Calm at Dawn, Calm at Sunset

In that part of the Pacific that straddles Japan’s eastern coast, warm waters from the equator collide with biting cold from the north, nourishing immense swarms of plankton that gather in great swirling streams of emerald visible from space. 

This confluence of currents off shore, in turn, attracts the myriad members of the vast food web that begins with the little green plankton. It is a common belief that that web ends with man– the Japanese fisherman.

For those fishermen hailing from Hokishi, they found their game in migratory schooling species like sardines, mackerels and anchovies, the blue-backed fish. For generations, these people have had their tables set out by the sea, and were no strangers to its fickleness; bounty today, famine tomorrow.

With the turn of the last century came industry, which allowed the thousands to feed the ever-growing millions. Some threw in with the promise of enterprise, though only a few saw success, to enjoy wealth even the old lords never dared dream of. 

For the rest of them, the products of modernity still seemed like miracles, modest only in comparison to the millionaires. But the new world had its own slew of hardships to add to old, ineradicable misfortunes.

As the great cities sprang up and attracted wealth, so did the children stray from the fisherman’s way– drawn to new callings that didn’t ask for back-breaking labor, and paid much better.
And so their aging fathers were left, to carry on the old ways.
And so more and more were driven by infirmity, insolvency or ill fortune to hang their nets to dry for the last time.
As year by year their nets caught fewer fish, and the less and less the market took to their catch, preferring the fare of foreign trawlers and longliners.

In recent years, there was at least the infusion of new blood, recruited from those who had chosen to opt out from life in the fast lane, those who fell out of step with the seemingly relentless march of progress– but even this seemed like drops against the ocean.

To the holdouts, the essence of life was the same as it ever was. Clear skies one day, rough seas the next. Still they continue to take to the sea, to ply their ancient trade, in ways still much like their forbears.

Wherever in the world, no matter the era, a day of fishing usually starts well before even the first hint of dawn.

It was a Saturday, and Ema Kurose got up to prepare for the long morning ahead.

It was still dark outside, and the wind still carried the sounds of the sea faintly, if one listened intently. And she had been listening intently, for hours on end, as she had tried her damndest to fall asleep before finally crashing. The wakeup after all that made her feel like a slug after a salt bath.

Washing off the worst of it, then making her bed and changing clothes into a long-sleeve shirt and jeans, she went over to another room to find the other occupant of the house still snoring soundly.

Since they were both used to the early hour, it took little coaxing to wake her father.
He would have been the portrait of any working stiff, clean-shaven, square-jawed and standing squarely average. Closing in on his fifties, he looked every bit his age, plus a few years. 

The time at his trade was already clear in the creaking in his bones, the calluses on his hands, the deep creases set in his sun-baked face, all of which marked him as a fisherman of Hokishi. Fishing was as tough a job as any, even if her father had taken it up later in life, after the move.

With the entirety of the household up and about, they tumbled sleepily into the fourteen-mat space that doubled as their living and dining room. 

A simple breakfast of eggs on toast took the morning edge off, and right after the pick-me-up father and daughter began preparations to head out for work, well-accustomed to fitting their chores together without a word.

It was her father who initiated the first talk of the day.

“How’s school?”

It was a question he’d asked a hundred times. 

This time, the question tripped her up, and she almost tripped over herself as she stepped down onto the entryway. A bit too quickly, she tried to blurt off the usual answer, only to bite her tongue.

“Same as alwesh!”

Even if she hadn’t almost gotten a face-full of floor, the botched reply must have clued her father in.

“Uh-huh.”

Recovering from her stumble, Ema stepped out into the early morning chill and gave him a mildly annoyed look.

“What? It is the same as always.”

“I didn’t say anything. Ah– you’re gonna wear those?” he said, pointing to the school shoes she put on.

Flustered by her mistake, she resigned herself to replacing them with her clogs and locking up after. She caught up to her father in their car, the aged engine giving a cough or two as it warmed up. For the next few minutes, neither of them said anything as they made the short drive to harbor.

Good. This silence was fine with her. For a moment there, she thought her father was going to pry.
“So, anything to talk about?” 

But of course he had to. There was something Ema dearly wanted not to talk about right now. But lulled into lowering her defense, she could only come up with a feeble counter.

“I told you, there really isn’t anything to talk about.”

He hit her with the stern-dad look, making Ema relent. 

“Well, there’s this transfer student that’s really making a splash.” she said as she shrank in her seat.

“Yeah?” 

“He’s from America, and all week he’s been the talk of the class.”

“He– a boy?” her father said, perking up. 

This was a mistake. The topic threw her back to what had been troubling her– the incident after school that still fresh in her mind. The whirlpool of half-formed thoughts that sloshed around in her mind sent her head spinning. 

 She’d never been any good at hiding her reactions, and she blushed despite herself. Her father’s eyes went round at this, and Ema all the more regretted her choice to talk.

“Anyway, that’s all there is to it– talk over!” she demanded. 

“Okay, okay.” he replied, even as the ghost of a smug smile crept into her father’s face.  

Great, now he was probably thinking something stupid. Something like, spring had finally come my daughter.

Ema wasn’t sure what exactly had come for her, but she wasn’t about to spill on it, not when she didn’t understand a lick of it herself. 

It was the damndest thing. Ema wasn’t the kind to be at all prone to brooding, but she spent all of last night thinking up a storm, tossing and turning. Lucky for what remained of her composure, they pulled up to the docks in no time.

Stuffy, salty sea air came up to her like a solid wall as she clambered out into the night, jolting her out of her funk. At the same time the sea’s full sounds reached her ears, the rhythmic breath of the ocean pounding against the breakwater. 

Her troubles were pushed farther to the back of her mind as she and her father greeted the crew, and the familiar tasks of departure brought Ema back to full working order.

Then they were off the dock and underway, not long until the red and green lights on the jetty saluted the bright mastheads on their boats as they went out the mouth of the bay, and into the dark-blue beyond. 

Ema looked forward to losing herself in work for a while.

It was some time after they set off, and the first streaks of light were just coming over the whipping white horses. 

Today was a lucky day. They’d homed in on a good-size school, and the three boats of their little fleet– Kofuku-Maru, Taihei-Maru, Sorarisu-Maru– were about to act out their purse-seining dance.

The Taihei and Sorarisu sailed in parallel, hanging the net and the handling lines in-between, and the third boat stood off some distance.

At her father’s command from the Kofuku, the twin boats broke off in opposite directions, paying the net out between themselves as they sprinted away from the other.

As the net went under, only the floats stayed bobbing on the surface, like a long yellow line of prayer beads on the water. At a kilometer’s distance, the boats turned hard over to make a crooked necklace with those floats, reuniting at the end of the maneuver to tie the circling net off.

That was where the purse line came in, closing it all up from the bottom, so the critters they were after couldn’t just swim down and escape. Like an old purse with a drawstring.

They had their quarry where they wanted– now to tighten the noose. Slow and steady, they began to haul the net back in, shrinking the circle until their catch was hemmed in between the boats, to one side of the net.

 At this point, white foam was boiling along the waterline of both boats as the water between them seethed with small fish: Mackerel, churning the water with their number.

With the two boats again alongside, it was time for the third boat to swoop in. With its refrigerated hold, it was the reefer that kept the catch as fresh as can be. They quickly put their brailer net to work, great scoops of frothing water and fish spilling onto its deck to get swept into the holds. Out of the water, they didn’t so much look like single fish than a squirming mass of blue and silver. 

This well-practiced choreography of machines went together with the frenetic activity of the men and women aboard, working the ropes and controls that made it all happen. 

 In many ways, technology had made things easier, with devices like the power block to do the work of a dozen men. But for the parts that needed finesse, from making sure the net was hauled in evenly to making sense of the mess of ropes on the deck, it was still up to good old manpower.

Finesse was relative. Their huffing and hawing as they strained on the water-soaked ropes, stamping around the deck in their rubber boots, almost slipping on the carpet of writhing catch, spray from the freshwater hose mixing with sweat– none of it was exactly graceful. In between the sonic sensors and hydraulics was timeless animal labor; raw grit and ropey gristle.

By the time it was all over, Ema was sat on whichever free surface the deck offered with the others, dog tired and dealing in idle talk. 

It had been her idea to help with her father’s work. A while back, the crew was a body short after one of them had gotten into an accident landside. At the start, her father was staunchly against it. 

When she broached the subject to the others, she didn’t have much better luck. Even the two ladies in the crew had been against a teenage girl taking it on. It’s no big deal, they said, you have school to worry about. But she had been adamant, and sheer stubbornness won her the argument.

Her father allowed her aboard, but only for as long as the missing guy wasn’t back, and only when school was out. She had already earned a reputation as something of a klutz then, but quickly proved that she had a knack for the work as a deckhand. The injured crew member eventually did make it back on, but she found herself coming back on as an extra hand lately, whenever she was free. 

Especially nowadays, what with everything that the town's fisherfolk had on their plate, she felt extra motivated to help her father out in any we she could.

The sun had risen well above the horizon when they tacked back to port to land their haul.

The offing behind them was now blinding to look at, with the sun full up in the sky. To their front, the deep blue water gave way to a turquoise shade as it shoaled toward the shore. 

One could just begin to make out the knobby points of the concrete pieces that made up the breakwater. Closer, ant-like figures on top of the green-stained berth resolved into dockworkers poised to receive their cargo, and others milling about the scattered buckets, trays and machines. 

All told, the landing, the weight of their catch, came to just under a ton. Middling numbers, compared to even a year ago.

Her father looked at it differently, insisting that today’s relatively good haul was on account of their lucky charm coming along, referring of course to his embarrassed daughter.

Ever since the usual fishing grounds got closed off, they’d been forced to go out farther to meet their quota, which itself was already down from the years before. They were just managing to break even, somehow, which was better than could be said for other folks. 

Still, they’d made it through another day, and the crew were looking forward to hanging up their boots and hitting the town after a week’s hard work.

Out of all them, Ema felt that she was the only one who wasn’t.

“Don’t knock the guys giving you gas to cook with.” the bald geezer in front of him said.

“Like when you said you was gonna wrangle that shark that done got caught up in the nets yourself?”

A welter of cackling laughter filled the house, spilling out into the cool night air. It was later that day in the evening, and her father and a bunch of the crew were crammed into their living room. They had set aside the night to waggle their chins and drink enough booze to make a whale blush.

At the mention of his daughter, their boss-man finally spoke up above the clamor.

“Hold your horses there, I think she ought to have a say in something like that. Girl doesn’t even know what she wants to take up for college yet. Ain’t that right, Ema?”

For a moment, all eyes were on the only girl in the room, whose mind was someplace else entirely. If she hadn’t been so distracted, then she would have probably denied that she had the brains to be a lawyer.

“Ema!”

“What’s got her out of it today, skipper?” the portly one said. 

“Not sure, got something to do with a transfer student I think. Something about a boy.”