Page:The Cannery Boat.pdf/80

70 “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