The Crab Cannery Ship: and Other Novels of Struggle by Kobayashi Takiji

Author:Kobayashi Takiji
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Published: 2013-03-31T04:00:00+00:00

In the Union

1

Crossing a sunken road that separates the city center from the working- class suburbs and climbing up a riverside road, one reaches a jumbled mass of houses, the entire zone emitting an odd stench. Yamada and Yasuko were entering one of its back alleys.

Yamada was walking with his legs bent outward, carrying a large bundle wrapped in cloth. Yasuko had been walking by his side, but once they entered the alley she moved behind him. She was carrying a small cloth-wrapped bundle.

“Well, here we are . . .”

At Yamada’s words, Yasuko suddenly blushed. She had been here a few times before and knew the people who lived downstairs, yet the thought of working here from now on, and moreover of living here with Yamada, made her feel strangely queasy and weak.

“If you can get the moving done as easily as this, Yatchan, you too are a proletarian,” said the man with a laugh as he rattled the rear door.

Yasuko swept up with her little finger a strand of hair that had fallen across her face. “Wasn’t it heavy?”

“Nah.”

“Really? . . . But watching you from behind, it looked like you were going to drop it any second!”

The man burst out laughing uproariously.

“Oh, you clobber me like this when I least expect it . . .”

“I seem to be the stronger of us two, you know . . . because I used to do this in the village.”

Talking with him later, Yasuko learned that Yamada had studied for a time at a university in Sapporo.

The householder’s child opened the rear door in response to the rattling.

“Ah, Mr. Yamada, a spy was here earlier so I locked the back door.”

“Is that right? Did he say anything?”

Yamada sat down on the doorstep and looked up while taking off his shoes.

“Yeah. He said he heard you got yourself a real beauty for a wife and asked if she’d already come . . .”

The boy rattled on, chuckling with delight.

“That son of a bitch! What a thing to say.”

“And he said you sure tricked her good . . .”

Yasuko turned crimson. The cheeky child did not seem about to stop chattering any time soon. He stood rooted to the spot, opening wide his big eyes.

Paying no attention, the two climbed to the second floor.

“That kid’s a bit odd!” said Yamada, tapping his head with his finger.

The room was a mess. The desk was covered with books, newspapers, a small mirror, a dusty teacup, an empty pack of Golden Bats, and the like. A teakettle, a tin of Lipton tea, and other odds and ends stood abandoned in a corner. On her earlier visits Yasuko had put these things in order any number of times. Although Yasuko was not good at such chores and tended to be lazy, tidying up Yamada’s place had struck her as extremely enjoyable.

“My, my, not again!” exclaimed Yasuko stopping in the doorway with an exaggerated show of surprise.

“Here it goes,” said Yamada, throwing the bundle down in the middle of the room.

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