As Saburou flipped the page of the 6th September 1996 Wakayama newspaper, he thought about the centuries that passed in the span of five to six days. He struggled a little to read the modern printed Japanese script: “Drive hunt for cetaceans begins in Taiji,” the headline read in bold letters. He crumpled the papers and tossed them in the waste paper basket. He grabbed the doorknob that had become whitish with corrosion and pushed the door of his tiny lodging open. The immediate seabreeze was a relief to Saburou. He filled his lungs with it and stepped out. His lodging was on the first floor of a two-story house on top of a cliff, from where the rocky bay of Taiji could be seen. The house belonged to an old fisherman who rented the rooms out for twenty thousand yen. Saburou paid him with a gold coin out of the 6 that he was carrying as he did not have the modern means of payment. The old man had hesitated saying that a gold coin was a little much for the rent but Saburou offered it anyway. When you live as long as he did, money becomes a trivial thing.
He took the road that led down the back of the cliff and stopped at an isolated shrine that was dedicated to the dragon God Ryujin. The stone torii archway and the flagstones were covered with moss but the paper streamers attached on them by ropes were white and spotless. When Saburou stood before a stone sculpture of the Ryujin and picked up the bamboo ladle to cleanse his body and soul, his mind travelled to a monsoon day, 418 years ago.
It was a few days after the villagers of Taiji (in the Kii province in Wakayama prefecture) had taken their fleet out to sea for the hunting season. It was the time when the whales would arrive in hundreds and move up north with the Kuroshio current. Saburou and his friend Jirou had taken their boats out to fish some sardines and mackerel that would also come with the great “black” current of the season, as they used to call it.
Although the burning sensation from the harsh sun was still fresh on his back, Saburou saw the horizon darkening. Saburou’s jaw dropped. He had never seen anything like it – on sea or on land. Both the fishermen immediately decided to pull their nets up. It was time to head back to the shore. Saburou tried to gather his net as fast as possible but it seemed to be unusually heavy. He kept the side of the net that was out on the boat under his foot so that it didn’t slip back into the water. He knew that he had caught something massive. The dark clouds were already overhead, sending down roars of thunder.
“Are you done yet?” Jirou shouted over the sound of the waves.
“No!” Saburou yelled and strained his muscles to work harder. “It’s a big catch!”
“Let the net go! We’ve got no time!” As Jirou shouted, Saburou caught a glimpse of the creature in the net. It was massive indeed. And unusually long. Just then, a lightning tore the sky open and the clouds let loose a deluge of sharp-stinging raindrops. “We’re done for!” Jirou cried, “the Ryujin has begun his dance of rage!” The lightning that flashed across the sky indeed looked like the dragon lord Ryujin. Saburou struggled although the rain was battering his face.
“Huzzah!” he bellowed a final time and at last got the entire net on the boat, “come on Jirou, we’re out of here!” Saburou and Jirou started paddling but their movement seemed insignificant. Another lightning lit the sky up and the two of them put their heads down on the boat, their hands gripping the oars tight and their bodies trembling. Saburou sat up with a shudder when he heard a booming voice on his boat. It was from the massive fish.
“Damned hairless spawn of apes, though clawless, venomless and fangless, without recess writhe from mud to challenge the cosmic forces. As Owatatsumi’s waters empty itself out, it shall become the wretched gremlins’ grave.”
All of a sudden the talking fish burst into millions of tiny sardines that flapped their bodies on the deck of Saburou’s boat. He didn’t have time to bother about the fish though, as a giant wave hit both their boats headlong in a go. The thunder made an ear-splitting sound even as Saburou’s boat came back up. Saburou coughed and caught his breath back. With trembling hands he wiped the stinging water out of his eyes. He noticed that the net and fish were gone.
“It’s gone!” he yelled to Jirou, “the talking fish!” He looked around only to find that Jirou’s boat hadn’t come up. His stomach dropped and his blood ran cold. He leaned over the side of his boat scanning the grey water. He ran across the deck but slipped and knocked the back of his head. Rain and sea water splashed in his boat. He got up and looked on all sides hoping that Jirou would have come up for air. Then he found a speck of yellow a little away at the surface of the dark blue waves. It was Jirou’s kimono! He paddled his boat till the speck just to find a driftwood instead of his friend. Saburou’s heart sank.
“Jirou!” He called out but his voice was overpowered by the sound of rain splashing on water. “Jirou!” He cried again but his voice broke. He called yet again, and again, until his throat felt sandpapered and his vocal chords could produce no sound. It was way past the time a normal human being could be saved after having drowned and lost consciousness. Exhausted, he grabbed the oars but his eyes were still looking for Jirou’s yellow kimono. He slowly sat down and his arms began rowing although his gaze never left the water. While also keeping an eye on the direction of the current, he paddled back landward.
“You must have caught an oarfish, the messenger of the dragon Lord Ryujin,” Saburou heard Grandpa Tou mumble under his beard as white and lustrous as Akoya pearls. The old man ran his hand on it over and over. The villagers sat huddled around him on the wooden floor, as they had a hard time catching the words but also because the room was small. Grandpa Tou’s hut stood on top of a hillock within the village and whenever there was a problem the villagers would run to him.
“Poor Jirou has lost his life. The whalehunt must have angered Lord Ryujin. The right whale that we killed must have been one of the deities of the sea.”
“What shall we do, Tou-jii?” Some of the impatient villagers pounced.
“We need to go to Lord Ryujin and ask for forgiveness,” as the old man was saying this, he had stopped stroking his beard and his eyes that were always hidden behind his bushy eyebrows became wider and wider, “ otherwise our future, whether far or near, will be doomed!” The last few words rang in the ears of the villagers in the tiny room like thunder. All of them straightened a little bit and some had to gulp their saliva down, including Saburou.
“To meet The Ryujin, one would have to go to the Ryugu palace underwater where he resides. The journey will be hard without the guide of the Lord Himself.” Grandpa Tou’s voice was the loudest the villagers had ever heard from him. Saburou tightened his fists until his knuckles became white. He lifted his hand above his head. “Tou-jii, I, Hamada Yozaburou shall go,” he declared. Everyone’s eyes were on Saburou. The old man’s eyes were back behind his eyebrows.
“Saburou, are you sure about that?” Grandpa Tou asked, his hand running over his beard again, “even if you may not be able to make your way back?”
“Yes,” Saburou replied.
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