The Cannery Boat/The Fifteenth of March, 1928

by Takiji Kobayashi

The Fifteenth of March, 1928
by
Takiji Kobayashi

The Fifteenth of March, 1928

A True Account of Events

I

Okee could not get accustomed to it. The police came to the house quite often now, but she was just as alarmed as she had been the first time.

Her husband’s comrades from the trade union used to come to the house, and Okee would bring them tea. She often heard her husband say, “Yes, but I can’t alter my wife all at once.”

“I suppose you realize, comrade, that the revolution will have to go through the kitchen too,” someone said, “but you are too soft.”

“Well, that’s true, maybe, but you can’t do much with my wife. She’s rather backward.”

“You’re too easy-going, that’s what it is,” his comrades taunted him.

Rinkichi gave an embarrassed snigger. He was a little ashamed of his weakness.

One morning Rinkichi was cleaning his teeth, and his wife was standing by pouring warm water into the wash-basin, he asked suddenly, with the tooth-brush still in his mouth, “Do you know who Rosa was?”

“Rosa—a man or a woman?”

“Rosa.”

“I know Lenin, but Rosa—no. I’ve no idea who that could be. Who is it?”

She had often heard the names of Lenin and Marx from the lips of her daughter Yukiko, and she remembered them. The people from the trade union. Kudo, Sakanishi and Senzomoto, often mentioned Lenin and Marx. Once she asked her husband, “Is Marx the workers’ god?”

He nodded and smiled, “How did you guess?” She could not understand why he was so pleased at her question.

When the general strike started, Okee heard many strange tales. She did not quite grasp all she was told. She could not believe that this terrible strike was being organized by that same Mr. Kudo or Mr. Senzomoto that came to her house. “And who do you think the strike hurts?” asked her husband. “The rich or the poor?” But the question was beyond her.

Every day the newspapers came out with flaring headlines about the strike.

“Strikers bringing ruin on the whole town! Houses of rich men to be burnt to the ground!” or “Clash between strikers and police! Hundreds arrested! “Strike still hanging over the town like a curse!” Kudo and Watari had already been arrested.

Okee knew that her husband spent nearly every night at the trade union. That he was taking part in organizing the strike she also knew. He would come home at last, weary-eyed, and ask her to wake him at five in the morning. She would sit by his bed for hours, never taking her eyes from his face. Okee could not understand him. Did he never think of his little daughter Yukiko?

But later on when active workers from the union came and told her of the workers’ bitter lot, she sympathized with the workers’ struggle. She herself grew to hate the exploiters who were robbing the oppressed classes. She came to understand that the work of her husband and his comrades was indeed a great work. Okee began to feel a pride in her husband, and to agree with the movement for which he laboured, though she did not believe in its success.

After his third detention Rinkichi lost his post as teacher. Then he opened a tiny shop and sold haberdashery, hoping in this way to support his family. Okee had expected that he would lose his his job. She had known for a long time that it would turn out like that. Still, tears would not help, she thought, and so had remained silent.

Rinkichi had more time to spare now, and he worked for the trade union with greater zeal than ever.

As a result the attention of the detectives redoubled.

The first time Okee noticed that a spy was strolling up and down in front of their shop she was terrified. The worst was yet to come, however. Sometimes one of these persons would study the signboard for some time, suddenly enter the shop and announce, “Come with me to the police station, will you?”

A couple of policemen would then come up and Rinkichi would be taken to the police station.

Okee could not overcome her terror. The visits of the police always upset her, and Rinkichi had to calm her.

Early on the morning of 15th March, Okee was rudely awakened from her sleep. Another search! Five or six policemen dragged Rinkichi away with them, without giving him a chance to exchange a word with his wife. This time Okee was thrown into a kind of stupor from terror.

 

II

It was three o’clock in the morning. The cold nipped one’s hands and face and pierced through one’s clothes to the very bone.

Five or six men were tramping over the frozen snow.

They came out of dark, narrow alleys and turned up the wide street leading to the union hall. The street was lined with tall, naked telegraph poles.

These men were police and they had their belts in readiness, their sabres grasped firmly in their hands.

They halted before the trade union headquarters and then burst into it without even stopping to take off their shoes.^[1]

The members of the union had laid down to sleep only an hour before. They had fixed on 15th March for a public protest against the force of arms. The entire membership had been mobilized. Leaflets had been pasted at every corner. Agreements had been concluded with the owners of the meeting halls.

The executive committee had met once more and by two o’clock that morning preparations had been completed. And now, instead of the rest that everyone stood in so much need of, a raid. Seven or eight of the comrades suddenly became aware that the blankets were being torn roughly off them.

They all scrambled to their feet in silence, heavy as lead, staggering from want of sleep. Senzomoto was in despair. He had feared this before, but still a faint ray of hope had sometimes lightened his heart. “These dogs want to arrest our speakers the night before Tanaka’s reactionary government should resign! It’s a favourite trick of theirs! Just what one would expect of them.”

Sakanishi, nicknamed by his comrades “Don Quixote,” was still half-drunk with sleep. He asked one, of the intruders.

“Well, what’s up now?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Don’t try to fool me!”

The officer was silent.

The police started to search among the books and papers.

“If you lazy hogs would work more, you wouldn’t have the time to go poking your nose in everything! It’s all your own fault,” said one of the police to Senzomoto in a loud, insolent tone so that everyone could hear him. Senzomoto snapped at him:

“Stop your your nonsense there! I didn’t ask you to speak.”

Watari was trying to make his way unnoticed towards the staircase. One of the police became aware of his movements and caught him.

“Where are you making for? Don’t you dare to budge!”

Senzomoto had been watching Watari for some days. He was astonished. What could be the matter with him? Watari was usually so quiet. Just now his face was whiter than chalk. Watari, in spite of his youth, had always worked in the front ranks. He had seemed like a man forged out of iron, and now?—Senzomoto felt puzzled and alarmed.

At length the prisoners, surrounded by the police, started to descend the stairs. With the exception of Watari, they were all lively and even nonchalant. Sessito—who always encouraged them with “Heads up! The great thing is not to lose courage”—was the most lively of all. He edged closer to Senzomoto, and whispered:

“We must be firm, otherwise——”

“Yes, that’s so, or——”

“What are you muttering about there?”

The policeman caught hold of Sessito and flung him away.

“The people’s flag” somebody in front was singing. The sound of a heavy blow followed.

“You’ve gone crazy, you swine!”

A worker gave one of the police a great push with his shoulder. There was a blow of a sabre, a loud smack, and then silence.

The workers marched in step, arm in arm.

“Halt!” shouted Sessito and stood still. “Halt, comrades! I protest against our being arrested without any explanation. We want to know the reason.”

“That’s right!” shouted the rest. Senzomoto glanced at Watari. In cases like these Watari was usually ready to fly out at the faintest provocation. This time he was perfectly quiet. He stood still as if chained to the floor.

The police surrounded little Sessito. The workers shouldered their way in between the police.

“Are you going to tell us, devil take you, what we’ve been arrested for?”

“You’ll find out at the police-station.”

“Always the same answer! We’re not going to be locked up in those dirty, stinking cells again!”

Somebody shouted from the rear:

“It’s an abuse of government.”

One of the police started to beat Sessito.

A clump of human bodies swayed to and fro. The workers fought their way into the centre of the group. A general scrimmage ensued.

“You—swine, you——” came the half-choked voice of Sessito.

“You think—you can put down our movement—like this—you dogs—you think you can do that——” The disorder increased.

Watari, who had stood motionless up to now, suddenly threw the full weight of his bulky body into the tussle. Senzomoto felt something like relief.

“Unless you tell us the reason, we shan’t admit ourselves arrested. We’ll fight with all our might!” Watari roared in his deep voice. His sonorous tones never failed to make a profound impression.

Ishida stood apart and watched his comrades. Childish would have been too mild a term to apply to their conduct, in his opinion. He always got angry when people like Sessito—and there were many such in the union—made rows on the slightest provocation. According to Ishida, it was advisable only to use defensive methods on exceptionally important occasions, and then do it thoroughly. In general, it was better to save one’s strength than to get worked up over every trifle.

“What is all this rubbish for, anyhow? Fine militants they are! What good are they?”

Ishida was almost beside himself with rage.

The workers felt surer of themselves after Watari had joined in the fray, but ten more policemen soon appeared on the scene and the unequal fight had to be given up.

It grew lighter. The icy fingers of the morning crept inside the prisoners’ clothes and made them shiver.

The snowy street lay silent under a grey and heavy sky.

Ishida and Sessito were dressed in thin corduroy jackets thrown on hastily next their skin. Their bodies ached from cold. Their fingers and toes were numb.

Shibata, a lad of twenty who had only joined the union a few weeks before, had not yet recovered from his fright at being arrested. He saw the others defend themselves and shout. He also wanted to shout, but had momentarily lost all control over the muscles of his face. His mouth moved heavily and clumsily, as if his lips were made of wet clay, and he could not emit a sound. He knew that more than one arrest was before him now, and still his teeth went on chattering involuntarily.

The comrades marched in rows, forming a solid mass. They kept very close to each other so as to get a little warmer, and tried to march in step. The footsteps of the twenty men gave back a hollow sound in the empty morning streets. No one spoke. But in the hearts of all a feeling of mutual sympathy and kinship arose. Senzomoto, Watari, Sakanishi, “Don Quixote,” Sessito, Ishida, the novice Shibata and all the other members were conscious of this feeling. In moments of danger it never left them; it was the feeling of solidarity—the solidarity that unites the proletariat into one unbroken front.

These members of the union were no longer a loose conglomeration of individuals, but one tremendous united whole. They marched hand in hand, their dark eyes saw only one great end, to which they were all moving. This end was called—revolution.

 

III

“Get up!” shouted the policeman. He groped about in the dark for the electric switch. Kudo’s three children awoke and began to cry. The police could not find the switch and went on groping about in the dark. Then they found it and snapped it twice.

“What’s the matter?”

“We have no lights.”

Kudo spoke in a slightly irritated tone. The light had been cut off two months previously. Kudo had not enough money to buy candles. In the evening they would send the children out to the neighbours, and go themselves to the union. They had lived like that for sixty days now. “Bright lamps are the best adornment for rooms,” said the advertisements in the shops for electrical goods.

“Hush, children, they won’t eat you,” said Kudo, laughing. His wife, Oyoshi, tried to soothe them, too.

“There’s nothing to be frightened about, these gentlemen come to see us quite often now.”

So, one after another, the children stopped crying. These visits were indeed no new thing to them.

Kudo’s comrades from the union had asserted, more than once, that Oyoshi was developing class-consciousness in her children. As a matter of fact, their upbringing was not carried on along any definite principles. Life itself educated them.

Oyoshi’s hands hung down to her knees and seemed too large and heavy, like the claws of a crab. Dirt had eaten into her skin, which had grown as coarse and rough as a potato-grater. She never washed now.

In the course of her short life Oyoshi had more than once discovered who were her “enemies.” When her husband joined the union this knowledge became even more plain to her. Sometimes, when when there was much work at the union, Kudo did not return home for weeks on end. Then Oyoshi had to work alone. She did everything: helped to coal ships down at the dockside, and made sacks for potatoes and other vegetables. Sometimes she was lucky enough to find work in the canning factories, where she had to wash bones. Before she gave birth to her third child, she worked right up to the last moment as a coolie, carrying sacks of coal.

In Kudo’s room the wall-paper had long since peeled away. The wind blew freely in through the cracks. Oyoshi had no money to buy new wall-paper, so she went to the union and got a few old numbers of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Chronicle and the Proletarian News. These she pasted over the cracks in the door. The flaming announcements of the strike stretched the length and breadth of the door panels. Whenever Oyoshi had a few moments to spare, she would read the headings of the articles. Sometimes the children would point to different words and ask what they meant. She would read slowly out loud to them. She pasted old leaflets and proclamations all over the half-ruined walls. Once Kudo and Watari and Senzomoto came in and looked around at the walls with astonishment. Then they said: “This is indeed our house.” They were delighted with it.

 

Kudo got up and dressed himself.

How would his wife and family exist while he was in prison?

Every time he was arrested he asked himself this question.

He tried not to think of this when working with his comrades in the union, but as soon as he was alone for a moment the thought of his family would come to disturb him.

Oyoshi helped him to collect his things, and then nodded to him:

“Don’t worty about us! We’ll manage without you.”

Her voice rang out bravely.

The eldest boy, who understood something of what was going on, ran up to his father and said: “Well, good-bye, then, father, good luck!”

The policeman was astonished. “What a disgusting family,” he thought to himself, and said aloud: “They all take it as if it was the proper thing, and wish each other good luck into the bargain!”

“Oh, well, if we started to bawl every time this happened, we’d have no time left to work for the movement.” Kudo spoke lightly, trying to disguise the fact that his spirits were low.

“Hey, you dog, we’ll plug you if you start any of your impudence!” the policeman roared.

Kudo wanted to say something more to his wife, but his mind seemed a blank.

“Don’t be upset. We’ll get on somehow,” said Oyoshi with conviction. She looked at her husband. He was silent. He could only nod his head.

The door closed behind them.

 

IV

Okee learned from Oyoshi that there had been more arrests this time than ever before. The metal-workers had been dragged off to prison just as they were, in their overalls. Every day from five to ten dockers were seized. There were many students among those arrested.

Seato, a clerk, was arrested two days later. He had been in the habit of visiting Rinkichi on Thursdays, when all the comrades came together. He lived with his old mother, who had worked her fingers to the bone for many a year, so that he could attend a commercial college. She had hoped that when he graduated from college he would get a good post in some big company or bank. She would be able to boast of her son’s salary to the neighbours. And she need not work any more then, but could go every year to her home place. Or her son would pay for her to go to one of those health resorts. There would be no need to tremble for fear that the rent would not be paid in time, nor to go to the pawnbrokers, nor put off the creditors. How fine it would be then! She had dreamed of this all her long life of toil, and this dream gave her the strength to carry on.

At last Seato finished college and got a post. When he brought home his first earnings and put them on her knees, she sat for a long time with closed eyes, pressing the envelope with the money to her wrinkled brow. Later, when Seato came down to supper, he saw a new candle burning on the altar. His pay lay beside it.

“I have been showing the money to your dead father,” the old woman said in a broken voice.

On March 16th Seato heard that the comrades met at Rinkichi’s and the trade union had been arrested. Seato went home immediately, collected all his books and papers and took them over to some neighbours. Nothing happened that day. Seato wanted to go to the trade union but the others dissuaded him. The place was occupied just now by a number of detectives and it would be dangerous to show up there. Several comrades had dropped into the union and they were arrested immediately.

Seato was glad he had not gone there. The same evening, however, he was arrested at his house.

 

As soon as it grew dark Okee left Kudo’s wife and made her way home along the crowded main street. Sleighs, motor-cars and buses raced past. A young couple were standing gazing in a brightly-lighted shop window.

They stood close together, whispering. Women in warm coats and men in thick camel-hair jackets went by. Workers and young lads with big empty bowls, children arm-in-arm, strolled past. Okee’s sorrow grew and grew. Hundreds of people were sacrificing their lives—and for what? For the workers. Was it right, was it just—that nobody thought anything about it, that people went by laughing and chattering as if nothing had happened? Okee could not understand it. Here in the street there did not seem to be any signs of trouble. Maybe the passers-by did not know anything about the arrests, and that was why they had such happy faces. Of course, the government would not permit any news to be printed about the arrests.

“Why did my husband do that? For whom?” Okee asked herself. She felt terribly lonely. The world was very empty. All her husband’s comrades had been fooled. Nonsense—that wasn’t true, either.

 

V

It was the 16th of March. All the morning the door of the police headquarters kept opening and shutting, letting in and out police armed to the teeth. Police motors with blue-striped wheels had kept driving up with a loud hooting of horns. The door of the head office would be flung open, out would come a few police with sabres in their hands. They would board the cars, the engines would hum, and the cars glide away down the street. After a few minutes they would return with a new batch of prisoners. The prison in the police headquarters was full. Every time the keys grated in the lock the prisoners inside would stop their talk and look up eagerly. Watari, Senzomoto, Sessito and Sakanishi would recognize the newcomers and welcome them. The policeman standing guard would get as red as a turkey-cock. He would puff out his chest and make a fuss and splutter. Nobody paid any attention to him. All the fifteen men locked in this cell had been comrades, had fought side by side in the front rank. Since they were all together they amused themselves by making as much noise as possible.

Sessito curled himself into a ball, and threw himself with all his force on the wall. Then again he bit his lips, puffed out his cheeks and hurled himself on it like a bull. “Be quiet there!” shouted the guard.

When Sessito saw that this was no good, he began to kick the walls. The others followed his example, and the wooden walls creaked. Only Ishida remained quiet.

He walked up and down with folded arms, muttering something to himself.

The door opened again. Senzomoto and Watari were led away. What did that mean? Left without their leaders, the others no longer kicked the walls.

Ishida’s eyes fell on Rinkichi, who was sitting in a corner with his eyes closed. “He is here, too,” thought Ishida. He was afraid that there was something more serious behind to-day’s arrests than they had all imagined. He went up to Rinkichi Ogawa.

“Comrade Ogawa.”

Rinkichi raised his head.

“Comrade Ogawa, what does this all mean?”

“I can’t make it out myself. I was just intending to ask Comrade Watari about it.”

“It’s evidently connected with our meeting about the present cabinet.”

“Yes, I thought of that, too. But if such is the case they need to lock us up for one day. But as it is——”

The others crowded round them, listening eagerly. They got more and more excited. When had it started, this habit of seizing workers like puppies and throwing them into prison for no reason whatever?

“Look here, the law says—‘It is forbidden to enter anyone’s house without permission of the occupants, understand—against the will of those living in a house, either after or before sunrise, except in cases where the life, health or property of the population is endangered.’ This law applies to all save gambling dens and brothels. And what are they doing to us? They have attacked us in the middle of the night, when we were sleeping peacefully, and arrested us without giving any reason for it. The police allow themselves all sorts of licence.”

The workers listened attentively to Rinkichi Ogawa. Sometimes they shouted excitedly and stamped their feet.

Rinkichi added:

“It says in our constitution, comrades—‘No Japanese subject can be arrested, imprisoned or punished without lawful reason.’ And how do things really stand? We have never done anything that could be regarded as lawful reason for arrest. We have been thrown into prison without trial and sentence. Our laws and constitution are a network of lies and fraud.”

His words found their mark easily, since the workers themselves felt the injustice of their treatment. At the realization of their helplessness they shuddered, as one shudders when a nerve is laid bare.

“I say, let’s break down the door and go to the Chief of the Police! Make him tell us why we’ve been arrested!”

“Yes, come on!”

“Let’s do some shouting!”

“It’s no use.” Rinkichi shook his head.

“Why isn’t it any use?” Seato started on him, as he had always done in the trade union during a hot debate.

“Now there’s no sense in that. We’re locked in. If we make a row it’ll only make things worse for us, and give them a reason to wipe us out. Our movement must develop in the streets, we must have the support of the whole working population. And actions like these, carried out by a score or so of people—are no good for anyone. Besides, things like that are altogether against our principles. We should never forget that.”

“But how can we sit here quietly and do nothing? Should we just listen to your theories?”

At that moment four policemen entered the cell. One of them, a thick-set man with a square beard, looked at them quietly for a moment and then said:

“You know, I hope, that you’re in a police cell now. What’s all this noise about?”

He started to knock the workers about. When he went for Seato, the latter jumped quickly aside and the policeman struck out too far and lost his balance. Enraged, he shouted, “Eh, you rascal!” and threw himself upon Seato. In a second Seato’s body struck the wall with a dull, heavy thud. The policeman was breathing heavily.

“Remember!” he shouted hoarsely, “you’ll have to pay dearly for your insolence!”

Another policeman called out the names of several men from a list he was holding. These were led out. As they passed through the low door they stooped slightly. Now only six men remained in the cell.

Seato tried to rise from the floor, but the policeman kicked him twice.

Some more police came in after a while to guard the six men left. All converation was forbidden.

Rinkichi sat near the high-barred window. The outlines of the people in the room swam.

It seemed as if shadows and not people were moving up and down the cell. The yellow lamps paled. It was growing light. The cell became a faint blue. Rinkichi’s head ached from weariness. Day began. It was very quiet in the police headquarters now. A sort of frozen silence lay over everything. Footsteps now approaching, now receding, could be heard. They would halt for a moment and then begin again. A door would open.

Every few minutes a noise would come from the next cell. The sound of a heavy body being dragged along. Some resistance seemed to be made against the dragging. Dead silence. Somebody passed by, yawning loudly under the window, in the street below.

“Why don’t they let me go to sleep?” somebody muttered in a dark corner of the cell. “It’s getting light. It’ll soon be day.” The eyes of the police on guard were swollen from want of sleep and their faces were pale.

When Rinkichi awoke, the pale morning light was pouring into the cell. It lighted up the weary faces of the prisoners. One sat with his head dropped on his chest, another stood leaning against the wall, a third stared fixedly before him.

Every time that Rinkichi was taken to prison he felt a terrible yearning to see his child. It grew well-nigh unbearable and robbed him of much strength. He had often noticed how fear for their families had drawn many of his comrades away the movement. He knew that this fear was an enemy of the movement. He tried to jump over it like an acrobat.

A new set of police came to relieve those on guard. One of them, Senda, went up to Rinkichi. He had known the latter for a long time, and had frequently been sent to take Rinkichi to the police headquarters.

“You know, Mr. Ogawa,” he addressed Rinkichi, “these arrests give the police a lot of trouble. We’re called out on duty even in our spare time, and no matter how tired we may be we’ve got to go. I’m absolutely worn out.” He sounded sincere enough. Rinkichi wondered for a moment if the man was sincere or not.

“Well, I’m sorry for you,” he answered without the slightest touch of irony.

As the other police went out of the room, Seato shouted jeeringly:

“I’m sorry for you, too!”

Senda waited until the others had left, and then asked Rinkichi softly:

“Is there any message you’d like sent to your family?”

Rinkichi was silent for a few seconds. He stared in a bewildered way at the policeman.

“No, no,” he said at last: “No, I don’t want anything.”

 

VI

As Seato was being led to the lavatory in the morning, he heard a voice calling out “Hallo!” from a cell at the end of the corridor.

Seato stopped. It was Watari’s voice. Seato saw Watari’s face pressed against the bars of the grating.

“Is that you, Watari?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes. How are all the others?”

The policeman escorting Seato came up at that moment. “Be quiet!” whispered Seato and passed on. Why should Watari be in solitary confinement? What was behind all this? Seato could not guess for the life of him. When he came back to his own cell he told Rinkichi about it. The latter listened in silence and bit his lip.

Ishida also met Watari in the lavatory. He had no chance to speak to him, but he saw his quiet, resolute face.

“Listen, do you know Bancroft?” Ishida asked Rinkichi on his return.

“No, who is he? A Communist?”

“No, he’s a film-actor.”

“Well, why should I have such aristocratic friends?”

The fact was that Watari’s appearance reminded Ishida of Bancroft, the film-actor who had played the part of the hero in some pictures of the fife of New York dockers. Like Watari, the hero had met every danger with a calm and courageous face.

1. In Japan it is regarded as very bad manners for a person to enter a house with his shoes on. They should be left in the hall.