Page:The Cannery Boat.pdf/269

Rh I think it was on the second or third day after this incident. Sakai suddenly asked me to go with him to the town, and took me to a small silk mill that stood near the water-front. He seemed to be no stranger there, for with just a nod to the doorkeeper he hurried into the mill. I followed after him.

Inside the mill, murky with steam and dark like the inside of a kitchen on a rainy day, the old-fashioned spindles turned noisily. The foul smell of dead grubs and the heavy humid air almost suffocated you. Before each girl stood two pots full of boiling water, one big and one small; in the small pot white cocoons kept bobbing up and down. One or two boiled cocoons would be transferred by the girl’s hand into the bigger pot and, as they danced round in the hot water, they gradually became thinner. At the same time an almost invisible thread passed from them, above the girls’ heads, and was wound round the droning spindles behind. With the revolutions of the belt the reels of silk became fatter and the cocoons thinner. When one cocoon had been completely unwound, the little black grub would appear floating dead on the surface. I watched it all with unaccustomed eyes.

“Wait just a minute.” Sakai hurriedly disappeared behind the machines, coming back after a time with an elderly woman wearing a mill-girl’s uniform.

“This is my mother.”

“Eh?” I was completely taken back and bowed my head in confusion.