by Shusaku Endo
Clasping his knees, he sat on the floor looking straight in front of him. ‘It was almost noon. Until the third hour darkness covered the whole earth.’ When that man had died on the cross, from within the temple had issued three bugle calls, one long, one short, and then one long again. Preparations for the ceremony of the Pasch had begun. In blue, flowing robes the high priest had ascended the stairway of the temple and, standing before the altar on which lay the sacrificial victim, had blown the trumpet. At that time, the sky had darkened and behind the clouds the sun had faded. ‘Darkness fell. The veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top even to the bottom.’ This was the image of martyrdom he had long entertained; but the martyrdom of these peasants, enacted before his very eyes—how wretched it was, miserable like the huts they lived in, like the rags in which they were clothed.
Chapter 7
FIVE days later, in the evening, he had his second meeting with Inoue, the Lord of Chikugo. The day had been deadly still; but now the leaves of the trees began to stir gently sending forth a fresh whisper in the evening breeze. And so he found himself face to face with Inoue. Apart from the interpreter, the magistrate had no companion. When the priest entered with his guard, the other, fondling a large bowl in his hands, was slowly sipping hot water.
‘I’m afraid I have neglected you,’ said Inoue, still holding the bowl in both hands while his great eyes stared curiously at the priest. ‘I had business in Hirado.’
The magistrate ordered the interpreter to bring hot water to the priest; and all the time a smile played around his lips. Then he slowly began to speak about his journey to Hirado. ‘You should go to Hirado if you get a chance, father’. He seemed to talk as if the priest were a free man. ‘There is a castle of the Matsuura’s on a mountain facing a tranquil inlet.’
‘Yes, I have heard from the missionaries in Hirado that it is a beautiful town.’
‘I would not say beautiful; I’d rather say interesting.’ Inoue shook his head as he spoke. ‘When I see that town I think of a story I heard long ago. It is about Takenobu Matsuura of Hirado who had four concubines who constantly quarrelled out of jealousy. Takenobu, unable to bear it any longer, ended up by expelling all four from his castle. But perhaps this is not a suitable story for the ears of a celibate priest.’
‘This Matsuura must have been a very wise man.’ Since Inoue had become so frank, the priest also felt relaxed as he spoke.
‘Do you really mean that? If you do, I feel happy. Hirado, and indeed our whole Japan, is just like Matsuura.’ Twisting the bowl around in his hand, the Lord of Chikugo went on: ‘Spain, Portugal, Holland, England and such-like women keep whispering jealous tales of slander into the ear of the man called Japan.’
As he listened to the interpreter’s translation, the priest began to realize what Inoue was getting at. How often he had heard at Goa and Macao how the Protestant countries like England and Holland, and the Catholic countries like Spain and Portugal had come to Japan and, jealous of one another’s progress, had spoken calumnies about one another to the Japanese. And the missionaries, too, out of rivalry had at one time strictly forbidden their Japanese converts to consort with the English and the Dutch.
‘Father, if you think that Matsuura was wise, you surely realize that Japan’s outlawing of Christianity is not unreasonable and foolish.’
As he spoke, the laugh never faded from those fat, full-blooded cheeks and the magistrate stared intently at the priest’s face. For a Japanese, the eyes seemed strangely brown while the side-locks (were they perhaps dyed?) showed no trace of white.
‘Our Church teaches monogamy. … ’ The priest deliberately chose a bantering turn of phrase. ‘If a man has a lawful wife, I wonder if it is a wise thing to let himself be burdened with concubines. What if Japan were to choose one lawful wife from among these four?’
‘And by this lawful wife you mean Portugal?’
‘No, no! I mean our Church.’
As the interpreter unemotionally passed on this reply, Inoue’s face fell; and raising his voice he laughed. Considering his age, it was a high-pitched laugh; but there was no emotion in the eyes he now turned on the priest. His eyes were not laughing.
‘Father, don’t you think it is better for this man called Japan to stop thinking about women from foreign countries and to be united with a woman born in the same country, a woman who has sympathy for his way of thinking.’
The priest knew well what Inoue meant by the foreign woman; but since the other was carrying on the argument in this apparently frivolous way, he felt that he too must continue along the same lines. ‘In the Church,’ he said, ‘the nationality of the woman is not important. What matters is her fidelity to her husband.’
‘I see. And yet if love of husband and wife were based only on emotion no one would have to suffer from what we call the persistent love of an ugly woman.’ The magistrate nodded his head as though satisfied with his own way of speaking. ‘There are some men in the world who get upset by the persistent affection of an ugly woman.’
‘You look upon missionary work as the forcing of love upon someone?’
‘Yes, that’s what it is—from our standpoint. And if you don’t like the expression, let’s put it this way. We call a woman who cannot bear children barren; and we think that such a woman has not the capacity to be a wife.’
‘If our doctrine makes no progress here in Japan, this is not the fault of the Church. It is the fault of those who tear the Japanese Christians from the Church like a husband from his wife.’
The interpreter, searching for words, was momentarily silent. This was the time when the evening prayer ought to come floating from the Christians’ prison; but today there was no sound. Suddenly the priest thought of the death sentence of five days before: a stillness that seemed to resemble this moment, but in reality so different. It was the time when the body of the one-eyed man lay prostrate on the ground in the flashing sun and the guard unemotionally seizing one leg had dragged it off to the hole in the ground, leaving a trail of blood just like a great line that had been traced over the earth with a brush. Was it possible, reflected the priest, that the order for this execution had been given by the benevolent old man who sat before him?
‘Father,’ said the Lord of Chikugo, ‘you and the other missionaries do not seem to know Japan.’
‘And you, honorable magistrate,’ answered the priest, ‘you do not seem to know Christianity.’
At this they both laughed. ‘And yet,’ said Inoue, ‘thirty years ago, when I was a retainer of Gamo, I asked for the guidance of the fathers.’
‘And then?’
‘My reasons for opposing Christianity are different from those of the people at large. I have never thought of Christianity as an evil religion.’
The interpreter listened to these words with astonishment on his face; and while he stammered and searched for words, the old man kept looking at the bowl in his hands with its little remaining hot water, all the time laughing.
‘Father, I want you to think over two things this old man has told you. One is that the persistent affection of an ugly woman is an intolerable burden for a man; the other, that a barren woman should not become a wife.’
As the magistrate stood up to go, the interpreter bowed his head down to the ground, his hands joined in front of him. The guard, all flustered, set out the sandals into which the Lord of Chikugo slowly put his feet; and without so much as a backward glance he vanished into the darkness of the courtyard. At the door of the hut was a swarm of mosquitoes; outside could be heard the neighing of a horse.
Now it was night. Softly the rain began to fall making a sound like the pattering of pebbles in the trees at the back of the hut. Resting his head on the hard floor and listening to the sound of the rain, the priest thought of a man who had been put on trial like himself. It was on the morning of April 7th that this emaciated man had been driven down the slope at Jerusalem. The rays of the dawn stretched out beyond the Dead Sea bathing the mo
untain range in golden white, the brook Cedron babbled on, ever giving forth its fresh sound. No one gave him any chance to rest. After the scribes and the elders had pronounced sentence of death, it was necessary to get the approval of Pilate, the Roman Governor. In his camp outside the town, not too far from the temple, Pilate had heard the news and now he should be waiting.
From childhood the priest had memorized every detail of that decisive morning of April 7th. This emaciated man was his perfect ideal. His eyes, like those of every victim, were filled with sorrowful resignation as he looked reproachfully at the crowd that ridiculed and spat at him. And in this crowd stood Judas. Why had Judas followed after? Was he incited by lust for revenge—to watch the final destruction of the man he had sold? Anyhow, whatever about that, this case was just like his own. He had been sold by Kichijirō as Christ had been sold by Judas; and like Christ he was now being judged by the powerful ones of this world. Yes, his fate and that of Christ were quite alike; and at this thought on that rainy night a tingling sensation of joy welled up within his breast. This was the joy of the Christian who relishes the truth that he is united to the Son of God.
On the other hand, he had tasted none of the physical suffering that Christ had known; and this thought made him uneasy. At the palace of Pilate, that man had been bound to a pillar two feet high to be scourged with a whip tipped with metal; and nails had been driven into his hands. But since his confinement in this prison, to his astonishment neither the officials nor the guards had so much as struck him. Whether or not this was the plan of Inoue or not, he did not know; but he felt that it was not impossible that from now on, day after day might pass without any physical molestation.
What was the reason for this? How often he had heard of countless missionaries captured in this country, and how they had been subjected to indescribable tortures and torments. There was Navarro who at Shimabara was roasted alive with fire; there were Carvalho and Gabriel who were immersed again and again in the boiling sulphur water at Unzen; there were those missionaries deprived of food in the prison of Omura until they died of starvation. Yet here he was in prison, permitted to pray, permitted to talk to the Christians, eating food which, though not precisely plentiful, was at least served up three times a day; and the officials and the magistrate, when they visited him, far from showing themselves severe, contented themselves with formalities and then went away. What could they possibly be aiming at?
The priest reflected on the days in the hut of Tomogi Mountain with Garrpe, and how they had talked about torture and whether they could endure it, if once it came their way. Of course the only thing was to pray for God’s grace; but at that time he had felt in his heart that he could fight until death. In his wanderings through the mountains, too, he had entertained the strong conviction that, once captured, he would be subjected to physical torture. And he had felt (was it a sign of his tense emotion?) that whatever torment came his way, he could clench his teeth and bear it.
But now his resolution had somehow weakened. Rising from the floor and shaking his head, he asked himself if his courage had begun to crumble. And was it because of the life he was now leading? Then suddenly, from the depths of his heart, someone spoke to him: ‘It is because your life here is so pleasant.’
Since coming to Japan, it was practically only in this prison that he had had the chance to live the life of a priest. In Tomogi he had lain in hiding; after this he had had contact with none of the peasants except Kichijirō. It was only since coming here that he had a chance to live with the people and to spend a great part of the day in prayer and meditation without suffering the pangs of hunger.
Like sand flowing through an hour glass, each day here passed quietly by. His feelings, formerly tense and taut like iron, now gradually relaxed. He began to feel that the torture and physical suffering he had believed inevitable might not fall to his lot after all. The officials and the guards were generous; the chubby-faced magistrate carried on his pleasant conversation about Hirado. Now that he had once tasted the tepid waters of peace and security, would he have the resolution again to wander through those mountains and conceal himself in a hut?
And then for the first time it came to him that the Japanese officials and their magitsrate were making no move because, like a spider watching its prey caught in the web, they were waiting for his spirit to weaken. Bitterly he recalled the forced laugh of the Lord of Chikugo, and how the old man rubbed his hands together. Now he could see clearly why the magistrate had made such a gesture.
And in the background of all this fancy was the fact that from that time until yesterday the daily two meals had been increased to three. The good-natured guards, ignorant of what was involved, would show their gums as they laughed and said: ‘Won’t you eat up?
Why, this is the wish of the magistrate. Not too many prisoners are treated like this.’
The priest, looking into the wooden bowl with its hard rice and dry fish, would shake his head and beg them to give it to the Christians. Already the flies were buzzing over the rice. When evening came, the guards brought two straw mats. Yes, the priest began slowly to realize what this change in treatment imported. It might simply mean that the day of his torture was at hand. His relaxed physique would be all the more weak in its resistance to pain. The officials were using this underhand means of slowly sapping his vitality, then suddenly the torture would come. Undoubtedly this was their plan.
The pit. …
The word he had heard from the interpreter on that day of his capture on the island now rose up in his memory. If Ferreira had apostatized, this was because, like himself, he had been well treated at first; and then, when he was weakened in body and spirit, quite suddenly this torture had been inflicted upon him. Otherwise it was unthinkable that such a great man would so suddenly renounce his faith. Yes, what diabolical means they devised!
‘The Japanese are the most intelligent people we have met so far.’ Reflecting on the words of Xavier he laughed cynically.
He had refused the proffered food; he had not used the straw mats at night; no doubt this had reached the ears of the officials and the magistrate through the guards; yet no word of censure had been uttered. It was impossible for him to know whether or not they realized that their plans had been thwarted.
One morning, ten days after the visit of the Lord of Chikugo, he was awakened by a disturbance in the courtyard. Putting his face to the barred window he saw the three Christians urged along by a samurai being brought away from the prison. In the mist of the morning, the guards dragged them along, their wrists chained together. The last of the three was the woman who had given him the cucumber.
‘Father,’ they shouted up to him as they passed his prison, ‘we are going to forced labor.’
Pushing his hands through the bars, the priest blessed them one by one with the sign of the cross. His fingers barely touched the forehead of Monica as she, with a touch of sadness and smiling like a child, raised her face.
That whole day was quiet and still. Toward noon the temperature gradually rose, and the fierce rays of the sun pierced mercilessly through the bars of the prison. He asked the guards who brought the food when the three Christians would come back and received the answer that they would return by evening, if the work was finished. By order of the Lord of Chikugo, a number of temples were being built at Nagasaki so that the demand for workers was well-nigh limitless.
‘Tonight is Urabon, father. I suppose you know what Urabon is?’
The guards explained that at Urabon the people of Nagasaki hung lanterns at the eaves of their houses and lit candles in them. The priest answered that in the West there was the feast of Hallowe’en in which the people did something similar.
Far in the distance he could hear the chanting voices of children, and straining his ears, the words were carried to him:
‘O lantern, bye-bye-bye,
If you throw a stone at it, your hand withers away
O lantern, bye-bye-bye
If you
throw a stone at it, your hand withers away.’
Somehow there was a plaintive note in the children’s broken song.
It was evening. On the crepe myrtle a cicada had settled and was singing. Even that voice faded away in the calm of the evening—but the three Christians had not returned. As he ate his supper beneath the oil lamp, he could hear the faint voices of the children in the distance. At dead of night the rays of the moon flowed brightly through the bars, wakening him from sleep. The festival was over; the darkness was thick and deep; but whether or not the Christians had returned he did not know.
The next morning he was wakened by the guards and told to put on his clothes and come out immediately.
‘What is all this about?’ he asked.
In answer to his question as to where they were going, the guards replied that they themselves did not know. This early hour of the morning had been chosen, however, to avoid the crowds of curious onlookers who would certainly gather to stare at the foreign Christian priest.
Three samurai were waiting for him. They, too, gave the simple explanation that this was the wish of the magistrate and then, placing themselves in front and behind with their captive in the middle, they started off in silence along the morning road.
In the morning mist the merchants’ houses of straw and thatch with their doors shut looked just like melancholy old men. On both sides of the roads stretched rice paddies; timber was piled up everywhere. The fresh fragrance of the wood, mingled with the smell of the mist, was wafted to their nostrils. The roads of Nagasaki were still in course of construction. In the shade of the new constructions, beggars and outcasts lay sleeping with straw mats thrown over them.
