Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

Black smoke once again poured from the brick factory.
The soot shrouded the village sky day and night without respite.
Then the entire village was painted pitch-black with pine soot.
Particularly the bark of willows, mouse pears, zelkovas and others grew indistinguishable from each other.
The leaves of paulownias, pumpkins, mulberries and others lay like black velvet, every surface carpeted in granular dust.

When rain fell, black water coursed through.
Every tree hosted nothing but blackened sparrows.
The sun burned feverishly day after day, its soot-clogged disk glowing chili-red.
All crops had been brutally robbed of their vigor.
But the worst devastation struck the mulberry leaves.
Each morning, silkworms floated away over the ink-dark water, twitching stiffly as they drifted.

*

“Our chickens—the White Leghorns, the Minorcas, the Andalusians—every last one of ’em’s turned into black chickens now.”

“Every household’s in the same damn boat.”
“You should see our geese.”
“In what world do you get black geese…?”
“Every time I see them, I can’t help laughing.”

“They used to be white as snow!”

“Me, I’m tellin’ ya—Western geese! Western geese!”
“So I’m thinkin’—followin’ that line—maybe try sellin’ ’em once, though.”

“Might not even make a lick of profit off ’em.”
“Black geese!”
“If you told ’em that, the town folks’d probably think it’s some rare novelty.”

“No matter what anyone says, what really burns me up is Old Man Gonshirō.”

“Hmm.
“For the village’s sake, someone oughta just kill that geezer.”

Sitting on the grassy embankment by the roadside, Shinpei and Heigo were engaged in such talk. Just then, Matsuyo from the same village happened to pass by.

Matsuyo was a girl with a strikingly dark complexion.

“Heyaa!”
“Matsuyo-san.”
“Buyin’ soap?”
“I’ll teach ya somethin’ better’n soap—why don’tcha take a breather an’ come over?”
“Ah! Matsuyo-san.”

“None o’ yer business!”
“Heigo-san.”
“‘Stead o’ fussin’ ’bout others—go scrub yer own damn geese!”

Matsuyo retorted as she approached.

“Our geese’re Western breeds—same as crows! Scrub all ya like—they ain’t turnin’ white.”
“Now if ya had skin like Matsuyo-san here—fair ’nough t’ bleach clean—I’d scrub ya dawn t’ dusk myself!”

“Think I don’t know? You can act the fool all you want.”
“In what world do black geese even exist…”

“You callin’ that a lie?
“Western geese—they fetch a damn fortune, y’know.”

Shinpei, who had been lying down, sat up and said,

"No matter how high the price goes, it's just like Matsuyo-san not being able to marry—with that brick factory around, there's no market left to sell anything."
"Folks out there keep thinking our Western geese turned black from the factory's pine soot."
"And when they see Matsuyo-san here all darkened by that same soot, they assume her complexion's naturally that way..."

"You don't even realize your own head's gone bald."

With those words, Matsuyo smacked Heigo's hand.

However, even as she teased them, Matsuyo did not leave their side.

"Really, how long is this going to keep up?
The brick factory.
If they don’t stop it soon, we’ll really be in trouble.
The mulberry fields are one thing—but I can’t keep selling geese forever either.
And Matsuyo-san can’t get married either."

“Anyway, with my household, we got no clue when they’ll sell off that land over there.”

“Every damn household’s in the same fix.”

“But y’know what they’re sayin’, Mr. Shinpei—this time they ain’t gonna scrap it so easy.”

They joked around, yet spoke earnestly with each other.

＊

The brick factory had now reached its third phase.
At first, during the construction of the Ou Main Line, low sheet-iron chimneys were erected in numbers, spewing black smoke for seven years.
The soil from several hectares of prime rice paddies was turned into red bricks.
While work continued, village women took daily wage jobs patting and tamping clay.
Workers molded clay into brick forms, drying them in sunlight to prevent crumbling while firming them with spatulas.
Some twisted ropes to bind bricks for sale.
Men with horses found hauling work.
They transported bricks to tracks where construction trains ran—the village’s prosperity from those days became a memory they would cherish forever.
For this marked their first experience of labor converting directly to cash without relying on land.
And even as paddies’ soil fed kiln fires by the hectare, their self-sufficient life remained largely intact.

The second period lasted nine years during the construction of the Rikuu Line. Instead of sheet-iron chimneys, red brick chimneys became targets of hostility visible from great distances. Black smoke stretched straight from chimneys to clouds. Soot damage now reached villages far beyond. Countless horse-drawn carts laden with bricks formed endless processions toward the temporary construction station. Roads grew deep ruts that held paddy-field mud for nine unbroken years. The finest rice paddies were methodically excavated and ruined—for only soil yielding premium rice could make top-grade bricks. Yet as fields vanished, displaced tenant farmers found no replacement livelihoods. None whatsoever! There were none. First-period brickworks jobs—clay-patting, hauling wages, rope-twisting—remained monopolized by veteran laborers. Some consequently migrated to Hokkaido's frontier lands. Along northeastern hills that rolled like storm swells, a few families gritted teeth on mid-slopes—there they carved mulberry groves from stubborn earth, transforming sericulture from side work to sole sustenance.

The third period was commenced after nine years of the second period, following a one-year interval.

The First and Second Periods had both been fired for railway construction materials.
Therefore, the kilns were shut down simultaneously with each project’s completion.
But this Third Period had been commenced purely for investment.
Three identical brick chimneys now stood.
With railways from the earlier periods readily transporting goods, there was no longer need to consider local railway projects as supply targets.
The entire nation became their market.
So long as clay-rich land could be acquired, this enterprise might continue endlessly.

II

Landowner Moriyama had just returned from the chicken coop.
Thereupon, Old Man Gonshirō entered.
Moriyama had a zabuton cushion placed on the veranda and made him sit there.
He had no intention of agreeing to Old Man Gonshirō’s request—which had been brought up many times before—and because he was concerned about the work left at the chicken coop, he wanted him to leave quickly.

“How’s it coming along? How are this year’s chicks faring?…”

Old Man Gonshirō brought up the topic of chickens.
It was because he first needed to appease Moriyama.

“When it comes to chickens, they say there’s no one in these parts who can match you, Master...”

“Even chicks—hell, anything—when they’re getting blasted with pine soot like this. This year’s been a complete waste of effort.”

“Well Master, even if raising chickens ain’t profitable for you, it oughta make for decent time-killing and exercise.”

Having said this, Old Man Gonshirō crinkled his entire face into wrinkles and let out an obsequious laugh, though there was nothing remotely interesting or amusing about the situation.

“No—such foolishness is absolutely not the case! I’ve been striving precisely because I want to raise top-quality chickens.”

Moriyama flared his nostrils like a spooked horse and retorted. Yet Gonshirō persisted in his ingratiating chuckle.

“Well now, you masters needn’t lift a finger to keep fed, see.”

“But what sense is there in those who needn’t work going out of their way for such wasted effort?”

Moriyama detested how people perceived him—that he had been raised as the dilettante son of a wealthy landowning family and was merely continuing such a life. He was proactive. It always began with sincere consideration and was built up accordingly. He disliked unproductive things. His approach, while somewhat passive in its assertions, ought to be seen as benevolent paternalism.—Thus, upon being made to inherit the landowner’s position following his father’s death, he earnestly began considering matters related to farming households’ side occupations. For he felt pity seeing how his tenant farmers, after bringing their tenant rice to his place, were left with grain insufficient even for a year’s meals, and how they struggled terribly with nothing to sell for the things they needed to buy. He encouraged sericulture and had them plant mulberry trees. Then he encouraged poultry farming. And he had continued this practical research for seven or eight years now—all for the sake of the tenant farmers working his family’s land. Given this, Old Man Gonshirō’s proposal—something that would implicitly darken his tomorrow—had no possibility of being accepted.

“Master, do you still reckon it’d be virtuous to sell off that land near the brick factory?”

Once again today, Old Man Gonshirō brought the conversation around in this manner to its usual destination.

“Whether it’s morally right or financially ruinous, I simply cannot sell that land under any circumstances,” Moriyama declared, his Tohoku dialect particles thickening with resolve. “If we sell that plot, four households’ll be hard-pressed to feed themselves come next harvest—you see how it is.”

Gonshirō’s yellowed teeth glinted as he countered, “Master’s quick with them noble words, but sell it off proper-like and them brats’ll sort themselves when the time comes.” He hitched up his stained hakama, voice oozing false reassurance. “Plenty folk made do same way before now—ain’t no call for frettin’.”

Moriyama’s calloused hands tightened on his knees. “Oh, they wouldn’t starve outright—not from my selling.” His gaze drifted toward the soot-streaked window where tenant farmers hoed barren fields. “But watch ’em break their backs—rice paddies gone sour, chickens coughing ash, silkworms shriveling on tainted leaves—working till their bones creak and still coming up short come rent day… That’s what sticks in my craw.”

Moriyama inwardly clenched his fist tightly.

＊

From both sides of the road, the frogs' chorus shook the earth.
The smoke from burning bricks hung dimly red, scorching the night sky.

Old Man Gonshirō staggered along in a zigzag across the full twelve-foot width of the roadway—diagonally right then left, left then right—weaving unsteadily as he went. He had been made to drink at the Kawakita Brick Manufacturing Company president’s house and had returned, but he wasn’t particularly drunk. Recently, when he walked at night, the village youths would often collide with him, so this was to prevent that. For by weaving about, no matter from which direction they might emerge to collide with him, he could sidestep them without giving the appearance that his dignity had been compromised.

“Hmph! How absurd.”
“You damn fools!”

As if spitting out the words, Old Man Gonshirō repeated it again and again.
This way, he managed to somewhat soothe his own unease.

“You damn fools!”
“Too damn absurd.”
“Now Kurihara Gonshirō here, even if...”

At that moment, someone slammed hard into his right shoulder.

“Whoa whoa whoa! That was close!”
“Who’s there?”

“Watch your step!”
“Senile wreck!”
“What kinda way is that to walk?”

A young voice shot sharply from the darkness.

“Who are you? Are you from the Miyamae estate? We ought to both be careful on night roads. I’m Kurihara Gonshirō. And you—who from the Miyamae estate are you?”

“I don’t want to hear your damn name. Old fool! But if you’re so damn eager to know this lord’s name, I’ll tell ya. I am Lord Fujiwara Heigo of the Miyamae estate. I’ll let you off just for tonight, so watch yourself from now on. Even though you’ve got one foot in the coffin, what business do you have going to the brick factory? Senile old fool!”

“Now now, we should both be careful on night roads...”

Old Man Gonshirō fled after saying that.

However, after Old Man Gonshirō had walked nearly a hundred meters from that spot, he did not remain silent.

“You idiot!”
“You damn fool, Heigo!”
“The law won’t tolerate such recklessness!”
“You dare interfere with good citizens’ passage and think the law will let that slide?”
“You damn fools!”

Old Man Gonshirō thoroughly berated Heigo.
By now he had reached the vicinity of the police box in the populous Miyamae village, which made him grow bolder.
At the same time, he felt compelled to reignite their fear of the law—back when the brick factory first prospered, what had happened to those village youths who tried to threaten him after he mediated between the factory and landowners to convert vast fertile paddy fields into brickworks? What had the law done to them?
It was necessary, Old Man Gonshirō thought, to beat into those village brats once more the terror they had once felt toward the law.

“Hey, you bastards! The law won’t allow this! You damn fool, Heigo! You dare interfere with good citizens’ passage and then claim you’re not a criminal? You damn fool, Heigo! You mangy dog! Beast! You monkey! Since Kurihara Gonshirō has deemed you a criminal, will the law let that slide? You damn fool, Heigo!”

“Senile old fool! What the hell are you goin’ around badmouthin’ others for? Loud and clear!”

From the dark hedge, someone said this and slithered out.
The spot was wedged between the cedar fence of Heigo’s house and the rice nursery where Heigo kept his geese.

“Who are you?
“Who the hell are you?”

Old Man Gonshirō said as he staggered off.
Because he thought someone had collided with him again.

“There ain’t nobody here, damn it!
“Damn old man!
“What the hell you yellin’ about while staggerin’ round?
“I’ll knock you flat into the rice nursery mud.
“Senile old fool!”

“Just ’cause I’m walkin’ and shoutin’ don’t mean I’m stirrin’ trouble or cussin’ folks out.
“The law allows freedom of speech, I’ll have ya know.”

“Hmph.”
“You think free speech is only permitted for yourself?”
“Senile old fool!”
“If you can go ’round badmouthing folks while claimin’ free speech, then I’m free too!”
“Shit-drippin’ fossil!”

“Now look here.”
“Ain’t like I been badmouthin’ you—just an old man walkin’ drunk and spoutin’ off… give me some leeway.”
“If my shoutin’ riles you so, I’ll buy a sho of sake to square things.”

“Funny thing to say, old man.”
“All this time—‘Damn Heigo,’ ‘Mutt Heigo’—you’ve been badmouthing me! If you still claim you ain’t been badmouthing me, then go drag over another damn Heigo!”
“Other than me, is there another Heigo bastard around here, huh?”
“Just think about it!”
“Damn old man!”

“So you’re the real Heigo, huh? Well now, I thought t’other one was some Heigo lookin’ like Shinpei. That were poorly done o’ me. That Shinpei bastard went interferin’ with my passin’ through… Anyroad, ’twas a mistake. I’ll buy a sho [of sake], so let’s off to t’teahouse together then? Huh? Tch!”

“You think I’ll fall for that?!”
“The law allows freedom of speech.”
“Shit old man!”
“Mangy old dog!”
“You old monkey!”

Heigo shouted this and gave Old Man Gonshirō’s chest a forceful shove.
Old Man Gonshirō staggered and fell into the muddy rice paddy.
From the darkness, the geese all began crying out at once.

“Why don’tcha go gawk at them Western geese or somethin’?”

Heigo chuckled and ran off without any particular destination in mind.

“Bastard! Murderous bastard!”
“You think the law permits this?!”
“Heigo’s murderous bastard!”
“You think the law’ll let you lay hands on Kurihara Gonshirō and walk free?!”
“Worthless bastard!”
“Mangy mutt!”
“Murderous scum!”

Old Man Gonshirō kept pulling his legs out of the mud in the rice nursery and continued shouting indefinitely.

＊

“But master!
“You might be keepin’ an eye out like that, but them Miyamae Yashiki bastards—whether it’s Heigo or Shinpei—they’re all violent ruffians. Before long, when pine soot settles and the harvest turns poor ’cause of it, they’ll be demandin’ reductions on tenant rice shares or claimin’ they can’t pay up—no doubt those bastards’ll stir up some kinda tenant dispute.”
“There’s where you gotta think real careful.”
“Hey, Master!”
“This old man ain’t feedin’ you bad advice.”

“If you were to do such a thing, the law wouldn’t permit it, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

Moriyama smiled as he said this.

“Even if the law doesn’t permit it—which it obviously don’t—’stead of tanglin’ with all that, wouldn’t it be better to sell the land off, use the proceeds as capital, and open some kinda shop? For starters, holdin’ on to land just brings more ’n’ more taxes…”

However, that was something Moriyama couldn’t bring himself to agree to.

From the standpoint of moral loss, he certainly knew he should sell the land, move to the city, and invest in commerce.
From the examples of those who had long ago sold land near that brick factory, used it as capital to move to the city, and amassed considerable wealth through newly started manufacturing or brewing industries, this was clearly evident.

At the same time, he clearly understood himself as a small landowner who shared the same fortunes and misfortunes as the tenant farmers.
However, the idea of transforming the soil of rice paddies—soil that would yield rice eternally as long as labor was applied—into brick was utterly unbearable to Moriyama.

“No matter how I think on it, I just can’t sell.”

“Well then, think on it real careful again.”
“—What time’s it now?”

Old Man Gonshirō pulled out a gold-cased pocket watch from between his obi and, peering at it, rose to his feet.

“Oh!
“Pine soot’s gotten in even here.”
“Terrible. Just terrible.”
“Here—look at this!”

Having said this, he brought the pocket watch—his whole body along with it—before Moriyama.
On the watch’s white dial rested two or three black spots.

No matter how much he thought about it, Moriyama couldn’t bring himself to sell that land.
Not only would the soil of the paddies turn into bricks, but he knew full well that people who lost their farmland would drift away from growing food altogether.
If things kept going this way, what would become of them all?
They couldn’t very well end up eating bricks!
Moriyama thought these things through.

III

The brick factory continued to emit black smoke.
It had been thought operations would temporarily cease if Moriyama refused to sell his land, but the factory proved harder to deter than that.
The brickworks began procuring clay from distant regions for its materials.
Two ocher antennae stretched out, flanking Moriyama's property.

“The brick factory bastards are some real characters.”
“Look at those red clay pits they dug out.”
“Shaped ’em exactly like the factory owner’s bald spot.”

The village farmers looked down from the hilltop and talked in this manner.
And they laughed.

The black zone amidst the red clay had become strikingly noticeable. It took the shape of a balding forehead—hair receding from both temples, leaving only a central patch of black at the front. However, even that did not last long. The reddish-brown antennae gradually enveloped the black zone from both sides. And after two years, they had turned the black zone into a complete floating island.

The black floating island was, at the same time, no longer a proper paddy field. In paddy fields, where paddy fields stretch into wetlands and maintaining warm water requires mutually supportive interaction, the black floating island was akin to upland fields on a hill. If rain continued to fall, it became a marsh; if scorching days persisted, the clay soil cracked like rough plaster. Weeds ran rampant. Their roots were tough and wouldn’t come out easily. Because of this, the rice plants were severely sapped of their vitality. Not only that, but during the flowering period as well, the soot continued to fall relentlessly, leaving the wind-pollinated rice plants utterly devastated. The ears were only about two-thirds their usual length. The grain formation was naturally poor.

“Master… I don’t know what’s caused it, but our fields have yielded so poorly this year we ain’t even got half the tenant rice owed. Can’t you wait till next spring’s silkworms hatch?”

Having said this, Old Man Sutekichi could do nothing but plead with Landowner Moriyama.
At Shinpei’s house, Matsuyo’s house, and Heigo’s house too, the harvest had fared just as poorly.

“As for the tenant rice—anyway, if we can’t figure out what caused such a poor harvest, it’s a real problem.”
“First off—hauling water through them bamboo flumes—that ain’t no good, is it?”

“Master, we know that much ourselves,”
“but beyond them bamboo flumes, we ain’t got the means to do a thing.”

“We’ll handle that on our end, naturally.”
“Just need to keep folks from laughin’ at us—if we don’t do what needs doin’, you tenants won’t come claimin’ your share of the rice.”

Moriyama laughed as he said it.
Yet those words had been torn straight from his heart.

“Next year—well—we’ll try rigging up box flumes on our side?”
“If that don’t pan out, we’ll lay iron pipes or such.”

“If you’d be so kind as to fix them box flumes for us, Master, we’ll have water aplenty. Then we’ll pile on fertilizer, weed them paddies proper—work ourselves to bone, we will—and next year sure as sunrise, you’ll see rice stalks worth braggin’ about.”

Old Man Sutekichi recalled the struggles with water this past summer as he spoke these words, his eyes glistening moistly.

＊

When spring of the following year arrived, white wooden box flumes were laid across the red clay hollows to reach the black floating island.
Water poured steadily from the irrigation ditches into the channels.
The tenant farmers of the black zone suddenly slackened their spirits and let out sighs.
Moriyama also felt relieved by this.

“We ain’t losin’ to those bastards on our end either. If we meant to pour capital into it like them bastards do, there ain’t a place we couldn’t show you proper paddy fields set up right.”

However, no matter how much water they brought in, the results when autumn came were far from encouraging.
The cold water washed over the rice roots and rushed away.
Not only that, but it stole fertilizer from the land and carried it off.
This was because the black smoke kept flowing and the pine soot kept falling.
Though it was clay soil and they thought they'd plugged all the mole holes thoroughly enough, there was nothing more they could do.
With their surroundings dug out all around them, there remained no path but to wait steadfastly until the ground settled and the fertilizer took to the land.

“There’s no helping it!”
“Well.”
“Forget about the tenant rice for now—let’s just keep going like this for a while.”

Being told this by Moriyama, the tenant farmers there persisted with their meager harvests in tearful resignation.
It must get better soon!
It must get better soon!
while continuing to believe.

*

However, an unforeseen heavy burden suddenly shocked them. This was because the flood had washed away even the embankments of the irrigation weir.

In the past, when the irrigation weir broke, several landlords who owned paddy fields around the brick factory area would cover the costs, and the tenant farmers would supply the labor. But now, the only land that required that irrigation weir was that black floating island. Naturally, Moriyama alone had to bear the material costs, while only three or four tenant households had to supply the labor.

“Master! That land… No matter what we do, it just ain’t fit to keep as paddies no more, eh? How ’bout we just turn ’em into dry fields?”

Shinpei said this and slumped in defeat.

Was it truly worth jutting a concrete weir into the Arao River’s flood-ravaged rapids just to bring water here? Moriyama could no longer avoid confronting this question. For him—who had staked everything on seeing tomorrow’s sun rise over that blighted zone—this meant wanting to sustain those fields as rice paddies even at the cost of his entire fortune.

“So… even if we turn that land into dry fields—you think you can keep going?”

“But even if we strain ourselves to build the weir...”

“If we’re going to make it dry fields now, I should’ve sold that land and bought better fields somewhere else.”

Moriyama fell silent after saying that.
Moriyama was crying.

IV

The snow was still falling.
By now, it had already piled up five or six inches deep.
When the door was opened, the fine snow—like rice husk dust blown from a winnowing machine’s mouth—drifted gently yet diagonally through stripes of lamplight into the earthen floor.

“How much longer does it mean to keep falling?”
“This damn snow won’t let up!”

Sutekichi said this and rushed out into the snow. And he drew water, brought it back, and immediately lit the fire under the stove. He decided to pound rice cakes because his daughter Ofune was leaving. No one slept well that night. Everyone woke with the first rooster’s crow. The children had also caught wind of it; try as the others might not to rouse them, they hadn’t been asleep.

“Ma! Gimme money! Gimme money, I said! It’s for Sis’s farewell gift! Ma!”

The six-year-old younger brother Kamekichi had picked up the word “farewell gift” from somewhere and began demanding like this.

“Hey! Kame thinks if he gives Sis a farewell gift, he’ll get a souvenir! Kame! You after my money?”

Older brother Tsuruji thrust out his fist.

“I don’t want Bro’s money—it’s booze money.”

“Nuh-uh. Look here! It’s a silver coin.”

Tsuruji slyly widened his eyes and opened his fist to show.
Kamekichi swiftly snatched the glinting object from Tsuruji’s palm.

“I don’t want it! This coin’s peeling!”

“That’s how it is. This coin’s come down with measles. Even you, Kame—when you had measles, didn’t all your skin peel off? And didn’t you heal up after that? This coin too—if you put it in your purse and leave it be, it’ll have healed up proper by the time you need to use it.”

“It’s a lie! That’s why I don’t want it! Ma, gimme money!”

While pestering them, Kamekichi peeled off the vat’s silver foil covering the copper coin little by little.

“If you all could give your sister a proper farewell gift, she wouldn’t have to leave our side at all.”

The mother said while stirring the azuki bean pot.

While stoking the fire beneath the stove, Old Man Sutekichi—who had continued staring silently at the flames—felt his eyelids gradually grow hot. And a single large teardrop rolled smoothly down his cheek.

＊

When the meal trays began being laid out, Old Man Sutekichi could no longer bear the breath-stifling, tear-laden feeling.
At the same time, he found himself unable to refrain from making an apology to Ofune as her father.

“Ofune! If you’re gonna resent someone, resent the brick factory, you hear? It’s not Mr. Moriyama’s fault, nor is it ours—it’s the brick factory’s doing.”

“I don’t hold a grudge against anyone or anything.”

Ofune said while sitting before the meal tray.

“The brick factory sure has a nice long winter break.”

“This brat’s always going on about such things.”

Tsuruji was a first-year student at elementary school and had a two-week winter break.
Compared to that, the brick factory’s idle period stretched endlessly.

“No matter how long the winter break drags on, it’s still good for nothing.”
“If summer break were longer though…”

Old Man Sutekichi said with a laugh, yet sounding angry.

“Mr. Moriyama and them landlords act like they understand everything, but when it comes to thinking things through proper-like, they don’t bother digging deep.”
“That’s just how it is.”

“Ofune.
“If it’s not enough with just red bean rice cakes, then have natto rice cakes or whatever—eat your fill before you go.”
“If you go off to Tokyo or such, you won’t get to eat mochi or anything unless you pay out a good bit of coin…”

“I don’t wanna eat nothin’.”

“Ain’t like there’s anythin’ frightful just ’cause the road ahead’s dark.”
“The world ain’t full of demons—they say there’s none out there.”

“But when you think about it, Mr. Moriyama not selling that land over there and being in such trouble—it’s all ’cause he means to leave us parched dry.”
“When you think about it that way, even here—seeing how we’re struggling like this—we can’t just up and stop paying our tenant rice share at all.”
“It’s a pity for Ofune, but.”

“If things had come to this, he should’ve just sold that land.”
“He could’ve at least saved himself.”

“If he’d sold it and channeled the money our way, there wouldn’t have been any problem.”
“But Mr. Moriyama—while other landlords sold off their land and left us tenant farmers to suffer—dug in his heels thinking he alone wouldn’t sell, not even out of pride.”
“What good’s him holdin’ out like an island after everyone else sold up? If you’re gonna make a stand, you need everybody standin’ together.”

“Still ain’t no cause for talkin’ resentment.”
“It’s a world that’ll wring you dry even if it kills ya.”

“No one’s talking about grudges or anything.”
“Hmm.”
“It’s that the master felt sorry for us.”

Old Man Sutekichi, troubled by having nowhere to direct his pent-up feelings, pursed his lips and spoke irritably in a hoarse, thick voice.

＊

To catch the first morning train, they had to hurry.
However, Ofune seemed unable to get anything done.
She did nothing but tremble faintly.

As for the luggage, Old Man Sutekichi and the mother had to prepare everything themselves.

“Ofune!”
“Ofune!”
“Ofune!”

While calling out like this, the grandmother—who had long been bedridden—came crawling out from the back room, dragging rags behind her.

“Ofune! Before you go—let me see your face one last time.”
“Let me see your face before you go.”
“I’ll never lay eyes on you again…”

Grandmother was already crying.
As she wept, she wiped her tears with a rag clutched in her hand.

“It’s a pity—if only they didn’t have to send you so far, couldn’t they have worked something out with Mr. Moriyama? Like sending you to work for him instead of giving him money?”
“If you go off to Tokyo, such a distant place… I’ll never see you again in this old woman’s lifetime…”

“Granny! Stay strong now. Five or six years’ll pass quick enough. Once Tsuru and Kame grow up proper-like, our house’ll get better.”

Ofune began choking on tears as she spoke.

“This here, Ofune—I’d been savin’ it thinkin’ I’d get you at least one half-collar when you married off, but since I don’t reckon I’ll ever lay eyes on you again, buy yourself some sweets on the train and eat ’em.”

Grandmother crawled all the way to the entranceway threshold and, pressing her face against Ofune’s arm, forced the rag she had been clutching into Ofune’s hand. Inside it lay what appeared to be several copper coins wrapped within.

“Granny!”
“That’s enough, that’s enough.”
“Why don’t you buy yourself something to eat instead?”

Even when she refused, Grandmother would not listen.

Ofune received it and went outside while wiping tears and being escorted by the father.
The father, carrying luggage on his back, led Ofune ahead and trudged heavily into the snow.
When they turned right at the holly bush by the entrance and disappeared from view, the mother let out a wail and began crying.

Five

When the snow melted, within the weathered ochre depressions, an expanse of black soil emerged once more like an island.
At the center of the black soil zone rose a tall derrick for a dug well.
The early spring west wind howled and crashed against it.
Yet atop the derrick, the long bamboo mechanism creaked and groaned endlessly through days unbroken.

"How's it going? Still haven't struck water yet?"

Moriyama would say this and come to inquire several times a day.
There were frequent days when he wouldn’t leave the site at all.
He would climb the derrick himself and clatter away at the drill pole, moving it as though unable to stay still for a moment.

“Why won’t this place give us any water?”

Moriyama had long since strayed beyond reason.
Water!
Water!
Water!
His entire body was parched dry.
His bright hopes for the future lay crushed beneath the black arid zone.
And that black parched zone threatened to engulf his entire consciousness.
It was encroaching upon his very heart.

“It should be coming up any time now.”
“It’s gotta come out eventually.”

The well diggers too had no more words of comfort left to offer.

“After workin’ ourselves to the bone with nothin’ to show for it—does the law even allow this? Should we go ask Old Man Gonshirō ‘bout it?”

After saying such things, Moriyama left, and the well diggers laughed.
It was to dispel their feelings of pity toward Moriyama.

However, even when rice planting began, water never came out from that dug well.

“Master! This ain’t lookin’ like it’ll give us nothin’. How ‘bout we rig up a water-lifting wheel instead? There’s a bit of water pooled in that hollow yonder.”

“Won’t it come out no matter what? No matter what we try?”
“If it won’t come out, then makin’ a water-lifting wheel’s our only shot. When they’re sellin’ their own daughters just to scrape together the tenant rice… Ain’t nothin’ we do gonna get ‘em water…”

Moriyama slumped down where he stood as if every ounce of strength had left him.

＊

A section of the clayey paddy field was dug up, and there a small water-lifting wheel was constructed.
It had been built to lift water through human foot pedaling.

Moriyama climbed onto that water-lifting wheel and pedaled it day after day with a clattering noise whenever rain didn’t fall.
The turbid pooled water flowed thickly into the ditch like some brooding creature.
Watching this, Moriyama grinned until his entire face creased with what seemed like joyful laugh lines.

“Master! Shouldn’t we take a turn too?”

Even when Shinpei and the others said this, Moriyama refused.

“Oh, it’s nothing—I’m just treating this as exercise.”

But when the scorching days persisted, Moriyama had to keep pedaling the waterwheel through sleepless nights.
There were times he pedaled while dozing beneath the blistering sun.
Soot from the brick factory rained down ceaselessly from above.
Black specks like winged insects alighted on his white undergarment—one by one, two by two—until by evening it turned gray.

“Hey! What the hell’s happened to Master Moriyama?”

One fiercely scorching afternoon, while weeding the rice fields, Heigo stood up and said:

“He was pedaling it just moments ago.”
“Really?”
“You think he nodded off and let the water run out?”

Heigo and the others climbed up from the rice fields and ran to the water-lifting wheel.

＊

After Moriyama - his body scorched by blazing heat amidst fatigue and sleep deprivation - died of acute heatstroke-induced cholera, the tenant farmers there took turns pedaling the water-lifting wheel.

But from the following year onward, no one came to pedal it.
Even if they didn’t factor in the tenant rice, harvesting through such means still wouldn’t balance out.
They, who needed for their daily lives the many goods produced by city factories through mechanical power, could not afford to engage in such labor-intensive cultivation just to purchase those things.
Therefore, they had no choice but to turn that place into dry fields.

The black zone, however, could not even become mulberry fields because pine soot clung to the leaves.
With no other choice, part of it was turned into vegetable fields.
Even if they grew nothing but vegetables, there was no way to sell them.
And plans were being discussed to grow wheat starting in autumn.
The water-lifting wheel left abandoned there, coated day after day in pine soot, had turned from its original pale wood construction into a jet-black form thrusting upward.

――1929・12・3――