Pathway to Japanese Literature

Herring Fishing Ground

I

The red gaiters had slipped down, the lace of his right snow boot fraying without any attempt to fix it, as Genkichi trudged along slowly.
The relief of finally reaching his destination only compounded matters—by the time he approached the entrance to T-town, hunger and exhaustion had brought him to the brink of collapsing right there in the snow.
At a corner sweetshop, he bought just five sen worth of salt-filled daifuku and, eating it as he went, made his way into the town where foot traffic had finally begun to pick up along the streets.

Throughout the long journey, Mount Shakotan—which had been intermittently visible ahead—now stood fully revealed down to its foothills, looming abruptly before his eyes.
When March arrived, the temperature suddenly rose, and days where street snow clung heavily to one’s feet had persisted for three or four days.
When he looked up, the heavy snow clouds that had loomed over Mount Shakotan were gradually splitting apart, and through those gaps, a clear bright blue sky began to peek through.
Occasionally, as if remembering, snow tore loose and flew.
Though the sky was clear, somehow the sunlight would dim faintly, and snow would begin to fall from nowhere.
When he took it in his hand, it held a damp moisture—light snow that seemed ready to melt away on his palm.
There too, he could feel spring’s approach.
Horse sled drivers traversing the highway and farmers who had likely come out to shop squinted up at the sky several times.
Genkichi raised his bowed head and exhaled a thick breath toward the sky.

The rows of houses gradually grew denser.
The town’s atmosphere, now stirring from its long hibernation, lurked steadfastly behind those rows of houses.
The disorderly clamor produced by the entire town, though not loud, carried a somewhat bright resonance, indicating human activity poised on the brink of becoming vigorous.

In the center of town, facing the thoroughfare where taverns, general stores, blacksmiths, and the like were lined up, Genkichi emerged.
The accumulated snow had raised the road significantly, and with the roofs bearing the heavy weight of snow, the rows of houses appeared half-sunken into the earth.
Lively cheers spilled incessantly from one of the houses.—Having come that far, he appeared to stop and hesitate for a moment, but soon approached and opened the glass door of that house.
The glass door with "sake" and "meals" written on paper and pasted to it was severely warped by the weight of snow, groaning loudly.

Eyes numbed by the glinting, stinging silver glitter of the snow recoiled momentarily at the gloom of the earthen floor.
But he quickly adjusted.
When he fixed his gaze and looked, seven or eight people—a mix of fishermen, horse sled drivers, and farmers—were sitting facing a long, narrow dining table placed directly on the earthen floor.

“I’d like to ask something.”

Genkichi stood rigidly outside the threshold and, without so much as a smile, spoke in a tone that suggested he might be angry.
“Where’s the office for the fishery they call Ōmaru?”

The people already appeared quite drunk.
At the sudden intruder, they stopped talking, exchanged glances, then stared at Genkichi’s figure as if sizing him up.

“You there, here for herring work?”

Without immediately answering Genkichi’s question, the one who asked in return was a burly fisherman in his forties.

“You’re signing a contract with the boss now?”

“Ah,”

“Well, you’re too late. Everyone’s already signed up last year.”

As if seeking agreement, he slowly looked around at the faces of everyone present, then turned back toward Genkichi.

“Well, ya gotta go see for yourself. Ōmaru’s office—when ya hit the end o’ that road up ahead, turn left an’ go ’bout two blocks. On the way to the shore, there’s a white storehouse. Next to that’s the office.”

he instructed.

Genkichi returned the way he came, sullenly, without a word of thanks.
“Too late, he says!”
Like I don’t fucking know that already! Eat shit! he screamed inside.
A simmering, inexplicable anger—even to himself—raged violently through his entire being.
He had no way of knowing this fury, directed at no one in particular, was in truth half-aimed at his own half-resigned self.

That herring fishing ground employment contracts were typically finalized within the previous year was something Genkichi already knew without being told.
From March through May or June, for tenant farmers who used the agricultural off-season to work herring grounds, the advance loans taken at that time constituted the single largest element of their year-end finances.
In November and December of the previous year, they would take advance loans to contract migrant work, barely surviving the year with that money—yet come spring, when they actually labored and returned home, the amounts they received often fell short of even covering their travel expenses.
Precisely because he knew these circumstances all too well, as he dragged his heavy snow-booted feet along the path he’d been directed toward the Ōmaru office, Genkichi’s heart was shrouded in dark unease.
The anxiety was this: *It’s too late*—what if they refused him there? —Just a week earlier, he had hauled away the last two bales of rice that fed his family of five while the old man was away, dragged them by sled to town, exchanged them for cash, and squandered every coin at the gambling den.
For them, who subsisted on potatoes, corn, wheat, millet, soybeans, and the like—only occasionally slurping watery rice gruel to barely recall the taste of actual rice—those two bales were provisions they absolutely had to stretch until summer.
Exchanging that vital lifeline for cash was, however, according to Genkichi, the result of agonizing deliberation.
He had intended to multiply that money several times over and return home with his sled loaded with bales of rice.
The fact that he had come to entertain such notions ultimately had its roots in unpaid tenant farming fees, tax arrears, and debts.
The torment of being hounded by those very pressures had driven his desperate struggle to break free—culminating in this outcome.
His mind, utterly fixated on those two bales of rice, had been disordered from the very moment they sat in a circle to gamble.
His eyes burned bloodshot as he glared at the dice; his breath came in ragged bursts.
The more he panicked, the worse his rolls became, until he even felt that the dice themselves possessed a malicious will that worked spitefully against him alone.
When the final gamble ended, he shouted violently, stood up, cursed the people abusively, and then rushed outside.
He wandered aimlessly through the blizzard in the dark night.
And from then on, he never returned home.—

When he reached the end of the highway and turned left there, the sea was immediately before his eyes.

The tip of Shakotan Cape embracing Otaru Bay appeared faintly in the distant spring sunlight.
The sea wind sweeping over the Sea of Japan blew through with great swells, collided with the mountain range extending from Mount Shakotan, and roared loudly.
Genkichi stood exposed to the rough sea wind and inhaled deeply to his heart’s content, filling his lungs with the briny scent he had long forgotten.
The beach had snow piled in a gentle slope extending nearly to the water’s edge, showing that the herring fishery’s snow removal work had not yet begun.
That gave him considerable reassurance.

The Ōmaru office was quickly found.
A two-story building adjacent to a white-walled storehouse, it stood isolated from the low row of houses.
Genkichi went up to the front and stopped, then blew his nose with a sharp sniff.
Then he took the hand towel from his waist, brushed off his front, opened the door, and stepped into the earthen-floored entryway.
When he asked to be guided, the man who appeared was likely the fishery clerk—a man in his forties wearing a thick black serge coat.
The man had listened silently to Genkichi’s droning explanation, but once his words ran out,

“You ever worked herring grounds before?” he asked.

Genkichi answered yes.

That was a lie.

Before crossing to Hokkaido—having spent his boyhood in a semi-farming, semi-fishing household in Akita—he had dismissed all coastal work as being much the same.

The man eyed him suspiciously, but—

“Where?”

“At Yoichi’s herring ground,” he blurted out from half-remembered hearsay.

“You do have a guarantor?”

There, Genkichi once again had to reel off various fabricated circumstances while concealing his bewilderment. He had brought a guarantor-stamped contract but lost it on the way—he told such transparent lies. After much back-and-forth, they settled on immediately sending a letter to the guarantor, and in the end he was hired. They arranged for him to stay at the office through the remaining week until all fishermen assembled and work began. Every year they recruited half from Aomori and half from within Hokkaido—these seasoned herring-slaying veterans. Yet without fail, by the time they were finally led by supervisors toward the fishing grounds, two or three would always become runaways or fall too ill to come. Thus securing replacements remained essential for the fishery.

II

Gray snow clouds began to veil the sky above Mount Shakotan once more.
Snow fell diagonally in straight lines, but as it neared the water’s surface, fierce winds scattered it into the dark sea where it danced wildly.
The partially melted snow on the streets had frozen hard, creaking underfoot.
It seemed as though winter had returned—yet before long, days arrived that whispered of spring’s approach.
And so stretched on days of dull overcast skies, unseasonably warm without end.

Herring fog.

The sea wind shifting from north to west carried moisture and hung tepidly.
A bright green hue had begun seeping into the bleak darkness of the sea.
The west coast of Hokkaido lies within the domain of the Tsushima Current.
Flowing westward beyond the Tsugaru Strait, passing Shakotan Peninsula to enter the Soya Strait, this current swelled through March and April—the vanguard of spring’s arrival.
Air temperatures climbed; water temperatures rose to between five and seven degrees.
Spring herring that had spent years in the Pacific and Okhotsk Seas now massed into vast schools, surging toward the western coast in what they call a "shoaling run."
Flocks of seagulls migrating with the herring arrived first to announce their approach.
Day after day, skies churned milky white while seawater turned bluish pale—clouded by milt from male herring like rice-wash water poured into the depths.

On the night when the fishermen recruited through labor brokers had all gathered from Tsugaru and across Hokkaido, a welcome banquet was held in the great hall of the Ōmaru Fishery Owner’s house.

Before the altar at the front burned a lamp glowing crimson.
The fishermen sat stiffly on pristine blue tatami mats, carefully aligning their spread legs and resting their gnarled hands atop them.
Some wore their work clothes; others had donned neat kimonos brought specially for the occasion.
Boat captains and sub-captains occupied the seats of honor, followed by fishermen, then land crew and cooks in the lowest positions.
The fishermen wore sullen, bloated faces and showed unexpected listlessness.

“How much did you get in advance loans?”

“Hmm… Eighty yen.”
“Only ten yen left.”
“It ain’t even enough for train fare.”

Here and there, they buzzed as neighbors talked among themselves.
They were all talking about money.
It was safe to say there was hardly anyone who hadn’t taken out advance loans of more than seventy yen.
And that money had long since been spent down to the last penny.
The thought that the three months of grueling labor starting tomorrow would feel like unpaid work dragged them into an oppressive mood.

With the clerk trailing behind him, the master of the fishing ground emerged and took his seat, whereupon all fell utterly silent.
In his sober-toned kimono—ruddy-faced and exuding solidity—the master was squinted up at by the men as though he were blinding them.
The master curtly said, “Thank you for your long journey,” then added, “I’ll be counting on your efforts again this year,” by way of greeting.
He then read out the names of the boat captains and sub-boat captains, stating his request for them to serve as officers.
From that moment onward, the fishermen would call these two men their bosses.
Next rose the clerk who doubled as supervisor.

“On behalf of the master, I’ll just mention a few points.” He pulled out a sheet of paper folded in two from his breast pocket and, glancing at it intermittently, began explaining in a thoroughly practiced tone. It was an explanation of the employment contracts’ contents—those contracts that the illiterate fishermen had stamped with cheap seals without knowing what was written in them. In cases of absence due to illness, alcohol consumption, or other accidents, wages for days off would be deducted from salaries on a daily basis. Labor service was to be performed from sunrise to sunset; however, for fishing and processing operations, regardless of day or night, all must obey the master’s and bosses’ orders and perform labor service at any hour. During herring netting operations, all must brave the dangers of wind and waves and perform labor to the utmost regardless of day or night. In the event of death during the labor service period or injury rendering future labor impossible, a condolence payment would be provided by the fishery owner as a lump sum. And other such matters.

The fishermen listened in silence.
Everyone seemed to dismiss such matters as inconsequential.

When the passage about braving wind and waves regardless of day or night was being read aloud in a booming voice, there was suddenly one man who shouted out loud: "Whoa! This is terrible!"
The fishermen, startled, all turned to look back at the man.
But as the talk neared its end, they began glancing restlessly toward the sliding doors.
They were thinking the sake must be coming out soon.

"Is that clear?"

The clerk said, sweeping his gaze across everyone's faces,

“Here you go,” he said with a slight bow before the master.
The master stood up and reverently pressed his forehead to the floor before the altar, clapping sharply as he offered prayers for a bountiful catch.
The fishermen mimicked his motions.

The long-awaited sake finally appeared, but each man received less than a quarter-liter of chilled brew.
To make matters worse, none of the women they’d secretly hoped would serve them ever materialized.
They nursed their meager portions in thick-rimmed cups—tiny tongue-tip sips stretching the liquor—while puffing out dissatisfied cheeks and exchanging meaningful glances.
The instant the master disappeared, their grievances burst forth in raucous chorus.
“First time at this herring pit.”
“Tightwad bastard.”
“Ain’t never comin’ back,” one declared.
“Head to Yoichi’s S Fishery come next season...”
“They’ll pour you full when you land and again at net-drop.”
“Drink till your knees buckle,” another added.
“This swill ain’t cut with well water?”
When that last comment flew, guffaws erupted.
They aimed every word to carry clear to the supervisor and his two under-bosses.

When the “banquet” (?) ended， everyone stood up.
And then， the young man who had been right nearby sidled all the way up to Genkichi’s side，

“Hey, let’s get going, yeah?” he said, grinning slyly.

“Where to?”

“Where to, you ask….”
“You know damn well…”
“With that sacred sake still warm in our noses… how’re we s’posed to just walk away and sleep now?”
“We gotta go.”

“Gotta go, gotta go.”

Noisily, two or three men immediately gathered and surrounded him.
“With this sake we’ve drunk—like a sparrow’s tears—how’re we s’posed to just leave ’em and hit the sack now?”

In groups of five or six, they went outside.
It was dark.
Though spring had come, the cold still bit deep—the frozen road crackled with splintering ice.
From a distant hill came drumbeats—boom, boom, boooom—piercing through the darkness with their uneven rhythm.
The town’s guardian deity was sounding drums to pray for abundant catches.
Genkichi stood awhile in the dark, calculating—he still had five yen left from what he’d borrowed at the office.
Two impulses warred within him.
But he soon broke into a run after the men already eighteen meters ahead…

Separating from his drunken comrades who had stayed behind, Genkichi returned alone to the barracks in the dead of night.
Their barracks stood some distance from the master's house.
Through gaps between its boards, blizzards blew unhindered into the flimsy structure.
One-third of the hall served as a kitchen; straw mats covered the remaining plank-floored area where fishermen slept sprawled out.

None of them had bedding.
They would merely drape a single padded kimono over themselves and lie down still in their work clothes.
Genkichi, who had drifted here and ended up staying by chance, did not even have that padded kimono.
He lay down among his comrades sleeping huddled together and tried to sleep, but his head throbbed from the unfamiliar sake, and he could not easily fall asleep.
Memories from the small tavern he’d just left came flooding back—the pale, blurred face of a young woman who’d slumped listlessly against him, her arms wrapped around his neck; the shrill, broken sound of a phonograph—all of it felt as though it had happened in some distant past.
Regret, frustrated anger, and at the same time an audaciously reckless thought merged into one and swirled round and round in his chest.
Looking back at his own figure filled him with nothing but wretched irritation.
He even began to feel a terrifying emptiness at how far he would fall.
—But even that was the end result of having thrashed about desperately seeking an escape from the dead end, so there was nothing to be done about it now.
In the village, Genkichi had truly worked himself to the bone.
He tried growing every recommended field crop there was.
He had tried every kind of side job there was.
He had also taken on labor service for civil engineering projects.
In winter, he had also worked as a lumberjack.
If one had to eat nothing but pumpkins and potatoes year-round—and if even while eating nothing but pumpkins and potatoes, one still had to suffer every single year from unpaid tenant fees and taxes—what in the world was one supposed to do?
There was no exit left.
He was being helplessly dragged along by some unknowable, inexorable force.
A surge of frustration welled up in his chest, and he roared savagely in his gut: Eat shit!

Just as he was drifting off to sleep, Genkichi felt a chilling cold at his collar and woke up.
Saliva kept welling up raw in his throat; his mouth burned as though scorched.

Suddenly, he sensed a ghostly presence nearby.
In the dim light of an oil lamp hanging from the high ceiling, Genkichi stared fixedly.
Before his eyes lay a large round head, its bulging golden eyes wide open and unblinking as they watched his face.

“Ugh, stinks. Stinks.”

When Genkichi became aware of his presence, the man said while swiping his large palm before his face.
“You’d been guzzling cheap booze.”

Though the man spoke bluntly, there was something in his words that made it strangely impossible to get angry.
Genkichi kept silent with a sullen face.

“You ain’t got a damn thing on.”
“Sobering up in this cold ain’t good for you.”
“Put this on.”

With that, the man took off his padded kimono and draped it over Genkichi.
Refusing would have been a hassle, so he remained silent and let him have his way.
He tried to sleep and lay like that for about thirty minutes, but his mind had become alert, and he could no longer fall asleep.
He stood up, went to the kitchen, and drank water directly from the dipper.
The water he drank by breaking the thin ice seared painfully into his scorched gut.
He involuntarily shuddered.

When he returned to his bedding, the man from before was sitting up smoking tobacco.
Genkichi also sat down and took a drag.
Appearing eager to strike up a conversation, the man introduced himself as Yamamoto and asked Genkichi’s name.
Genkichi found himself feeling a certain goodwill toward this man.
He responded and, before being asked, voluntarily introduced himself as being from N Village located about thirty ri east of this town.
Yamamoto said, “I’m from K Village in Kamikawa,” then asked, “I am one, but are you a tenant farmer too?”
Genkichi answered that it was so.
As they talked, he realized.
The man who had let out that tremendous shout of “Well, well, holy hell!” in the middle of the supervisor’s speech at the welcome banquet held at the master’s house that evening was none other than this man.

The two men gradually grew closer in this manner. Yamamoto asked many questions in a persistent manner about Genkichi’s living conditions in the village. As he answered these questions, Genkichi gradually began to feel lighter, and he realized that his usual oppressive mood stemmed in part from having no one to direct his grievances toward—no outlet for his frustrations. And he began to think that perhaps this man could somehow unravel the tangled, hazy mass that had settled in his chest day after day. He spoke as prompted about how he had come to work at the herring fishery and described his life in the village.—As he talked, he could not help but feel how the excitement of five years prior—when he had crossed the dark Tsugaru Strait with a single thin immigration guide clutched like a treasure against his chest—now clung to the corners of his heart as bitter dregs.

“You folks up there get to eat rice year-round,” Genkichi said with a deep sigh, envy burning in his chest. “I mean—it’s Kamikawa. Hokkaido’s soil is the richest in all the land.”

“Hmph.”

With a dismissive sniff and a belittling tone, Yamamoto said.
Genkichi bristled.
Having perceived the other man’s state of mind, Yamamoto pressed on bluntly in a sharp voice.

“So you think guzzling self-pity booze till you’re plastered’ll let you escape that misery?”

Startled into holding his breath, Genkichi froze—then Yamamoto boomed a laugh.
Yet this time, Genkichi couldn’t summon anger.
Instead, he felt a rugged reliability—as if being scolded by an elder brother yet leaning into the reprimand itself.

“Then what the hell am I supposed to do?!”

He said in a desperate, pained voice.
Yamamoto was silent for a little while.
A large flat nose sat stubbornly at the center of his broad sunburned face, now filled with a grave intensity.

“We’ll strip those bastards who’ve skinned us bare—strip ’em down backward till there’s nothing left!”

“Huh?
“...What’re we supposed to do?”

“Landlords! Can’t you see it’s the landlords? The landlords!”

“Yeah…”

“Your tenant farmin’ now—what’s your rent?”

“Two’n half bales.”
“Field rent’s near four yen.”

“Hmph. Two and a half bales for a paddy that don’t even yield four? Then however much you sweat, there ain’t no way rice’ll fill your bowl. Keep lazin’ about and they’ll strip you clean down to your ass hairs. Kamikawa’s soil’s richer than your Shiribeshi backwaters, sure—but landlords strut the same everywhere. Same year’s out, same empty rice jars—corn mush with potatoes’s what you’ll chew. That’s why we gotta clump tight, all us paupers together. Find ways them idle landlords don’t steal what our hands made. Ain’t no other path.—Your village got a farmers’ union?”

“Farmers’ union?”

“What? Never even heard of it? You gotta open those peepers wider—see how the world really works.”

Genkichi fell silent as though pressed by an overwhelming force.
The sensation of having hit a dead end grew faintly indistinct in his mind.
It was like groping through total darkness as a mouse might circle endlessly, then finding a hole suddenly open in one corner—a single shaft of light piercing through.

In the intervals between the sound of waves near the pillow, the temple bell began to resonate.
It was time for people to wake up.
The fishermen turned over in their sleep and began to yawn.
From the gaps in the door, the faint morning light came streaming in.……

Three

In the morning, the fishermen gathered at the shore wearing red blanket aprons and headbands made of towels dyed with the Ōmaru crest.
First came the snow removal work.
The snow accumulation over dozens of *ken* of land centered on the corridor—the fishing hut—was carried away in baskets borne by burly men and cleared away in an instant.
On the neatly swept beach, set nets and frame nets brought out from the storehouse were laid out.
After being treated with persimmon tannin and stored following the previous year’s fishing season, they now meticulously checked each net for rat damage, rope chafing, fraying, or sections weakened by rain and humidity.
Frame nets are also called “treasure bags.”
The “scooping” of herring caught in set nets—
since they would lift them into frame nets, tether them to the parent boat, and tow them ashore—meant even a minor tear would let all the hard-won “treasure” escape.
For this reason, frame net inspections demanded utmost care; the boatman held the “Frame Net Logbook,” tracing each net’s history from its first deployment to identify repair needs.
“...On this day, the north wind strengthens, turning the sea rough.
After packing herring into the frame net, they had the small steam ship tow [it] and took refuge inside ×× Port.
At that time, due to friction with obstacles, approximately two shaku of the bow’s second panel was scraped off.” —Such entries filled the logbook.
Once damage was found, the boatman directed fishermen to replace sections with new nets of Manila twine, Nankin hemp, and other materials.

On one side, some fishermen made baskets for hauling herring ashore and repaired old ones. Others fashioned goro nets. Still others built crates for packing fresh herring shipments.—A few others began sluicing water through the corridor and scrubbing it clean. The corridor—meaning the fishing hut—served both as a herring storage area and a workspace for crushing them. When finished, they tended to the drying grounds. This was where they skewered crushed herring on rods to dry.

The next day, the boatman and under-boatmen boarded two fishing boats with about ten seasoned fishermen and rowed far out to the open sea.
The boats were loaded with peering glasses, sounding lines, eight-shaku poles, several mats sewn together and weighted, and bundles of tree branches—dozens tied into thick bundles with rope and fastened with stones weighing over ten kan—stacked in multiple places.

When they reached a point several hundred *ken* offshore at a depth of fourteen or fifteen fathoms, the boats anchored there.
Fortunately, with the sea calm, the water was perfectly clear.
The fishermen peered into the seabed using peering glasses.
The sea around this area was where herring swarmed to lay their eggs.
Kelp varieties—*sujime*, *zarame*, *uganomoku*, and other Sargassaceae seaweeds—lushly grew like a forest beneath the peering glasses, swaying and undulating with each great swell of the waves.
The fishermen who had boarded the other boat began lowering sounding lines and dragging them across the seabed.
They came to know in this way the shapes of submarine reefs and the areas where oysters, *hiyori* clams, and other shellfish had attached themselves to the rock surfaces.
The herring set net was a box-shaped net laid across forty *ken* of seabed.
And it was a device that captured herring entering into the bag net by raising the spread net that formed the bottom of this box.
Therefore, if the seabed where the net was laid had severe unevenness from rocks, shellfish, or other obstacles, the spread net—swaying with the waves—would inevitably be damaged or torn upon contact with those obstructions.
After completing their inspection, the fishermen soon began lowering mats sewn together and large bundles of tree branches into their respective areas.
They all served to cover the tops of obstacles or lift up the net bottom, preventing the nets from directly touching obstructions.

All preparations completed, and at last the day of net installation arrived.

A day in late March—a chosen auspicious day.
On this day, the fishery owner himself came all the way to the shore to see off the boats carrying the fishermen heading out to install the nets.
The parent boat loaded with nets and the small boats surrounding it swiftly left the shore with energetic shouts.
They cast the set nets at the permitted distance of several hundred *ken* offshore, the very spot they had meticulously inspected beforehand.

Having safely finished casting the nets—that night saw a serving of sake, just as during the safe arrival celebration.

From the day after completing preparations, the monitoring of the net installations began.
The fishermen in small boats spent the day circling the areas where they had cast their nets, keeping a wary eye out for floating debris that might snag the mesh.
The herring come to spawn from twilight to night.
The boatman and fishermen, with the days having finally grown longer, had already finished their evening meal around four in the afternoon and now boarded the fishing boats to row out toward the open sea.
At the net installation site, the parent boat had already been moored.
The group transferred to the parent boat and took turns boarding small boats to monitor the herring’s arrival.

Amidst all this, news of the “first herring” catch was announced.
The branch office of the Imperial Fisheries Association in this town posted a bulletin in jet-black ink on the signboard before their office announcing the “first herring catch.”
Before their eyes, the town swelled with vitality.
The clamor of bells and drums praying for abundant catches rang out without cease.
Herring fishery workers from nearby farming villages poured in one after another.
—Everywhere, talk revolved around predictions for this year’s herring catch.
The fishermen found themselves unexpectedly roused with fervor.

One week after the first herring catch was reported, Ōmaru’s set nets witnessed their first swarm.

It was a day of calm seas.
When the sun sank behind the mountains, evening darkness pressed in from the distant open sea, and the color of the waves changed rapidly before their eyes.
The boatman, who was the fishing master, gazed intently from the boat at the sea surface as its color transformed.
Rather than seeing with his eyes, he sensed it with every fiber of his being.

Look—the sea surface, now on the verge of being swallowed by darkness in an instant, swelled with an uncanny bulge, surged and surged forth!
Swish swish swish—a vast school of herring now surged onto the net.

For an instant, the boatman, who had stood imposingly on the boat, declared solemnly.

“Raise it!”

“Raise it” meant to raise the net. At the sound of his voice, the fishermen—who had been waiting with bated breath—immediately began hauling up the mouth of the net with vigorous pulls. It was hauled over and over toward the depths of the bag net. And then, upon hitting the pitch-dark bottom of the net, a hushed swishing sound rose. The sound grew louder and higher, swiftly transforming into a chaotic splashing noise—Look—there in the dim lantern light, illuminating the net’s depths: the stark glimmer of silver scales, visible even at night.

The fishermen, who had divided into groups of several men each and boarded herring-scooping boats to lie in wait, eagerly began scooping up the herring.
With deft handling of the scoops, the herring were scooped up into the boats.
A full herring-scooping boat could hold eight to ten *koku* of herring.*

The fishermen’s net-raising song, sung while scooping herring.

——
Oi, oi—haul with all your might!

Boatman—we’re counting on you! Sa—raise the nets!
Herring here? Heave-ho!
Herring fog—tonight the swarm has come.
Bountiful catch—time to celebrate!
Sa—raise the nets!
The singing voices trailed off in lingering echoes, carried by the sea breeze as they faded far into the pitch-dark sea.

The massive swarm of herring that had come to spawn finally began to retreat around 3 a.m.
The fishermen continued scooping herring without rest until dawn; once a boat was full, they transferred them to the frame nets.
They moored the filled frame nets to the parent boat and towed them toward land once day broke.

At the shore, seasonal workers mobilized from across town had gathered shouldering large fishing flags—their red cloth wildly scrawled with black ink.
When the boat drew near, a collective shout arose.
The unloading began immediately.
The herring within the frame nets were transferred to baskets using scoops, and the seasonal workers carried them across gangplanks to the corridor with vigorous shouts.

The mountain of herring unloaded at the fishery building had to be processed without delay.
Once they finished packing the whole herring into boxes, the seasonal workers and fishermen began processing the catch.
Amidst this labor appeared children who had skipped school to work.
No matter how many hands they had, there were never enough.
When skillfully wielding deba knives, workers split herring into backs and bodies.
The split fish dried on racks with their gills neatly aligned.
Those adequately dried were torn into two pieces to become dried split herring.—On one side stood a large cauldron where decaying herring boiled away.
When sufficiently cooked, they went through screw presses to extract oil and produce meal.
Then came roe preparation, milt drying, and other tasks.
—Inside the fishery swirled a battlefield-like frenzy of noise and activity.
The fishy stench of blood and rot saturated not just the building but the entire beach; unaccustomed farmers and children retched from nausea.

When such labor without day or night continued for several days, even Genkichi finally began to break down. After waking from sleep, a sensation as though he had lost track of his own body from overwork lingered listlessly and persistently. Several men appeared, their faces vividly showing signs of old illnesses resurfacing and weakening them. What tormented them most was being unable to escape the fishy stench of herring anywhere, even for a moment. Even the rice, pickles—yes—the water drawn from the well had a faint fishy stench clinging to them. When brought to one’s lips, it wafted up pungently. The stench that had soaked into their bodies wouldn’t wash off no matter how much they scrubbed. The inside of the lodgings was stifling with the stench emanating from the fishermen’s work clothes, glistening with herring blood, grease, and scales. They slept still in their work clothes. Immediately, each of them became a nest of lice. When their bodies were in motion, the lice remained hidden deep within, only squirming occasionally; but once they lay down, the vermin came crawling out in droves from collars and cuffs.

“You coward. Look at you breaking down already!”

Yamamoto said in his usual manner and laughed while looking up at Genkichi’s face.

There was something that drew him in, and ever since that night, Genkichi had been trying frequently to approach Yamamoto.
Yamamoto too, with clear purpose, sought every possible opportunity to speak with Genkichi.
In the inferno-like chaos however, they could hardly hold a proper conversation.
Even so during work hours, the two often ended up together.
Yamamoto climbed into the herring-scooping boat that Genkichi boarded.
When splitting herring, Yamamoto came to sit beside Genkichi.
This carried the intent to cover for him even slightly—he still hadn’t grown accustomed to the work.

“What’s with those hands of yours? You’re new to herring work, aren’t you? Bold move, sneaking in here.”

Watching Genkichi fumble with the scoop and deba knife, Yamamoto whispered this and laughed slyly. Then he switched the knife to his left hand, thrust his herring-bloodied right hand carelessly into his collar to rummage around, plucked out lice with his thick fingers, and crushed them on the blade with soft popping sounds.

Four

When hired, the fishermen all uniformly signed employment contracts and affixed their seals. As for what exactly those employment contracts contained, they did not understand a thing. They were printed across three sheets of Mino-sized paper in dense kanji. Even after having them read through and explained once over, much remained unclear. They had merely pressed their seals because they were told to do so. However, they would later come to realize—every time an opportunity arose—that the contents of those employment contracts were by no means mere formalities or idle words on paper, but rather something directly tied to their lives in the most intimate of ways.

One night after mid-April, the fishermen were out at sea.

They were right in the midst of scooping herring.

Sleet began to fall, mixed with the wind.

That day, a lukewarm west wind blew since morning, sending temperatures soaring—perfect herring fog conditions.
“Herring settle downwind” was a maxim believed among the fishermen.
They set out to sea with vigor.
Sure enough, from around sunset, herring began entering the nets.

With a shushing sound, the sleet lashed sideways against their faces.
Without even attempting to wipe away the dripping water, the fishermen grappled with the massive school of herring.

In an instant, the wind transformed into a western gale and came blowing in.
The pitch-dark sea’s depths rumbled from far, far offshore—a booming that grew louder and nearer until it passed with a prolonged roar like a gale plunging through a valley.
The sound of waves striking the mother ship’s hull grew gradually louder.

A storm.

This coast faced west, so it was known that when westerly gales blew in, severe storms would arise.
The fishermen, however, could not withdraw immediately.
At times like these, the boat captain who wielded all command kept his mouth tightly shut.
He may have been strictly adhering to the wording of the employment contract: “During herring netting operations, one shall brave wind and wave hazards, et cetera.”
Even if a storm arose while anchored offshore during fishing, immediately returning to land was considered a disgrace among fellow boat captains—there was likely also this reason.
――Moreover, at that very moment, the herring were in the nets.
The herring-scooping boats were filled with herring.
At least until they finished packing those herring into the frame nets, they couldn’t withdraw.

――The truly large wave came without making a sound.
Their bodies in the boat were lifted lightly as if floating, then smoothly pushed up to a mountain’s peak, only to be slammed down the next instant nearly upside down into the abyss’s depths.
Even the seasoned fishermen could only shut their eyes and cling to the boat’s bottom.
——Now there was nothing left but to withdraw.

The frame nets, not even half-filled yet, were left tethered to the mother ship as they hurried toward shore.
The herring-scooping boats still held about three to five koku of herring.
The fishermen had no choice but to discard those herring into the sea now to lighten their load.

The sleet blew in so fiercely that it became indistinguishable from the blizzard.
In the darkness where both sky and sea were smeared pitch black, the faint flicker of a kerosene lantern wavered, and the roar of the sea and the howl of the wind vied to outdo each other.

In an instant, another hill-sized wave struck.

It was precisely the boat Genkichi was aboard.
At the instant he was slammed down headlong from the height of the heavens, Genkichi—who had instinctively shut his eyes—thought he heard a faint cry of “Ah!” near his ear.
As the great wave passed and he let out a relieved breath while looking around at the darkness within the boat, he suddenly felt a chilling cold at his collar.

“Hey!” he shouted at the top of his voice.

“Hey!” the companions in the boat immediately responded.

The people called out to each other in the darkness.
However, including Genkichi, there were only four voices.
They were one person short.
It was Rokusuke—the oldest among the fishermen, an old man who had been suffering from neuralgia and limping lately.

Those who realized this now began shouting toward the dark sea.
They leaned out from the gunwale and shouted at the top of their lungs.
No reply came—only the wind and waves answered with their roar.

A clear morning eventually arrived, but Old Man Rokusuke’s body never surfaced in the end. Days of suspended work continued due to repairs of damaged nets and other tasks.

Rokusuke was a peasant from a neighboring village who, like the others, used the agricultural off-season to work at the herring grounds every year.
A couple of days after the accident, his wife came weeping, leading a child whose head was covered in sores.
From a distance, her figure could be seen at the fishery clerk’s office, persistently pleading her case.

After she left, when rumors spread from nowhere in particular that the consolation money she had received from the fishery clerk was a mere thirty yen, the fishermen erupted.

“The value of a human life—thirty yen? What kinda shit is that?”

“Even crushed ’n’ sold off, he’d fetch more’n that.”

They seethed with indignation, cursing the fishery owner and clerk’s dealings as each man shouted in turn.

It was mealtime.
The clerk—who rarely came to such places—arrived where the fishermen sat lined up at meal tables eating their rice.

“You all seem to be complaining about this recent matter with Rokusuke,” he said.
“Don’t say such things—that’s what they call inviting divine punishment, I tell you.”
“Since we’d already advanced Rokusuke his entire pay, we’re taking a huge loss—yet the owner went and deducted it from his wages, then even gave thirty yen extra as a special favor.”
“First off, the employment contract you signed states that in the event of death during labor service, a condolence payment shall be a lump-sum amount—and it’s all at the owner’s sole discretion.”
“You’ve got no right to complain whether it’s too much or too little.”
“You should all be well aware of that.”

The fishermen ate their meal in silence.
Though their anger smoldered, since it wasn’t their own direct problem, they found themselves thinking it didn’t matter.
Genkichi, however, felt this was not something he could let pass in silence.
At night, he whispered to Yamamoto, “What do you think about beating up the clerk?”
Yamamoto laughed and said it was a very Genkichi-like idea.
“Beat the clerk? What’ll that do?”
“You’ll just get thrown out, that’s all.”
“And if you get thrown out, it won’t just end there.”
“Your wages’ll vanish into thin air, and you’ll have to repay every last penny of principal and interest on those advance loans—three percent monthly interest tacked on.”
“Ah, just wait a bit longer.”
He said this with perfect composure.

About ten days after that incident, one morning, a town police officer came to where everyone was working in the hallway alongside the fishery clerk.

“Is there a Kimura Otohachi here?”

That was Kimura Otohachi—a young man still in his twenties who had come from Tsugaru as a migrant worker.
Wearing an anxious expression, he left with the two of them.

About an hour later, Kimura Otohachi returned, his face deathly pale.
In his hand, he held a single scrap of paper.

“What’s wrong?”

While voicing their questions one after another, they surrounded Kimura. He silently showed everyone the scrap of paper. It was a conscription order for Kimura Otohachi, a reservist. The men exchanged silent glances.

The fishermen couldn’t know the direct cause of Kimura’s pallor until he himself explained it. ——Article 10 of the employment contract had spelled it out plainly:
“Should any employed person holding military status receive emergency conscription and become unable to perform labor services, said person or their guarantor shall immediately repay all advance loans with accrued interest.”
“Wages shall be settled daily upon arrival at the fishery.”
Kimura had just endured an excruciatingly detailed explanation of this clause from the fishery clerk. Breaking into a cold sweat, he offered the baseless excuse that he’d consult his guarantor back home to resolve matters somehow. The town police officer who’d observed this exchange kept repeating, “An honor regardless—what an honor.”

When they heard this, the fishermen cursed together: “What law says a man off to die’s gotta pay back money? Hand over condolence money—condolence money, you bastards!”
That night, nobody could bear to watch Kimura’s slumped figure as he trudged toward Tsugaru, still reeking of herring in his work clothes, a single cloth bundle clutched under his arm.

After that, when another fisherman died of appendicitis after lying ill a mere four days, that “employment contract” showed its teeth again.
Some bereaved families got twenty yen in condolence money—others scraped by with ten.

5

The early herring run had ended, and the mid-season herring period began.

A rumor began spreading among the fishermen around that time.
“There will be no 91 bonus this year,” it was said.
This rumor was bound to deal them a massive shock.
The “91” referred to a bonus system that fishery owners provided to fishermen.
In the past, the “91” system had been a catch distribution arrangement conducted between fishery owners and fishermen, where each time catches were landed, ninety percent would be allocated to the fishery owners and ten percent to the fishermen.
However, the fishermen had to process the raw herring allocated to them during what little free time they had from working for the fishery owner—a task that was often practically impossible, resulting in the fish rotting and being discarded.
Due to these circumstances, the 91 system had transformed over time, ultimately becoming a method for fishery owners to provide bonuses to fishermen at the end of the fishing season.
However, it was not explicitly stated in the employment contract either—an unwritten rule, so to speak—with even the amount left entirely to the fishery owner’s discretion.
There were times when it was twenty yen per person, and times when it was thirty.

The fishermen began discussing the rumor’s truth wherever they gathered or met.
While eating meals, after lying down to sleep, and even during work, they each brought out their own arbitrary opinions and speculated.
“Who the hell heard that anyway? Where’d it come from?” one man snapped in an angry voice.
The most plausible story among them was that someone had overheard the fishery clerk discussing it secretly with the boat captain.
The reason given was storm losses.
In Rokusuke and Kimura Otohachi’s cases before, since those weren’t their own direct problems—just other people’s business—they could soon forget them; but this new matter directly impacted every last one of them without exception.
Among the fishermen were those who hadn’t even brought return trip money.
They were all counting on this 91 bonus.
If they couldn’t get it, they wouldn’t even make it home.

Finally, one fisherman mustered his resolve and confronted the boat captain directly to demand the truth of the matter.
The boat captain evaded giving a clear answer—(those captains received special bonuses from the owner)—but from his flustered state and utterly perplexed expression at that moment, the people concluded that the rumor was indeed true.

The fishermen erupted.
They seemed unable to focus on their work.—Yamamoto was silently watching these movements of the fishermen with a contemplative gaze.

One day, during breakfast time.
(The boat captains and under-captains were eating tray-served meals with the fishery clerk in the office and weren’t present.) As the meal neared its end, Yamamoto—who had been sitting at the edge of the dining bench—suddenly stood up and spoke first.

“Hey everyone, I’ve got something to say—listen up.”

Everyone stopped their chopsticks and looked up at the round face of this man with his disproportionately large nose and mouth. What he was about to say—they seemed to know it instinctively.

“As you all have heard—this talk about there being no 91 bonus this year—well, I say that’s a load of horseshit. Just ’cause they took a loss from the storm—that ain’t our problem,” Yamamoto began. “So here’s the thing—I actually need to discuss something with all of you. Muttering complaints in the shadows like farting in a bath ain’t ever gonna get us anywhere. And since talking to that bastard clerk ain’t gonna work, let’s take it straight to the boss and confront him head-on.”

Genkichi held his breath and looked up at Yamamoto’s face.
This was not the him who would crush lice, crack jokes, and laugh uproariously.
Genkichi saw something like a flickering light dart across his brow.
His broad-shouldered, sturdy upper body appeared as large as a bronze statue and seemed to loom over them from above.—Some of them began banging their chopsticks on the table and clattering their bowls in excitement.
Yamamoto continued.

“Since it’s a bumper catch this year, let’s demand fifty yen per head for the 91 bonus.”
“Got it?”
“Here’s the deal—the crucial thing is we stop working once things are settled until we’ve got cold cash in hand.”
“If we just make the boss agree like always—promise to pay before that final split—then even if they play dumb at crunch time, there ain’t shit they can do. …Well? Everyone in?”

A roar erupted.

“Let’s do it!”

Several men stood up.
They stomped their feet, and some shouted, “Hell yeah, Boss!”
With only about thirty people, they reached consensus quickly.
True to Yamamoto’s proposal, six negotiators were selected as caretakers to confront the boss.
Yamamoto naturally joined their ranks.
Cheered by their comrades, the six men marched straight to the boss’s house.
Five others bolted toward the beach—
to keep the gutting crews in check.

The remaining fishermen were making merry.
They stretched out their limbs and sprawled at length, barricading themselves in the lodgings.
“It’s a pre-celebration! At least give us somethin’ better than greens tonight, cook!” they said to the cook.
The fishery clerk, who had been the first to hear the commotion and rush over, paced restlessly back and forth between the lodgings and the boss’s house before eventually disappearing somewhere.
Throughout that time, the boat captain, with an expression that suggested he wouldn’t side with either party, still did nothing but pace restlessly.

VI

The Ōmaru fishery owner sat heavily on a bearskin rug large enough to bury two tatami mats, his back to the alcove of an inner room. His ruddy face—bloated with engorged blood—bore thick veins that twitched like caterpillars from his receding hairline to his temples, while hands held over the brazier spasmed in ways not solely attributable to alcohol poisoning.

“Bastard!”

He bellowed with a voice that could shatter eardrums.
Before him, separated by a single tatami mat, the clerk sat with his head bowed in rigid deference.

“Clumsy oaf! Utter imbecile!”
“And you dare call yourself a fishery supervisor with that audacity?”
“Letting them sniff out unnecessary shit at the worst damn time—no wonder they’re raising hell!”

No matter how vilely he was berated, there was no recourse.
That their careless slip had revealed this year’s plan to withhold the 91 bonus—this blunder could never be undone, no matter how fiercely he gnashed his teeth.
Had they only discovered it at the parting moment, he wouldn’t have cared how much they howled.
But now, with this uproar…
The clerk could only bite his lips and endure the silence.

“What’re those bastards demanding?!”

“Uh...”

“None of that ‘uh’ shit.”
“Spit it out clear!”

“They’re saying they won’t work unless we give fifty yen per man for the 91 bonus, so…”

“What did you say?!”

At this moment, Yamamoto and six other fishermen representatives—who had earlier been refused an audience with the boss—were holding their ground at the main entrance.
When the boss absolutely refused to meet them, among those new to such situations, there were those who wore bewildered and quickly discouraged expressions.
It was Yamamoto who rebuked them.

“What’s wrong with you all! You think you can win a war like that?! This ain’t some free lunch fallin’ into your lap! Don’t slump down till he agrees to meet us!”

Three of them sat on the entrance step in their grimy work clothes, while the other three planted their rear ends firmly on the dirt floor.

The clerk cowered before him, shrinking further with each barked command—and the more pathetic and insufferable this servility appeared, the more the fishery owner’s fury seethed into bestial rage. Though he hurled abuse with abandon, his voice rang hollow somehow. In the clerk’s groveling form, he unwittingly saw his own reflection—a recognition that stoked his rage hotter still, though he’d never know it himself.

――What clung stubbornly to his mind through it all was Oyama: Otaru’s top seafood wholesaler, visited every year before herring season began, trudged through January snows this year too. That affable Oyama old man—filthy as a dung beetle when money was involved—who’d tightened the screws until he was cornered beyond recourse.—

This region was known as Hokkaido’s foremost herring fishing grounds, and consequently, the fishing rights for these grounds were highly priced; Ōmaru had paid out close to 100,000 yen for this purpose.
Separate from that, the fixed capital there—stationary nets, frame nets, fishing boats, gear, buildings—also totaled over 100,000 yen.
As for annual operating funds—fishermen’s wages, their food costs, herring processing expenses—this alone required a full 15,000 yen.
If storms damaged nets or such, those costs would never suffice.
And this annual securing of operating funds had become a headache for all fishery operators.
―At first, Ōmaru had gone to Otaru during the preparatory season, as everyone did, to secure bank loans.
But by then, bank doors had already shut firmly against them.
The banks’ money wasn’t idle enough to finance something as unstable as herring fishing—ventures run by operators of dubious credit.
With no alternative, Ōmaru contracted with Oyama—their regular trader and Otaru’s top seafood wholesaler—arranging loans using products as collateral.
This state persisted three years, five years.
The result: the fishery owner couldn’t escape his financier’s grip, while product prices—already sinking yearly from recession—plummeted further, leaving him deeper in deficit each year.
Estimating 100 koku at 3,000 yen and an average catch of 500 koku gave 15,000 yen—a loss on interest alone—but even that would’ve been manageable.
Ōmaru’s debts piled higher and higher.
Now he’d reached the point where surrendering the fishing ground was unavoidable.

"Damn it!" Ōmaru ground his teeth fiercely within his heart.
This fishery had been our family’s since his father’s time.
But back then, it wasn’t like this.
At some point, it had begun to decline imperceptibly but steadily, and now there was no prospect of it ever recovering.
Therefore, this year—to tell the truth—he had started it as his last-ditch effort.
He had gone to Otaru as early as possible, and upon being told that no further loans could be arranged this year, he ambushed Oyama’s weasel-faced clerk in a meeting room, hounded him relentlessly for a week, and finally managed to secure the funds.
The Fisheries Experiment Station’s announcement stated that this year’s herring migration would likely be very abundant, and he had welcomed this fishing season with eager determination.
No sooner had the early season ended—or not even properly ended—than storms wrecked an entire frame net; with nothing left but to squeeze those damn fishermen dry to make up the loss, he resolved to scrap the 91 bonus altogether—only for that idiot clerk to blunder into sparking this mess, and not a single thing going right…

Before Ōmaru’s eyes rose vividly once more the face of Oyama’s old man—tongue flicking like a snake eyeing a frog as he coveted this fishing ground. This herring ground too would sooner or later fall into that bastard’s hands. Even fishing grounds unprofitable elsewhere still brought Oyama the seafood merchant ample gains. Yet he’d never deign to manage them himself. Nor would he transfer the fishing rights outright. No—he’d lease them at exorbitant rates to starry-eyed operators bedazzled by their fertile reputation. All while buying their catch dirt-cheap, sucking them dry to the marrow before tossing them aside at the first favorable tide…and there that bastard would lurk anew, waiting for fresh suckers to snare.

“Bastard!”

Ōmaru now shouted aloud.
And he fixed eyes brimming with every manner of hatred upon the clerk before him—who waited dazedly for his master’s orders, devoid of any plan.

“Thou shalt handle this as thou seest fit. Thou hast brought this upon thyself; thou shalt settle it with thine own hand. But I’ll not part with even a tarnished penny—keep that witless look plastered on thy face till Judgment Day and it’ll still get thee nowhere.”

Having shouted while trying to embolden his voice, the fishery owner rose from his seat and retreated noisily into an even more inner room.

And how did the dispute ultimately end?

The incident was resolved with sudden swiftness, wrapped up in the blink of an eye.
It ended as a decisive victory for the fishermen.
The owner stubbornly refused to meet them directly, forcing negotiations through the clerk as go-between—but ultimately conceded to reducing the inflated fifty-yen 91 bonus demand to forty yen. By evening two days later, the fishermen already gripped that cash in their hands.
What could have caused such an overwhelming victory—one that seemed almost too easily won?
The fishery shed held mountains of fresh herring landed just the day before.
If he let the fishermen idle now, he’d have no choice but to watch it all rot and be thrown away.
Even if he scrambled to boost daily labor quotas, they were barely at mid-season’s start.
Every moment spent squabbling meant discarding more spoiled herring—wasting a treasure trove.
This year’s unusually abundant migration made that loss sting all the more.
In the end, even the owner couldn’t keep resisting.

On the day the dispute ended, Yamamoto looked back at Genkichi and said, “How ’bout it?”

“Told ya once, didn’t I?”
“Poor folks ain’t got no choice but to band together.”
“That’s what I meant right here.”
Then he muttered like he was talking to nobody in particular.
“Ōmaru’s old bastard’s gotta ditch this herring ground after this year anyhow—stingy fucker, pinchin’ pennies over scraps. Miserable tightwad.”

Genkichi caught those words.

“Throw it away?”
“Ōmaru ain’t making any profit?”

Without answering that, Yamamoto instead posed a question.

“You said Numata Village, didn’t you? D’you know the landlord Oyama?”

“Ah, the land in the neighboring village of where I’m from—it’s all Oyama’s.”

“This herring fishing ground’s gonna end up as Oyama’s.”

“What?”

“You—d’you have any idea how much goddamn money it takes to set up a herring fishery?”

At this point, Yamamoto gave Genkichi a detailed explanation.
He knew the relationship between Ōmaru and Oyama down to the smallest detail.
And according to his explanation, Oyama—Ōmaru’s creditor and Otaru’s foremost seafood wholesaler—was simultaneously a major landlord in the Shiribeshi region.

“So,” Yamamoto said.
“The big ones all keep getting fatter like that—the system’s rigged just right to make it happen.”

“You should get the picture from this story alone,” he continued.
“Stuff in this world—things that look all scattered at first glance—they all got connections tying ’em together.”
“We ain’t just being squeezed by Ōmaru’s old man—we’re getting it from Oyama’s old man too.”
“In other words, we’re being squeezed double.”
“Moreover, if you were tenant farming Oyama’s paddies back in the village—”
“Ain’t that threefold or fourfold squeezing?”

Genkichi thought, *I see*. As he listened, the scales that had veiled his eyes until now fell away, and it felt like his vision had suddenly brightened. He sensed himself leaping from the cramped world he’d always inhabited into one vast and boundless. Even so—what a knowing fellow this was. In all his years, there hadn’t been a soul in the village who’d ever laid out these truths for him like this…….

Suddenly at that moment, Genkichi felt compelled to ask Yamamoto a question he had harbored since the very beginning of the dispute.

“There’s somethin’ I wanna ask you.”

“What?”

“Why’d ya not bring up the contract issue together with the 91 bonus to the fishery owner?”

“Well I’ll be damned!” Yamamoto suddenly boomed, his face breaking into a grin of genuine delight.
“You’ve already caught onto that?”

“Well, it ain’t like I wasn’t thinkin’ about it.
But the guys here—they’re all greenhorns when it comes to this stuff.
And they ain’t had even this much training.
So I figured if we brought up too many issues at once, it ain’t gonna get settled—that’s why I held ’em back on purpose.”

Seven

The latter herring run had ended, and the time arrived to close the fishing season.

At the farewell celebration marking the season's end, they brought out slightly more sake than during the safe arrival ceremony. The fishermen drank themselves drunk and sang with gravel-throated voices.
Though it was the great hall of the master's house, tonight alone became a no-holds-barred affair where none restrained themselves.
Their Oiwake ballads and Iso work songs carried a melancholy even these hardened men couldn't suppress—the knowledge that this year's herring labor ended with today.
The master never appeared that night.

However, it wasn’t supposed to end there.
When the alcohol ran out and it was time to disband, they urged each other with “Let’s go, let’s go,” and set out together into the town at night.
Genkichi, however, did not join them this time.
He separated from everyone and stepped outside with Yamamoto.

“Look at that.”
With the lukewarm May sea breeze blowing against his face as he strolled toward the beachside, Yamamoto pointed yonder and said.
In the direction he pointed, izakayas and small eateries lined the street in rows, their raucous string music blaring.
The figures of fishermen entering those establishments could be seen from behind.
Yamamoto continued.

“The women are there lyin’ in wait.”
“The fishermen’ll get sucked dry to the bone and tossed out stark naked come mornin’ without a penny to their name.”
“Where the hell d’you think they go?”
“No money to go home—ends up bein’ Kamchatka or shackin’ up in some labor contractor’s dive.”
“Some crawl back as sick beggars.”
“Migrant workers—trouble follows ’em wherever they go.”
“Like that fight we put up the other day—all that bandin’ together for nothin’, ’cause we couldn’t finish what we started.”

The next day, they walked together as far as the national highway markers, where Genkichi parted ways with Yamamoto.
Yamamoto would go from there to Iwamai and board a train, while Genkichi still had thirty ri to walk toward his village.
As they walked shoulder to shoulder, they had various conversations before parting.
It was there that Yamamoto first explained in detail to Genkichi what a farmers’ union was.
He also spoke about himself as a branch officer of the village farmers’ union.
For Genkichi, everything was a new and unknown world.
He listened voraciously to Yamamoto’s words.
“I’ll definitely make it to your village by autumn.”
That was what Yamamoto said as they parted.

Now alone, Genkichi set out walking.
The houses thinned out, and the road came to a place where one side was a mountain and the other wilderness.
The snowfall from when he first entered this town had vanished without a trace, leaving only dirty snow lingering in the shadows.
On the black soil yellow grass sprouted, while the buds of Itaya maple, large-leaved oak, kashiwa oak, and other trees emitted a fragrant aroma.
Genkichi repeatedly turned back to look up at Mount Shakotan.
The pale purple mountain surface—already more than half revealed from the foothills—lay hazy in the soft spring sunlight. ――May 1934――