Depending on the situation, when that restraint bursts open like a dam, he doesn't know what to do.
"The unsalted oysters are here at last."
He was mortified feeling that his urgency was frowned on by the frivolous man from the city. The following day, S became timid, drank sake, and went to visit a friend.
When the friend asked through his laughter, "Well? Were you scolded by your wife?" S bashfully said, "No, not yet."
He seemed to be expecting a scolding.
Chapter Three
Sotogahama
I left S's home and went to N's. I drank more beer with N. That evening, T dropped by and stayed the night. The three of us slept in the back room. Early the next morning while I was still sleeping, T returned to Aomori by bus because he was busy at work.
"He was coughing," I said.
T woke up and coughed lightly as he dressed. While sleeping, my sharp ears heard a strange sadness. When I woke up, I immediately told N. When he got up and was putting on his pants, he said with a solemn look, "Yes, he was coughing." Whether drinking sake or not, he always looked somber. No, not only his face, his spirit was always stern.
"It wasn't a good cough," N also said. Although he seemed to be asleep, he clearly heard the coughs.
"It's willpower," said N in a defeated tone and buttoned his pants.
"None of us are well, are we?"
For a long time, both N and I have been fighting respiratory diseases. N has a bad case of asthma but seems to have fully recovered.
Before setting out on this trip, I promised to send a short story to a magazine published for the troops in Manchuria, and its deadline loomed. For that day and the next, I borrowed an inner room and worked. During that time, N was working in the rice polishing factory in another building. On the evening of the second day, N came to the room where I was working and asked, "Did you finish? Did you write two or three pages? I'll be done in about an hour. A week's worth of work done in two days. If you'd like, we could go out later. Work efficiency will improve. At least a little. It'll give you that final spurt of energy."
He promptly returned to the factory. Before ten minutes passed, he was back in my room.
"Are you finished? I have a little more to do. The machinery sounds good now. You haven't seen our factory, have you? It's dirty. It may be better if you don't see it. Well, I'll get back to work. And I'll sleep in the factory," he said and went back. Insensitive me finally realized N wanted me to see him energetically working in the factory. My dilemma was to finish my work soon and go to see him before he finished. I realized this and smiled. I quickly put my work in order and crossed the road and went to the rice-polishing factory in the other building. N was wearing a patched up and darned corduroy jacket and standing with both hands behind his back and a meaningful look on his face beside a huge rice-polishing machine with whirling rotations.
"That's lively," I shouted.
N spun around, happily smiled, and said, "Did you finish? Good. I have a little more to do. Come here. You can keep your sandals on."
I'm not so insensitive as to enter a rice-polishing factory wearing geta clogs. N had changed to a clean pair of straw zori sandals. I looked around but didn't see any indoor slippers. I just stood and smiled at the factory door. I wondered if I could go in barefoot but thought that overly hypocritical act would make N feel regret so I didn't go in barefoot. I have the very bad habit of performing commonsense good deeds.
"Now that's a big machine. You operate it all by yourself," I said with no flattery. Like me, N did not have many friends with technical knowledge.
"Oh, it's simple. When you turn these switches," as he was speaking, he turned switches here and there to show the motor coming to a dead stop, and easily operated the gigantic machine to display an avalanche of rice hulls and polished rice cascade down like a waterfall.
I caught sight of a small poster stuck to a pillar in the center of the factory. A man with a face shaped like a sake bottle was sitting cross-legged with his sleeves rolled up, and was holding a large cup at an angle. A house or a storehouse was inside the cup. Printed on this strange picture was a complaint, "Sake drinks you and drinks your home." I stared at this poster for a long time. N noticed and grinned while looking at my face. I grinned too. Both of us were guilty of this offense. It had the feeling of "Oh well, what can you do?" I sympathized with N who stuck that poster onto a post in his factory. Who holds a grudge against heavy drinkers? In my case, the twenty or so books I've written also decorate that large cup. I have no home or storehouse to drink. It should probably say "Sake drinks you and drinks your books."
Inside the factory, two large machines were not running. When I asked N what they did, he lightly sighed and said, "Oh, one machine makes rope and the other, straw mats. They're too hard to operate and too unruly for me. Four or five years ago, crops failed all around here, and orders for rice polishing dried up. It was bad.
