Shipwrecks by Akira Yoshimura Page A

pulling his boat onto the shore when he heard the man beside him say, ‘There’s a rainbow,’ as he removed the oar from his boat. Looking up, he could see it stretching faintly from the top of the mountain ridges to the sea. The first rainbow of the year.
    â€˜The saury’ll be here soon,’ said the man enthusiastically as he swung his oar onto his shoulder and headed up the shore.
    The colours of the rainbow gradually deepened, emblazoning the evening sky. Rainbows in the late afternoon were seen as a good omen, especially those in early summer, which were judged to herald a good saury season. But Isaku felt uneasy as he watched the rainbow. His skill at catching saury left much to be desired and, if his haul was as poor as the previous year’s, his family would go hungry. The saury season was crucial for the villagers, as the very survival of their families through that year hinged on their ability to stock up on this vital source of nourishment. Takichi had said he would teach Isaku the knack of catching saury, but maybe that had merely been a lighthearted slip of the tongue the day before his wedding.
    Isaku occasionally saw Takichi on the shore, and sometimes caught sight of him fishing way out on the water. Whether or not it was because he had claimed a wife was not clear, but Takichi seemed to have a hint of self-confidence in his eyes. Though Takichi was small, Isaku felt that he looked down on him with an air of condescension. Isaku imagined that Takichi’s demeanour meant that his cousin would not teach him how to catch saury after all.
    But an even more dramatic change in Kura caught the attention of the villagers. She would come down to the shore as soon as she saw that Takichi had returned from the day’s fishing. She was a different person in Takichi’s presence, meeklyfollowing his every instruction. Strong as she was, she would effortlessly swing the large tub holding the day’s catch onto her shoulder and hurry back to their house. Takichi would saunter up the slope virtually empty-handed. Smiling lasciviously, the villagers would joke that Takichi must have knocked the stuffing out of her.
    On days when the sea was rough, Isaku would tie a hatchet and twine to a carrying frame and go into the woods to collect bark from linden trees for making cloth. Snakes were common among the thicker groves of linden trees, so Isaku wore leggings on top of close-fitting trousers.
    It was raining only lightly, but the wind was strong. Isaku held down the edge of his sedge hat to keep it from being blown off as he made his way up the damp mountain path.
    After walking for about an hour he stepped into the forest. The treetops were swaying wildly, but there was no wind inside the grove and the dank smell of bark hung in the air. He stopped beside a young linden tree and untied the hatchet and twine from his back frame. His father had taken him collecting linden bark twice in the past and, just like his father, Isaku sank the hatchet blade low into the tree, down near the roots. He cut a branch off the next tree, fashioned it into the shape of a spatula, and inserted the point under the bark, which lifted enough for him to grab and pull. The bark peeled away up the trunk.
    He moved from one young tree to another, stripping away bark as he went. Drops of rain fell noisily onto his hat. The water streaming down the trunks of the linden trees glistened.
    His stomach told him it was time to eat. He opened a little package of bamboo sheath and dug into the large millet dumpling wrapped inside. Last year he hadn’t collected any linden bark, but this year he would be able to get his mother to make some cloth for them. As he stared at the bark he had peeled from the trees, he felt that he had become the grown-up head of the family.
    He worked for a little while longer before finally collecting all the peeled bark, folding it in half, tying it up with twine, and lashing it onto the