Page:The Cannery Boat.pdf/108

98 asked whether spirits could be called up by daylight.

No, this was not a feasablefeasible [sic] proposal. Ghosts have no say in the class battles. Machida knew they must win by their own strength. He was dead against salvation from above, whether from arbitration or from ghosts. But Oki, Handa and the others were no use at any other job but soy brewing; they hoped to see the strike settled as soon as possible; that would be better than to see their union completely crushed. But they were afraid of being talked down, so these thoughts were not expressed.

From one end of the village to the other stood the soy factory buildings with their sooty roofs, like rows of black boxes. The chimneys were no longer belching smoke. The bean pulp which had not been stirred for over a month bubbled and fermented.

Gohei’s house was sandwiched in between two factory buildings. There the strikers cooked their rice. His stove was too small, so in front of his thatched cottage they hollowed a sort of fireplace in the ground, and placing two pots on it side by side they boiled the rice in the open air. Every day thirteen sacks of rice were emptied, but that only meant two balls of rice for each of them.

Those who were too hungry to wait for their portions, which would be brought round by special “waiters,” came over to the cook-house. There they filled their bellies by eating burnt rice mixed with hot water. Old men with towels tied round their heads, young men and boys who acted as messengers, gulped down this strange beverage.