky people. No exploit people. Understand? No terrible Russia. Terrible Russia only lies:'

This, the men vaguely thought, is probably what was meant by the "terrible" phrase "turning Red:' But if that's what "turning Red" was

about, it seemed to make perfect sense. Most of all, they felt strongly fascinated by what they were hearing.

"We understand, we do understand!" Two or three Russians began nOisily to say something. The Chi­

nese was listening. And then picking up the words one by one as if stammering, he translated for them. "Boss do nothing, get rich. Pro­ letariat always this:' (He showed a person being choked.) "This, no good! Proletariat, all you, one, two, three ... hundred, thousand, fifty thousand, hundred thousand, all, all, this:' (He imitated children join­ ing hands.) "Get strong. All right!" (He slapped his arm.) "No lose,

nobody. Understand?" "Yes, yes!" "Rich man boss, run:' (He made as if to flee at top speed.) "All

right, sure. Working people, proletariat, is proud:' (He strode about in a dignified manner.) "Proletariat, number one great .... If no prole­

tariat, all no have bread. All die. Understand?" "Yes, yes!" "Japan no good now. Working people, this:' (He bent his back and

shrank into himself.) Rich man boss, this:' (Swaggering, he imitated a

bully knocking people down.) "That no good! Working people, this:' (With a fierce look, he stood up and lunged forward as if to knock down and trample an oppressor.) "Rich man boss, this:' (He mimed

fleeing.) "Japan all working people, good country. Proletariat country.

Understand?" "Yes, yes, we understand!" The Russians cheered and stamped their feet as if dancing. "Japan, working people, do it:' (He struck a defiant pose.)

"Happy! Russia, all happy. Hurrah! All you go back ship. Your ship, rich man boss, this:' (He swaggered.) ''All you, proletariat, do this!"

(He raised his fists, joined hands, and lunged.) ''All right, you win!

Understand?" "We understand!" The young fisherman, growing excited in spite

The Crab Cannery Ship

of himself, suddenly grabbed the Chinese man's hands. "Yes, we will do that! We'll do it for sure!"

So this is Bolshevization, thought the boat boss. They were incit­ ing the men to commit outrageous acts. This, he thought, was Russia's

crafty way of deceiving Japan. When the Russians had finished talking, they raised an incom­

prehensible shout, and shook the fishermen's hands with all their might. They embraced them, brushing the hard stubble of their cheeks against their faces. The Japanese, pulling back their necks stiff with embarrassment, hardly knew what to do.

With an occasional glance at the shit-hole door, everyone now urged the returned men to tell them more. They spoke about various things they had seen among the Russians. Their listeners absorbed every detail, like blotting paper.

"Hey, that's quite enough!" The boat boss, noticing the strange seriousness with which every­

one was listening to the story, poked an exuberantly speaking young fisherman in the shoulder.

4 The air was hazy. Contours of the sundry ventilator pipes, chimneys, winch arms, suspended boats, handrails, and so on-normally

so severely mechanical-grew shaded and blurred, looking more intimate than ever. A soft, lukewarm air caressed people's cheeks and flowed on. Nights like this were rare.

The area around a nearby hatch was heavy with the smell of crab brains and flesh. Two shadows of uneven heights stood between mountains of nets.

Kept from sleeping by a pounding heartbeat, a fisherman with a sallow, swollen body and a heart ruined through overwork came up on deck. He leaned on the handrail and absentmindedly watched the

sea that looked as thick as melted seaweed. With his body in such poor shape, he felt certain he would die at the manager's hands. Yet the thought of dying in far off Kamchatka, without even being able to step on land, struck him as much too lonely. Absorbed in his brooding, he

6

49 48 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

suddenly noticed that there was someone between the piles of nets. He heard hushed voices and crab shells crunching underfoot.

Once the fisherman's eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he saw them. A fisherman was speaking to a worker offourteen or fifteen. The words were inaudible. The worker, with his back to the other, was turning this way and that like a resisting, sulking child. Each time he moved, the fisherman too moved in the same direction. This went on for a while. The fisherman inadvertently (or so it seemed) raised his voice. But he quickly lowered it again and said something rapidly. Suddenly he wrapped his arms tightly around the worker. Were they fighting? For a while only a panting voice stifled by clothing was au­ dible. No one was moving. At that instant the worker's legs became visible through the soft haze, looking like a pair of candles. The lower half of his body was stark naked. The worker was crouching. The fish­ erman was covering him like a toad. The watching man saw only this much and for merely a moment, but the sight stuck in his throat. He unconsciously averted his eyes. He felt a nervous kind of excitement, as though he had been punched or drugged.

Fishermen had gradually begun to be tormented by raging surges oflust. For four or five months, these sturdy men had been unnatu­ rally separated from women. Stories about women whose bodies they had bought in Hakodate, crude talk about women's genitals-these grew into regular nightly topiCS. A Single erotic picture printed on frayed paper circulated endlessly from hand to hand.

Someone sang: "Lay it out, turn this way, kiss my mouth, wrap your legs, come you cunt! Oh, a whore's work is a bitch, boys!"

As though soaked up by a sponge, the song was promptly memo­ rized by everyone. Men began to sing it at every opportunity. Once the singing was over, they shouted desperately and with glittering eyes, "Ah, damn it all to hell!"

"Fuck, this is no good! I can't get to sleep at all:' Fishermen lay down in their bunks only to start tossing about. "My dick's standing up!"

"What am I supposed to do with this thing?" A fisherman finally got up, naked and clutching his testicles, his penis erect. His large body looked grim and formidable. Students, taken aback, glanced at him out of the corners of their eyes.

The Crab Cannery Ship

Many men ejaculated in their sleep. Others masturbated when no one was around. Soiled underpants and loincloths, damp and giving off a sour stench, lay balled up in shelf corners. A student who acci­ dentally trod on one felt as though he had stepped in shit.

Night visits to boy workers' quarters began. The men would ex­ change cigarettes for caramels and with two or three in their pockets go out through the hatch.

If the cook opened the door to the pantry-filled with barrels pickled vegetables that reeked like a toilet -a furious shout would sud­ denly ring out from the dim and stifling interior. "Shut the damned door! You come in now and I'll beat you to death!"

THE RADIO OPERATOR monitored messages being exchanged among the other ships, and reported the catch of each one to the manager. The information made it clear that the Hakkomaru was lagging far behind. The manager began to lose his temper. The consequences for the fishermen and workers were immediate and overwhelming. They always bore the brunt of everything. The manager and the foreman thought up a work competition scheme that pitted the sailors against the fishermen and workers.

Whenever the fishermen and workers "lost" to the seamen by kill­ ing fewer crabs, they were made to feel that they had failed-although the work brought them no benefits at all. The manager clapped hands with delight. Winning one day, lOSing the next, vowing not to lose again-days of absurdly intensive work continued, till their hands oozed blood. On the first day the amount of work they did went up by fifty or sixty percent. But by the fifth or sixth day both sides grew dispirited and the quantity ofwork started to decline drastically. Some­ times their heads suddenly slumped forward even as they worked. The manager struck them without warning. Jolted by the unexpected blows, the men involuntarily screamed in pain. The rest of the time they worked in total silence, as though they were enemies or had for­ gotten how to speak. They no longer had even the energy to talk.

The manager, however, now began to hand out "prizes" to the winning side. The smoldering flrewood of competitiveness blazed up once more.

50 51 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

"The silly bastards;' commented the manager to the captain, drinking a beer in the latter's cabin.

The backs of the captain's hands were dimpled like those of a plump woman. Deftly tapping a gold-tipped cigarette against the table, he responded with an inscrutable smile. The captain could not bear the manager's constant interference. He wondered whether the fishermen would rise up and fling the son of a bitch into the Kam­ chatka sea.

In addition to handing out "prizes;' the manager put up a poster announcing that whoever accomplished the least amount of work would be branded with a red hot iron rod. Everybody worked on, shadowed continuously by the implacable threat of branding. The quantity of work continued to rise.

The manager knew even better than they did just how much abuse a human body could tolerate. At the end of the workday, workers dropped sideways into their bunks like logs, groaning, "Maybe this is it. . :'

One of the students recalled being taken to a Buddhist temple by his grandmother as a child, and seeing in its dim hall paintings of hell that looked just like this. Their present situation strongly remind­ ed him of a great snakelike animal he had seen slithering through a marshland. It was the spitting image of it. The overwork perversely robbed them of their ability to sleep. After midnight, in various parts of the shit-hole there suddenly arose the eerie sounds of teeth grind­ ing as if chewing up glass, of nonsensical words, and wild shouts.

When they could not sleep, they sometimes whispered to their own bodies: "I can't believe you're still alive .. :' I can't believe you're

alive-to their bodies! It was the hardest on the students. "Looking at it from our current perspective, I get the feeling those

convicts in Dostoyevsky's House ofthe Dead didn't have it so tough af­ ter all;' said a student who had been unable to shit for days and could not sleep unless he tied a hand towel tightly around his head.

"You're probably right:' His companion had brought some whiSky from Hakodate and was licking it slowly with the tip of his tongue, as though drinking medicine. "Well, that's how great exploits are carried

The Crab Cannery Ship

out. We're developing rich untapped resources and that's rough work. But they say that even these cannery ships are better than they used to be. When this business first started, they hadn't yet learned about the shifts in weather and tides, and hadn't really mastered the geog­ raphy, and so lots of ships sank. They got sunk by Russian ships, got captured, got killed, but they didn't in, they kept on getting back up and fighting hard, and that's how these rich resources got to be ours.... Anyhow, these things can't be helped:'

That was how history books always told it, thought the student, and maybe it really was so. But that did nothing at all to dispel the fu­ rious feelings concealed at the bottom of his heart. He silently stroked his belly that had turned hard as plywood. His thumbs felt numb and tingled as though stimulated by a weak electric current. The feeling was extremely unpleasant. He raised a thumb to his eyes and rubbed it with his other hand.

After supper everyone gathered around a rickety stove installed in the middle of the shit-hole that was as cracked as an old map. Va­ por rose from them as their bodies started warming up a little. The raw stifling stench of crabs invaded everyone's noses.

"Well, I can't make much sense out of it all but I sure don't want to get killed."

"Naturally, nobody does!" A heavy, oppressive anxiety assailed them, an irritability and rage

without a clear target. They really were being killed! "S-shit, we may be g-good for nothing but damned if we'll let

them kill us!" shouted a stuttering fisherman abruptly, his face crim­ son, facial muscles taut with impatience.

For a moment everyone fell silent, feeling a sudden stab to the heart.

"I don't want to die in Kamchatka .. :'

"A supply ship's sailed out of Hakodate. I heard it from the radio operator:'

"I want to go back." "There's no way they'll let us go back:'

"

53 52 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

"They say that lots of guys get away by supply ship:' "Really? ... That would be good!" "There's also some who pretend they're going fishing, run off to

Kamchatka, and end up doing Red propaganda together with the Russkies:'

"So we're doing all this for the benefit of the Japanese Empire, eh? ... Oh yeah, another fine phrase they've come up with:' Unbuttoning his jacket the student bared a bony ribcage that resembled a ladder and, yawning, vigorously scratched it. The dried dirt coating his skin peeled off like thin mica.

"Hell, it's all about the corporate fat cats getting their mitts on every damned thing they can snatch:' said an elderly fisherman. His weak cloudy eyes stared blankly from under slack lids, furrowed like empty oyster shells. He spat at the stove. The spit struck the stovetop, formed a circle, sizzled, bounced like a bean, shrank to the size of a grain of soot, and vanished. Everyone absentmindedly looked at it.

"You may be right about thaf' But a boat boss, holding the red lining ofrus rubber-soled socks

over the stove, said, "Hey, we'll have none ofyour traitorous talk here:'

"Shit, you got no business telling us what to do!" The stuttering fisherman pursed his lips like an octopus.

There was a foul stench of rubber. "Hey, boss, watch your rubber!" "Goddamn it, it got scorched!" Waves were rising, and striking faintly against the ship's sides. The

ship swayed as if to a lullaby. As they sat around the stove, the feeble five-candlepower light of a lamp that resembled a rotten Chinese lantern plant cast shadows behind them which tangled and joined in multiform ways. The night was quiet. Reflections of red flames in the stove's door flickered across the lower halves of their legs. Suddenly and fleetingly they were able to look back over the entire span of their unhappy lives. The night was strangely quiet.

"Got a cigarette?" "No .. :'

The Crab Cannery Ship

"You got none too?" "Afraid not:' "Shit." "Hey, pass the whisky this way too, won't you?" His companion held the square bottle upside down and shook it. "Damn, you sure wasted "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha:' "What a hell of a place to be in, yet here we are ... even me .. :'

said a fisherman who had worked in a factory in Shibaura, in Tokyo. He told them about it. To Hokkaido workers it seemed more splendid than any factory they knew. "If they did to us just one hundredth of what they do to us here," he said, "we'd have had a strike for sure:'

This started them talking about the various experiences each of them had gone through. Constructing national highways, building ir­ rigation systems, laying out railways, digging harbors and reclaiming land, excavating new mines, cultivating new land, loading ships, fish­ ing for Pacific herring-almost everyone had done one or more of these kinds of work.

When workers on the mainland grew "arrogant" and could no longer be forced to overwork, and when markets reached an impasse and refused to expand any further, then capitalists stretched out their claws, "To Hokkaido, to Karafuto!" There they could mistreat people to their hearts' content ride them as brutally as they did in their colonies of Korea and Taiwan. The capitalists understood quite clearly that there would be no one to complain. In workers' quarters at highway and railway construction sites laborers were being beat­ en to death more easily than lice. Some fled, unable to put up with the overwork and abuse. When they were caught, they were tied to stakes to be kicked by horses' hind legs, or dragged off to backyards to be mauled to death by Tosa fighting dogs. Moreover this was done in front of everyone's eyes. Hearing the ribs snap within the chest, even the "non-human" laborers spontaneously covered their faces. Each time the escapees fainted, water was poured over them to re­ vive them. In the end they died tossed about like bundled rags by dogs' powerful jaws. Even after their limp bodies were thrown away and abandoned in a corner of some yard, their limbs continued to

54 55 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

twitch. Savage punishments were inflicted daily: red-hot tongs were suddenly pressed against victims' buttocks; people were beaten

hexagonal rods until they could not stand up. During meals, abrupt screams rose from backyards, followed by the raw stench of burning human flesh.

"That's it, I've had it. No way can I keep on eating:' Men flung

away their chopsticks. But they kept on looking darkly at each other's faces.

Many died from beriberi. Savage overwork made them succumb to it. Even once they died, "no time off" meant they were left unburied

for days. Their bodies remained out of sight in the darkness with only their pale grimy feet, strangely small and childlike, protruding from the edges of straw mats that had been carelessly tossed over them.

"Their faces are swarming with flies. They all flew up at once when I passed by!" said a man as he walked in, tapping his forehead with his hand.

Everybody was made to go to the work site before dawn. They were forced to work until their pickaxes glittered bluish-white in the dark and their hands could no longer be seen. Everyone envied the

prisoners who worked in a nearby jail. Koreans were treated most cruelly of all, not only by the bosses and overseers but by their fellow

Japanese laborers. Sometimes a policeman stationed in a village five or six miles

away came on foot to look into things, notebook in hand. He often stayed until the evening or spent the night. Yet he never even both­ ered to glance at the laborers. He headed back with his face flushed crimson, striding down the middle of the road, pissing in all direc­ tions like a fire hose, and muttering unintelligibly to himself.

Each railroad tie in Hokkaido was nothing but the bluish corpse of a worker. Posts driven into the soil during harbor reclamations

were laborers sick with beriberi buried alive like the ancient "human pillars:' The name for workers in Hokkaido was "octopus:' In order to stay alive, an octopus will even devour its own limbs. It was just like that! Here a primitive exploitation could be practiced against anyone, without any scruples. It yielded loads of profit. What's more such do­ ings were cleverly identified with "developing the national wealth;'

and deftly rationalized away. It was very shrewdly done. Workers were starved and beaten to death for the sake of "the nation:'

"Only the gods helped me get away from there alive;' said a fisher­ man. "I sure was thankful! But if I get killed on this ship it'll come to the same damned thing. Why, that's one hell of a joke!" The fisherman broke into a wild roar oflaughter. But once his laughter subsided, his brow visibly darkened and he turned aside.

It was the same at the mines. New tunnels were dug. To find out

how best to deal with whatever gases leaked from the ground and whatever momentous changes the digging would cause, the capital­ ists-follOwing the methods of General Nogi, sainted hero of the Russo-Japanese War-simply used up tens of thousands of workers

whom they could buy more cheaply than guinea pigs, then throw away. It was easier than discarding used tissues! The tunnel walls kept on being reinforced with multiple layers of miners' raw flesh. Horrors

were perpetrated taking advantage of the mines' distance from cities. In the loaded mine cars, slabs of coal sometimes turned up with sev­

ered thumbs and little fingers adhering to them. Women and children did not even raise an eyebrow at such Sights. Accustomed to them all, expressionless, they merely pushed the cars to the next station. That

coal propelled a gigantic engine churning out capitalists' profits. All the miners' faces were lusterless, yellowish, swollen, and per­

petually blank, like the faces of people who had been imprisoned for many years. Insufficient sunlight, coal dust, toxic fumes, dampness,

and atmospheric pressure afflicted their bodies in clearly visible ways. "When you work as a miner for seven or eight years, it's like spending four or five full years in a totally dark pit, not seeing the sun even once in four or five years!" But the capitalists, always able to obtain workers easily in plentiful replacements, did not give a damn. When winter came, they knew, workers would pour into the mines.

In Hokkaido there were "immigrant farmers" and "new cultiva­ tors:' Through movies filled with enticing slogans like "Develop Hok­ kaido:' "Solve the food problem through promoting immigration;' and the childish "Strike it rich as immigrants:' the powers that be en­ couraged the mainland's impoverished peasants who were about to be

robbed of their fields to emigrate, only to abandon them on the land

56 57 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

that-four or five inches below the surface-turned out to be nothing but clay. The fertile land was already marked with notice boards pro­ claiming ownership. By the following spring entire families, buried in the snow and without even potatoes to eat, had starved to death. Such things happened over and over. They first came to light when the snow melted, and "neighbors" who lived a mile away dropped by. Many of the victims had tried to survive by eating straw, and bits of it were still sticking out of their mouths.

Even in those rare cases where immigrants managed to cultivate their land for a decade without starving to death, when they finally had turned it into decent fields, they would fmd that the land now belonged to "outsiders:' The capitalists-usurers, banks, nobles, and the super­ rich-casually lent out lavish sums of money, so that once the waste­ land was transformed into fields as fertile as plump cats they unfailingly fell into their own hands. Imitating such practices, other shrewd peo­ ple came to Hokkaido determined to make easy money. The peasants found their possessions snatched at from every direction. In the end they were reduced to being just what they had been on the mainland: tenant farmers. For the first time they saw through the trick. "Damn!"

They had crossed the Tsugaru Strait and come to snowy Hokkai­ do hoping to make at least a little money before returning to their vil­ lages. Quite a few people on the crab cannery ships had been driven from their land in this way.

Dockworkers lived as hard as the cannery ships' fishermen. When out of work and idling about Otaru's closely watched lodging houses, they were dragged offby ship to Karafuto or to remote parts of Hok­ kaido. There, if their feet slipped even an inch, stacks of square-cut timber groaned and tumbled on top of them with an earth -shaking crash, crushing them flatter than rice wafers. When the wet and slip­ pery lumber being loaded by rattling winches accidentally struck them, it smashed their skulls and knocked them into the sea more easily than bugs are swept away.

Workers on the mainland, who had been silently surviving for so long, united into a powerful body and stood up to the capitalists. But workers in the "colonies" were completely isolated from such movements.

The Crab Cannery Ship

Their suffering was unendurable. Yet the harder they stumbled on, the heavier grew their burden of suffering.

"I wonder what's going to happen to us .. :' "They'll kill us, I just know if' " Though they wanted to say something, the words stuck in their

throats.

"Before they k-kill me, I'll kill them," exclaimed the Stuttering Fisherman gruffly.

Waves pounded gently against the side of the ship. Somewhere on the upper deck, steam seemed to be escaping from a pipe, producing a soft ceaseless hiss that sounded like a seething kettle.

BEFORE GOING TO sleep the fishermen took off their shirts and un­ dershirts, as stiff with grime as dried cuttlefish, and spread them over the stove. Gathering around the stove, the men stretched the fabric to expose it to heat, and then slapped at it. Lice and bedbugs fell onto the stovetop making snapping sounds and began to emit a raw stench of burning flesh. As the shirts grew hot, more lice emerged from the seams, frantically moving their countless spindly legs. The insects were sickeningly greasy to touch. Some were so fat their oddly shaped heads could be made out, resembling those of praying mantises.

"Hey, hold up the end for me." Taking the loincloths' opposite edges, men spread them out and started plucking at the lice.

A fisherman crushed lice with his front teeth or squeezed them with his thumbs till his nails turned red. After wiping his hands against the hem of his jacket as a child does, he resumed his work. Even so, no one could fall asleep. Lice, fleas, and bedbugs kept on emerging from somewhere and attacking them throughout the night. It was impossible to eradicate them. As the men climbed into their damp and gloomy bunks, they instantly began to itch with dozens of fleas crawling up their shins. Finally they began to wonder whether their own flesh was starting to rot. A sinister notion assailed them that they might in fact be decomposing corpses swarming with maggots and flies.

At first they had been able to bathe every other day. It was

KOBAYASHI TAKIJI58

inevitable that their bodies would grow filthy and stink. But after a week, bathing was reduced to once every four days, and after about a month, to once a week. Finally it came down to twice a month. This was done to prevent wasting water. But the captain and the manager bathed every day, and this did not amount to wasting water! With the men's bodies stained for days on end with crab juice, there was no way to keep the lice and bedbugs from breeding.

When they untied their loincloths, black beads spilled out ofthem. The men's bellies were circled with a red rash where the loincloths had been tied. They itched unbearably. As the men slept, sounds of des­ perate scratching came from everywhere. The sensation of something small crawling or springing over their legs and bellies was followed by bites. Each time this happened, fishermen's bodies twisted and turned. Yet soon the same thing happened again. It went on until the morning. Their skin grew as rough as if ravaged by scabies.

"The damned lice are going to devour us alive." "Yeah, that'll be a wonderful way to go:' They could not help laughing.

5 Three fishermen were running frantically along the deck.

Reaching a turn, they staggered and grabbed at the handraiL The carpenter who was repairing the saloon deck stood on tiptoe looking after them. The cold wind had brought tears to his eyes and at first he could not clearly see. He turned aside and forcefully blew his nose with his fingers. The mucus flew off in an arc, carried by the wind.

The portside winch was rattling. Because everyone was out fish­ ing it did not make sense that the winch should be moving. And something was hanging from it and swinging. The vertical line of the suspended wire swayed in a leisurely circle.

"What could that be?" With a shock, he understood. Agitated, he turned aside and blew

his nose again. The wind drove the sticky liquid against his trousers. "They're doing it again:' The carpenter focused his eyes, repeatedly

wiping away tears with his sleeve.

The Crab Cannery 59

Outlined distinctly against the sea that shone silvery gray after a recent rainfall, the black shape of a tightly bound worker hung from the jutting arm of the winch. He had been hoisted skyward all the way to the top of the winch. There he hung like a rag for some twenty minutes. Then he was partly lowered, his body twisting and writhing, his legs struggling as though caught in a spider's web.

Presently his body disappeared in the shadow of the saloon. Only the taut line of the wire occasionally moved like a swing.

The carpenter's tears seemed to be flowing into his nose, which kept running without a pause. He blew his nose once again. Then he took a hammer from his side pocket and set to work.

Alerted by a faint sound, the carpenter turned around. The wire was swaying as though shaken by someone below, and he heard dull, sinister thumps.

The face of the worker who was hanging from the winch was deathly pale. Foam dribbled from lips that were shut as tightly as those of a corpse. The carpenter, moving to a lower deck, saw the foreman standing rigid with a log of firewood under his arm, and pissing into the sea. Glancing at the wood, the carpenter wondered whether this was what he had been beating the youth with. With each gust of wind, the piss splattered the edge of the deck.

WORN OUT BY endless days of overwork, the fishermen gradually lost their ability to get up in the mornings. The manager strode through their quarters banging an empty oilcan dose to the sleeping men's ears. He banged at it until they opened their eyes and got up. Those who were sick with beriberi raised their heads weakly and said some­ thing. But the manager kept banging at the can, pretending not to see them. With their voices inaudible, their mouths seemed only to be opening and clOSing, like those of goldfish coming up for air. After banging to his heart's content, he shouted, "Get up, damn you! You're working for the nation; this is just like fighting a war. If the work kills you, so be it! Get up, you fuckers!"

He tore away all the sick workers' bedding and drove them onto the deck. The beriberi sufferers stumbled over each step of the stair­ way. Gripping the handrail and leaning sideways, they climbed by

61 60 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

pulling up their legs with their hands. At each step their hearts jolted ominously as though kicked.

The manager and the foreman dealt with the sick as cunningly as if they were stepchildren. First they made them pack meat, and then sent them up on deck to break off crabs' claws. Shortly after, they transferred them to work with rolls of paper labels. Careful not to slip as they stood motionless in the freezing air of the gloomy factory, the men felt their legs from the knees down grow as numb as artificial limbs. At any moment their knee joints might give way and their legs buckle under them.

A student stood tapping his forehead with the back of a hand stained with crushed crabs. A moment later he toppled over back­ wards. A hill of empty cans that stood stacked nearby tumbled on top of him with an ear-splitting crash. The cans rolled along the ship's slanted floor, flashing and disappearing under machinery and among piles of cargo. The boy's worried companions picked him up and started to carry him toward the exit. They nearly collided with the manager who was coming down into the factory and whistling. He casually took in the situation.

"Who said you could stop working?" "Get out of the way!" growled one of the men, choking with rage. "What did you say? Say that again, you cocksucker!" Drawing a

pistol from his pocket, the manager twirled it around his finger as though it were a toy. He rocked on his feet as if to make himself taller, and suddenly burst into loud laughter. "Bring some water!"

The manager grabbed a bucketful of water and dumped it over the face of the student who lay on the floor as lifelessly as a railroad tie.

"This'll cure him. Now quit gawking and get back to work!" Coming down into the factory the next morning, workers saw the

previous day's student tied to the iron pole of a lathe. His head was slumped against his chest like that of a chicken with its neck wrung, and tips of his vertebrae stuck out prominently from his back. A card­ board sign hung from his chest, its handwriting clearly the manager's:

"This one's a treacherous faker. Untying him is forbidden:' The youth's forehead felt as cold to the touch as iron. Until coming

down into the factory, the workers had been noisily chatting. Now no

The Crab Cannery Ship

one said a word. At the sound of the foreman's voice behind them, they split into two lines, each passing along one side of the machine to which the student was bound, and streamed toward their respective work stations.

When crab canning reached its hectic peak, working condi­ tions became horrendous. Workers had their front teeth broken, spat bloody saliva throughout the night, fainted from overwork, bled from the eyes, were struck about the head, and lost their hearing. Thoroughly worn out, all grew befuddled as though drunk. When the day's work ended they felt momentarily dizzy with relief.

As they were finishing up, the manager walked up and shouted, "Today you're working till nine. The only time you sons of bitches are fast is when you're getting ready to quit!"

Sluggishly, as if in slow motion, everyone got up once again. They lacked the energy to do anything beyond that. Later on the manager came down to the shit-hole to speak to them.

"Listen up. This sea is not some place we can come to any time we like. And crabs can't be caught just any old time. You can't quit work­ ing after ten or thirteen hours sharp just because that's the official workday. If you did that, we'd be in a fucking mess. This kind of work is different from any other. You got that? But when there're no crabs to catch, I'll let you lounge around as much as you damn like.

"It's only the Russkies who quit working the moment the time's up, even if there are frigging shoals of fish right under their noses. With that kind of attitude, no wonder Russia got to be such a fucked up country. Japanese men must never act like that!"

Some of the men ignored his speech, thinking: "The asshole's lying:' But the majority swallowed the manager's suggestion that the Japanese were truly an outstanding people. And they felt somewhat consoled by the notion that their cruel daily sufferings seemed to have something heroic about it.

When working on deck, they often saw a destroyer sailing south along the horizon. From the warship's stern fluttered the nation's flag, glittering red and white. Their eyes brimming with tears of excite­ ment, the fishermen clutched their hats and waved. "That destroyer:' they thought, "is the only friend we've got:'

62 63 The Crab Cannery ShipKOBAYASHI TAKIII

"Damn, when I see that ship 1 can't help blubbering:' The men followed the destroyer with their eyes as it gradually grew smaller un­ til it vanished, trailing smoke.

On returning from work utterly exhausted they all shouted as if on cue, "Goddamned sons of bitches!" at no one in particular. In the darkness their hate-filled shout resembled the bellowing of a bull. They themselves did not know at whom it was directed, but as the nearly two hundred of them gathered in the same shit-hole day af­ ter day and talked bluntly among themselves, their thoughts, words, and actions imperceptibly (and as slowly as a creeping slug) began to move in a similar direction. Of course even within the same cur­ rent there were some who stood still as though faltering, and middle­ aged fishermen who drifted off to the side. Unawares, they soon grew sharply apart from the rest.

It was morning. Climbing slowly up the gangplank, the man from the mine said, "This just can't go on."

The previous day he had worked till almost ten at night, and now his body was twitching like a machine about to break down. He was falling asleep even as he climbed the plank. Alerted by a shout from behind, he shifted his step without thinking only to miss his footing and pitch forward.

Each morning before starting to work, everybody gathered in one corner of the factory. Their faces all looked like those of mud dolls.

'Tm going to slow down;' said the miner. "I just can't keep this up:'

Workers' faces came to life but no one spoke. Then someone said, "You're going to get yourself branded, you know ..."

''I'm not trying to get out of the work. J just can't do if' The miner rolled up his sleeve and held out a nearly transparent

arm. "It don't have long to go. I'm not trying to get out of the work,

know:' "Well, in that case go ahead:' " That day the manager stomped about the factory like a raging

rooster. "What's going on? What the hell's going on?" he bellowed.

Because it wasn't just one or two workers who were working slowly­ nearly all of them were-he could do nothing but storm about and fume. Neither fishermen nor sailors had ever before seen the manager act like this. From the upper deck they heard the rustling sound of countless crabs that had extricated themselves from the nets and were scuttling about. Like a clogged drain, the work had rapidlv slowed to a near halt. Yet the manager's club was of no use at

After work, everyone shuffled back to the shit-hole, mopping their necks with steaming hand towels. Glancing at each others' faces, they burst out laughing despite themselves. For some reason the situ­ ation struck them as hilariously funny.

The mood spread to the sailors as well. Once they understood that they were being made fools of by being forced to work like the fishermen, they too from time to time resorted to slowdown tactics.

"Yesterday we worked way too much, so today we'll go nice and slow:'

If someone said this as they started to work, everyone went along. But the slowdown only amounted to a refusal to overexert their bodies.

Everyone's body was shOWing signs of breaking down. "We'll work if we absolutely have to;' they thought. "They'll kill us either way:' But they could no longer put up with it.

"THERE'S THE SUPPLY ship! The supply ship's here!" The shouts from the upper deck carried all the way below. Still dressed in every­ one jumped down pell-mell from the shit-hole bunks.

Not even a woman could captivate the fishermen and sailors as much as the supply ship did. This ship did not stink offish, and it bore the fragrance of Hakodate. It carried a fragrance of that solid earth

they had not trodden for months, for hundreds of days. More­ over, the supply ship delivered long-delayed letters, shirts, underwear, magazines, and various other necessities.

They grabbed hold ofthe packages with gnarled hands that reeked of crabs, and rushed down into the shit-hole. Sitting cross-legged in their bunks, they placed the packages over comfortably spread knees, and untied them. All sorts of things tumbled out: their children's

65 64 KOBAYASHI TAKI,I

letters scrawled with words mothers had dictated from the side, hand towels, toothpaste, toothpicks, tissues, clothing, and flattened in their folds, letters from their wives. From each item the men eagerly in­ haled the smell of home and the land it stood on. They strove to catch the scent of their babies, still redolent of mother's milk, and a whiff of their wives' flesh.

Some sang at the top of their voices:

Oh I'm starving to get some! If a three-sen stamp will get it to me, Do send me a can of it, honey!

Those sailors and fishermen who had received nothing paced back and forth with arms thrust stiffly into their trouser pockets. Everyone teased them: "Hey, somebody's snatched away your old lady while you've been gone:'

One of the men was oblivious to the clamor. Lost in thought, he had turned his face toward a dark corner and was counting with fingers over and over. From the letter that the supply ship had brought he had learned that his child had died. All this time the father had lived not knOWing that his child had died a full two months ago. His wife wrote that she had had no money to send a message by radio. The man kept on brooding for so long that his companions started to wonder what was wrong.

Yet the news that reached another man was of the very opposite sort. His package contained a photo of an infant who resembled a plump baby octopus.

"This is my kid?" cried the man, bursting into wild laughter. Then he started to walk around showing the photo to his companions and saying with a grin, "Just look at this newborn critter!"

Some packages showed a special touch, with items tucked in that were nothing to speak of except that only a wife would have thought to include them. Coming upon them, the men's hearts began to pound with excitement. All they wanted was to return home.

Aboard the supply ship there was a movie projection team dis­ patched by the corporation. On the night when the freshly packed

The Crab Cannery Ship

cans had been transferred to the supply vessel they were to show a movie on the cannery ship.

Two or three young men came aboard carrying heavy-looking trunks. With their bowties, thick trousers, and hunting caps worn flattened and slightly aslant, they all looked alike.

"What a stink, what incredible stench!" They took off their jack­ ets and whistled as they began to put up the screen, measure the dis­ tance to the projector, and set up its stand. The fishermen were most fascinated by them, sensing that these men somehow did not belong to the sea and differed from themselves. Cheerfully, sailors and fisher­ men helped them with the preparations.

The most senior-looking of the visitors, a flamboyant man with gold-rimmed glasses, stood a little apart, wiping the sweat from his neck.

"Sir, if you stand there, fleas will hop on your legs." "Whaa-at!" The man leapt up as if he had stepped onto a sheet of

red-hot iron. The watching fishermen burst out laughing. "What an awful place this is!" exclaimed the dandy in a hoarse,

puckish voice. "You probably don't know this, but how much profit do you think the corporation makes coming all the way out here? It's quite a sum. They get five million yen in six months, that's ten million yen in a year. Ten million yen may not sound like much, but it sure is. What's more, no other company in Japan pays stockholders such exorbitant dividends of22.S percent on the stocks. They say the com­ pany president will get to be a member of the Diet in the next election, and then their dreams will come true. I guess if they didn't operate in the awful way they do, they wouldn't be raking it in like they are."

Night fell. A celebration marking the completed packing of ten thousand crates was to accompany the movie, and so rice wine, dis­ tilled spirits, boiled vegetables, cigarettes, and caramels were handed out to everyone.

"Hey, kid, come over here:' Fishermen and sailors began playfully to compete over a young factory hand. "Come sit on my lap:'

"No, no, watch out for him! You come to me:' The clamor continued for a while.

66 KOBAYASHI TAKIJ!

Four or five men in the first row began suddenly to applaud. Everyone took up the applause without knowing why. The manager appeared in front of the white screen. Stretching his arms and folding them behind him, he began to speak using words he did not ordinar­

employ, like "gentlemen" and "myself;' as well as those he always used, like "Japanese men" and "the nation's wealth:' Most of the men were not listening. Their temples and jawbones kept moving as they chewed cuttlefish.

"Shut up already, shut your face!" yelled men from the rear. "Get lost! We don't want to listen to you.»

"Go play with your stick!" someone hollered. Everyone burst out laughing. There was a storm of whistles and

applause. Unable to outshout them, the manager flushed crimson, tried to

say something (which was drowned out by the noise), and withdrew. The movie began.

First they saw footage of famous sights-the Imperial Palace, Matsushima, Enoshima, Kyoto-but the projector was rattling and at times they could see nothing. Images began suddenly to overlap, doubling and tripling in a dizzying confusion until the projector light went out and the screen abruptly turned blank.

Next they showed one foreign and one Japanese movie, but the celluloid was so badly scratched that everything seemed streaked with rain. What was worse, the film seemed to have broken in places and been spliced together, imparting jerky movements to the actors. Yet no one cared about that. Everyone was completely engrossed in the film. When a shapely foreign actress appeared, they snorted like pigs and whistled. At times the benshi who was narrating the movie broke offhis explanations to yell at them.

The foreign movie was American and dealt with the history of "developing the West." Though relentlessly attacked by savages and struck down by merciless nature, settlers bounced back to their feet and went on extending the railroad yard by yard. Along the way towns were erected overnight, springing up like railway spikes. And as the railroad advanced, more and more towns kept cropping up. The movie showed the manifold hardships that arose from all this,

The Cannery Ship 67

weaving into the narrative a "love story" of a laborer and a corpora­ tion director's daughter. As the movie reached its final scene, the ben­ shi's voice rose to a pitch: ''And so, thanks to young people's countless sacrifices, the endlessly snaking railroad succeeded at last in sprinting across the plains and piercing the mountains to transform yesterday's wilderness into today's national wealth:'

The movie climaxed with an embrace between the corporation director's daughter and the laborer, who had magically mutated into a gentleman.

This was followed by a short foreign fIlm, mindless buffoonery that made everyone laugh.

The Japanese feature told of an impoverished youth who sold mented soybeans and evening papers before going on to shine shoes, enter a factory, become a model worker, be promoted, and end up a multimillionaire. "Truly, if hard work is not the mother of success, what is!" exclaimed the benshi, inserting words that did not appear in the subtitles.

Young workers greeted his comment with earnest applause. But someone among the crowd of fishermen and sailors shouted loudly, «What a crock of shit! If that were true, Ia be a company president by now!"

This brought a huge burst oflaughter from everyone. Once the laughter subsided, the benshi explained that the cor­

poration had ordered him to stress the "mother of success" message strongly and repeatedly.

As a final segment they saw footage of all the corporation's facto­ ries and offices. It showed countless workers, all working industriously.

After the movies ended, everyone got drunk on the alcohol that had been provided to celebrate the packing of ten thousand crates. Not having tasted liquor in a long time and having worked past en­ durance, they got dead drunk. Cigarette smoke billowed in clouds un­ der the dim electric light. The air was rotten, thick and stifling. Some stripped to their underwear, hand towels tied around their heads, oth­ ers sat loosely cross-legged with kimonos tucked up above their but­ tocks, shouting all sorts of things at the top of their voices. Fistfights flared up from time to time.

69 68 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

This continued till past midnight. A fisherman from Hakodate who suffered from beriberi and

always stayed in bed got his mates to raise his pillow a little so he could watch the revelry. His friend from the same city was leaning on a nearby pillar, poking a matchstick at a bit of dried cuttlefish stuck between his teeth.

Quite late that night, a fisherman tumbled down the shit-hole stairs like a gunnysack. His clothes and right hand were covered with blood.

"A knife, a knife! Get me a knife!" he screamed as he crawled along the floor. "Where is that fucking Asakawa? Can't find him any­ where. I'll kill that motherfucker."

It was a man whom the manager had once beaten black and blue. Wild-eyed, he snatched up a poker from the stove and stumbled out again. No one stopped him.

"Well, I'll be damned!" The Hakodate fisherman looked up at his friend. "And they say that fishermen are stupid as stumps. This is go­ ing to get interesting!"

The next morning they discovered that the managers cabin­ everything from the windowpanes to the things on his table-had been smashed to pieces. Only the manager, wherever he was, had been lucky enough not to get smashed to pieces.

6

The weather WAS softly overcast. It had been raining hard till the pre­ vious day but now the rain was nearly over. Raindrops the color of cloudy sky fell into the sea of the same color, occasionally stirring up gentle circular ripples.

The destroyer appeared in the early afternoon. Those fishermen, workers, and sailors who happened to be free, ran up to the deck rail to gaze at it admiringly and talk excitedly about it. The warship aroused great curiosity among them.

A small boat was lowered from the destroyer. Bearing a group of officers, it approached the ship. The captain, factory agent, man­ ager, and foreman of the workers waited for them below, beside the

The Crab Cannery Ship

gangway that had been lowered diagonally alongside the ship. As the boat drew up, the captain and the boat commander exchanged sa­ lutes. The manager chanced to glance upward. He waved angrily at the men, his mouth and eyebrows contorting into a grimace. "What are you staring at? Go away, get lost!"

"Don't act so big, you fucker!" The men trooped off down to the factory, those who had been

closest to the railing pushing their way into line. The stench of fish hung in the air and lingered on behind them.

"It sure stinks, doesn't it;' said a young officer with a handsome mustache and an elegant frown.

The manager rushed up from behind to say something to the of­ ficers and to bow over and over.

From far away men watched the officers' decorated daggers bounce against their buttocks with each step. They began discussing seriously which of the officers looked the most distinguished. In the end their debate almost led to a quarrel.

"In this company Asakawa looks pathetic;' said one of the men, mimicking Asakawa's fawning attitude. His comrades laughed.

With the manager and foreman both absent, work was easy that day. Men sang and talked loudly across the machines.

"How great it would be if we could work like this every day:' After finishing work they all climbed to the upper deck. Pass­

ing in front of the saloon, they heard a clamor of drunk and chaotic shouts from within. The cabin boy came out. The interior of the sa­ loon was dense with tobacco smoke.

The cabin boy's flushed face was beaded with sweat. His arms were wrapped around a great many empty beer bottles. He pointed to his trousers' pocket with his chin. "Wipe my face for me, would you?"

A fisherman pulled out the handkerchief and wiped the cabin boy's face. With a glance at the saloon, he asked "What're they up to?"

"Ah, it's a pretty sight in there. They're guzzling like fish, and go­ ing on and on about ... all about women's you-know-what. They got me running back and forth hundreds of times. When functionaries from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry bother to show up they get so drunk they almost falloff the gangway:'

70 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

"What do they come for?" The cabin boy made a face to suggest he didn't know, and rushed

off to the galley. The fishermen ate their meaL It consisted of crumbly Nanking

rice that was hard to pick up with chopsticks, and paper-thin bits of vegetables floating in salty miso soup.

"They've got loads of foreign foods in that saloon, foods I've never eaten or even seen:'

"Fuckem:' A clumsily handwritten sign had been pasted to the bulkhead be­

side the table:

L Anyone who complains about the food will never become a success.

2. Treasure every grain of rice. It's a gift of blood and sweat. 3. Put up with discomfort and pain.

In the lower margin someone had scribbled an obscene comment of the sort that is found in public lavatories.

After eating and before going to sleep, the men gathered briefly around the stove. Talking about the destroyer led to talk about sol­ diers. The topic strangely engrossed them. Many of the fishermen were peasants from Akita, Aomori, and Iwate, and many had been in the army. Although their army life had been filled with brutalities, they now recalled various incidents with nostalgia.

When they settled down to sleep, the noise from the saloon sud­ denly grew audible, transmitted along the ship's deck boards and sides. they still at it?" thought a man who chanced to wake up. "It's nearly dawn!" Someone-perhaps the cabin boy-kept coming and going overhead, the heels of his shoes clicking against the deck. The din continued until daybreak.

The group of officers had evidently returned to the destroyer, and the gangway remained lowered in the wake of their departure. Five or six of its successive steps were covered with gobs of rice, crab meat, brown muck, and vomit. The vomit emanated a strong stench of ran­ cid alcohol. It assaulted mens nostrils and made them gag.

The Crab Ship 71

The destroyer floated like a gray seabird with folded wings, im­ perceptibly rocking. It looked completely given over to sleep. A wisp of woolly smoke, more slender than that of a cigarette, rose from its smokestack into the windless sky.

The manager, foreman, and their fellow carousers did not get up even at noon.

"Those pricks do just as they damn like!" grumbled the men as they worked.

From the corners of the galley rose enormous mounds of beer bottles and half-eaten cans of crab. By the morning, even the cabin boy who had carried them in was astonished at the amount the revel­ ers had managed to drink and devour.

Thanks to the nature of his work, the cabin boy knew much more about the details of the captains, manager's, and factory agent's lives than the fishermen or sailors ever could. At the same time, he knew how sharply they contrasted with the miserable lives of the fishermen (whom the manager referred to as "swine" whenever he was drunk). He could honestly say that men at the top were arrogant characters who breezily thought up contemptible schemes in order to turn a profit. The fishermen and sailors were easy prey for those schemes. He could not endure watching that

So long as nobody catches on, he always thought, things would stay quiet. Eventually something was bound to happen-it could not but happen-and he felt he knew what that would be.

lt was around two. The captain, manager, and a few others set out by launch for the destroyer. They were wearing badly wrinkled suits that seemed to have been clumsily folded the previous night. Two sailors accompanied them, arms loaded with cans. Fishermen and workers working on deck continued to shell crabs and stared at the bigwigs as though watching a bridal procession.

"What the hell are they up to now?" "They treat the cans we made like toilet paper!" "Still and all:' said an aging fisherman whose left hand was miss­

ing two fingers. "They came all the way here just to protect us, and that's all right ... Ain't it?"

That evening the destroyer's smokestack suddenly began emitting

73 72 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

billows of smoke. Sailors started to rush along its decks. Some thirty minutes later the destroyer began to move. The flag at its stern flapped loudly in the wind. From the cannery ship rose cries of "Hurrah!" led by the captain.

After supper the cabin boy came down into the shit-hole. Men were sitting around the stove and talking. Some stood under the dim light picking lice from their shirts. Each time their bodies blocked the light, the men cast great oblique shadows on the painted, sooty bulkheads.

"Let me tell you what the officers, captain, and the manager are up to. It looks like we're going to be sneaking into Russian territory to fish there. And so the destroyer's going to stick close to us all the time and guard us. They're going to be making lots and lots of this:' He made a circle with his thumb and forefinger in the shape of a coin.

"They're saying that Kamchatka and northern Karafuto are roll­ ing with money to be made, and they're making damned sure to add this whole area to Japan. They say this region is just as important to Japan as China and Manchuria. On top of that, it seems that this cor­ poration's gotten together with Mitsubishi to nudge the government along. If the company president gets into the Diet at the next election, they'll really be stepping things up.

'~nd so they say the destroyer's been sent to guard the cannery ship, but it turns out that's not the main reason. They're going to carry out a detailed survey of the sea around here, northern Karafuto, and Chishima Islands, and to study the climate. That's the big objective and it has to be carried out thoroughly. I guess it must be a secret, but it seems they're quietly moving artillery and fuel oil to the northern­ most of the Chishima Islands.

"It bowled me over when I first heard it, but when you come right down to it the truth is that every single one of Japan's wars to this day was fought at the orders of a few rich or super-rich men (I'm talking really rich men), with the excuses cooked up any which way. Anyhow, these crooks are itching like crazy to get their hands on every place they smell money. They're looking for trouble:'

The Crab Cannery Ship

7 A fishing boat was coming down, lowered by rattling winches. Be­ cause the winches' arms were short, four men stood directly beneath the descending boat waiting to push it over the edge of the deck. Ac­ cidents or near-misses were frequent. The decrepit ship's winches creaked like the knees of a man sick with beriberi. The cogwheels that controlled the wires were worn out, causing one wire to unroll much faster than the other. Sometimes the boat ended up dangling aslant like a smoked herring. At such times a fisherman standing be­ low could get caught by surprise and injured. That is what happened this morning. Someone shouted, '~h, watch out!" just as a fisherman's head, struck directly from above, was hammered like a stake into his own torso.

His mates carried him to the ship's physician. Those who by now thoroughly loathed the manager decided to ask the doctor to write out a medical certificate. Because the manager was a veritable snake in human skin he could be counted on to find a way of avoiding re­ sponsibility for the accident. The men needed a medical certificate to strengthen their protest, and they knew that the doctor was fairly sympathetic toward them.

"On this ship a lot more people get hurt and sick from being punched and beaten than from work:' he had once said in surprise. The doctor kept a daily diary for later use as evidence. And he treated the sick and injured fishermen and seamen rather kindly.

One of the men brought up the subject of a certificate. The doctor looked rattled. "Well, now, a medical certificate .. :' "Please just write what happened:' His indecision was beginning

to be irritating. "They're not letting me write those on this ship. Apparently they

just decided not to allow it. They're worried about the consequences

"Damn it!" The short-tempered Stuttering Fisherman irritably clicked his tongue.

"Some time ago a man came in who had been hit by Asakawa and lost his hearing. I wrote out a certificate for him and thought

74 75 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

nothing of it. 1 caught hell for it. That's permanent evidence, Asakawa said .. :'

The men filed out of the doctor's cabin convinced that even he was no longer on their side.

Amazingly, the injured fisherman managed somehow to stay alive. But for many days he kept stumbling over things even in day­ time, and moaning in dark corners wherever he happened to falL

Around the time when the wounded man began to recover and no longer tormented others with his groans, the fisherman who had long been bedridden with beriberi died. He was twenty-six. He had come through an agency in the Nippori section of Tokyo together with ten or so of his friends. The manager, not wanting anything to interfere with the next day's work, allowed only those who were sick to hold a wake for him.

As they undid his clothes in order to wash him, a nauseating stench arose from the youth's body. Ghastly lice, white and flat, scat­ tered about in panic. The body was covered with scale-like flakes of dirt, resembling the trunk of a pine. Each rib stood out sharply on his chest. Unable to walk once his illness worsened, he evidently had urinated where he lay and so his entire body stank terribly. His loin­ cloth and shirt had both turned dark brown and tattered as if they had been sprayed with sulfuric acid. His navel was virtually invisible, its hollow completely clogged with dust and dirt. Dried shit clung to his buttocks like clay.

"I don't want to die in Kamchatka;' he is supposed to have said as he died. But most likely no one had been at his side looking after him when he took leave of Hfe. Nobody wanted to die here in Kamchatka. Thinking of how he must have felt, some of the fishermen wept aloud.

"Poor fellow;' said the cook when a fisherman came to fetch the water to wash him with. "Go ahead and take a lot. His body's got to be awfully dirty:'

On the way back, the fisherman met the manager. "Where're you taking that?" "We're washing the body:' "Don't waste if' He seemed to want to say something more, but

walked on.

Cannery Ship

The fisherman got back and told his comrades, "I tell you, I wanted so bad to dump hot water over that scumbag's head!" He was trembling with rage.

The pigheaded manager kept coming around to see what they were doing. Everyone had resolved to stay up for the wake even if it meant dozing on the job the next day or doing a slowdown. The mat­ ter was settled.

By eight oelock, the basic preparations were complete. The men lit incense and candles, and sat down with folded knees before their friend's body. This time the manager did not come, but the captain and the ship's doctor sat with them for about an hour. A fisherman who remembered some scriptural phrases was asked to chant a sutra. Although his delivery was halting and broken, everyone told him, "You're doing fine, the feeling is there:' The chanting was accompa­ nied by total silence. Someone sniffled. Toward the end, more than a few men were weeping.

FollOwing the chanting, everyone took turns offering incense. Next they sat down less formally, gathered in small groups. The con­ versation moved from their dead friend to themselves who were still alive though, come to think of it, only precariously so. After the cap­ tain and the doctor had left, the Stuttering Fisherman stepped up to a table that stood close to the body. The tabletop was covered with incense and candles.

"I don't know the sutras. I can't console Yamada's spirit by chant­ ing sutras. But I've been thinking a lot, and here's what I think. I've thought about how much Yamada didn't want to die .... No, to tell the truth, I've thought about how much he didn't want to be killed. There's no denying that Yamada was killed:'

His listeners fell silent, as though held in a hard grip. "So, who killed him? I don't need to tell you, you know who! I

can't console Yamada's spirit with a sutra. But we can console Yama­ da's spirit by taking our revenge against his killer. I think that now's the time we must swear to Yamada's spirit that we'll do that .. :'

The sailors were the first to say: "You're right:' The fragrance of incense wafted like perfume through the stuffy

air and fishy smell of the shit-hole. At nine o'clock, the workers went

77 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI76

back to their quarters. Tired, dozing youths, their bodies like sacks full of rocks, found it hard to get up. After a while even a fisherman or two who stayed at the wake succumbed to sleep. Waves began to rise. Each time the ship swayed, candle flames tapered as if about to go out and then brightened again. The white cotton cloth that covered the dead face moved as though about to slide off. Watching the stirring fabric made the men shiver with an eerie sensation. The waves started to beat against the ship's sides.

After eight o'clock the next morning, four sailors and fishermen who had been chosen by the manager stopped working and went downstairs. The fisherman of the previous evening chanted another sutra, and then with the help of several sick men they placed the corpse into a hemp sack. Although there were many new hemp sacks on board, the manager had not let them have one, not wishing to waste it on something that would soon be thrown into the sea. The ship's supply of incense sticks had already run out.

"Look at the poor guy. Of course he didn't want to die:' The young man's arms were hard to fold. While trying to force his

palms together in prayer, his companions shed tears onto the hemp sack.

"No, can't let your tears fall on him .. :' "Isn't there some way to bring him back to Hakodate? ... Just

look at his face: ain't he telling us he don't want to go into these god­ forsaken Kamchatka waters? Nobody wants to get dumped into the sea all alone ..."

"This Kamchatka's a sea like no other. After September, once it gets to be winter, you can't see a Single ship anywhere. The whole sea freezes over. We're at the northern edge of the north!"

"Yeah .. :' A man was quietly weeping. '1\nd why are only six or seven of us seeing him off? There are three or four hundred of us on this ship!"

"They don't treat us right even once we're dead .. :' They had requested at least half a day off from work, but the catch

of crabs had greatly increased since the previous day and their wish was denied. "Don't mix personal affairs with business;' the manager had told them.

The Crab Cannery Ship

"Are you done yet?" demanded the manager now, showing his face through the opening in the shit-hole ceiling.

"Yes .. :' they muttered reluctantly. "Then take him away:' "But first the captain's supposed to say a few words in his memory:' "The captain? In his memory?" The voice brimmed with scorn.

"You idiots! You think we got time for that?" There was no time for that. Mountains ofcrabs rose high on deck,

their claws rustling and scraping against the boards. And so the dead youth was swiftly carried out and stowed un­

ceremoniously, like a straw sack of salmon or trout, aboard a motor launch tied to the ship's stern.

"Ready?" "Let's go." With a put -put of its engine, the launch began to move. The water

behind the boat churned up with foam. "Well .. :' "Well ..." "Farewell:' "You'll be lonely out there .... Try to put up with it;' someone

whispered. "Take good care of him;' they asked the men in the launch. '1\11 right, we will:' The launch moved off toward the open sea. "Well, that's that! .. ?' "He's gone from us:' "Just looking at him you could see plain as day how much he

hated it, hated to go like that. Inside that damned sack .. :' Back from fishing, men heard how callously the manager had

gotten rid of the dead boy. Even before they could flare up with rage, they shuddered with horror as though their own dead bodies had been heartlessly dumped into the dark depths of the Kamchatka sea. Speechless, they filed down the gangway. Taking off jackets soaked heavy with the brine, they muttered, "We get it, we sure get the message:'

78 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

8

Outwardly they showed nothing. They kept on slowing down the pace of work invisibly. No matter how much the manager railed and lashed out at them, they remained ostensibly docile and refrained from re­ acting or talking back. They repeated the slowdown every other day. Though at first they were fearful and nervous, they kept it up. After their comrade's burial at sea, their actions grew more coordinated.

The output was visibly declining. Although they were the ones who suffered most on the job, some

of the older fishermen looked askance at the slowdown. Even so, amazed that their secret fears did not materialize and seeing that the slowdown was quite effective, they began to go along with the young fishermen's suggestions.

It was the boat bosses who found themselves in the worst di­ lemma. Squeezed between the fishermen and the manager, they bore full responsibility for the fishing boats and knew the manager would blame them for any decline in the fishing output. That made their position the hardest. Ultimately, one third grudgingly sided with the fishermen and the rest with the manager.

"Sure, it's tough. We can't have regular work hours here like in a factory. We're dealing with living creatures. Crabs won't turn up just when it suits us. It can't be helped:' Their words copied the manager's like a phonograph recording.

One night, a conversation taking place in the shit -hole took an unex­ pected turn. A boat boss happened to make a cocky comment. Though he was not being especially arrogant, the rank-and-file men took of­ fense. And the fisherman he had been talking to was a little drunk.

"What did you say?" the fisherman suddenly shouted. "Who the hell do you think you are? Better not act so big, you fucker. When we're fishing out there, it'll be a snap for a couple of us to toss you into the sea. That'll be that. This is Kamchatka, you know. Nobody's going to know how you croaked!"

No one had ever spoken this way. Now he roared it out in a hoarse booming voice. Nobody said anything. All other conversation abruptly broke off.

Ship 79The Crab

Yet such words did not spring from reckless bravado. who till now had known only servile submission, quite unexpectedly felt a tremendous force thrusting them forward. At first they were bewildered. Gradually they realized that their own power, whose pres­ ence they had not suspected, was manifesting itself.

"But are we capable of making use of that power?" they wondered. Of course they were.

Once they understood it, a wonderful spirit of rebellion filled their hearts. The very hardships of the agonizing work that had been wrung from them turned into a splendid foundation for their defi­ ance. Now the manager and his ilk could go to hell! They were elated. This new feeling suddenly enabled them to see their wormlike lives vividly, as though illuminated by a flashlight's beam.

The phrase "Better not act so big" grew popular with everyone. When provoked, they growled, "Better not act so big, you fucker:' They were quick to say it at other times too. But among the fishermen themselves, no one acted big.

Incidents of this sort took place often. Each time they did, the fishermen's ability to "get it" went on growing. And as experiences accumulated, three or four fishermen kept conSistently coming to the fore. No one chose them, nor did they choose themselves. Yet whenever something happened or something needed to be done, the opinions of those three or four coincided with those of everyone else, and so everyone started to move in the same direction. The group included two ex-students, the Stuttering Fisherman, and the Don't­ act-so-big Fisherman.

One of the students spent a whole night writing something on a piece of paper as he lay on his stomach licking his pencil over and over. It was the ex-student's "Proposal (diagram of people in charge):' [See page 80.]

"How about it?" said the student proudly. No matter what hap­ pened in groups A or C, he confidently announced, they could swiftly and flawlessly focus on the overall problem. His proposal was adopted in its entirety. But putting it into practice proved not so easy. The student's proud slogan was: ''Anyone who doesn't want to get killed, come and join us!"

80 81 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

Proposal (diagram of people in charge)

Group A GroupB GroupC

Workers' rep Head of each regional group Two students

2 Fishermen's reps Two from each boat

Stuttering guy Sailors' rep ]

Sailors and stokers

1 Stokers' rep Don't-act-so-big

A ---.... B ---....,..... C ----+- Everyone

..., ..., ..

He told everyone the story of Mori Motonari, a feudal lord who had his three sons confirm for themselves that a single arrow could easily be broken but three arrows held together could not. He described a "Tug of War" poster produced by the Home Ministry that also illustrated the importance of working together. "Given four or five of us, it's a cinch to knock a boat boss into the sea. Cheer up.

"One on one is no good. It's dangerous. But there're practically four hundred of us. If four hundred work together, we win. It's ten against four hundred! If they want to fight, just let them try it." He concluded: "Anyone who doesn't want to get killed, come and join us!"

Even the blockheads and drunkards among the men under­ stood that the life they were being forced to lead was threatening to kill them-they had actually seen their comrades killed before their very eyes. And since the fledgling slowdown they had resorted to in desperation was turning out to be unexpectedly effective, they were quite ready to comply with the students' and the Stuttering Fisher­

man's suggestions. The previous week's storm had broken the motor launch's pro­

peller. In order to repair it, the foreman had gone ashore together

The Crab Cannery

with four or five fishermen. On their return, a young fisherman se­ cretly brought along a great many "Red propaganda" pamphlets and fliers printed in Japanese. "There are Japanese out there doing a lot of this;' he said. The contents dealt with their low wages, long working hours, gross corporate profits, strikes, and the like, so everyone read them to each other with great interest and questioned one another about them. Some of them recoiled against what was written in the pamphlets, doubting that their fellow Japanese could do such terrible things. But others came with fliers in hand to ask the student ques­ tions and said, "We think that this is true:'

"Sure, it's true. A little overstated but true:' "Well, if we didn't do anything, would Asakawa have a change of

heart?" they asked laughing. "We're getting much worse treatment, so what we're doing is only natural!"

Meantime the fishermen went on denouncing the "Red move­ ment" as an outrage while beginning to grow curious about it.

During storms or whenever there was a thick fog, the ship con­ tinuously blew its horn calling to the fishing boats. For up to two full hours the horn's powerful siren blared like a lowing bull through the fog's liqUid density. Even so, not all boats were able to return. But some crews were so worn out with the excruciating work that they de­ liberately pretended to be lost and drifted to Kamchatka. Sometimes they secretly planned it in advance. After entering Russian territorial waters to fish, they headed for the coast and drifted ashore with sur­ prising ease. Many of them were ready to "turn Red:'

The corporation always took utmost care in hiring fishermen. Corporate officials asked local village headmen and police chiefs to deliver them "model youths." They chose submissive workers who had no interest in labor unions or activism. They recruited "astutely:' so that everything would work in their favor! However, the inhumane work aboard the crab cannery ships achieved precisely the opposite effect of uniting the workers-oforganizing them. The capitalists, with all their "astuteness;' had not foreseen this marvelous development. The brutal toil educated the workers-both the unorganized laborers and the hopeless "drunks" whom they had expressly and cynically brought together. It taught them to unite.

9

83 82 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

The manager was starting to panic. Compared to the annual rate of catch toward the close of the fish­

ing season, the quantity of crabs had clearly diminished. Asking other ships about it, he learned that their results seemed to be better than the previous year's. His ship was two thousand crates behind. This convinced the manager that playing the compassionate Buddha as he had up to now was a mistake.

The main ship decided to move on. The manager, constantly eavesdropping on radio communications, had even the other ships' nets coolly and swiftly hauled up. The first net was raised after they had sailed twenty nautical miles south. It was bursting with crabs, their claws squirming in its mesh. The catch unmistakably belonged to ship XX.

"Great work:' said the manager with uncharacteristic warmth, patting the company agent on the shoulder.

From time to time the ship's launch was discovered raising others' nets and had to make a precipitous getaway. As a result of indiscrimi­ nate raids on other ships' nets, the amount of work rose sharply.

Anyone neglecting his work in the slightest will be branded. Those who indulge in collective idling will be subject to the Kamchatka drill. Their wages will be cancelled as punish­ ment, and on return to Hakodate they will be handed over to the police. Anyone showing the slightest defiance to the manager will be shot.

MANAGER ASAKAWA & THE FOREMAN

This large sign was posted at the top of the stairs leading to the factory. The manager always carried a fully loaded pistol. At unex­ pected times he aimed it over workers' heads, at seagulls or random spots on the ship, and fired as "a show of force:' As startled fishermen flinched, he flashed a broad grin. A sinister feeling struck them all that he was perfectly willing to shoot any of them dead for almost any reason.

The Crab Cannery Ship

Every sailor and stoker was mobilized and arbitrarily put to all sorts of work. The captain, long reduced to a figurehead, was unable to utter a Single word of objection. He was forced to sail the ship into Soviet territorial waters in order to fish there. He had insisted that in his official capacity as a captain he could not violate international law.

"To hell with you!" retorted the manager. "Nobody's asking you for a favor!" The manager and his cohorts steered the ship into Rus­ sian territory on their own. A Russian patrol boat spotted them, however, and gave chase. Under interrogation the manager grew confused and cravenly retreated, doing his best to shift the blame onto the skipper. "Of course full responsibility for the ship lies with the captain .. :' Thus the figurehead had his uses, and that in itself was enough.

After that incident, the captain often thought of turning the ship back to Hakodate. But the power that prevented him from doing it­ the power of capitalists-kept him in its grip and prevailed.

"Get it through your head: the corporation owns this whole damned ship!" sneered the manager. He stretched to his full height and roared with laughter.

Returning to the shit-hole, the Stuttering Fisherman threw him­ self onto his bunk and lay face up, bitterly disappointed. Other fisher­ men gazed at him and the students with sympathy, but felt too crushed to say anything. The organization chart drawn up by the student had been of no more use than wastepaper. Even so, the student remained rather optimistic.

"We'll spring to action when something happens:' he said. "We just need to grab a good hold of that something:'

"You seriously think so?" challenged the Don't -act-big Fisherman. "Do I? Don't be stupid. We've got the numbers. There's nothing

to be scared of. For now, everyone's holding back. But the worse they treat us the more discontent and frustration they jam-pack into us all, and these are more powerful than gunpowder. That's what I'm count­ ing on:'

"It'd be good if we were ready to act;' grumbled Don't-act-big, looking around the shit-hole. "None of these characters are .. :'

"If we start to grumble, it's allover:'

85 84 KOBAYASHI TAKI/I

"Look, you're the only one who's cheerful. The next thing we start, our lives will be on the line:'

The student's face darkened. "That's right ... :' he said. The manager patrolled the shit-hole three times a night, accom­

panied by a subordinate. Whenever he came across a duster of three or four men he thundered at them to disperse. Unwilling to leave it at that, he secretly ordered one ofhis underlings to sleep in the shit-hole.

The workers' chains were all but visible. They weighed on every­ one, making them feel as though inch-thick iron shackles dragged from their legs as they walked.

"I'll get killed for sure." "Yeah, but when you realize you're about to get killed anyway,

that's the time to do if' "Idiot!" butted in the fisherman from Shibaura loudly. "When

you realize it? And when's that going to happen, you fool? Aren't you being killed right now? They're killing you bit by bit, brother. They know what they're doing. They carry pistols like they'll shoot you any minute, but they're not likely to do something so stupid. That's just a trick:. Do you get it? They know that if they kill us, they're the ones who lose out. Their goal-their real goal-is to make us work like the devil, tie us to the tree, squeeze us till we squeak, and make loads of profits from us. That's what they're putting us through every day. Were in one hell of a mess, don't you think? Our bodies are being killed just like mulberry leaves are gobbled up by silkworms."

"Noway!" "No way, my ass:' A speck of cigarette flame rolled onto a thick

palm. "Fucked ifyou don't see it for yourself soon enough!" The ship had gone too far south where there was little to catch

except many small-bodied female crabs, so it was decided to move north. The men were made to work overtime and for the first time in a long while the work finished a little earlier than usuaL

Everyone tramped down into the shit-hole. "You don't look so good;' said the man from Shibaura. "Well, look at my legs. They're so wobbly I can't even go down any

stairs any more." "Sorry to hear it. And you're still trying to work as hard as you can:'

The Crab Cannery Ship

"Who, me? Can't be helped:'

The man from Shibaura laughed. "So being killed can't be helped either, huh?"

«

"Well, if you keep on like this, you've got four or five days to go:' The sick man twisted his swollen yellowish cheeks and eyelids

into an indignant grimace. He mutely walked over to his bunk, sat down, and dangling his legs over the edge started to pound his knee­ joints with the edge of his hand.

In a lower bunk, Shibaura talked waving his arms. The Stuttering Fisherman rocked back and forth, nodding at his words.

': .. See? Let's suppose the ship exists because the rich put up the money and had it built. If there were no sailors and stokers, could the ship move? There're hundreds of millions of crabs on the bottom of the sea. Let's suppose we all got our gear and came out here because the rich were able to put up the money. But if we didn't work, would even one solitary crab end up in the pockets of the rich? See? Now, think about how much money's coming our way after we work here all summer. Yet from this ship alone the rich will snatch four or five hundred thousand yen of pure profit. Well, we are the source of that money. Nothing comes out of nothing. You see? Everything's in our power. And so I'm telling you to wipe that gloomy look off your mug. Show them who you are. In their heart of hearts they're scared shitless of us, and that's no lie. So don't be timid.

"Without sailors and stokers, ships wouldn't budge. Without the workers' labor, not one lousy penny would roll into the pockets of the rich. Even the money to buy the ship, to outfit and equip it, comes out of profits wrung from the blood of other workers. It's money that's been squeezed out of us. The rich and we are masters and slaves ..."

The manager walked in. Everybody dammed up and began to shuffle out.

10

The air was cold as glass, transparent and dear. At two in the morn­ ing it was already daybreak. Kamchatka's mountain range, shining

87 86 KOBAYASHI TAKljl

golden and purple, rose from the sea in a slender line that ran all along the southern horizon. Ripples icily glittered, each one catching the light of the rising sun. They kept colliding and breaking, mingling and dissolving, sparkling with each move. Cries of invisible seagulls rang through the air. The cold was invigorating. Sheets of oil-stained canvas covering the cargo fluttered and flapped from time to time.

Imperceptibly it grew windy. Poking his arms through the sleeves of his jacket like a scare­

crow, a fisherman climbed up the stairway and thrust his head from the hatchway. Startled he shouted, "Hey, the rabbits are flying! A big

windstorm's coming up:' Triangular waves came rushing at the ship. Fishermen accus­

tomed to the Kamchatka sea instantly knew what that meant. "No fishing today, way too dangerous:'

An hour went by. Men stood around in groups of seven or eight under the fishing

boat winches. The boats swung in the air, each lowered only halfway. Men shrugged and argued gazing at the sea. A few minutes went by.

"I quit! I quit!" "They can go fuck themselves!" It was as if they had been waiting for somebody to say it. As they jostled and milled about, someone else said, "Hey, let's

pull the boats back up:' "Yes!" "Yes, a damn good idea!" "But .. :' A man looked up at the winch and hesitated, frowning. "If you want to drown, go out there by yourself!" said another

scornfully, turning away with a jerk of his shoulder. The whole group began to leave. "1 wonder if this is really OK;'

whispered someone. Two men uncertainly lagged behind. At the next pair of winches too fishermen stood motionless. See­

ing the crew of Boat Number 2 walking toward them they understood what it meant. Four or five of them waved and raised their voices:

"Were quitting! Were quitting!" "That's right, time to quit!" As the two groups met, their spirits rose. Two or three men who

The Crab Cannery Ship

were not sure what to do looked on, baffled. The newly formed group moved on to join the crew of Boat Number 5. Seeing this, the men who had been hanging back started to walk forward, grumbling.

The Stuttering Fisherman turned around and shouted loudly, "Be tough!"

Like a rolling snowball becoming larger and larger, the group of fishermen kept on growing. The Stuttering Fisherman and the stu­ dents ran constantly back and forth between the group's front and its rear. ''All right, don't let yourselves get separated! That's the most im­ portant thing. Stay together and we're safe. That's it, now were good!"

Fishermen who sat in a circle mending ropes near the smokestack straightened their backs and called out, "Hey, what happened?"

The advancing group lifted their arms toward them, and raised a great shout. Sailors watching from above saw a forest of waving arms.

"Good, that does it! We're stopping work:' They briskly began to put away the ropes. "We've been waiting

for this!" The fishermen understood. Once more they raised a great cry. "First of all, let's get everyone out of the shit-hole. Yes, let's do it.

That motherfucker knows damn well that a storm's coming up, and he still has the nerve to order the boats out! What a fucking murderer!"

"Damned if we're going to let him kill us!" "Now he'll see who he's been messing with!" Almost everyone headed for the shit-hole. A few came along re­

luctantly. As they all noisily barged into the shit-hole, a sick man lying in

the darkness raised his board-thin torso in surprise. At their explana­ tion his eyes welled up with tears and he nodded his head over and over.

The Stuttering Fisherman and the students followed a stairway, flimsy as a rope ladder, down into the engine room. Hurrying and un­ accustomed to the stairs, they repeatedly lost their footing and dan­ gled precariously by their hands. The interior was dark and stifling with heat from the boiler. Their bodies soon grew covered with sweat. They crossed a flat metal footway over the boiler and went down an­ other ramp. Loud voices rang out and echoed below them. They were

89 88 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

assailed by a sinister feeling of descending for the first time into the deep-sunk pit of a subterranean hell.

"Damn, this is backbreaking work too:' "It sure is, but w-what are we going to do if they drag them out on

deck and make them work killing c-crabs?" "Not to worry, the stokers are on our side!" "That's good!" They were climbing down alongside the boiler. "Damn, it's hot. I can't stand this heat. It's enough to turn a person

into smoked meae' "That's no joke. It's this hot and the fire's not even lit now. Imagine

what it's like when they fire it up!" "Goddamn, it must be bad:' "Crossing the Indian Ocean, guys work in half-hour shifts and

still get totally exhausted. One time a first engineer bitched about something without thinking. First they pounded him with shovels and then threw him into the firebox. That's how ugly it can get!"

"You don't say. Yeah, I can believe it .. :' A pile of coal ashes stood in front of the boiler. It seemed to have

been doused with water, and a cloud of dust rose from it. Half-naked stokers sat nearby with arms around their knees, smoking and talk­ ing. In the semi-darkness they closely resembled crouching gorillas. The coal bunker's hatch stood half open, its chilly pitch-black interior eerily yawning.

"Hey!" shouted the Stuttering Fisherman. "Who's there?" The stokers looked up, their cry reverberating

with a triple echo: "Who's there? Who's there? Who's there?" The new arrivals came down. Seeing them, one of the stokers bel­

lowed, "Did you two take a wrong turn?" "We're on strike:' "You're what?" "We are on strike:' "You've really gone on strike!" "No shit! How about us firing up full blast and heading back to

Hakodate? That'd be interesting:' The Stuttering Fisherman thought, 'They're with us!'

The Crab Cannery Ship

"Once we're all together, we're going to take on those sons of bitches!"

"Yeah, you go give 'em helll" exclaimed a stoker. "Not just us, you too;' pointed out the student. "Let's give 'em hell

together!" "Sure, sure, I was wrong. Let's give 'em hell together!" The stoker

scratched his head, white with coal ash. Everyone laughed. "We'd like you all to organize yourselves:' "All right, no problem. We've always wanted to take a good punch

at those fuckers:' The stokers had been won over. All the factory workers were brought to where the fishermen

had gathered. The stokers and sailors joined them within the hour. Everyone stood assembled on deck. The Stuttering Fisherman, the students, Shibaura, and Don't-act-big jOintly drew up a list of de­ mands. They decided to confront the manager and his cohorts with it, in everyone's presence.

As soon as they learned about the commotion among the fisher­ men, the manager and the others were nowhere to be seen.

"Hmm, that's funny:' "It is strange:' "That pistol ofhis isn't doing him a fuck of a lot ofgood right now:' The Stuttering Fisherman stepped up onto a small platform.

Everyone clapped. "Brothers, we're finally here! We've been waiting for a long, long

time. Even while we were being worked half to death, we waited. We thought: you'll see soon enough. But now we're finally here.

"The most important thing of all, brothers, is to join forces and keep our power united. Whatever happens, we must never betray a comrade. If we just hang on tightly to that, they'll be easier to crush than worms. So, what's the second most important thing? The second most important thing, brothers, is also to keep our power united. Not to have anyone drop out. Not to have a single traitor, not a single turn­ coat. We must know that just one turncoat kills three hundred lives. One turncoat .. :'

91 90 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

"We get it, we get it:' Shouts interrupted him. "It'll be all right.

Don't worry, keep going." "Whether we can beat them at negotiations, whether or not we

can fulfill our task, all of that depends on the strength of our unity,

brothers:' The stokers' delegate was the next to get up, followed by the sailors:

The stokers' delegate began to speak in words he normally never used, and grew flustered. Each time he became stuck for a word he blushed crimson, tugged at the hem of his overalls, thrust his hands into holes in its worn-out fabric, and fidgeted. Noticing it, his listeners roared with laughter and pounded the deck with their feet.

"Okay, I'll quit talking. But, brothers, give those scumbags a good beating!" With that, he stepped down from the platform. He received

a mischievously overblown ovation. "He should've just said that last part;' joked someone, triggering

a fresh uproar oflaughter. The stoker was drenched in more sweat than hdl work up wield­

ing his long coal-shovel in midsummer and even his legs barely sup­ ported him. "What the hell was I talking about?" he asked his com­

panions as he stepped down. The student clapped him on the shoulder. "You were great,

great;' he said laughing. "It's your fault. There're so many others, it didn't have to be me .. :' A worker of about fifteen stepped up onto the platform. "Brothers, we've been waiting for this day. You all know how our

friends have been abused and tormented inside this cannery ship. At night we wrap ourselves in those thin blankets, think about our homes, and cry. Just ask any worker that's standing here. There hasn't been a single night when we haven't all cried. All our bodies are cov­ ered with raw wounds. If things go on like this for even three more days, some of us are gonna die for sure. If our families had a little bit of money, at our age we could still be going to school and playing like

kids instead of being so far from .. :' The boy's voice grew husky and he stammered. He continued qui­

etly, as though holding himself in check. "But that doesn't matter now. It's all right. Thanks to the help of

The Crab Cannery Ship

you grownups we'll be able to get even with those mean, rotten bas­ tards .. :'

This brought on a storm of applause. Clapping like mad, an older fisherman furtively wiped a corner of his eye with a thick fingertip.

The students and the Stuttering Fisherman walked around col­ lecting signatures for a written oath that bore everyone's name on it.

It was decided that two students, the Stuttering Fisherman, Don't­ act-big, Shibaura, three stokers, and three seamen would take the list of demands and the oath to the captain's cabin while everyone else held a demonstration in front of it. Everything was settled with as­ tonishing ease. Unlike on land where people live in scattered loca­ tions, here they were all concentrated in one place, and moreover, adequate groundwork had been laid. That made for smooth progress. So smooth, in fact, that it was hard to believe.

"Funny the devil's not showing his ugly mug anywhere:' "I thought heCl get so worked up he'd be firing off that fancy pistol

of his." At a Signal from the Stuttering Fisherman they raised a cheer,

three hundred of them thundering in unison: "Strike, hurrah! Strike, hurrah! Strike, HURRAH!"

"That ought to make the fucking manager quiver in his boots;' thought the student with a smile. The delegates pushed their way into the captain's cabin.

The manager met them pistol in hand. The captain, foreman, factory agent, and the rest of them had ob­

viously been discussing something till that very moment. The manag­ er was calm. As the delegates entered, he grinned. "So, you've done if'

Three hundred men stood together outside, their voices raised in a roar and their feet thunderously pounding the deck. "Noisy bas­ tards!" said the manager quietly. The delegates, seemingly oblivious to the uproar, began to speak excitedly. The manager carelessly heard them out, cast a perfunctory glance at the list of demands and the oath, and said slowly with evident boredom, ''Are you sure you won't regret this?"

"You son of a bitch!" shouted the Stuttering Fisherman suddenly, seeming about to smash the manager's face.

93 92 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

"All right, fine. Possibly you won't regret it;' said the manager, and took on a somewhat different tone. "Listen up. Here's what I'll do. I'll give you my gracious response before tomorrow morning:'

The words had scarcely left his mouth when Shibaura knocked the pistol out of his hand, and struck him in the face with his fist. As the manager gasped and clutched his face, the Stuttering Fisherman hit him across the legs with a nearby stool. The manager tumbled over grotesquely, his body snagging a table and overturning it. The table crashed on top of him, its legs pointing skyward.

"Your gracious response? Don't fuck with us, you prick! Our lives are at stake here!"

Shibaura menacingly shifted his massive shoulders. The stok­ ers and the other delegates held him back. A window of the captain's cabin exploded with a terrific crash. The same instant shouts from the outside suddenly grew loud and all too clear: "Kill him!" "Shoot him!" "Do him in! Knock him off!"

The captain, foreman, and factory agent slipped away unnoticed to a corner of the cabin and stood there in a huddle, stiff as posts, their faces drained of color.

The cabin door smashed open, and the fishermen, sailors, and stokers surged in.

IN THE EARLY afternoon a raging storm broke out. As the evening ap­ proached, it gradually subsided.

Overthrowing the manager had seemed utterly impossible, quite out of the question. And yet they had been able to get rid of him with their own bare hands! He never even got a chance to fire that damned pistol he was always threatening them with. Everyone felt euphoric. The delegates put their heads together to confer about the various measures to take next. If the "gracious response" was not forthcoming, they planned to give their opponent something to remember them by.

It was starting to grow dark when a fisherman who had been keeping watch from the hatchway spotted the approaching destroyer. Agitated, he rushed to the shit-hole.

"Damn it to hell!" The student leapt up like a spring. His face turned deathly pale.

The Crab Cannery Ship

"Don't jump to any wrong conclusions;' said the Stuttering Fish­ erman with a laugh. "Once we win over the officers with a full expla­ nation of our situation, viewpoint, and demands, this strike will turn out even better. That's as plain as day:'

"That's true;' said others in agreement. "That's our own imperial warship out there. It's got to be on our

side, on the side of the people:' "No, no .. :' The student waved his hand. He seemed shaken by

a powerful shock. His lips were trembling, and he was stammering. "On the side of the people? ... No, no .. :'

"Look, you idiot! How the hell can a warship that belongs to the empire not be on the side of the people who belong to that same empire?!"

"The destroyer's here! The destroyer has arrived!" Excited voices drowned out the student's reply.

Everyone bounded out of the shit-hole and onto the deck. Voices suddenly joined in a great shout: "Imperial navy, hurrah!"

The manager, his face and hand bandaged, stood at the top of the gangway together with the captain and a few others. Directly oppo­ site them stood the Stuttering Fisherman, Shibaura, Don't-act-big, students, stokers, seamen, and the rest of the men. Dimly visible in the gathering darkness, three steam launches left the destroyer. They drew up alongside the cannery ship. Each launch was packed with about six­ teen uniformed sailors. All at once the sailors rushed up the gangway.

"Hey! They've got fixed bayonets! And they're wearing helmets!" "Oh hell!" cried the Stuttering Fisherman VOicelessly. Sixteen more naval sailors poured out of the next launch. The

third launch too disgorged sixteen sailors with rifles thrust in front, bayonets fixed, helmets strapped. They charged up in a horde as though boarding a pirate ship and surrounded the fishermen, sea­ men, and stokers.

"God damn it! They've fucked us over!" screamed Shibaura and the other delegates.

"This will show you!" growled the manager. For the first time since the strike began they understood why he had been behaving so oddly. But it was too late.

94 95 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

They were not allowed to say anything. Denounced as "thugs;' "subversives;' and "Red traitors;' the nine delegates were escorted to the destroyer at the point of bayonets. It all happened with lightning speed as the others watched in a daze, uncomprehending. Not a word of objection was allowed. They saw their efforts go up in flames as absurdly as a blazing sheet of paper. Their revolt had been disposed of with the greatest ease.

"NOBODY'S ON OUR side except our own selves. For the first time, I get the picture:'

"All that bullshit about the navy being on the side of the people .... On the side of the people, my ass! They're nothing but flunkies of the filthy rich:'

Taking no chances, the naval sailors remained on board for three days. For three evenings in a row the officers got drunk in the saloon

the manager, the captain, and the rest of them. "That's how it goes:' They may indeed have been mere ordinary fishermen, but

time they learned firsthand who their enemies were, and how (quite unexpectedly!) they were connected to each other.

Every year as the fishing season drew to an end, it was customary to manufacture some cans of crabmeat to be offered to the Emperor. Yet not the slightest effort was ever made to precede their prepa­ ration with the traditional ritual purification. The fishermen had always thought this terrible of the manager. But this time they felt differently.

"We're squeezing our very blood and flesh into these cans. Huh, I'm sure they'll taste wonderful. Hope they give him a stomach­ ache:'

Such were their feelings as they packed the cans for the Imperial table.

"Mix in some rocks! I don't give a fuck!"

"NOBODY's ON OUR side except our own selves:' This was the feeling that now penetrated deep into everyone's

heart. "We'll show you soon enough!"

Crab Ship

But repeating the phrase "we'll show you soon enough" hundreds of times brought them no satisfaction. The strike had been miserably defeated, and the work-"Have you learned your lesson, you scum?" had grown even harsher. The added brutality was the manager's way of revenge. It exceeded even the most extreme limits. The work had become unendurable.

"We were wrong. We shouldn't have put nine people out in front us like that. We might as well have been saying to them, here's

where our vital organs are. We should've all acted together, everyone of us. That way it would've been useless for the manager to radio the destroyer. They sure as hell couldn't drag all of us away. Thereo be nobody left to do the work:'

"That's righf'

"No doubt about it. If we keep on working like we are now, we'll really get ourselves killed this time. To make sure nobody has to be sacrificed, we all have to strike together. Let's take the same approach as before. Like the stuttering guy used to say, the most important thing of all is to join forces. By now we sure know how much we could've accomplished that time if weo stayed united:'

<~nd if they still call in the destroyer, let's aU stay united and get handed over together without leaving anyone behind! That'll help us even more:'

"You may be right. Though come to think of it, if that happens the manager will be in very hot water with the company. It'll be too late to send to Hakodate for replacements, and the output will be way down.... If we do this right, it might turn out even better than we expecf'

"It will work out just fine. Besides, it's fantastic how nobody's scared anymore. Everybody's ready to take on the fuckers!"

"Frankly, there's no sense hoping for some future victory. It's a matter of life or death right now:'

"Well, let's do it again, one more time!"

AND so THEY rose. One more time!

96 KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

A SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE

Let us add a few words concerning what followed:

1. The second strike was completely successful. The man­ ager, taken aback, had rushed to the radio room only to come to a sudden stop in front of its door, with no idea what to do.

2. When the fishing season ended and the men sailed back to Hakodate, they realized that their own ship was not the only one that had engaged in slowdowns and strikes. "Red propaganda" pamphlets were found in several ships.

3. The corporation "ruthlessly" fired its faithful dogs, the manager, the foreman, and the rest, blaming them for having brought on scandalous strikes in the middle of a fishing season and causing incalculable damage. They were paid even more miserably than the fishermen-not a penny. Interestingly, the manager was overheard cry­ ing out, "God damn it to hell! Those sons of bitches were screwing me all along!"

4. The fishermen, the young workers, and all their comrades were released from police detention and went on to engage in various sectors oflabor, equipped with the precious experience of organization and struggle.

THIS NARRATIVE IS a page from the history of capitalist penetration into colonial territories.

MARCH 30, 1929

YASUKO

A Day in Court

1

THE SNOW-PLOWED street crunching beneath their feet was hard to walk on. By the time they reached the Sapporo Courthouse both Okei and her mother were drenched with sweat.

Inside the gate some twenty policemen clad in overcoats stood about in clusters of two or three. Seeing the mother and daughter enter, a ruddy-faced policeman with a fearsome beard hurried over to them. "What's your business here, ma'am?"

Startled, Okei and her mother stopped in their tracks. Hurriedly removing the triangularly folded kerchiefs that covered their heads they bowed two or three times.

"Well, sir ... it's .. :' Mother hastily thrust her hand deep into her pocket and extracted the document that the court had sent her.

The policeman grabbed it roughly and brought it close to his shortSighted eyes. He SWiftly returned it to her, evidently unimpressed.

97

THECRAS CANNERYSHIP

AND OTHER NOVELS OF STRUGGLE

KOBAYASHI TAKIJI

Translated by ZELJKO CIPRIS

With an Introduction by KOMORI YOICHI

1M UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I PRESS

Honolulu

~