Early, the next morning, Saburou took his boat out. It wasn’t his regular fishing boat but a slightly bigger one which had a storage space under the deck. He didn’t say a word to Sampē nor was he planning to talk to the boy but Tou-jii’s words gnawed at him all night.
He packed some dried fish and rice in bamboo leaf parcels as provisions as he didn’t know what his journey would be like. After having prayed to the wooden bodhisattva statue in his room he grabbed his knife and was ready to set out. He pushed his boat into the water with a stick in hand and by planting the stick into the sand, he hopped onto the boat when he was knee deep in water.
The boat rose and fell as it hit each swell head-on. The tide was beginning to turn as Saburou guided the wasen past the rocky inlet that curled like a claw around the edge of his village coast. The sky was still the dull blue of early morning, streaked with pale ribbons of cirrus. The sun was hidden behind the clouds clustered at the horizon. Its warmth had not yet burned off the mist that clung low across the water. Saburou’s hands, wrapped in hemp rope to prevent from blistering by the oars, were still stiff with cold.
The wasen creaked gently as it caught a southerly breeze. Unlike his usual gyosen boat, this one was deeper and broader in the middle, fitted with a low sail fashioned from oiled washi cloth and a storage hold under the foredeck— barely enough to crouch in but useful for stowing the parcels of rice and fish, the extra rope and the water gourds.
Saburou stepped carefully along the thwarts and moved to the mast. He untied the sail’s bindings and let it rise slowly, the wind catching it with a snap. The boom groaned as it swung wide and Saburou steadied it with a pole. The wind, coming off the land, pressed from the northeast now. If he played it right, he could use the angle to cut out past the shallows and into the deeper, darker waters where the coastal current met the edge of the Kuroshio.
He squinted toward the southeast horizon. There, where the water took on a bluer, more cobalt hue, he hoped to find the black stream—the Kuroshio, that the mitten crabs had instructed him. Its warm and fierce current, that curled up from the southern seas like a great living cord, pulsing northward and giving life to the cold northern waters.
By midmorning, the sun was higher and the sea had grown brighter. Its surface shimmered with a thousand points of light. Salt dried on his cheeks, Saburou tucked his kimono sleeves tighter beneath his vest. A few terns circled above, trailing the boat. There were no gulls among them. Saburou did not look back at the shore.
The wasen rocked in a steady rhythm. Occasionally, Saburou adjusted the tiller, an oar mounted through the stern, to counter the wind against his sail and to correct his course. He kept the boat angled slightly off the wind and watched how the sail curved with practiced instinct. His eyes were sharp, always checking on the color of the water, the shape of the clouds and the feel of the air. The current here was uncertain. Eddies spun from unseen shoals below but still the pull was not what he sought.
He passed a cluster of floating logs, maybe wreckage from some old storm, maybe markers for the outer edge of the fishermen’s usual range. He verified whether they were parts from Jirou’s boat but they weren’t. Beyond the wreckage, even the seabirds thinned out. He was not yet to find a lone seagull…
By noon, the wind shifted slightly westward, warming as it passed over the open sea. The sun now struck him from above and to the left, casting the sail’s shadow low across the deck. He ate one of the rice parcels and drank sparingly from the gourd. Then he checked the lashings and re-tightened the sail.
Around mid-afternoon, the water changed. It was sudden but subtle. Had he not been looking for it, he might have missed it. The swell became longer and smoother. The color deepened. It darkened to a velvet blue unlike the greenish hue of the coastal sea. And there was movement beneath which was different from the churning chaos of wind waves but instead, something deeper and sturdier. The boat began to drift faster, even as the wind held steady. He had found it.
“Banzai! The Kuroshio!” He shouted with arms in the air.
Saburou stood for a long moment, hand on the mast, letting the boat carry him in silence. A few flying fish skittered across the surface ahead, silver arcs vanishing as quickly as they came. The warmth of the current rose into the air, mingling with the sunlight. He removed the vest that he was wearing over his kimono.
Without letting it fight the current, Saburou adjusted the sail again to travel with it this time.
“Ehhossa! Ehhossa!” Saburou tried to sing, remembering the crabs’ recitation. When he spoke finally after days of not meeting anybody, he found his own voice strange. “Look for a gorgeous golden one, ehhossa,” He paused as he had to remember the following line, “a gorgeous, golden what… was it again?” He wondered aloud to himself.
“A squid.
Among the turtles moving north,
Ehhossa!” A voice said behind him.
Saburou thought he would topple off the boat. He spun his head around to find Sampe sitting on the foredeck. Beside him lay the plank and the storage hold was semi open.
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