by Shusaku Endo
Again the door grated. The same guard appeared. ‘Father, we’re going now,’ he said.
‘Going? Where?’
‘To the wharf.’
As he stood up he felt giddy from the pangs of his empty stomach. Outside the hut it was already dusk, and the trees hung their branches languidly as though they had been exhausted by the heat of the day. Mosquitoes swarmed around their faces; the croaking frogs could be heard in the distance.
Three guards stood around him, but none of them seemed to worry lest he might try to escape. They talked to one another in loud voices, sometimes breaking out into laughter. One of them separated himself from the others and began to relieve himself in the bushes. If I wished, thought the priest, I could now break away from the other two and make a getaway. But while this thought was passing through his mind, one of the guards suddenly turned to him and said: ‘Father, that hut was a gloomy place.’
Yes, he was a good fellow, this guard. And suddenly the priest felt somehow impressed by the fellow’s pleasant, laughing face. If he escaped it was these peasants who would suffer the consequences. Forcing a weak smile he nodded to his companion.
They passed along the road by which they had come in the morning. The priest’s hollow eyes were fascinated by the huge trees rising up from the middle of fields loud with the croaking of frogs. He remembered having seen these trees before. In them enormous ravens were now flapping their wings and screeching with raucous voice. What a sombre chorus it was—the croak of frogs and the caw of ravens!
As they entered the village, the white smoke rising from the scattered houses drove away the swarms of mosquitoes. A man wearing a loincloth stood clasping a child in his arms. Seeing the priest he opened his mouth like an idiot and burst out laughing. The women with their eyes sadly lowered watched the four men as they marched past.
Through the village they went, and then out again into the paddy fields. The road went downhill until at last a dry breath of salty wind blew into the sunken flesh of the priest’s cheeks. Below was a harbor—if, indeed, it could be called a harbor, for it was no more than a landing-place of black pebbles heaped together with two forlorn little boats pulled up on the beach. While the guards were pushing poles under the boats, the priest picked up the peach-colored shells that were lying in the sand and played with them in his hands. They were the only beautiful things he had seen in this long, long day. Putting one to his ear he listened to the faint, muffled roar that issued forth from its deepest center. Then quite suddenly a dark shudder shook his whole being and in his hand he crushed that shell with its muffled roar.
‘Get on board!’ came the order.
The water in the bottom of the boat was white with dust; it was cold to his swollen feet. His feet drenched, both hands clutching the side of the ship, he closed his eyes and sighed. As the boat slowly moved away from land, his sunken eyes rested on the mountains over which he had wandered until this morning. In the evening mist the dark blue mountain rising up from the sea looked like the swelling breast of a woman. Looking down again to the shore he caught sight of a man, a beggar he seemed, running wildly along. As he ran he was shouting something; then his feet would sink in the sand and he would fall down. Yes, it was the man who had betrayed him. Falling down and then getting up, then falling again, Kichijirō was shouting something in a loud voice. Now it sounded like hissing; now it sounded like weeping; but what he was saying the priest could not make out. Yet he had no inclination to hate the fellow, no feeling of resentment. After all, sooner or later he was bound to be captured, and a feeling of resignation already filled his breast. At last Kichijirō seemed to realize that he would never catch up. And so he stood, erect like a pole, at the water’s edge. As the boat moved away, his motionless figure grew smaller and smaller in the evening mist.
As night came, the boat entered an inlet. Opening his sleepy, half-closed eyes he saw that the guards disembarked and were replaced by other men. Their conversation was interspersed with a dialect that seemed rich in consonants; but in his utter exhaustion the priest did not feel like making the effort to understand what they were saying. The only thing he noticed was that the words Nagasaki and Omura were used frequently, and he felt vaguely that it was in this direction that he was being brought. When he had been in the hut, he had had the strength to pray for the one-eyed man and for the woman who had given him the cucumber; but now he had no longer strength to pray even for himself—much less to speak to others. Where he was being brought, what was going to be done to him—even this did not matter. Closing his eyes he again fell asleep. Sometimes he would open his eyes, and always he could hear the monotonous sound of the oars in the water. One of the men was rowing; the other two crouched in the boat with dark, sullen faces. ‘Lord, may Thy will be done,’ he murmured as though in his sleep. But even though his halting words seemed to resemble those of so many saints who had entrusted their all to the providence of God, he felt that his were different. What is happening to you?, he asked himself. Are you beginning to lose your faith?, said the voice from the depths of his being. Yet this voice filled him with disgust.
‘Where are you going?’ he called in a husky voice to the three new guards, as he opened his eyes again. But the others remained stiffly silent as if to threaten him. ‘Where are you going?’ he called again in a loud voice.
‘Yokose-no-Ura’ answered one of the men in a low voice that somehow seemed filled with shame.
He had frequently heard the name of Yokose-no-Ura from Valignano. It was a port which had been opened with the permission of the local lord by Frois and Almeida; and the Portuguese ships which until then had called at Hirado began to make use of this port alone. A great Jesuit church had been built on the hill overlooking the harbor and on it the fathers had erected a huge crucifix—so big indeed that the missionaries could clearly see it from their ships when, after many days and nights of long travel, they finally reached Japan. The Japanese residents also on Easter Sunday would walk in procession to the top of the hill, singing hymns and carrying lighted candles in their hands. Even the feudal lords themselves would come here; and some of them eventually received baptism.
From the boat the priest strained his eyes for any trace of a village or its harbor that might be Yokose-no-Ura, but sea and land alike were painted in the same thick black nor was any light to be seen. There was absolutely no trace of village or house. Yet the thought was constantly in his mind that somewhere here, as in Tomogi and Goto, there might still be Christians in hiding. If so, did they know that here in a little boat, crouching with fear and trembling like a wild dog, was a priest?
‘Where is Yokose-no-Ura?’, he asked one of the guards.
‘There’s nothing left of it,’ came the answer.
The village had been burnt to the ground; and its inhabitants had been completely dispersed. The sea and the land were silent as death; only the dull sound of the waves lapping against the boat broke the silence of the night. Why have you abandoned us so completely?, he prayed in a weak voice. Even the village was constructed for you; and have you abandoned it in its ashes? Even when the people are cast out of their homes have you not given them courage? Have you just remained silent like the darkness that surrounds me? Why? At least tell me why. We are not strong men like Job who was afflicted with leprosy as a trial. There is a limit to our endurance. Give us no more suffering.
So he prayed. But the sea remained cold, and the darkness maintained its stubborn silence. All that could be heard was the monotonous dull sound of the oars again and again.
Will I turn out a failure?, he asked himself. He felt that unless grace gave him courage and strength he could endure no more.
The sound of the oars ceased. One of the men faced the sea and yelled: ‘Is anyone there?’
The oars had stopped; but from somewhere beyond the sound of other oars could be heard.
‘It might be someone night-fishing. Leave him alone.’ This time it was the old man who spoke in a whisper, the one who h
ad been silent until now.
The noise of the oars from beyond stopped, and a weak voice could be heard trying to answer. The priest had a feeling that he had heard this voice somewhere before, but he could not recall where.
Now it was morning. They had reached Omura. As the milky mist was gradually blown away by the wind, his tired eyes fell upon the white wall of a castle surrounded by a grove at the side of the bay. It was still in process of construction, and the scaffolding of logs was all around it. A flock of crows flew crossways over the grove. At the back of the castle was a cluster of houses of thatch and straw. This was his first view of a Japanese town. As the light grew brighter, he noticed for the first time that the three guards who had been his companions in the boat had great thick bludgeons at their feet. Probably they had received orders to throw him mercilessly into the sea should he show any signs of trying to escape.
At the wharf was a jostling crowd of spectators, headed by some samurai wearing great big swords by the sleeves of their garments. The samurai would yell at the spectators who would alternately stand up and sit down on the hill on the beach waiting patiently for the arrival of the boat. When the priest disembarked there was a great cry from amongst the people; and as he was escorted by the samurai through their midst, his eyes met those of a number of men and women staring at him with looks of pain and anguish. He was silent; they too were silent. But as he passed in front of them he raised his hand and lightly gave them a blessing. Immediately, alarm and consternation showed itself on their faces and they lowered their eyes. Some even turned away their faces. If things were normal, he should have been able to place the bread of the body of Christ in those mouths now tightly shut. But here he had neither chalice nor wine nor altar with which to celebrate Mass.
When he was set up on the bare-backed horse with his wrists tightly bound a howl of derision arose from the crowd. Although Omura was dignified with the name of town, with its thatch-roofed houses it looked little different from the villages he had seen until now. The bare-footed women with flowing hair and skirts stood arranging shells and firewood and vegetables on the road. From amongst the people on the road strolling minstrels in bakama, and black-clothed bonzes would look up at him and laugh scornfully. Sometimes stones from the hands of children skimmed past his face as he was led along the long and narrow road. If Valignano was right, this Omura was the district upon which the missionaries had expended their greatest effort. It had had many churches and a seminary; the peasants and even the samurai ‘listened to our talks with great enthusiasm’—as Frois had put it in one of his letters. Even the feudal lords had become ardent Christians and he had heard that they were practically converted in a body. But now, when the children threw stones and the bonzes shouting in derision covered him with ugly spittle, there was no samurai amongst the officials who made any attempt to check them.
The road skirted the sea and then headed straight for Nagasaki. When they passed a village called Suzuda, he noticed a farmhouse filled with flowers the names of which he did not know. The samurai at one time stopped their horses and ordered one of the men to bring some water which they then offered to the priest. But it simply dribbled down from his mouth on to his hollow chest.
‘Look! Isn’t he big?’ The women, pulling their children by the sleeves, pointed at him with derision.
When the sluggish procession got under way again, he looked back. The sad thought occurred to him that he might never again see blooming white flowers like those he had just looked at. As they rode along, the samurai would pull off their plumed hats and wipe the sweat from their brows; then fixing their hair they would sit up astride their horses.
Now the road became white and winding and the priest noticed the figure of a man like a beggar leaning on his staff and following after them. It was Kichijirō. Just as he had stood on the shore open-mouthed watching the boat move away, so now with kimono thrown open he slouched along. Seeing that the priest had noticed him, he got all excited and tried to hide in the shelter of a tree. The priest was perplexed. Why did this fellow who betrayed him come following after him in this way? And now it occurred to him that the man who had been in the other ship that morning might have been Kichijirō.
Jostled up and down upon the horse, his sunken eyes sometimes fell vaguely upon the sea. Today it was shimmering black and threatening.
After they got away from Suzuda, the number of people on the roads began slowly to increase. Merchants leading cattle that had burdens on their backs; travellers with big, umbrella-like straw hats and wearing straw coats. When these saw the procession they would stand by the roadside gaping in astonishment at the strange thing they had run into. Sometimes farmers would throw away their hoe and come running to stare at the funny sight. Previously the priest had always been keenly interested in the Japanese—in their appearance, in their clothing and so on; but now he could arouse no interest within himself, such was his utter exhaustion. He simply closed his eyes and thought of the Stations of the Cross, one by one, now being prayed at some monastery; and he kept moving his dry tongue as he tried to mutter the words of the prayers. This was a prayer well known to all seminarians and Christians, a meditation calling to mind the details of the Passion of Christ. When this man had gone out through the gate of the Temple up the sloping path to Golgotha bearing his cross, struggling for every step and reeling as he walked, the swelling mob, all agog with curiosity, had followed after him. ‘Women of Jerusalem, weep not for me but for yourselves and for your children. For the day will come. … ’ These words came up in his mind. Many centuries ago, that man tasted with his dried and swollen tongue all the suffering that I now endure, he reflected. And this sense of suffering shared softly eased his mind and heart more than the sweetest water.
‘Pange lingua. … ’ He felt the tears streaming down his cheeks. ‘Bella premunt hostilia, da robur fer auxilium.’ No matter what happens never will I apostatize, he said to himself.
In the afternoon they reached a town called Isahaya. Here stood a mansion surrounded by a moat and an earthen wall, while clustered around it were houses of straw and thatch. When they came in front of one of the houses, some men wearing swords bowed respectfully to the procession of samurai and brought along two big dishes of rice. While the samurai ate, the priest was taken down from his horse for the first time and strapped to a tree like a dog. Nearby, beggars with tousled hair sat squatting and staring at him like beasts with glimmering eyes. He had no longer the energy to give them a smile. Someone put a few grains of rice in a broken dish in front of him. Casually he raised his eyes to the donor. It was Kichijirō.
There he was squatting now in the middle of the beggars. Sometimes he would turn his eyes as though he wanted to look at the priest, but when their eyes met he would turn his face away in haste. The priest looked at that face with serenity. When he had seen this fellow at the shore, he had been too tired even to hate him; but now he was simply incapable of showing any generosity. Seething with anger he reflected on the scene in the plain when the dried fish he had been forced to eat caused in his throat that terrible thirst. ‘Go, what thou dost do quickly.’ Even Christ had cast these words of anger at the Judas who betrayed him. For a long time the priest had thought that these words were a contradiction in the love of Christ; but now when he saw the trembling face of this fellow as he squatted on the ground, sometimes raising his eyes like a whipped dog, a black and cruel emotion rose from the very depths of his being. ‘Go,’ he whispered in his heart, ‘what thou dost do quickly.’
The samurai had finished eating their rice and were already astride their horses. The priest was put up on his; and the procession began its slow march again. The bonzes raised their voices in derision; the children threw stones. The men with their beasts of burden and the travellers in their Japanese clothes looked up at the samurai and stared at the priest. All was just the same as before. He looked back—and there he was, Kichijirō, separated somewhat from the others, leaning on his staff and following afte
r. What thou dost do quickly, muttered the priest in his heart. What thou dost do quickly.
Chapter 6
THE sky grew dark; clouds moved slowly over the mountain tops and down over the fields. This was the open plain of Chizukano. Here and there clusters of shrubs seemed to be crawling over the earth; but everywhere else only the black-brown ground stretched out endlessly. The samurai were engaged in earnest discussion; and when they had finished they gave the order for the priest to be taken down from his horse. The long period of sitting on horseback with hands tightly bound had taken its toll; and when he stood up on the ground, a searing pain shot through his thighs. So he crouched down to the ground.
One of the samurai was smoking tobacco with a long pipe. This was the first time since coming to Japan that the priest had seen tobacco. The samurai took two or three pulls, belched out the smoke and then passed on the pipe to his companion. Meanwhile the officials looked on enviously.
For a long time, now standing, now sitting on a rock, they all stood looking toward the south. Some of them relieved themselves in the shadow of the rock. The northern sky was still clear in spots, but toward the south heavy, evening clouds were already gathering. Sometimes the priest would look back over the road along which they had come, but there was no sign of Kichijirō—he must have been delayed on the way. Probably he had got tired of crawling after them and had dropped away.
