Shipwrecks (3 page)

I
saku lifted his bundle of dry branches onto his back and started off down the path. The sea was growing angry under the bright red sky. Whitecaps surged in, and breakers smashed onto the shore and the cape. The onset of winter was usually marked by four days of rough seas followed by two of calm; the past three days' heavy seas had made fishing impossible. Rocks were exposed everywhere along the path, and Isaku struggled to keep from toppling forward under the weight of his load.

The roofs of the houses came into view. Isaku's mother was standing beside the back door, waving at him to hurry. She seemed to have something urgent to tell him. Using a stick to keep his balance, he stepped down behind the house.

‘A messenger came, saying the village chief wants to see you. Get up there right away,' his mother said hurriedly.

Isaku had seen the village chief, but he had never spoken to him and so had no idea why he was being summoned.

‘Hurry up!' said his mother, taking his load off his back, something unheard-of for her, and giving him a good slap on the back to send him on his way. Isaku scampered off along the track. The reddish tinge to the sky was fading, and the sea was beginning to darken. The shore was wet from the waves.

He ran along the path and on up some stone steps. The old man who worked for the village chief's family was collecting grain which had been spread out on a straw mat.

Isaku entered the house and sat down, bowing deeply. The village chief was sitting beside the fireplace. Isaku introduced himself in a trembling voice, his knees shaking from the foreboding that he was about to be scolded for some offence.

‘Starting tonight you're out on the salt cauldrons. It'll be your first night, so go out with Kichizo and get him to show you the ropes. After that you're on your own. Don't let the
fires go out.' The village chief had a thin, high-pitched voice like a child's. Isaku bowed deeply, until his forehead touched the ground.

‘Off you go.'

Still kneeling, Isaku shuffled back toward the entrance, stood up and left.

His face flushed with excitement as the tension disappeared. The order to work through the night on the salt cauldrons meant that he was recognised as an adult. Ever since he had been allowed to help with the cremation he had felt that this might happen, but knowing that it was actually about to come to pass filled him with irrepressible joy. He ran back along the shoreline path to his house. By now the sky was dusky grey.

He left the house carrying a flaming torch in his hand. When his mother heard that he had been ordered to watch over the fires under the cauldrons, she had become unusually cheerful and had pan-roasted beans for him to eat during the night. The torch flame flickered in the wind. He left the path and went down to the shore. He could see the colour of the fire ahead of him on the beach and sensed that someone was there.

He picked up his step. The man's good eye was trained on Isaku. The other was pale and cloudy, having long since lost its glint. Isaku was indeed fortunate to have Kichizo, who was on good terms with Isaku's father, initiating him.

Large stones had been arranged in two spots on the sandy area of the beach to serve as a base for the two big cauldrons. The wood under one of them had already been lit.

‘Light that one, too,' said Kichizo, looking toward the second big pot, which was about ten yards away on the beach. Isaku responded eagerly, pulling out a bundle of dried branches from under a straw mat, swinging it onto his back, and carrying it over to the other cauldron. He put the branches into the stone enclosure and lit them with a burning piece of wood. The twigs and branches crackled as they lit. Isaku placed more wood on the fire.

Flames rose from under the two cauldrons, flickering in the
wind off the sea as sparks scattered on the sand. Isaku watched the flames as he sat next to Kichizo on a log inside a makeshift wooden hut.

Several years earlier, Kichizo had been afflicted with an eye disease which had left him unable to go out fishing, forcing him to sell his wife into bondage for three years. She came back to the village after she finished her term working at the port at the southern tip of the island, but, as she was almost six months late returning from bondage, Kichizo suspected that she must have taken up with another man.

Whether it was true or not was unknown, but there were rumours among the villagers that she had had a child and had extended her term in order to clean up the matter.

Kichizo had beaten her violently, and in a fit of rage he even cut off her hair. On such occasions, when she had fled sobbing to Isaku's house, his father and mother had intervened. Kichizo had stopped beating his wife only after the village chief stepped in and admonished him severely. After that he had become a sullen man of few words. Often at night he used to visit Isaku's house, sometimes bringing wine made from millet. He would sit there silently, nodding as he listened to Isaku's father's fishing stories.

‘You know why we make salt on the beach, don't you?' said Kichizo, his good eye trained on Isaku.

One year's supply of salt would be produced and then distributed according to the size of each family. But Isaku realised that there was another reason for Kichizo's odd question.

‘It's to summon
O-
fune-
sama
, isn't it?' he said, looking Kichizo in the face. Kichizo said nothing, turning his eye back to the cauldrons. From his expression, Isaku sensed that his reply had not satisfied the man.

Isaku thought the village chief's order meant that he had to know all about tending the salt cauldrons. There was much he didn't understand about the village rituals, but now that he was an adult he could no longer afford to remain ignorant. After tonight he would have to tend the fires under the cauldrons by himself, so he needed to get Kichizo to tell him everything.

‘Is it to pray for
O-
fune-
sama
to come in to the shore?' he asked.

‘It's not just for praying. It's to attract ships passing the beach,' said Kichizo impatiently.

‘To attract ships?'

‘That's right. When the north-west winds start to blow, the seas get rough and more ships get into trouble. At night when the waves start to wash over the decks, they'll even throw cargo overboard to lighten the ship. At times like that, a crew will see the light from the cauldron fires and think it is from houses on the shore. Then they turn the ships in towards the coast.'

Kichizo's good eye gleamed as if he were studying Isaku. Isaku stared at Kichizo before turning to the sea. He could just make out where the starry night sky met the dark water. A vast and intricate reef lay concealed under the surface of the water. When they went out fishing, the village men would thread their little boats through the rocks, but a large vessel entering these waters would be sure to have its bottom ripped open in no time.

Isaku thought that he was finally starting to understand. He had assumed that the salt cauldrons were part of a ritual carried out in the hope that ships would be wrecked, but now he realised that it was also the means to lure ships onto the reef.

If gathering salt were the only purpose, then doing it during the daylight hours would be far more convenient, but now he understood why it was done only at night. Also, it was clear to him why the fires were not lit on calm nights; ships would have no problems navigating then.

‘The fire's dying down,' said Kichizo, getting to his feet.

Isaku stood up and followed Kichizo, picking up a bundle of firewood from beneath the straw mats. He went over to the cauldron on the right and threw the wood underneath.

It is said that sailors in distress during a dark, stormy night will do absolutely anything to survive. They will throw their cargo overboard, cut off their hair, and pray to the gods for protection and, if the ship seems in real danger of capsizing, they will even cut down the masts to keep it stable. To them
the fires under the cauldrons on the beach might very well appear to be the lights from houses on the shore. No doubt they would think their prayers had been answered and turn their ship in towards the fires.

The wood was engulfed in flames.

When Isaku returned to the little hut, Kichizo sat down on the log and piled up dry twigs and branches on the sand. He lit them and put on some firewood. Isaku warmed his hands over the fire. The chill in the air suddenly intensified.

‘These fires will bring in
O-
fune-
sama
, won't they?' said Isaku with a sparkle in his eyes as he looked at Kichizo.

Kichizo nodded. ‘Not these last few years, but when they do come they come one after another. When I started going out fishing with your father, they came four years in a row. When I was eleven, we had three in one winter. All because of these fires. In those days no one had to sell themselves into bondage,' he said in a low voice.

Isaku thought that Kichizo was so unusually talkative because he felt at ease with his friend's son. Even though he had lost the sight of one eye, if
O-
fune-
sama
had come he would not have had to sell his wife into bondage and their marriage would not have been ruined.

Isaku gazed out to sea. He thought of Tami, Senkichi's third daughter. The eldest daughter had already been sold, and now there were rumours about the next daughter going into bondage. If there was no bounty from the sea in the next few years, Tami would undoubtedly follow.

Isaku became restless. If a ship had been lured onto the reef, his father would not have had to sell himself, either. The lives of the villagers hinged on the coming of
O-
fune-
sama
.

‘We make salt this way to ensure the fires don't go out and to get
O-
fune-
sama
to come.' Kichizo's eye gleamed red with the flames from the fire.

‘I wonder if it'll come this winter.' Isaku looked out to sea.

‘Who knows? When the wind starts to blow from the north-west, they get scared and the ships on the offshore run don't go out. But even then, when they've got cargo to carry, they choose
a calm day to set sail. Mostly ships carrying rice,' muttered Kichizo.

A wave of drowsiness suddenly hit Isaku as he warmed himself by the fire. His body was numb, and his eyelids started to feel heavy. If he nodded off, no doubt he would be removed from salt-making duty, and his mother would fly into a rage and beat him. The very thought of such disgrace terrified him.

Isaku stood up and ran out of the hut. A chilling wind blew off the sea. He stood on tiptoe and peered into the cauldron. Clouds of steam rose as the salt water boiled away. He checked the fire, then brought over several pieces of firewood and threw them under the cauldron. In a flash his drowsiness had faded.

Dawn came.

The fires had gone out. The water had completely evaporated, leaving the sides of the cauldrons covered with a white substance almost up to the lip. On Kichizo's instructions, Isaku covered each one with two half-moon-shaped lids. The salt would be left to the women who would come to the shore after the cauldrons had gone cold.

His face, arms, legs and clothes were sticky and damp from the salt air, and he felt light-headed from having worked through the night.

‘Let's go,' said Kichizo, starting off along the shore. Isaku followed him up towards the path.

Steam was already floating up from the pot on the fire when he got home, and his younger brother and sister were sitting at the fireside. He hung tubs from both ends of a bucket yoke and went out to draw water from the nearby well. The sea was brighter now, and stars could be seen only faintly at one end of the sky. When he got back home, he sat beside the fire and scooped vegetable porridge into a bowl. He wanted to tell his mother how well his work on the cauldron fires had gone, but her silence made him hesitate.

His mother scooped porridge into bowls for his brother and sister, emptying the pot. As always, she added some water to the pot. Once the water was hot, Isaku poured it into his bowl
and drank it. Two soggy grains of millet remained at the bottom of the bowl.

Isaku mumbled that he would like to get a little sleep. His mother remained silent. He got to his feet and slipped under his straw mat bedding. In a moment he was asleep. After a couple of hours he felt the matting being pulled off him and his cheek being slapped. Turning his head away, he raised himself on his arms.

His mother's face loomed in front of him. ‘You going to sleep for ever? Get up and do some work. The sea's calm.' He sprang to his feet and stepped down to the dirt floor section of the house. His mother swung a basket onto her back and left the house. Shouldering his fishing tackle, Isaku followed her. Listless from lack of sleep, he rubbed his eyes and yawned.

Down on the beach the women were scooping salt from the cauldrons into tubs to be carried away. The salt would be taken to the village chief's house and divided up for each household.

Women, old people and children could be seen hunched over, combing the shoreline. After several days of heavy seas they would find plenty of shellfish and seaweed washed up onto the beach. At times, pieces of wood from wrecked ships, fruit from trees in far-off places, even fragments of everyday items, drifted in on the currents. His mother hurried towards the shore.

The boats were on the water. In contrast to the previous night, there was no wind; the sea was tranquil, bathed in soft sunlight. Isaku set his little boat afloat in the shallows and stepped into the cold water to push it farther out. Every time he grasped the oar he was reminded of his father. Knowing that the grip had been worn smooth by his father's hands made him feel that his father was near. He worked the oar slowly.

He could see the two iron cauldrons on the beach. One had been emptied of salt, and women gathered round the second.