by Shusaku Endo
‘They’re here! They’re here!’ yelled the guards, pointing toward the south; and from that direction there slowly approached a band of samurai and their attendants, similar to the ones here waiting.
Immediately the samurai with the pipe jumped astride his horse and galloped with all speed toward the oncoming crowd. Still on horseback he greeted the newcomers with a bow which was solemnly answered. Now the priest knew that he was going to be handed over to a new escort.
When the exchange of greetings had come to an end and the band that had escorted him from Omura turned their horses and vanished off along the road to the north where the sun’s rays still fell gently, the priest was surrounded by the group that had come for him from Nagasaki. Once again he was put up on the barebacked horse.
The prison was on the slope of a hill, surrounded by trees. Only just built, it looked like a kind of storehouse; inside, it was slightly raised from the ground. Light entered through a little barred window and a small grating, fixed with a sliding wooden door through which a plate could barely be passed. Here food was pushed in to him once each day. After arriving, he had been brought out twice for investigation, and this gave him a chance to see what the place looked like outside—a bamboo fence faced threateningly inwards, while further outside were the thatch-roofed houses in which dwelt the guards.
When he was thrown in here there were no other prisoners except himself. All day long he sat silently and pensively in the darkness listening to the voices of the guards; it was not unlike his previous stay in that hut on the island. Sometimes the guards would talk to him, anxious as they were to while away the time; and so he learnt that he was just outside Nagasaki, but he could not find out what his position was in relation to the center of the city. Only during the day he could hear far in the distance the loud cries of working men, the sound of trees being hewn down, of nails being driven in; and this made him guess that this region was being newly developed. When night fell, he could hear the song of the turtle-dove amidst the trees.
In spite of everything his prison life was filled with a strange tranquillity and peace. The tension and anguish of those days of wandering through the mountains now seemed like a dream from a past life. He could not guess what the next day might bring, but he felt almost no fear. He got some strong Japanese paper and string from the guards, and with this he made a rosary with which almost all day long he prayed, biting at the sacred words. At night as he lay in bed with his eyes closed listening to the song of the turtle-dove in the trees, behind his closed eyelids he would pass through every scene in the life of Christ. From childhood the face of Christ had been for him the fulfillment of his every dream and ideal. The face of Christ as he preached to the crowd the Sermon on the Mount. The face of Christ as he passed over the Lake of Galilee at dusk. Even in its moments of terrible torture this face had never lost its beauty. Those soft, clear eyes which pierced to the very core of a man’s being were now fixed upon him. The face that could do no wrong, utter no word of insult. When the vision of this face came before him, fear and trembling seemed to vanish like the tiny ripples that are quietly sucked up by the sand of the sea-shore.
This was the first time since coming to Japan that he had been able to pass day after day in peaceful tranquillity. He began to wonder if the continuation of this unbroken peace was a proof that his death was not far away. So gently did these quiet days flow through his heart.
But on the ninth day he was suddenly dragged out of his prison. Accustomed to a cell with no ray of light, the brightness of the sun seared his hollow eyes cutting them like a sword. The cry of the cicada was cascading from the trees like a waterfall, while behind the guards’ hut was a resplendent view of bright red flowers. Now he felt more keenly than ever what a vagabond he was, his hair and beard grown long, the flesh hanging loose around his bones, his arms thin like needles. He wondered if he was being brought out for cross-examination, but he was led straight to the guards’ room and put into a cell. Why he was brought here he did not know.
Only the next day did he discover the reason. Suddenly the silence was broken by the angry barking voices of the guards, and he could hear the confused scuffling of several men and women being dragged out from the prison gate into the courtyard. Until the previous day these prisoners had been enclosed in a pitch-black prison like his own.
‘If you carry on this way, you’ll be punished.’ The guards shouted raising angry voices; and the prisoners resisted with equal anger.
‘Stop this rampaging. Stop!’ And so the angry dispute between guards and prisoners continued for some time. Then all became quiet again. When evening came, suddenly from out the prison came the sound of voices raised in prayer: ‘Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. They Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. Amen.’
In the mist of the evening their voices rose up like a fountain and then died away. ‘Lead us not into temptation.’ In those praying voices was there not a note of pathos? a plaintive tone? Blinking his sunken eyes the priest moved his lips in unison with that prayer. ‘Yet you never break the silence,’ he said. ‘You should not be silent for ever.’
The next day the priest asked the guards if he might visit the prisoners, who were being forced to work in the fields under heavy guard. This being granted he went out to where five or six men and women were lifelessly moving hoes. As they looked up at him with astonishment, he remembered who they were. He also remembered the tattered peasant clothing. But it was their faces—those faces that they turned up at him. Was it from the constant deprivation of light in the prison cell that the men looked like this, with their long beards and long hair, while the women’s faces were deadly white.
‘Oh!’ cried one of the women, ‘it’s father. I would never have recognized him.’
It was the woman who on that day had given him the cucumber taken from her bosom. And beside her, looking like a beggar, was the one-eyed fellow showing his decaying yellow teeth and laughing with a touch of nostalgia.
From this day on he got permission from the guards; and every morning and evening, twice each day, he went into the Christians’ prison. The guards knew that the prisoners would repay their generosity by creating no disturbance at this time. Having no bread and wine, the priest could not offer Mass; but at least he could recite with them the Credo, Pater Noster and Ave Maria; and he had a chance to hear their confessions.
‘Put not your trust in princes: in the children of men, in whom there is no salvation. His spirit shall go forth, and he shall return into his earth: in that day all their thoughts shall perish. Blessed is he who hath the God of Jacob for his helper, whose hope is in the Lord his God: who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all things that are in them.’
As the priest uttered these words of the psalmist, not one of the prisoners so much as coughed, but all strained their ears in fervent attention. Even the guards were listening. This was a text of Scripture he had read time and again; but it had never come to his lips with such a wealth of meaning both for himself and for the Christians. Each word seemed to sink into his heart with new significance and new richness.
‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. From henceforth now. …’
‘You will not meet with greater suffering than this,’ said the priest in a voice filled with earnest fervor. ‘The Lord will not abandon you for ever. He it is who washes our wounds; his is the hand that wipes away our blood. The Lord will not be silent for ever.’
When evening came, he administered the sacrament of penance to the Christians; but since he had no confessional, he put his ear to the hole through which the food was passed and the penitent whispered his sins in a low voice. And so he heard the confession. While this was going on, the others huddled together in a corner, trying as far as possible not to make things difficult for the penitent. Here
in the prison, for the first time since the days of Tomogi, he was able to exercise his faculties as a priest; and the realization of this made him pray secretly that such a life might continue forever.
After hearing the confessions, he got the paper he had received from the officials, made himself a quill from a chicken’s wing which had fallen in the courtyard, and began to write down all his reminiscences since coming to japan. He did not know, of course, if what he wrote would ever reach Portugal; but there was the possibility that some Christian might hand it to a Chinese in Nagasaki. And with this faint hope he pushed his quill over the pages.
At night, as he sat in the dark listening to the sound of the turtle-dove in the trees, he felt the face of Christ looking intently at him. The clear blue eyes were gentle with compassion; the features were tranquil; it was a face filled with trust. ‘Lord, you will not cast us away any longer,’ he whispered, his eyes fixed upon that face. And then the answer seemed to come to his ears: ‘I will not abandon you.’ Bowing his head he strained his ears for the sound of that voice again; but the only thing he could hear was the singing of the turtle-dove. The darkness was thick and black. Yet the priest felt that for one instant his heart had been purified.
One day he heard the sound of the bolt; and a guard put in his head at the door. ‘Change your clothes,’ he shouted, as he threw some heavy garments on the floor. ‘Look! You have red clothes, and underwear of jittoku and cotton. Take them all. They’re yours.’ The guard went on to explain that jittoku was the material worn by Buddhist monks.
‘Thanks very much,’ answered the priest, a smile on his sunken face, ‘but please take them away. I don’t want them.’
‘You won’t take them? You won’t take them?’ The guard shook his head like a child and looked longingly at the garment. ‘But they are a gift from the officials at the magistrate’s office.’
Comparing his own hemp clothing with these completely new garments, he asked himself why the officials had presented him with the clothing of a bonze. Was it a gesture of pity toward a prisoner? or was it one more trap to ensnare him? He could not make out which it might be. But anyhow, with this clothing, he reflected that from now his connection with the magistrate’s office had begun.
‘Quickly! Quickly!’ urged the guard. ‘The officials will soon be here.’
He had not thought that his cross-examination would come so quickly. In his imagination every day he had dramatically pictured the scene as being like the meeting of Pilate and Christ—the crowd howling, Pilate perplexed, Christ standing silent. But here the only sound was the cry of the cicada inviting him to sleep. The prison of the Christians was rapt in its usual afternoon silence.
Getting hot water from the guard he washed himself and then slowly put on the cotton clothes, passing his arms slowly through the sleeves. The cloth was not pleasing to the touch, and at the same time he felt with a shudder of humiliation that by wearing this clothing he was making a pact with the magistrate’s office.
In the courtyard a number of chairs were arranged in a single row; and one by one they cast a dark shadow on the ground. Forced to squat on the right of the gate with his hands on his knees, he waited and waited. Unaccustomed to this posture as he was, he perspired profusely at the pain in his knees; but he did not want the officials to see his agony. Reflecting earnestly on how Christ must have looked at the time of the scourging he endeavoured to distract his mind from the pain in his knees.
After a time came the sound of a retinue and of horses’ hooves, and the guards all together squatted down bowing their heads low. Into the courtyard with haughty step came a number of samurai, fans in hand. Talking together they passed by without so much as a glance in the direction of Rodrigues and then languidly sat down on the chairs. The guards, still bowed down, brought them cups and they slowly sipped the hot water.
After a brief interval, the samurai on the extreme right called to the guards; and the priest, flinching from the pain in his aching knees, was dragged before the five chairs.
From the tree behind, a cicada continued to sing. Perspiration flowed down his back, and he was acutely conscious of a great number of eyes fixed on him from behind; for the Christians from their prison were undoubtedly listening intently to every question and answer that passed between him and his interlocutors. Now he understood why Inoue and the officials had deliberately chosen this place of questioning: they wanted to show him cornered and defeated to the peasants. ‘Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto’—he closed his sunken eyes and forced a smile to his face, but he himself realized that his countenance was only hardening like a mask.
‘The Governor of Chikugo is anxious about your perplexity,’ said the samurai on the extreme right earnestly in Portuguese. ‘If you are in difficulties, please say so.’
The priest bowed his head in silence. Then raising it his eyes met those of the old man who was sitting in the middle chair of the five. A kind smile playing on his lips, the old man watched the priest with the curiosity of a child who has been given a new toy. Then a statement was read:
‘Native country: Portugal. Name: Rodrigues. Said to have come from Macao to Japan. Is that correct?’
The samurai on the extreme right said in a voice charged with emotion: ‘Father, we are deeply moved by the strength of your determination in coming here from thousands of miles away through all kinds of hardships. Undoubtedly you have suffered deeply.’
There was a gentle tone in his words, and this very gentleness pierced the priest’s heart, giving him pain.
‘Precisely because we know this, our duty of investigation is painful for us.’
At the solicitous words of the official his strained emotion seemed to yield. ‘Were it not for the barriers of country and politics, could we not clasp hands and talk?’—such was the sentiment that suddenly filled his heart. Yet he immediately felt that it was dangerous to give way to such sentimentality.
‘Father, we are not disputing about the right and wrong of your doctrine. In Spain and Portugal and such countries it may be true. The reason we have outlawed Christianity in Japan is that, after deep and earnest consideration, we find its teaching of no value for the Japan of today.’
The interpreter immediately came to the heart of the discussion. The old man in front with the big ears kept looking down on the priest sympathetically.
‘According to our way of thinking, truth is universal,’ said the priest, at last returning the smile of the old man. ‘A moment ago you officials expressed sympathy for the suffering I have passed through. One of you spoke words of warm consolation for my travelling thousands of miles of sea over such a long period to come to your country. If we did not believe that truth is universal, why should so many missionaries endure these hardships? It is precisely because truth is common to all countries and all times that we call it truth. If a true doctrine were not true alike in Portugal and Japan we could not call it “true”.’
Here and there the interpreter was stuck for words; yet with a face expressionless like a puppet he conveyed the meaning to the other four.
Only the old man straight in front of him kept nodding his head as though in complete agreement with what the priest was saying; and while nodding he slowly began to pass his left hand over his right, as though rubbing them together.
‘All the fathers keep saying the same thing. And yet … ’ The interpreter slowly translated the words of yet another samurai. ‘A tree which flourishes in one kind of soil may wither if the soil is changed. As for the tree of Christianity, in a foreign country its leaves may grow thick and the buds may be rich, while in Japan the leaves wither and no bud appears. Father, have you never thought of the difference in the soil, the difference in the water?’
‘The leaves should not wither; the buds should appear,’ said the priest raising his voice. ‘Do you think I know nothing? In Europe, to say nothing of Macao where I resided for some time, people are familiar with the work of the missionaries; and it is well known that whe
n many landowners gave permission for evangelization the number of Christians reached three hundred thousand.’
The old man constantly kept nodding, all the time rubbing his hands together. While the other officials with tense expression were listening to the words of the interpreter, only the old man seemed completely on the side of the priest.
‘If the leaves do not grow and the flowers do not blossom, that is only when no fertilizer is applied.’
The voice of the cicada was no longer heard; but the afternoon sun became even more severe. The officials were silent as though at a loss what to say. The priest, sensing that the Christians in prison behind him were straining their ears to hear what was being said, felt that he was winning in the controversy. A pleasant sensation rose slowly within his breast.
‘Why did you begin this process of persuasion?’ The priest lowering his eyes spoke quietly. ‘No matter what I say you will not change your minds. And I also have no intention of altering my way of thinking.’
Even as he spoke he felt a sudden onrush of emotion. The more conscious he became of being watched by the Christians from behind the more he went on making himself a hero. ‘No matter what I say I will be punished,’ he exclaimed.
The interpreter translated the words mechanically to the others. The rays of the sun made that flat face seem even more flat. Now for the first time the old man’s hands stopped moving, and shaking his head he looked at the priest as though he were soothing a naughty child. ‘We will not punish the fathers without reason,’ he said.
‘That is not the idea of Inoue. If you were Inoue you would punish me instantly.’
At these words the officials laughed heartily as though they had been told a joke.
‘What are you laughing at?’
‘Father, this is Inoue, the Governor of Chikugo. He is here in front of you.’
Stupefied he gazed at the old man who, naive as a child, returned his glance still rubbing his hands. How could he have recognized one who so utterly betrayed all his expectations? The man whom Valignano had called a devil, who had made the missionaries apostatize one by one—until now he had envisaged the face of this man as pale and crafty. But here before his very eyes sat this understanding, seemingly good, meek man.
