Mercy Release
"I don't understand it," the fisherman told his wife over the dinner table. "This spring, the backwards island is better. Their sea is healthy."
"Well, keep it to yourself," she warned. Most of the fishermen in their town had been forced out of business. They had sold their boats and gone to work in the city. Some had moved to the mainland, a trip they'd sworn they wouldn't make.
"Of course." He nodded. He knew it would be wisest to keep his observations quiet.
The fisherman and his family lived on a slope in a tract of hills bound by the sea and a single river. It was one of a chain of islands not far off the coast of the mainland. His low-mountain territory was the best in the archipelago, he thought. His people were the most sophisticated. They had large schools, roads, temples, churches, medicines, and modern technology. The next island over was poor and the people were backward. The same tribe had inhabited its lands for a thousand years.
The modern island and the backward one were too far apart to see each other but, in good weather, a sailor could travel between them in a day. That's how the fisherman discovered the difference in their waters.
Four years earlier, the mainland fishing fleets had swept through. They had wiped out the fishing grounds. They'd scraped out every shoal that harbored shrimp. They'd netted every school of fish. They'd dredged up every clam from the seabeds. They'd taken every turtle. They'd slaughtered the dolphins and seals. They'd done it all in a single season.
"Will you go back tomorrow?" his wife asked as she drew a portion of her fish dinner to her mouth.
"There's no choice," he replied. "It's the only place."
She bowed her head.
"I"ll take the boy," he announced.
"He's got school," she warned.
"This." He tapped his finger on the table. His wife sighed but she bowed her head again. “This is the thing he must learn.”
In the morning, the fisherman enlisted his son to carry equipment to the boat. They talked about the sailing they would do. The boy said he understood. He didn’t mention school. Then the father let his boy nap as they sailed north around the coast. They needed to avoid the eyes of other fishermen. No one else in his neighborhood had brought home a full catch on any day in the past four years. He knew his neighbors would hear about his success and try to follow. Fortunately, he noticed only one boat in his wake. It kept its distance. Soon, it faded from sight.
By sunrise, he reached the north end of the island. Here, the mouth of the river met the sea. He stared at the city for a while. It was the largest on the land by far. His boy rose and, rubbing his eyes, watched the businesses of the city start their day. Trucks and carts rolled on roads and ramps near the water. Dock workers lined up next to the biggest ship, which had moored next to the widest dock.
"What's that?" the child asked, pointing. His father followed the gesture to the city center. In it stood a tall building with a rounded top.
"It's the stupa," he answered. "Monks and priests stay there. Their home sits beside the temple, which is just a little closer to the coast. You can see the temple but it is farther away, next to the river."
"There are priests at the narrow dock near the stupa," the boy announced.
The fisherman strained to see. He could make out robed figures on a wooden pier. They pulled a train of carts behind them. On the carts, they carried eight kettles of baked, red clay. The kettles, each as big as a man, sat two to a cart. Behind every cart, a pair of monks pushed. In front, a priest pulled and steered. As father and son watched, the priests made their procession from the base of the pier to its end, far out over the water. A group of the eldest led the way, swaying and chanting.
The fisherman couldn't hear the chants but he was sure they were words of prayer, loud and slow. This had to be the weekly ceremony in which the priests showed their compassion. When the procession reached its end, all the monks joined in with the waving. Finally, two of them reached up to a clay kettle. Each man used both of his hands to grip it by a handle on the neck. They managed to lug the kettle down from the cart. They carried it two steps. They tipped it and let water spill out. A second later, they learned it even more. Fish began to fall out. They were large, although listless. The scaley bodies landed hard in the sea. Half of them wiggled their tails and swam away.
"What are they doing?" his son asked.
"That is the mercy release," he replied. "The priests say it is evil to eat meat. They gain merit by buying living fish in the market on the mainland. Then they release the fish instead of eating them. You see?"
"But we eat fish."
He nodded to his son.
"It's a ritual," he said. He wasn't sure how to explain it although he thought it was high-minded of the priests.
The boy suddenly pointed to an outrigger sailing north out of the mouth of the river. "That boat has the same clay pots."
The fisherman squinted. His son was right. The primitive outrigger, the fastest of the types of craft sailed by crews from the backward island, had been laden with kettles. They appeared identical to those used by the virtuous priests. These kettles, however, sat between the knees of the native sailors as they rowed. When the outrigger caught a hard wind, they lifted their paddles out of the water. The hardest part of their job, aiming into the easterward breeze, was done.
The fisherman watched them for a while. He turned his sail toward their island. They were leading the way for him.
For most of the day, they cruised east. The fisherman tried to lose sight of the natives ahead. Several times, he succeeded, once for several hours. But it was hard to lose them completely when they were going the same way.
"They bought fish, like the priests," concluded his son.
"It could be." He had reluctantly come to the same opinion.
"Are they religious?"
"Not like priests, I think."
They sailed through the night because the skies were clear. Stars like pearls shone through the darkness, each glowing fierce and strong. The boy slept for hours. When the moon came out, he woke. Father and son sailed over the blue-black sea in a shimmering silver light. They caught a glimpse of the catamaran to the northeast. In half an hour, they glided by it, sweeping ahead of its resting crew.
Before dawn, they found their fishing spot. The nets caught a full haul of game fish on the first cast. They were mostly young adult hake and trout. The boy screamed with delight. He danced on the deck with a pair of flopping, coral trout. It made his father reflect, for a moment, on how young the lad was. He couldn’t possibly remember a normal catch before the mainland fleets had wiped out the area. He had seen those catches come home, maybe, as a toddler. He might recall something about them. But he hadn't been big enough to sail, back when things were more normal. He'd never stood on deck during an ordinary-sized haul.
The boy laughed and continued to dance for a few minutes. He didn’t settle down until his father put him to work bucketing the fish into the hold. Earlier, they had half-filled two of their hold compartments with sea water. They had been ready. Even so, it took them half an hour to sort the fish and toss out the by-catch, which was mostly adolescent mackerel and hake, too small for the marketplace.
Their vessel had eight compartments, in total. They had room for more hauls. Their only limit was their tolerance for slow sailing. The fisherman knew the limits of his craft. It didn't steer well with full holds. At least, it hadn't years ago. He doubted anything on his aging vessel had gotten better since.
He wandered along the deck, set up his nets, and considered the distance to home. He studied his boy playing with an adult mackerel in the best by-catch compartment. He inhaled the scent of the holds. He gazed to the west, where he saw no clouds. His hands on hips, he pondered filling six hold compartments. The vessel would respond like a lame ox, then, for sure, but he would get home easily enough in this clear weather.
That's when he saw the other craft. It was the catamaran. The natives had spotted him.
They were rowing toward his ship. For a moment, he wondered if he should turn and flee. His more modern fishing vessel could make it, maybe. But he had done nothing wrong.
As he waited a few minutes and the natives closed in, he saw they had their bows strung and spears out. They had weapons pointed in his direction. He wondered if they felt differently about their waters than they had years ago. Or had he offended them somehow? His skin prickled. At that moment, his son hopped up on deck to see why his father had stopped moving. He spotted the catamaran, too. The native sailors changed their body language in response. As they watched the boy studying them, they lowered their spears.
"Ah," he breathed.
"What?" asked his boy.
"Nothing." A moment later, he changed his mind. "Prepare for guests."
The oldest man clambered aboard first. He carried no weapon except a knife at his belt. Four other men followed, all young and strong. The last pair of them brought spears on their backs. The five, in total, were too many for the boat's cabin, where two people could talk if they were both standing. The hosts had to invite their newcomers to sit on barrels tied down at the gunwales and, in one case, a seat they contrived with a rolled-up fishing net. As the talks began, the boy ran to fetch everyone drinks of warm tea.
The discussion took an hour. The native sailors, even their leader, barely spoke the mainland tongue. They had just enough vocabulary, the fisherman suspected, to buy their pots of live fish. Their anger at seeing a fishing boat in their waters came through well enough, though. They insisted the fisherman swear oaths of secrecy.
When he gave his word in the mainland tongue, they didn't trust it. They made him speak again, repeating phrase after phrase, in their own language. At that point, he wasn't sure what he had agreed to. The men stood and nodded. Their leader insisted that the two of them follow the catamaran as it sailed into the mouth of the nearest river. Not seeing much choice, the fisherman agreed.
The natives left one of their men aboard during the trip but he seemed more jovial than hostile. He and the boy amused themselves by poking a spear into one of the holding tanks while the fisherman did most of the work.
"You must share in our labor," the leader explained when the boats reunited. They tied down not at a proper dock but at stumps and rocks near the mouth of their island's river. "Your boy, he must work."
"We will," the fisherman agreed.
From the start, he found it easy. He and his son took part in the toil of moving the live fish kettles. They hauled them onto the nearest beach. There, they joined a gathering tribe of women, children, and old men.
To his surprise, the natives chanted as they released the fish. He was sure they were saying prayers. He had the sudden sense of living a second life. This, too, was a mercy release ceremony. The men and women were showing their compassion to the fish. Eventually, as they chants paused, two men reached up to a clay kettle. They gripped it by the handle on the neck. They tipped it down into the stream and let the water and fish spill out. These were mostly adolescent fish inside, full of life. They were eager for the brackish water. They darted in different directions, all of them gone in a few seconds.
Next, the young men from the catamaran released turtles. This must have been a difficult purchase. They didn't want anyone else to choose the places for them. Instead, every onlooker touched a turtle on its shell and said a few words of blessing before the release. The fisherman's son did the same, although he had to be prompted for the words. The fisherman did his turn.
When they were set, the turtles crawled from the sand into the rocky stream. A shout went up. Maybe the bought turtles didn't always make it.
Finally, two men pulled a wet box from the catamaran and opened it to reveal a selection of snails. The natives released these, too, but with a more playful sense of care. The fisherman and his son found themselves at the front of a crowd of women, mostly. They worked alongside pre-adolescent girls. Everyone involved placed snails on stones, on water reeds, and on fallen trees, lumpy with algae. Every girl said a blessing every time she released her charge. The fisherman tried to repeat it. His son, he noticed, spoke the phrase perfectly. He made the mothers smile and some of the daughters, too.
That night, they stayed in a village by the sea. As they sat around a communal fire, the father and son again pledged to keep the secrets of the tribe. The boy didn't even seem to know what secrets he was keeping, but he gave his solemn oath.
Finally, they were allowed to board their trawler in the morning and haul one more catch. It was a special one, the fisherman thought. The final lift of the nets involved men from the catamaran watching and chanting prayers.
"Can't we stay?" his son asked as they finished packing up the nets, closing the holds, and pointing the bow of their craft toward their island.
The fisherman felt they had already hauled up as much as the natives liked.
"Your mother expects us," he said.
"Oh, yeah." The boy nodded. With that, he scrambled off to the cabin because it was his turn to steer.
For a day, they tacked back and forth into the wind. It was hard going. They caught the west-bound current, which helped. A squall caught them and blew them northward, too, which didn't hurt their progress west so much as it drove them off course. Eventually, they brought the trawler home to the dock just as a storm was looming on the western horizon. There was time left in the day, so they sold most of their catch while it was fresh. The fisherman's wife met them in the marketplace. She had watched the boat come in.
They marched home together, laden with money and with the best of their fish piled into barrels on the family cart. As they plodded up the great hill, their son told his stories. He started with the priests in the great harbor. He dwelled on the release ceremony of the natives on their island. But he returned again and again, to his favorite part, the huge catches his nets dredged up.
"So many fish!" his mother said. "The backward islanders have been very lucky! Or was it really luck?"
As she spoke, she turned to address her husband.
"It's odd," he said, giving voice to her feelings. His push-cart thwarted him a little but he let his footfalls carry him closer to her side. "Our priests buy and release fish. They pray and pray. But our island has not had a resurgence."
"The priests think they do it to attain merit." She scowled and bowed her head to their stony road for a moment.
"Do they not attain merit?" he asked her. At times, he thought she was quite religious. She visited the nunnery in the city and the temple, too. She liked him to act pious in front of their son. He tried to please her.
"They do their mercy releases for selfish reasons, to show us they are good." She raised her head. She smacked her hands together, one fist in a palm. "On the other island, they did it to save the fish. They didn't show anything to anybody. They didn't need to, because they truly are good."
"They did more." He set down the handles of his push-cart with a sigh. He wiped his brow and caught his breath for a moment. He knew his wife was right.
"Only because their motives were better," she insisted. She pounded her palm one more time. "We have proof. We can see the difference."
