Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

Ending up having to carry the heavier three-ken joren, Katsu tried hoisting it onto his shoulder but staggered and swayed unsteadily.
The thick pole dug heavily into his small right shoulder until it filled the space entirely, and he felt as if the area around his shoulder blade was cracking.
Moreover, when he managed two or three steps, the tip of the joren would swing from side to side, and with each movement, the bamboo handle would grind against his shoulder skin like a twisting auger.
Katsu scrunched up his entire face, tucked his neck in like a turtle, and waddled from his hips.

“That’s what you get for dawdlin’ around,” Oseki said, unable to hide her smile at Katsu’s unsteady form as she emerged from under the eaves behind him.

The lighter joren had been snatched by his brother Yuji while Katsu struggled with the oversized work pants—hand-me-downs from their eldest brother who’d left for a Tokyo factory last autumn—and fumbled with his gloves and fish basket. The baggy trousers kept slipping no matter how he hitched them up or folded the cuffs, costing him precious time against Yuji.

“Yuji you bastard, that’s so sneaky! Just you wait!”
Katsu had hurled such words at Yuji’s retreating back three times already, but this time he lashed out at his mother.
“You didn’t even make me proper work pants! This is just someone else’s hand-me-downs…”
“Whether it’s someone else’s or your own, you brat, it’s genuine cotton I tell ya. Nowadays, if I let you wear synthetic fiber pants, you’d tear ’em to shreds in half a day.”

Oseki stuffed large lunch bundles and four straw raincoats for emergencies into the basket, shouldered it with another stagger under the weight, then hurried to catch up with Katsu. After delivering a sharp rebuke in one breath, she briskly overtook him and quickened her pace to avoid falling behind Yuji and her husband visible ahead on the path.

Gritting his teeth and squatting low, Katsu tried to prop up the bamboo pole with both hands to keep his mother from passing him. But this only made the damned joren sway more violently, its tip lurching side to side until it nearly hurled his small body into the roadside ditch.

Kōhei, the father, who had piled compost into the carrying baskets with a thud, thrust a manabiki hoe and mud scraper on top, and shouldered them, had already passed through the outskirts of the village and was now on the slope leading down to the rice fields. Down the rain-slicked slope where the damp soil threatened to send him sliding with every step, he inched his way downward, digging his toes in to check his momentum. Right behind him, Yuji lightly shouldered the smaller joren and kept whistling as he went. Yuji was sixteen, but since last year’s rice harvest season, his height had visibly shot up, and now he stood nearly level with his father’s shoulder.

“Yuji! You take that mud scraper.”
“No good.”
“It’s in the way—makes walkin’ hard.”

When his father said this while holding his breath,Yuji swiftly snatched the tool from beside him,slinging it over his left shoulder like a rifle before dashing down the slope.

With eight-tan fields needing planting ASAP looming before them—in days desperate enough to borrow even a baby’s hands—they’d pulled Osayo from sixth grade and even Ochiyo who’d just started school this year,making this rice planting a full household mobilization.
Thanks to two straight days of downpour ending a drought-fearing rainy season,the irrigation-ditch fields along marshbanks—parched near completely—now drank rainwater greedily,turning soft and muddy.

In the early-clearing June sky, the sun had risen unnoticed, and the plain beyond the marsh began to glow with a particularly bright golden hue.
Windless, the deep blue marsh lay still with a solemn tranquility.

Eventually, Kōhei’s family descended the hill along the irrigation ditch and reached their rice field, trudging like ants hauling a long insect, with Katsu—practically dragged along by the joren itself—bringing up the rear.
At that moment, the golden light spread its radiance this way—to the long-stretched farmland at the base of the hill.
In the watery sky tinged with thin mist over the fields, skylarks had already soared high, heralding the day’s jubilation.

Before even unloading their loads, they each set to work.
Oseki took the manabiki hoe in hand and set about turning over the rice field.
Yuji threw his long-handled joren into the irrigation ditch and began dredging mud.
The sediment there—which had been washed down from the vast upstream fields to settle at some unknown time—naturally contained abundant nutrients, such that as long as they dredged this up, not only did that area require little additional fertilization, but moreover, the paddy fields themselves grew higher year after year, gaining some measure of relief from autumn flood damage.

“Katsu! Hurry up and bring it, you brat!” Kōhei bellowed, unable to wait any longer.
“What’s this? Still draggin’ your feet over some’n that trivial?”

Katsu, sweat pouring down his face and breath heaving, finally thrust the joren’s tip near his father’s feet before slamming the bamboo pole down with a thud.

“Yuji you bastard, that’s sneaky!” he said, voice trembling.

“What’s that? What’d I do?”
“You brat!”
Yuji shot back from afar.
“We fetched our own gear ourselves, didn’t we?”

“That’s so unfair! Just you wait...”
“Enough! You’ll see later...”

“Quit squabbling over this, you brats.—Katsu! Get dredging that mud now.”

Kōhei barked and hurled the large joren into the irrigation ditch with a resounding splash.

Katsu readjusted his hat, grabbed the mud scraper tossed on the ridge, and began the simple yet backbreaking task for a child—scooping dredged mud from where his father and brother were hauling it up toward the middle of the field his mother was turning over.
No sooner had he entered the field than his pent-up frustration made him suddenly fling mud at Yuji with his T-shaped scraper.

“Hey, you brat!”
Yuji also raised one leg and kicked away the mud at his feet, but it didn’t fly toward Katsu—instead, it sailed far off toward his mother.

“Hey, Yuji! What do you think you’re doing, you idiot!”

Glancing sideways at his scolded brother, Katsu twisted his mouth and rolled his eyes with a sharp *nyu*.
Somehow, his tangled mood straightened out, and now he set about earnestly scooping mud.

Even so, scooping the continuously dredged mud all by himself was no easy task.
Katsu became drenched in sweat within less than an hour.

“Ah, damn thing—hey you damned pest!”

A pale green small eel writhed in confusion through the mud.
He let out a shout and threw down the mud scraper, then rushed over to grab it with both hands.

“Mom! Hurry—a container! My botezaru basket—the basket, hurry!”

“Where’s that botezaru basket?
You idiot! Catching that thing won’t do any good.”

Oseki kept swinging the manabiki hoe even as she spoke.

“I caught it, Mom! Hurry…”

“You idiot.”
“Quit foolin’ around! If you don’t start diggin’ quick, the mud’ll pile up till there’s no handlin’ it! Hey—Katsu!”

Even though scolded by the father, Katsu climbed up the ridge with the small eel firmly clutched in one hand and set about searching for the botezaru basket he had brought and should have left around there.

The sun began blazing down.
There was no longer any time to indulge the child’s whims.
Kōhei dredged up mud with all his strength poured into the joren, while Oseki planted her feet wide like a man and turned over the rice field.
And Yuji too—having been pulled into farm work for three years now—managed to accomplish more than half a person’s share of labor, no, work approaching that of an adult.

2

The next day and the day after that, the family continued dredging mud, turning over the rice fields, and rushing to prepare for planting—but the crucial fertilizer still hadn’t been obtained.
They had managed to apply at least a semblance of homemade compost, but that alone did absolutely nothing for the higher fields where the mud wouldn’t circulate.
There, they would pound in about three bales of chemical fertilizer every year without fail.
Regarding that fertilizer—not only chemical types but even fish meal-based blends—prices had doubled this year due to shortages (attributed to raw material deficits from the Second Sino-Japanese War compounded by reduced production capacity).
For these reasons, on one hand, with increased production becoming the nation’s supreme mandate, matters fell under the authorities’ rationing system, and those like Kōhei—who couldn’t stockpile supplies—had no choice but to wait for distributions from the village’s industrial association.
As for this rationed fertilizer, at least the components were reliable, and the price was cheaper than what they had previously bought from regular fertilizer merchants, having been "publicly fixed".

It had been established in a most “convenient manner”—to borrow the villagers’ phrasing—but in practice, things hardly went as intended. Despite the association’s repeated assurances that “it’ll come today” or “it’ll definitely arrive tomorrow,” only a mere trickle—the allotment for mulberry fields—had materialized, while the portion designated as “priority” for rice paddies showed no sign of appearing whatsoever.

Some had even started saying, “Had no choice but to plant unfertilized fields.”
For those who acted quickly, there was no choice but to resign themselves to planting unfertilized fields or secretly procure fertilizer from merchants at triple the price.

“Maybe I should just plant unfertilized fields too—” Kōhei had fretted as preparations for the rice field advanced, until finally during that day’s noon break:

“This is my last straw. If I check at the association and it doesn’t come today, I’ll plant unfertilized fields. Damn it—never suffered like this in my life!” he was muttering when Osayo came running down the hillside toward them.
Osayo, who had taken another day off school to mind the house, had been watching over the youngest child Yoshiko.

“What is it, Osayo—” Oseki called out, having been the first to spot her.

“Has the fertilizer come?” Kōhei got to his feet.

But what Osayo had brought wasn’t that sort of welcome news.

“Mom! Yoshiko’s crying saying her stomach hurts!” Osayo shouted from afar, panting heavily.

“Since when has her stomach been hurting—”

When Osayo approached to explain: that morning—following instructions—she had spread out unthreshed wheat bundles in the yard to dry. While she and Ochiyo were playing among them singing songs, Ochiyo suddenly fell silent. Returning to the engawa veranda, she threw herself down there and began sobbing.

“What’s wrong? Why are you crying?” When asked if something had happened to Ochiyo, she shook her head and said her tummy hurt.

When asked if she wanted to go to the toilet, she shook her head.

Even when asked what should be done, she just kept crying and said she couldn’t handle it with her own hands.

“When was that?”

“Around ten or eleven…”

“Did you give her the red pill?” Oseki snapped impatiently.

“She wouldn’t drink it—I tried taking it out of the bag to make her take it, but she spat it right out.”

“What a hopeless brat. Didn’t you feed her something? A plum or whatnot?”

“Feed her? We didn’t have anything!”

“You should’ve brought her along,” Oseki said in a scolding tone.
“At a time like this when we’re so busy, there’s no use in her being in pain! Why didn’t you bring her along?”

“But Mom… you were just thrashing about and kept shaking your head no matter what I said!”

Osayo fell silent with a dissatisfied look after saying that.

“It’s just a stomachache—nothing worth coming all the way to report, you fool.”

Kōhei also stood up after saying this and lumbered off toward the association, leaving everyone behind.
Even with preparations complete, there had been no point breaking their backs planting if the crucial fertilizer never arrived.
Truth be told, he couldn't remain calm.
Osayo, who had been standing silent all this time, abruptly began retracing her path back home.

Oseki wavered over what to do.
She'd been watching her husband and daughter's separate actions but,

“Osayo—Osayo—” she called.
But whether Osayo heard or not, she didn’t even turn around.

“Ain’t nothin’ serious.”
She muttered to herself, then raised her voice even louder,

“Osayo, make Yoshiko take the red medicine and put her to bed.
“Listen—you’ve got to make her take it even if you have to force it down.”

Oseki descended into the rice field once more and began swinging the joren.
They were thoroughly accustomed to children’s stomachaches by now.
As her husband had said, there had been no need for her to come all this way to report it.

Meanwhile, Kōhei, who had rushed to the association’s office, encountered five or six others who had come to inquire about fertilizer just like himself.

“How’s it looking—is it coming?”

He briskly entered and addressed no one in particular, “I came to the association to see if the fertilizer’s coming…”

“The fertilizer ain’t even come…” muttered the group in alternating voices, their words blending boredom and resentment like a half-hearted chant.

“No damn use for ’em. Thermometers of all things being sent here.”

To their utter disbelief, those thermometers were being rationed in neat little boxes.
This was undoubtedly carried out by the association under the initiative of some entity like the Ministry of Health and Welfare, specifically to drill hygienic notions into country folk.

“Even if we check thermometers, the rice ain’t gonna grow,” one of them said, addressing Kōhei.
“Hey there, Dai no Oyakata.”

“Hmm, that’s about right,” Kōhei answered as he settled into a chair there. “If they’d just take the field’s temperature and report it, then sooner or later, why, that good doctor’ll come runnin’ over for sure.”

“An agricultural doctor, huh?”

“Hmm, well if it’s that doctor we’re talkin’ about, he’d probably teach us a way to boost yields without fertilizer—two birds with one stone, huh?”

“You got a point there, but then we’d need to take people’s temperatures too.”
“Everyone’s just gettin’ all worked up over fertilizer this and fertilizer that.”
“If they don’t lower the damn blood pressure soon, we’ll have the whole village droppin’ dead from brain hemorrhages or somethin’…”

“But damn if that blood pressure just keeps risin’ without ever comin’ down.”
“How about it—listen to that phone call just now.”

In the back room, the hoarse voice of the association clerk was indeed on the phone.

“Well… that’s not exactly… I see… Hmm… Goodness, this is really trouble… Doesn’t matter how much we need… Heh heh… No, really… In that case… Goodbye.”

With a clatter of the receiver being set down, the clerk appeared, hurrying while clacking his slippers. He was a small-statured man with a half-white, monkey-like face. Without heading to his office desk, he turned toward where everyone was, crouched on the far side of the brazier, and folded his hands with a self-important “hmmph...” He put on as solemn a face as possible there—one that wouldn’t provoke anyone.

“So? Even so, is there any prospect of it coming?” one of them asked.

“Well… they’re saying they won’t know unless it’s tomorrow…”

“Tomorrow this and tomorrow that—you’ve fed us that line plenty.”
“It’s like the association’s turned into some kinda broken record.”

“Well, you all can joke like that, but look—the prefecture and the association have been working themselves ragged worrying over this. Why, our chairman’s been laid up since yesterday—gone to the prefectural office, the Ministry of Agriculture, even checked with fertilizer companies.”
“We’ve been working ourselves ragged, and still it’s getting us nowhere.”
“The Ministry of Agriculture’s prioritizing early-season regions, see—apparently redirecting whatever they can produce there first. And here we are scrambling to get even a hundred straw bags, fifty straw bags, whatever scraps we can grab for our side. With this mess, ordinary efforts won’t cut it…”

“But if you go to Yamajuu—the town’s fertilizer dealer—ain’t there enough stock for a temporary fix just sittin’ idle in their warehouse?”
“How ’bout it? Can’t they use the authorities’ power somehow to get that stuff rerouted over here?” said the middle-aged, bearded farmer, rolling his bulging eyes.

III

Even so, no matter how long they waited or what alternative methods they tried, it seemed best to resign themselves to the fact that nothing would arrive today or tomorrow.

“Ain’t no help for it. Might as well plant in unfertilized fields or whatever,” Kōhei snapped as he stood up.

“Right, this ain’t the time to be talkin’ ’bout vinegar or konnyaku.”
“We might as well give up clean and plant tomorrow.”
The young man who had earlier been chanting the Obako-bushi folk song also rose to his feet in response, stretching both hands high enough to reach the ceiling before letting out a series of loud yawns—“Aah, aah...”

Kōhei was trudging heavily back along the path to the rice fields, unable to shake off his conflicted feelings. He too believed that there was indeed a considerable stock in the town's fertilizer merchant's warehouse. Those with cash to throw around had already obtained a certain amount from that quarter and were planting their fields in full swing.

"Damn it—" he blurted out involuntarily.
"Where the hell does such a huge stock even exist?"

“Hey now, what’s this—so late in the day—”

A familiar man suddenly sped by on his bicycle from the side and appeared.

“Oh, it’s you—what’s with you showin’ up this late?”

“Me? I’m here on business.”

The middle-aged man who nimbly dismounted his bicycle—a jack-of-all-trades who brokered elections, inscribed epitaphs, dealt in silkworm eggs, mulberry leaves, and cocoons, and even posed as a grain merchant—this figure locally known as “Tsukaya” stood barely five shaku tall, his grotesque face disproportionately large and eyes reduced to mere slits. He looked Kōhei square in the face and smirked.
And with a quick tongue,

“Pray at the association shrine a hundred times, and still no fertilizer’ll come.”

“Even if the chairman makes a hundred pilgrimages to the prefecture, government, and companies, it’s no use—so no matter how much we…”

“Heh heh…” Tsukaya twisted his lips into a smirk.
“Where’d that chairman go making all those damn pilgrimages anyway?”
“By now they’ve wrung every last drop out of him—bet he’s dead asleep.”
“If they don’t pump him full of hormones or somethin’, that fertilizer ain’t ever comin’.”

After spitting this out, Tsukaya shifted his tone. “Now then—”
“You folks already finish plantin’ them paddies?”

“Paddies?—Ain’t plannin’ to plant any damn paddies.”
“This year—well—we decided to let the weeds take over.”

“But then that’d be goin’ against the government’s ‘Increased Production’ order.”

“Ain’t no help for it.”
“This…”

“If it’s just a small amount, I can arrange it.”
“Truth is, I’ve been workin’ this angle for days now, goin’ round like this.”
“Even a no-good troublemaker like me—when it’s an emergency like this, gotta do my part for the nation, right?”

With that, Tsukaya casually fished a hand-rolled cigarette from his pocket and—without uttering a word, as if saying “Want one?”—shoved the whole pouch right under Kōhei’s nose.

Kōhei took one Akatsuki cigarette,

“Black market dealings ain’t for the nation’s sake either.”

“Ha ha…” Tsukaya roared with laughter. “Black market? We’re dealin’ at government rates.”

“But you—government-rationed fertilizer’s only available through the association…”

“That’s how it works in this village. The government’s policy’s to have the association split things half-and-half for distribution.”

“That so?… Well, ain’t my concern. What matters—what’ve you actually got? Chemical? Fish meal? Soybeans…”

“Chemical’s all gone, but we got fish meal blend.”

“That… Yamajuu?”
“Who’s got it?”

“You—that don’t matter.
“This here’s just business between you and me.
“Fertilizer’s mine—ain’t like you’re stealing from nobody.”

“Well, as long as there’s actual stock, there ain’t no problem… So, how much for one bag?”

“Government rates,” said Tsukaya, thrusting out his lips as he pulled a small abacus from his pocket, tilted it sideways, and smugly click-clacked the beads into place.

“Like hell there’s such a government rate.”

Kōhei shouted over him, glaring at Tsukaya, then abruptly turned away.

“Like hell there ain’t!”
“It’s the same no matter where you go!”
“If it weren’t for this stuff here, just you wait—next time you won’t even get it from the association!”

It was as though he were about to declare he’d cancel the deal if they refused.

“Hmm…” Kōhei now had no choice but to yield.
“So… how many bags are there?”

“You just tell me how many bags you need—I’ll arrange however many it takes.”

“I mean, for now, if there’s about twenty bags…”

“Twenty, huh? Alright, I’ll arrange it.—Tomorrow should work.”

“That’s all well and good, but… the price—isn’t that a bit… questionable?”

“It’s government rates, you. Break this deal, and I’ll have you blacklisted.”

“That’s just your own made-up government rate!”

“If you’re gonna say that kinda thing, we’re out.”
“—Deal’s off.”
“The whole village’s clamoring for it—hell, there’s even folks ready to pay cash upfront.”
“I don’t need you to sell this stuff—it’ll go anywhere. But since I ran into you here so conveniently, I figured I’d give you the offer.”

Tsukaya stowed the small abacus back into his pocket and took hold of the handle with practiced ease. Wearing an expression that screamed time was of the essence, he said, “Well then, seein’ as you’ve gone to all this trouble—”

IV

When he returned to the rice field, Yuji was alone dredging mud.
The sun had long since sunk, and across the irrigation ditch, the shadow of the opposite hill stretched thickly toward the marsh bank.
Yuji heaved the Joren into place with visible effort, straining his shoulders to scoop the mud, but the blade wouldn’t bite deep into the sludge—not even half of it lifted free.

“Haa, the mud’s all gone—can’t get any more,” Yuji muttered like an excuse as he glanced at his father.

“Where’s Mom and Katsu?”
Kōhei asked absently.
His mind still churned like a typhoon from the deal he’d just struck with Tsukaya.
Government rates my ass—that bastard.
Even double this crap wouldn’t do squat.
Who’d buy that shit at those prices—tell me that.
Even a fool’s got his limits.—But hell, if canceling that out means seven bales per tan… ain’t no loss buying it after all.
First off—it’s that drive to lay down base fertilizer and plant. That ain’t something you can buy for a thousand ryō…

Yuji seemed to answer something, but it didn’t register in his ears; Kōhei grabbed his discarded Joren and mechanically hurled it into the irrigation ditch.

Around that time, when Yoshiko’s condition suddenly took a turn for the worse, Oseki received another summons from Osayo, rushed back home, her thoughts in chaos, and began darting about in a frenzy.
Yoshiko’s clouded eyes looked ready to roll back in her head as she lay there, no longer even having the strength to cry out in pain—drifting in and out of consciousness amid the high fever, her limbs twitching spasmodically.
Her abdomen had swollen up like a dead frog—round and taut—so much that pressing it with a fingertip wouldn’t leave a dent.

“Oh my—what’s happened here, Yochiko—”

At first, Oseki stood frozen there in a daze.
She hadn’t considered this situation in the slightest.

Her mother Otsune—who lived separately in a rented house nearby—though dressed in work clothes, was as neatly kept as ever and, despite being past fifty, maintained the figure of a woman in her forties as she cooled Yoshiko’s forehead.
There were even signs she had struggled to make her drink castor oil or something.

The next instant, Oseki regained her composure, but when she saw her mother’s usual demeanor, a surge of anger welled up within her.

“What the—Mom—!” Oseki shouted harshly, thrusting her body forward as if to drive that unbearable sight away from Yoshiko’s bedside.

“What do you mean ‘what’s wrong’? I can’t just sit quiet watchin’ her squirm and scream like that!”

Even so, Otsune held back out of consideration for her daughter—she had something that compelled her to do so—and retreated a step back on her knees from there.

“Enough—I ain’t want your fussin’, Mom. Just get home.”

“I’d’ve gone back without you tellin’ me to,” she pressed on. “Oseki, how long you gonna keep talkin’ to me in that snippy tone? You don’t think things through properly, you’ll end up losin’ out, I tell ya.”

“Whether it’s loss or gain, we don’t give a damn about that,” Oseki shot back. “We’re doin’ this ’cause we ain’t gonna be laughed at by folks…”

After hurling those words, Oseki turned toward Osayo—who stood meekly by her side—and poured out the agitation seething in her chest.

“Did you give the red pills? I told you till I was blue in the face… Had you given ’em proper, she’d have healed up ’fore it came to this.”

“But Mom… However much I tried making her take it, she’d just go ‘gag-gag’… and spew it right back up! Couldn’t be helped!”

“No excuses, you useless girl—thirteen years old and still can’t mind a babe proper?”

“Scolding Osayo won’t cure the sickness,” Otsune cut in from the sidelines.
“Quit jawin’ and fetch a doctor already—Yochiko’ll kick the bucket else!”

“It’s none of your damn business. No matter what you think of me, I’m not some seven- or ten-year-old brat—I know that much without being told. I know that already, but doctors demand money upfront. And money doesn’t come free… We can’t…”

“That’s exactly none of your damn business.”

Otsune, taking the final remark as a jab at herself, sharply retorted.
"You’re so mean-spirited."
"I wonder why a wicked daughter like you came from my womb. It’s a mystery, isn’t it?"

Otsune grew dizzy and nearly lost all sense of her surroundings, but noticing the neighbor’s young man entering the earthen-floored room with eyes gleaming in concern, she regained her composure and left through the back door.

“I’ll go fetch the doctor,” said the young man, watching Oseki’s face.

“Oh—ain’t right to trouble ya with worry.”

Oseki also regained her composure, forced a smile, and paused to consider—

“Oh, don’t worry—I’ll send Osayo, so it’s really fine.”
“There’s no need for you to go out of your way, especially when we’re so busy…”

“But I mean, I just came up from work…”

“But it’s really fine. When the time comes, I’ll send Osayo.”

Oseki still couldn’t make up her mind.
The young man, sensing her hesitation, repeated, "If you need me to go, I’ll go anytime..." and left with hesitant steps.

Had the neighbor’s wife from the house behind them not stopped by—she had come up from the fields to prepare dinner—Oseki’s resolve would have remained unshaken for much longer.
This wife, who had lost two of her own children to dysentery, took one look at Yoshiko’s condition and understood it immediately.

“Oh, Oseki-san—you need to call the doctor quickly…”

At that, Oseki—also startled—called Osayo.
And then, from the side, Katsu shouted, “I’ll go!” and dashed out.
He had taken advantage of his mother’s return to secretly abandon his work and come back home, but until now, fearing he’d be scolded, he had been hiding in the shed.

“Huh, you brat. When did you sneak back here?”
Oseki sharpened her expression but had no time to reprimand him.
“Do you lot understand anything, you half-wit brat? — Osayo, hurry up and go borrow a bicycle from the house out back.”

Osayo, who had been tidying up the dried wheat bundles in the front yard, immediately went to the house out back upon being told and pulled out the bicycle that had been left abandoned under the eaves. However, the saddle on that adult-sized bicycle was too high, and her feet couldn’t reach the ground. She inserted one leg from the side like a circus performer, pedaled with just her right foot, and still zoomed off steadily.

The village doctor had just returned from a house call and promptly came by bicycle.
After giving her an injection and draining the contents of her abdomen, Yoshiko regained her breath and began to recover a little.

“It was close—she’d been stuffing herself with unripe pickled plums and rotting apricots,” the white-haired village doctor laughed.

The doctor prepared a sweet-and-sour liquid medicine, thoroughly explained how to administer it and care for the sick child, and eventually left.

By then, Yoshiko had almost regained normal breathing and was sleeping peacefully.

Meanwhile, Kōhei still hadn't returned from the fields.
While the doctor was treating the sick child after arriving, Yuji—having slipped back unnoticed at some point—silently stoked the furnace beneath the bath; but when asked "Where's Dad?", he only answered, "He'll probably be back soon..."
After the doctor left, Oseki and the children finished eating the dinner Osayo had rustled together in the kitchen—yet still Kōhei did not return.

“Did Dad go to the union and not come back?” Oseki asked Yuji again, her irritation mounting.

“Nah,”
“After comin’ up from the fields, he went off somewhere else again.”
“Told me to go home first.”
Yuji was sulking.

“That idiot old man… Makin’ all this fuss then swannin’ off like some carefree brute. Unbelievable.”

Oseki muttered to herself as she shoved the meal tray she’d once set out for Kōhei back into the cupboard.

Kōhei returned home sluggishly after everyone had gone to bed.
He finally removed his helmet before Tsukaya—no, rather, he’d been forced to remove it. An indescribably unpleasant aftertaste clung bitterly to his mind. Without a word, he pulled out his meal tray and began mechanically shoving cold barley-rice down his throat.

5

The next morning, Yoshiko had completely recovered; the moment she woke up she started begging for food, and once full began singing songs.
“Fifty thousand and some straw bundles divided, searching for hide-and-seek spots somewhere…”
It was a verse she had been taught by Ochie the previous day among the dried wheat bundles laid out for drying.
And

“Today, you’re not to eat anything but rice, you hear?” her mother pressed insistently,

“Uh, Yotchko didn’t eat anything…”

Lowering her eyes, she put on an appropriately solemn expression.

Now, today was finally the day they could begin planting the rice.
Kōhei, who had gotten up later and fidgetingly finished his breakfast,

"I gotta go get the fertilizer, so you all go on ahead out to the fields," he said without looking at anyone’s face.

There seemed to be some ulterior motive behind that.
The thought struck Oseki’s chest with a start.
Admittedly, this might have been due to her own unresolved fixation from the previous night that still lingered.
For Kōhei would not elaborate on the fertilizer no matter how much Oseki pressed him—indeed, he disliked being questioned about it—and so, conversely, Oseki found herself compelled to pursue the matter even more intensely.
The agricultural cooperative wouldn’t come until the ears had already sprouted, so unless they obtained it elsewhere, they’d have no choice but to plant unfertilized fields in disgrace.
He kept spouting such obvious excuses without ever mentioning the crucial matter of Tsukaya, just repeating that since he’d managed to secure fifteen koku bags of compound fertilizer in fifteen straw sacks, tomorrow was planting day—planting day, he insisted.
He kept emphasizing only the planting—Where did he get it? Surely he didn’t acquire something exorbitantly priced on the black market. But when pressed further, he snapped: "You think you can judge me with that attitude? Whether it’s hachimon coins or Tempō coins, as long as I’m managing this household, I wouldn’t pull such stunts—and even if I did, I won’t let some sniveler take responsibility!"—utterly refusing to engage.

Oseki, too, was sleepy and had fallen asleep as she was, but once again, a murky unease welled up within her chest.

"Damn it, he can't even manage the household properly. What if there's a flood by some mistake? In the end, it's all gonna come crashing down on me—"

Oseki, as a daughter born into the household after all, owned under her own name only the estate and some fields passed down from her ancestors—though their yield amounted to less than a third of the total production. When it came to that point, her husband Kōhei was, so to speak, “bare-handed”—ready to roll up his sleeves or hitch up his pants when push came to shove.

Though she considered rebuking her husband over his words and actions, she forced the impulse deep into her gut, reasoning that raising a racket first thing in the morning during this busy season would only disturb the neighbors. Then she turned her irritation on Osayo, who was hemming and hawing about whether to go to school.

"You idiot! Never mind school—we need to get to the paddies for seedling gathering!"

Without paying any attention to Kōhei, she hurried Osayo out of the house—and now found herself unable to avoid suspecting how her husband had procured the fertilizer money.
"It must be from Mother again." The moment those words escaped her lips, her feet rooted themselves to the ground against her will.
If he'd gotten fifteen koku bags, it must have cost at least a hundred yen regardless of methods.
There was no way they could have possessed such funds.
There had been about fifty yen set aside for what was supposed to come from the agricultural cooperative... Even if they scraped together every last coin down to the children's pocket money, it wouldn't have reached ten yen.
That's why the old man wore that evasive look.
And Mother—typical Mother.—A nausea rose in Oseki's gut.
Perhaps it stung worse precisely because they shared blood.
The rumors villagers spread about her husband and mother—they remained an unsolved riddle, a suspicion growing darker with time.

“She drove out her mother.”

It was indeed an act Oseki had resolutely carried out—or rather, an inhuman deed perpetrated by a daughter against her own mother. Widowed early, that peasant woman possessed a rare beauty for one born to farming stock—a beauty so astonishing it bordered on absurdity, though even Oseki herself recognized her mother’s looks surpassed ordinary standards—and this very beauty became her curse. Openly and covertly, she fell into becoming a plaything for many men. However deftly she may have maneuvered to amass petty savings through such means, how wretchedly must it have plunged us siblings—my elder brother, younger brother, and myself—into misery.
Because of this, our eldest brother had left home only to die in a distant land, and only I and my younger brother—raised by our grandparents—managed to barely become functional adults. But no—more than that, what truly drove us siblings to feel utterly unmoored from body and world were our peers’ jeers: “Your mom’s so-and-so’s mistress, ain’t she?...”

Because of this, the siblings lost nearly all motivation to attend school, eventually dropping out altogether to devote themselves to farmwork under their grandfather’s guidance. After their eldest brother’s desertion, Oseki—at eighteen—took Kōhei as her husband to support their crumbling household.
Her younger brother Kiyoyoshi had also been sent to work at a factory in Tokyo when he was fifteen, later joined an electric company, and was now conscripted.

Her mother, Otsune, had lived an unsettled daily life, sometimes at home and sometimes not, but after falling ill around forty-five or six, she stopped going out much and eventually reverted to her former self, even returning to work in the fields.
Over the past few years, as Oseki bore child after child, plunging the family deeper into poverty, it could well be said that they could hardly have kept their heads above water without her mother’s help.

Because of such circumstances, the past had eventually been forgotten.
During times when Oseki was in postpartum recovery, Kōhei and Otsune naturally had to work on the same tasks together—planting rice with their straw hats lined up, tending to the fields, and sharing meals from the same lunchbox out in the fields.

—Rumors that the two were acting strangely spread through the village.
And that too could not help but reach Oseki’s ears.
Not only had Kōhei been wearing a new shirt that seemed above his station—something that caught Oseki’s eye—but she had also occasionally discovered shared expenses between her mother and husband in financial matters.

Under such circumstances, Oseki shifted the fallout of her quarrels with Kōhei onto her mother, ultimately compelling her to live separately; Otsune herself had said things like, “It’s better for me to live carefree on my own…” as they parted. Yet even after that, Kōhei still appeared to be borrowing funds for expenses unknown to Oseki from her mother’s place as frequently as ever.
But Oseki made a deliberate effort to feign ignorance, and her mother—well, given her age… They settled things by telling themselves that small loans of pocket money were… well, just that.

Even so, there was still no reason to feel at ease. Whenever she detected something akin to her mother’s body odor on Kōhei’s skin, she would shove him away and refuse to let him near for a week or even ten days. Even now, from her husband’s somehow defiant, fortress-like attitude, she found herself thinking about the fertilizer costs and felt as though she could vividly see her mother’s stigma imprinted there. She pulled herself together and went to the fields, but Oseki’s heart refused to settle. Even Osayo’s sluggish ineptitude as she gathered seedlings with clumsy, fumbling movements grated on Oseki’s nerves.

“With that kinda handlin’, you think we can plant anythin’, you useless girl—” she suddenly snapped.
“You separate ’em like this with your fingertips.”
“Fool! I tell ya, by your age we could do any work good as grownups.”
“Back then, I could’ve taken two-three husbands an’ not batted an eye.”
“You stunted little runt!”

The way Yuji and Katsu were mishandlin’ the puddlin’ machine made her blood boil just the same.

“You fools! Who the hell lowers the handles like that? You’re just spinning it uselessly—no wonder it’s not working no matter how many times you try! Lift the handles up, up… You brats—how old do you think you are?! You eat like full-grown men but can’t do a damn thing—you good-for-nothing louts!”

Before long, Kōhei brought several fertilizer sacks loaded on an oxcart, carried them near the paddy field, silently opened their mouths, poured them into ash buckets, and then Yuji and Katsu began scattering the contents haphazardly across the leveled surface of the field they had prepared.

A pungent smell assailed Oseki’s nostrils.
An enticing smell of fertilizer—yet something impure lingered within it.
She stopped gathering seedlings and moved from the nursery bed to the paddy ridge, scooping up the scattered fertilizer from atop the mud to examine its color and smell—then approached the sack itself and scooped up a full handful to inspect.

“What kinda mix… hell’s this? Looks like goddamn lees—you think this shit’ll work?”
“Don’t know who you bought this from, but sure as sin ’tain’t Tsukaya.”

Kōhei did not respond.
He turned away and walked on, scattering it haphazardly with single-minded focus.

“Oh you… You didn’t buy this from Tsukaya, did you?”

When pressed further, Kōhei snapped back.

“So what if I bought it from Tsukaya?”

“What’s done can’t be fixed now.
“That swindler’s been hauling out rotten fertilizer from Yamaju’s warehouses—stuff that’s been buried ten or twenty years, useless as dirt—repackaging it into new sacks and selling it for double or triple! But you—you ain’t some fool clutching Tenpō coins or eight-mon pieces. No way you’d get tricked by Tsukaya and his ilk, right?”

This wife’s single remark pierced Kōhei’s heart.

“What? Say that again.”

He turned around with a jerk, but when met with Oseki’s glinting eyes, Kōhei immediately averted his gaze.

“I’ll say it once or a hundred times. I don’t know how much you paid or who you bought this fertilizer from, but if this stuff actually works like it’s supposed to, I’ll eat my hat.”

She watched her husband, expecting a retort, but he kept his face turned away, feigning ignorance as he continued scattering it haphazardly—and Oseki grew more defiant.

“I don’t know how much you paid for this crap, but you sure had the money to buy such rotten fertilizer.”
“You didn’t steal that money from somewhere—ain’t no way—but you sure found someone to borrow from, huh.”

The remark, containing this barbed implication that tacitly pointed to her mother, once again gouged Kōhei.

“Where I borrow from or who I borrow from—ain’t gonna trouble you all…”

“Not gonna trouble us?”

“Ain’t gonna trouble you at all—”

“Hmph! If you’re gonna spout such standoffish crap, then get the hell outta my house! A son-in-law in your position not knowin’ his place—what kinda nonsense is ‘won’t cause no trouble’?!”
“You think I’ll stay quiet after some self-centered son-in-law trashes my family’s affairs?!”
“With this, we’ve got no recollection of ever doin’ anything that’d make folks point fingers at us behind our backs.”
“You good-for-nothing old man.”

Oseki wielded the privilege of her landowning-daughter status with a voice so loud it made people in distant fields lift their heads.

“Rant away, you damn shrew,” Kōhei laughed tensely, his bravado faltering.
“A mountain spirit oughta keep quiet in its shrine.”
“Where I come from, we mock nosy meddlers as crowing hens.”
“They say when a hen crows, ruin visits the house—been said round here since granddad’s day.”

“What did you say? Spouting off like you know something—you! Go shack up with my mother then… As of today, I’m cutting all ties with you…”

Oseki stamped her feet, ground her teeth with a grating crunch, and flung hot tears through the air.

“Mom, please… Mom, please forgive me…”
With her muddy hands still caked in dirt, Osayo suddenly clung to her mother’s back as Oseki tried to lunge at her husband.

Six

The next day, the eldest son Isamu unexpectedly returned from a factory in Tokyo, and Oseki’s feelings seemed to shift.
In the paddy fields, people planting rice could be seen here and there just like themselves, so she had no need for Osayo to cling to her and simply held her ground—but her husband’s unyielding pretense of ignorance only made her angrier by the moment.
They spent the entire day working on their separate tasks and passed the evening each in their own way, but when morning came, there was still no chance to speak—and Oseki made no move to prepare for the fields.
Moreover, she had recently become somewhat aware of certain physiological changes in her own body.

That evening, after delivering the village office’s notice—“There’s a village meeting at the temple tonight; every household must send one attendee”—to the neighboring house and exchanging idle chatter with the old woman there, she returned upon catching sight of an unfamiliar man in Western clothes entering her gate—only to find it was none other than Isamu.

“Oh, I thought it was someone else.”
“Well… I did think someone had come—”

In the half year since she had last seen him, he had suddenly matured into a young man who carried himself like someone from town—and as she took this in, her face blossomed with a joyful smile unlike any she had shown anyone in recent memory.

Isamu removed his khaki rayon jacket, sat cross-legged at the edge of the raised floor, and pushed a small newspaper-wrapped bundle toward his mother.

"Here's a souvenir."
"Wasn't anything better to get."

He had bought his mother's favorite bonito fillets in the town where he'd disembarked from the train.
Along with that, a separate handful of Tokyo-style sweets.
These were meant for Katsu, Osayo, and the other little ones.

“Where is everyone?”

He looked around the empty house and asked.

“Yuji and Katsu are rice planting, Osayo went off saying she absolutely had to go to school today for that compulsory volunteer work for military families or whatever, and Ochiyo’s probably playing around there somewhere.”

“Rice planting must be tough without me around.”

Isamu looked around the earthen floor area this time.
In the squalid, sooty earthen floor of the poor tenant farmer’s house, there was nothing but cluttered mortars and old straw bags.

Oseki did not answer and asked about something else.

“In Tokyo, they’re eating foreign rice, huh?”
“Tastes awful and’s just terrible.”

“Yeah, it’s awful—dry as sawdust and ain’t got no flavor at all.”

“Well, compared to our dead rice barley meals here, I mean, ain’t foreign rice better after all?”

“Hmm, hard to tell.”

“This year, well, all we’ve got left is flood-damaged rice—can’t even finish eating it no matter how much we make into dumplings or flat cakes or feed to the chickens and cows.”
“But finally, well… it’s down to about one and a half bales.”
“After that, well… we’ve still got three bales of passable rice left, so I figure we can manage the planting with this at least.”

Oseki repeated these words with deep conviction. She didn’t even check whether Isamu was listening. Then she shifted her tone and said, “Since Isamu’s back today, we should at least cook a proper rice meal.” “It ain’t good rice, but it’s gotta taste better than that foreign rice.”

“Big bro’s here!” Ochiyo and Yoshiko came running in from the road.

“Look—it’s Big Bro! Big Bro—the big one—”

But Yoshiko looked puzzled.
She might have forgotten this brother.
Or maybe his clothes looked different enough that she didn’t think he was her big brother.

When Yoshiko was finally given the package of souvenir caramels and biscuits to hold, she broke into a broad grin.

Oseki took the bonito fillets from their wrapping during this time—"Should cook these right away"—and as she breathed in the briny scent of sea fish she hadn’t smelled in ages, her heart swelled with satisfaction.

When Isamu had decided to go work at the factory—the Tokyo electric company where his uncle Kiyoyoshi had worked—she had vehemently opposed it from the start, shouting things like, “How can the eldest son of a farming family not farm? What’ll become of the house? The family inheritance—” and ranting, “Go off to Tokyo and… drop dead from tuberculosis or something, you bastard—!” But in the end, under the supreme mandate that even one less mouth to feed was necessary since the kids kept growing up one after another and the house couldn’t hold out… she had no choice but to relent, saying, “Fine then, get out. I want nothing to do with whether you live or die.” She had even blurted such things, but seeing him return now as a young man transformed beyond recognition, she couldn’t help reflecting that sending him away had been unavoidable—and that doing so had likely been for the best.

“Big Bro, let’s go play!” Ochiyo said, already starting to cling to him.
Yoshiko remained silent as ever, but she gazed happily at the sweets she had received. Yet she still didn’t bring them to her mouth, glancing occasionally at her mother as if unsure whether she was allowed to eat them or would be scolded.

“Big Bro, how long you staying? Yeah, Big Bro.”
Ochiyo asked yet again.

“Are you leaving today, yeah?”

Isamu initially made no move to answer, but when pressed further,

“Nah, ain’t going to Tokyo or nothin’. This time I’m heading to a far-off place,” he said, as if trying not to burden his mother yet deliberately ensuring she would hear.

Oseki sensed this,

“Isamu—you here on leave? Or did you come back because you had something to do?” she asked from in front of the hearth.

“Hmm—” Isamu gave a noncommittal reply.

The idea of having Isamu sent to develop Northern Manchuria had been a longstanding request from the village youth school teacher. Isamu himself wasn’t entirely unwilling, but the situation wasn’t so straightforward. Indeed, if one joined something like the Youth Volunteer Corps, they wouldn’t need any particular sum of money—following the sequence of training, voyage, and reclamation… eventually becoming a landowner with ten chōbu of land. This was an unexpected blessing, but for the time being, unless Isamu could work and contribute some amount—even if it was just fifteen yen a month—the household couldn’t sustain itself. Reducing the number of mouths to feed while securing a monthly payment of fifteen yen—this dual purpose had been one key reason they’d initially sent Isamu to work at the company where his uncle was employed.

But now, Yuji could have taken Isamu’s place.
Not only that, but Isamu himself still couldn’t abandon the dream that Manchuria might be better than factory work.

“So you—after all—are thinking of going to Manchuria?” Oseki pressed urgently.

“Well, whatever happens—the teacher said he wants to discuss things once, so he sent a letter asking if I’d come back on my day off. So I, well… anyway, I came back to see.”

“So… the teacher… But you know how it is—once you go there, well… you won’t be able to come back easy. Make sure to discuss it proper with your father first, and then if you’re gonna decide, you’ve gotta decide.”

She appeared deeply troubled by the prospect of sending Isamu to such a distant, cold country.

In the afternoon, Isamu ate white rice for the first time in a long while and then went to visit the youth school teacher.

Seven

With the rice planting finished, what came next was weeding the fields.
When he saw a single rice plant growing thick and black as it began to tiller, Kōhei couldn't help twitching his nose in self-satisfaction.
He struggled mightily to suppress the urge to blurt at his wife—Even if it's shoddy fertilizer or rotten fertilizer, as long as it works...

Oseki no longer said anything about the fertilizer.
Even if she had spoken, it would have changed nothing.
Instead, her worries had now shifted to the autumn harvest.
If another flood like last year's struck, the family would only sink deeper into hardship.
Another burden was about to be added—this much was now certain.
Though as a healthy woman she could hardly be said to suffer morning sickness, even she found her own body overwhelming.
Being unable to do proper work—nothing grated more than that.
She loathed Kōhei's animal nature.
"You can't do a single decent thing.
You useless old man."

For Kōhei, as far as that matter was concerned, he could offer no rebuttal. In reality, she had already given birth to seven children—this would be the eighth—and the possibility of more in the future remained ever-present. What on earth would become of them like this? The physical burden on his wife was one thing, but their subsequent burden was no easy matter either.

Even carefree as he was, he couldn't help but dwell on this matter. Yet all he ever voiced was "You lazy woman!"—sometimes going that far. But he would be overwhelmed by a single word.

“Damn it.”

First of all, their social standing was a source of shame. If possible, she wanted to somehow handle it this time.

Outwardly, however, it could be said that the family had been passing through these days in utmost tranquility.
It was decided that Isamu’s departure for Northern Manchuria would be postponed until autumn.
Before entering the training center, he had quit the factory and was helping with household work.
Muttering "Farm life is hard, so hard..." yet not losing to Yuji, he weeded the rice paddies and tended the vegetable fields.

Thanks to this, once the planting was finished, they borrowed machinery and took care of everything from preparing the barley to processing the wheat all at once.
However, what troubled Oseki was Isamu’s meals.
Isamu, who had grown accustomed to meals in Tokyo, refused to eat the coarse barley-rice, broken rice dumplings, or soggy rice cakes, and his emaciated body seemed to grow even thinner.

Oseki began using one of the three remaining bales of approved rice and eventually started on the second bale as well. Try as they might to have only Isamu eat proper meals while giving the others something different, they couldn’t maintain such a distinction, and before long it became the family’s usual practice.

"How were they to manage until harvest time?"

That worry was gradually taking root.
No matter how much they economized, they still consumed two bales per month.
By mid-September, seven more bales would still be needed.
There was just one bale left, plus another of low-grade rice—that was all.

Though an annual ordeal, from planting season onward Oseki found herself wasting away under the strain.
She needed—no, absolutely had to—store enough provisions to last worry-free until harvest.
This was farming families' unwritten law, an inviolable norm.
Otherwise, even barely keeping up appearances as a household meant they couldn't face their community.

She wanted to quickly sell even barley and use that money to quietly buy just the rice they needed.
However, this year, they couldn’t freely sell that crucial barley themselves; instead, they had to gather it through the agricultural association and supply it to the government.
They had turned in the barley bales, but the money... indeed, that money still hadn’t come through.

How on earth was she supposed to manage?
Days had come when even the children’s pocket money was tight.
Amidst this, yet another difficult problem sprang up.
It was an unprecedented incident they called the "rice survey".
According to the deputy’s explanation at the village regular meeting, anyone holding more than 2 gō and 8 shaku of rice per person from now until October 1st must supply it to the government, even if it’s just one or two bales.
It was explained that this was an absolutely necessary measure to carry out the China Incident and for Japan to emerge victorious as the leader of East Asia, and that this was the sole duty of Japanese farmers at this time.

When Kōhei returned from the regular village meeting and told her about it, Oseki lay awake until midnight, running calculations in her head without a wink of sleep.—For their household—calculating from now for a hundred days—even just meeting basic rations for eight people would require about six bales… yet they had only one.
How could she possibly face humiliation before officials from the government office and agricultural association who came around to investigate by admitting they had just one bale?—No—six bales if possible—how on earth was she supposed to procure that much now?

No matter how much she thought about it, the only thing she could rely on was the payment for the barley they had shipped to the agricultural association.

The next morning, she said to her husband as he prepared for fieldwork.

“Can’t you go ask at the association whether they still haven’t given us that money?”
And she kept attacking the association’s inefficiency in such situations, muttering bitterly as if Kōhei himself were to blame.

The answer Kōhei brought back after going to inquire at the association was an evasive statement that about half the payment might come through within four or five days.
From her past experience, even if they said four or five days, she knew it could mean half a month or a full month—there was no telling.

“What kinda damn association is this anyway?”

Oseki couldn’t help but direct the brunt of it at Kōhei as usual.

“You’re so damn carefree… What exactly d’you plan to do ’bout the rice survey?”

“What’s done’s done—ain’t no changin’ it now. What ain’t there ain’t there, an’ what’s there’s there. Let ’em check sideways or upside-down if they wanna.”
“For folks as hard-up as us, the government’s s’posed t’worry an’ send over however many bales they damn well please.”

“You’re such an irresponsible old man! And how’s this family supposed to keep up appearances so people don’t laugh at us? You think I can just sit here and let the whole village say this house only had a single bale? You good-for-nothing old man!”

Oseki feared the neighbors might hear and didn’t say anything more, but…

Before they knew it, the day of the investigation finally arrived.
But she seemed to have steeled herself since the previous day.
She tidied up various odds and ends piled in the dirt-floor corner—old straw bales, grain sacks...—then made Osayo and Katsu sweep all the way under the eaves. After Kōhei had left for fieldwork, she waited alone for the surveyors' arrival.

Around noon, the village head, a policeman, the agricultural association clerk, and the district head of this hamlet trooped in through the gate.

Oseki, who had come out from the dirt-floored area to the eaves to greet the group, politely removed the hand towel she had been wearing.

“Well now, thank you for your hard work today,” she greeted them in formal Tokyo-style language.

“It’s a fine day.”

The District Head showed his salt-and-pepper head in response, then the members of the group either stood under the eaves or entered the dirt-floored area and began scrutinizing their surroundings.
Oseki, slightly flustered, couldn’t distinguish who was standing where or who among them was scrutinizing the rice bales at that moment, but upon later reflection, realized that the one who had asked “How many bales of rice do you have?” and approached the bales was the agricultural association clerk—a young stranger, she thought.

When asked this, she composed herself and had intended to answer clearly.

"Yes, um, six and a half bales... If we include the substandard ones, that makes roughly seven bales in total."

"Huh? Four bales—"

“She said seven bales,” corrected Katsu, who until then had been blankly staring.

“Which ones are they?”

“This one, and this one, and this… this…”

Her fingertips trembled violently as they touched the bales.

“Ah, seven bales… With a family of eight… that leaves a slight surplus… So we’ll have you supply just one bale then.”

The clerk wrote on a slip of paper, then had Oseki affix her seal.
Eventually, the survey party clattered out through the gate, but Oseki stood motionless under the eaves as if in a daze.

“Mom, that thing you just said was wrong, wasn’t it?”

Katsu still wore a blank expression, his eyes shining brightly, but this time he pressed his mother as if asking whether it wouldn’t matter even if she was wrong.

“Idiots! All of you keep quiet! If you keep running your mouth, I’ll wallop you!” Oseki finally regained her composure and scolded Katsu.