Short Story 173: The Unburnable Boat

Into the raging flames, the five-ken boat was shoved as if its belly were being struck. Kai, the boatman, was the one who witnessed the end of the vessel, which had become so worn that it could no longer even carry passengers, despite constant repairs. Kai had resisted, performing repair after repair, hoping to carry 'even one more person,' but the limit had finally been reached. The waterlogged planks no longer had the strength to hold on. The boat, having soaked up so much water, refused to burn easily.
'This is interesting,' muttered Kuromatsu, the painter. He watched from a distance with sparkling eyes, blinking and shedding tears as the smoke drifted toward him, all while his brush flew across the paper.
Ever since the bridge was built, the number of passengers paying to cross to the other side had dropped significantly. The town was bustling with life around the bridge, crowded with merchants from soba shops to teahouses. Kuromatsu, who had been behind on his rent until recently, was now making good money as customers increased, thanks to his paintings of the changing town and its people. Rumor had it that even the old boatmen had moved their boats elsewhere and were charging exorbitant fares, yet they never lacked for customers.
Even so, this 'river crossing' had reached its end. Kai was witnessing its demise firsthand. Just as expected, the boat was hard to burn. She had prepared more than enough firewood for the disposal and had packed in so much scrap wood that she thought, 'Surely this is too much,' but it was only enough to finally split the hull. As if resisting the fierce flames, the boat continued to quietly dampen their intensity. As she stoked the scrap wood on the side, moisture hissed out from the cross-sections—'hiss, hiss, shhh.' The sound made her heart ache a little. Even after deciding to dispose of it, her attachment remained.
She had learned the trade from her predecessor, and the flow of the river, the handling of the oar, and the way to use her lower body were all ingrained in her. Because of her skill, she was scheduled to go to another river once the disposal of this boat was finished. Since they were on the riverbank, there was no fear of a fire spreading, but thoughts of the past suddenly crossed her mind.
'The sketch is done. You showed me something good. I'll bring it to you soon,' Kuromatsu said, leaving in high spirits. Apparently, he had been drawing in the soot-filled, smoky air. He really was a strange fellow. No one had even asked him to. Once, he had jumped onto the boat as if fleeing from a debt collector, handed over a pittance saying, 'I can't pay the fare, so I'll swim from here,' and nearly died jumping into the winter river—that was a good memory now. Though, she wondered even now, 'Did you actually have the money to run away?'
She had started preparations at the hour of the Rabbit (6 AM), lit the fire at the hour of the Dragon (8 AM), and finally, alone on the riverbank, she burned the boat. As time passed and the hour of the Horse (noon) went by, it finally began to burn on its own without needing to be stoked. Once the fire took hold, it went quickly. By the hour of the Monkey (4 PM), when the sun began to tilt, it had turned beautifully into ash, and the number of red nails left behind spoke volumes about the boat's 'limit'.
She drew water with a bucket time and again to finally extinguish the fire. Once she used the hoe she had borrowed from a neighbor to wash the ashes and soil into the river, it would all be over. Water hit the heated stones, sending up a lively cloud of steam. When that, too, subsided, she finally began to pack up to go home.
She had finished burning the scrap wood she had received for almost nothing, and no fire had broken out. The wind from upstream fluttered her hair. 'Honestly, what is a woman doing working as a boatman? I won't look after you if you make a mistake,' her predecessor had scolded her, but she had worked desperately, juggling the job with a local soba shop to make ends meet. At first, she couldn't handle the boat well, and the rocking was so bad that passengers would get seasick and vomit. Still, because the boat was the only way to get to the other side, she had managed to hone her skills.
Today, she would cross the bridge to go home. On the way, the view of the river from above looked beautiful for some reason. If anything, she was 'the pitiful woman who lost her boat'...
She crossed the bridge and stopped by the familiar soba shop. 'Here you go,' the taciturn owner said, serving her 'herring soba.' 'It's special today, no charge.' The owner seemed to have been watching the boat burning on the other side the whole time while serving customers. 'Even though I'm not much to look at, you went out of your way to let me work for almost nothing,' she thought, feeling apologetic as she slurped the noodles. Before she knew it, the bell for the hour of the Rooster (6 PM) rang, and the sky was wrapped in twilight.
'Thank you for the meal. I'm going to the next town starting tomorrow. I'll come back again someday. Thank you for everything for so long.' She placed the bowl down and left the shop. She wanted to repay his kindness, but unfortunately, she had no leeway right now. It was pathetic that a 'promise to come back' was all she could offer. She hurried home, the taste of the owner's rich broth still lingering in her mouth.
Something was wedged between the sliding doors of her rented house. When she picked it up and lit a candle in her room, she saw it was a painting of a woman by Kuromatsu. That was a stylish thing for him to do. A man who sold his paintings as soon as he finished them, actually giving one away. She opened the door and began to pack.
Since more people wanted to live in places that came furnished, she thought she would take advantage of that trend and move out. Still, it was a house she only returned to for sleeping. She had almost no belongings. Just bedding and a few changes of clothes. Being unencumbered was convenient for traveling. Once, she had lived in a shack on the riverbank and had called out to passengers from the dark of the hour of the Tiger (4 AM).
The room was dusty, but not particularly dirty. She had cooked only occasionally, having eaten most of her meals where she worked. 'I'm certainly not much of a woman,' she muttered to herself before falling asleep. The next morning, when she opened the sliding door at the early hour of the Rabbit (6 AM), the deserted street felt a little eerie. With a bamboo water canteen and a wrapping cloth on her back, she began to walk toward the next town.
Amidst the mix of responsibility and anxiety about having a boat on a new river, as soon as she arrived, her companions made her row the boat without any passengers. 'We'll have you take passengers as soon as they arrive,' they said, and her new daily life with a new boat began.
When she missed that taste and visited the soba shop, the owner brought out a painting, saying, 'I was asked to give this to you.' It was the painting Kuromatsu had made at that time. Apparently, there was also a message: 'Please pay the owner for the soba.' It seemed Kuromatsu had eaten the most expensive soba at the shop and used that as a bargaining chip. He was as 'sly'—or perhaps 'shrewd'—as ever.
'This is for the meal and the painting,' Kai said, handing over the money, and she let out a small chuckle on her way home.
The owner had thought Kuromatsu was heartless for turning the sight of a burning boat into a painting, but he felt it was all right, as he had been able to see Kai's face—which, while seeming to say 'good grief,' didn't look entirely displeased.
Today, too, the sound of Kai rowing her boat, 'creak, creak,' echoes across the surface of the river.