by Неизвестный
“Let’s go home.”
Over and over I pressed Tamura to leave, until finally he snarled angrily, “Stop pestering me! Go home by yourself, then!”
When we finally went outside, the Hanshin train that sped past us was carrying workers back to their homes.
“You’ve got to stop being so scared of your mother.” Tamura shrugged his shoulders derisively. “Just make up a good excuse.”
After we parted, I walked along the deserted road, trying to think up a convincing lie. I hadn’t come up with one until I stepped through the doorway.
“We had some extra classes today,” I caught my breath and blurted out. “They said we have to start preparing for entrance exams.” When it was obvious that my mother had believed me, a pain clutched at my chest even as I experienced an inner feeling of satisfaction.
To be quite honest, I had no true religious faith whatsoever. Although I attended church at my mother’s insistence, I merely cupped my hands together and made as if to pray while inwardly my mind roamed over empty landscapes. I recalled scenes from the many movies I seen with Tamura, and I even thought about the photographs of naked women he had shown me one day. Inside the chapel the faithful stood or knelt in response to the prayers of the priest reciting the Mass. The more I tried to restrain my fantasies, the more they flooded into my brain with mocking clarity.
I truly could not understand why my mother believed in such a religion. The words of the priest, the stories in the Bible, the Crucifix—they all seemed like intangible happenings from a past that had nothing to do with us. I doubted the sincerity of the people who gathered there each Sunday to clasp their hands in prayer even as they scolded their children and cleared their throats. Sometimes I would regret such thoughts and feel apologetic toward my mother. And I prayed that if there was a God, He would grant me a believing heart. But there was no reason to think that such a plea would change how I felt.
Finally I stopped going to morning Mass altogether. My excuse was that I had to study for my entrance exams. I felt not the slightest qualms when after that, I lay in bed listening to my mother’s footsteps as she set out alone for church each winter morning. By then she had already begun to complain of heart spasms. Eventually I stopped going to church even on Sundays, though out of consideration for my mother’s feelings I left the house and then slipped away to pass my time wandering around the bustling shopping center at Nishinomiya or staring at the advertisements in front of the movie theaters.
Around that time mother often had trouble breathing. Sometimes, just walking down the street, she would stop suddenly and clutch her chest, her face twisted into an ugly grimace. I ignored her. A sixteen-year-old boy could not imagine what it was to fear death. The attacks passed quickly, and she was back to normal within five minutes, so I assumed it was nothing serious. In reality, her many years of torment and weariness had worn out her heart. Even so, she still got up at five o’clock every morning and, dragging her heavy legs, walked to the station down the deserted road. The church was two stops away on the train.
One Saturday, unable to resist the temptation, I decided to play truant from school and got off the train near an amusement district. I left my school bag at a coffee shop that Tamura and I had begun to frequent. I still had quite a bit of time before the film started. In my pocket I carried a one-yen note I had taken from my mother’s purse several days earlier. Somewhere along the way I had picked up the habit of dipping into her wallet. I sat through several movies until sunset, then returned home with a look of innocence on my face.
When I opened the door, I was surprised to see my mother standing there. She stared at me without saying a word. Then slowly her face contorted, and tears trickled down her twisted cheeks. It seems she had found out everything through a phone call from my school. She wept softly in the room adjoining mine until late into the night. I stuck my fingers in my ears, trying to block out the sound, but somehow it insinuated itself into my eardrums. Thoughts of a convenient lie to get me out of this situation left me little room for remorse.
Afterward, Jirō took me to the village office. While I was examining some local artifacts, sunlight began to warm the windows. I glanced up and saw that the rain had finally stopped.
“You can see a few more of these if you go over to the school.” Mr. Nakamura, a deputy official in the village, stood beside me with a worried expression on his face, as though it were his personal responsibility that there was nothing here worth looking at. The only displays at the village office and the elementary school were of some earthenware fragments from remote antiquity, dug up by the teachers at the school. They had none of the kakure relics that I was eager to examine.
“Don’t you have any kakure rosaries or crosses?”
Mr. Nakamura shook his head with embarrassed regret. “Those people like to keep things to themselves. You’ll just have to go there yourself. They’re a bunch of eccentrics, if you ask me.”
His words were filled with the same contempt for the kakure that I had detected in Jirō’s remarks.
Jirō, having observed the weather conditions, returned to the village office and announced cheerfully, “It’s cleared up. We’ll be able to go tomorrow for sure. Would you like to go and see the Isle of Rocks now?”
When we had visited the Christian grave, I had especially asked to see the Isle of Rocks.
Mr. Nakamura made a quick phone call to the fishermen’s union. Village offices can be useful at such times; the union was more than willing to provide us with a small motorboat.
I borrowed a mackintosh from Mr. Nakamura. He accompanied Jirō and me to the dock, where a fisherman had the boat waiting. A mat had been laid in the wet bilges for us to sit on. In the murky waters that slopped around our feet floated the tiny silver body of a dead fish.
With a buzz from the motor, the boat set out into the still rough seas, vibrating ever more fiercely. It was invigorating to ride the crest of a wave, but each time we sank into a trough, I felt as though my stomach were cramping.
“The fishing’s good at the Isle of Rocks,” Nakamura commented. “We often go there on holidays. Do you fish, Sensei?”
When I shook my head, he gave me a disappointed look and began boasting to Jirō and the fisherman about the large sea bream he had once caught.
The spray drenched my mackintosh. The chill of the sea winds rendered me speechless. The surface of the water, which had started out gray, was now a dark, cold-looking black. I thought of the Christians who had been hurled into these waters four centuries before. If I had been born in such a time, I would not have had the strength to endure such a punishment. Suddenly I thought of my mother. I saw myself strolling around the entertainment district at Nishinomiya, then telling lies to my mother.
The little island drew closer. True to its name, it was composed entirely of craggy rocks, the very crest of which was crowned with a scant growth of vegetation. In response to a question from me, Mr. Nakamura reported that aside from occasional visits by officials of the Ministry of Postal Services, the island was used by the villagers only as a place from which to fish.
Ten or so crows squawked hoarsely as they hovered over the top of the islet. Their calls pierced the wet gray sky, giving the scene an eerie, desolate air. Now we had a clear view of the cracks and fissures in the rocks. The waves beat against the crags with a roar, spewing up white spray.
I asked to see the spot from which the Christians were cast into the sea, but neither Jirō nor Nakamura knew where it was. Most likely there had not been one particular location; the faithful had probably been thrown down from any convenient place.
“It’s frightening even to think about it.”
“It’s impossible to imagine nowadays.”
Evidently the thoughts that had been running through my head had not even occurred to my two Catholic companions.
“There’s lots of bats in these caves. When you get up close, you can hear them shrieking.”
“They’re strange c
reatures. They fly so fast, and yet they never bump into anything. I hear they’ve got something like radar.”
“Well, Sensei, shall we take a walk around and then go back?”
The island from which we had come was being pounded by white surf. The rain clouds split open, and we had a clear view of the mountain slopes in the distance.
Mr. Nakamura, pointing toward the mountains as the priest had done the previous evening, said, “That’s where the kakure village is.”
“Nowadays I suppose they don’t keep to themselves like they used to, do they?”
“As a matter of fact, they do. We had one working as a janitor at the school. Shimomura was his name. He was from the kakure village. But I didn’t much care for him. There wasn’t anything to talk to him about.”
The two men explained that the Catholics on the island were hesitant about associating with the kakure or intermarrying with them. Their reluctance seemed to have more to do with psychological conflicts than with religious differences. Even now the kakure married their own kind; if they did otherwise, they would not be able to preserve their faith. This custom reinforced their conviction that they were a peculiar people.
On the breast of those mountains half concealed in mist, the kakure Christians had sustained their religious faith for three hundred years, guarding their secret institutions from outsiders, as was done in all the kakure villages, by appointing people to such special village posts as “Waterworks Official,” “Watchman,” “Greeter,” and “Ombudsman.” From grandfather to father and from father to son, their formal prayers were passed through the generations, and their objects of worship were concealed behind the dark Buddhist altars. My eyes searched the mountain slope for that isolated village, as though I were gazing at some forsaken landscape. But of course it was impossible to spot it from there.
“Sensei, why are you interested in such a strange group of people?” Nakamura asked me in amazement. My reply was noncommittal.
One clear autumn day, I bought some chrysanthemums and set out for the cemetery. My mother’s grave is in a Catholic cemetery in Fuchū. I can’t begin to count the number of times I have made the journey to that graveyard since my school days. In the past, the road was surrounded by groves of chestnut and buckeye trees and fields of wheat; in the spring it was a pleasant path for a leisurely stroll. But now it is a busy thoroughfare crowded with all manner of shops. Even the stone carver’s little hut that once stood all by itself at the entrance to the cemetery has turned into a solid one-story building.
Memories flood my mind each time I visit that place. I went to pay my respects the day I graduated from the university. The day before I was due to board a ship for France to continue my studies, I again made the journey there. It was the first spot I visited when I fell ill and had to return to Japan. I was careful to visit the grave on the day I was married and on the day I went into the hospital. Sometimes I make the pilgrimage without telling anyone, not even my wife. It is the spot where I conduct private conversations with my mother. In the depths of my heart lurks a desire not to be disturbed even by those who are close to me. I make my way down the path. A statue of the Holy Mother stands in the center of the graveyard, surrounded by a tidy row of stone markers belonging to the graves of foreign nuns who have been buried here in Japan. Branching out from this center point are white crosses and gravestones. A bright sun and a peaceful silence hover over each of the graves.
Mother’s grave is small. My heart constricts whenever I look at that tiny grave marker. I pluck the wild grasses that surround it. With buzzing wings, insects swarm around me as I work in solitude. There is no other sound.
As I pour a ladle of water into the flower vase, I think (as I always do) of the day my mother died. The memory is a painful one for me. I was not with her when she collapsed in the hallway from a heart attack, nor was I beside her when she died. I was at Tamura’s house, doing something that would have made her weep had she seen it.
Tamura had pulled a sheaf of postcards wrapped in newspaper from his desk drawer. And he smiled that thin smile he always wore when he was about to teach me something.
“These aren’t like the phony ones they sell around here.”
There were something like ten photographs inside the newspaper wrapping. Their edges were yellow and faded. The dark figure of a man was stretched out on top of the white body of a woman. She had a look as though of pain on her face. I caught my breath and flipped through the pictures one after another.
“Lecher! You’ve seen enough, haven’t you?” Tamura cackled.
Their telephone rang, and after it was answered, we heard footsteps approaching. Hurriedly Tamura stuffed the photographs into his drawer. A woman’s voice called my name.
“You must go home right away! Your mother’s had an attack!”
“What’s up?” Tamura asked.
“I don’t know.” I was still glancing at the drawer. “How did she know I was here?”
I was less concerned about her attack than the fact that she knew I was at Tamura’s. She had forbidden me to go there after she found out that Tamura’s father ran a whorehouse. It was not unusual for her to have to go to bed with heart palpitations, but if she took the white pills (I’ve forgotten the name) that the doctor gave her, the attack was always brought under control.
I made my way slowly along the back streets still warmed by the bright sun. Rusted scraps of metal were piled up in a field marked with a “For Sale” sign. Beside the field was a small factory. I didn’t know what they manufactured there, but a dull, heavy, pounding noise was repeated regularly inside the building. A man came riding toward me on a bicycle, but he stopped beside the dusty, weed-covered field and began to urinate.
My house came into view. The window to my room was half-open, the way it always was. Neighborhood children were playing in front of the house. Everything was normal, and there was no sign that anything unusual had happened. The priest from our church was standing at the front door.
“Your mother . . . died just a few moments ago.” He spoke each word softly and clearly. Even a mindless middle-school student like myself could tell that he was struggling to suppress the emotion in his voice. Even a mindless middle-school student like myself could sense the criticism in his voice.
In the back room, my mother’s body was surrounded by neighbors and people from the church, sitting with stooped shoulders. No one turned to look at me; no one spoke a word to me. I knew from the stiffness of their backs that they all were condemning me.
Mother’s face was white as milk. A shadow of pain still lingered between her brows. Her expression reminded me of the look on the face of the woman in the photographs I had just been examining. Only then did I realize what I had done, and I wept.
I finish pouring the water from the bucket and put the chrysanthemums into the vase that is part of the gravestone. The insects that have been buzzing about my face now cluster around the flowers. The earth beneath which my mother lies is the dark soil peculiar to the Musashi Plain. At some point, I too will be buried here, and as in my youth, I will be living alone again with my mother.
I had not given Mr. Nakamura a satisfactory answer when he asked me why I was interested in the kakure.
Public curiosity about the kakure has increased recently. This “hidden” religion is an ideal subject for investigation by those doing research in comparative religion. NHK, the national educational television channel, has done several features on the kakure of Gotō and Ikitsuki, and many of the foreign priests of my acquaintance come to visit the kakure whenever they are in Nagasaki. But I am interested in the kakure for only one reason—because they are the offspring of apostates. Like their ancestors, they cannot utterly abandon their faith; instead, they live out their lives consumed by remorse and dark guilt and shame.
I was first drawn to these descendants of apostates after I had written a novel set in the Christian era. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of myself in these kakure, people who have had to
lead lives of duplicity, lying to the world and never revealing their true feelings to anyone. I, too, have a secret that I have never told anyone and that I will carry within myself until the day I die.
That evening I drank saké with the Father, Jirō, and Mr. Nakamura. The nun who had served me lunch brought out a large tray stacked with raw sea urchins and abalone. The local saké was too sweet for someone like myself who drinks only the dry variety, but the sea urchins were so fresh they made the Nagasaki ones seem almost stale. The rain had let up earlier, but it began to pour again. Jirō got drunk and began to sing.
Oh, let us go, let us go
To the Temple of Paradise, let us go,
Oh, oh.
They call it the Temple of Paradise,
They say it is spacious and grand.
But whether it is large or small
Is really up to my heart.
I knew the song. When I’d visited Hirado two years before, the Christians there had taught it to me. The melody was complicated and impossible to remember, but as I listened to Jirō’s plaintive singing, I thought of the dark expressions on the faces of the kakure. Protruding cheekbones and sunken eyes that seemed to be fixed on a single point in space. Perhaps, as they waited through the long years of national isolation for the boats of the missionaries that might never return, they muttered this song to themselves.
“Mr. Takaishi on Mount Fudō—his cow died. It was a good old cow.” The priest was unlike the man I had met at the party in Tokyo. With a cup or so of saké in him, he was flushed down to his neck as he spoke to Mr. Nakamura. Over the course of the day, he and Jirō had perhaps ceased to regard me as an outsider. Gradually I warmed to this countrified priest, so unlike the swaggering prelates of Tokyo.
