Silence

by Shusaku Endo

  ‘So this is your first time in Nagasaki.’ It was one of the samurai who spoke with a laugh. ‘Lots of hills, aren’t there?’

  Indeed there were lots of hills. On some of them were clustered little thatched huts. A cock announced the dawn of day; below the eaves faded lanterns lay strewn on the ground like remnants of the feast of the previous night. Just below the hill was the sea all around the long peninsula. Filled with reeds it stretched out into the distance like a milk-white lake. As the mist gave way to a clear sky, there appeared in the background a number of low hills.

  Near the sea was a pine grove where a number of baskets were placed; while four or five bare-footed samurai squatted eating something. As their mouths moved, their eyes, blazing with curiosity, were fixed upon the priest.

  Within the grove a white curtain was stretched out and a number of stools were placed there. One of the samurai pointed to a stool and told the priest to sit down. To the priest, who had been waiting for a cross-examination, his gesture came as something of a surprise.

  The gray sand stretched out, gently continuing on to the inlet, while the overcast sky gave a brown appearance to the lazy sea. The monotonous sound of the waves biting at the shore reminded the priest of the death of Mokichi and Ichizo. On that day, too, the misty rain had fallen ceaselessly on the sea, and on that rainy day the sea-gulls had flown in near the stakes. The sea was silent as if exhausted; and God, too, continued to be silent. To this problem that kept flitting across his mind he had as yet no answer.

  ‘Father!’

  A voice sounded from behind. Looking back he saw a man with long hair flowing down his neck smiling as he played with a fan. He was stout and square-faced.

  ‘Ah!’ It was the voice rather than the face that told the priest that this was the interpreter with whom he had conversed in the hut on the island.

  ‘Do you remember? How many days have passed since our last meeting? But what a pleasure to see you again! The prison you are now in is newly built. It’s not so bad to live in. Before it was set up, the Christian missionaries were almost always confined in the prison of Suzuda in Omura. On rainy days the water leaked in; on windy days the breeze broke in; the prisoners really had a tough time there.’

  ‘Will the magistrate come soon?’ To stop the other’s babbling the priest changed the subject, but his companion clapped his fan against the palm of his hand and went on: ‘Oh no. The Lord of Chikugo will not come. But what do you think of him? What do you think of the magistrate?’

  ‘He treated me kindly. I got food three times a day; I was even provided with covering for my bed. I’m beginning to think that because of this kind of life my body has betrayed my heart. I suppose that’s what you are waiting for.’

  The interpreter absent-mindedly turned his eyes away. ‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘there is a plan from the magistrate’s office to have you meet someone who will soon arrive here. He is Portuguese like yourself. You’ll have a lot to talk about, I suppose.’

  The priest looked intently at the yellow eyes of the interpreter, from whose face the smile was quickly fading. The name of Ferreira rose up in his mind. So this was it! These fellows had at last brought along Ferreira as a means to make him apostatize. For a long time he had felt almost no hatred for Ferreira, nothing but the pity that a superior person feels for the wretched. But now that the moment for confronting him seemed to have arrived, a terrible uneasiness overtook him, and his heart pounded with confusion. Why this should be, he himself did not know.

  ‘Do you know who this person is?’, asked the interpreter.

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘I see.’

  The interpreter, a faint smile playing around his lips, waved his fan as he looked intently at the gray shore. And there, far in the distance, appeared the tiny figures of a group of men moving toward them.

  ‘He’s in that group.’

  The priest did not want to show his agitation, but unconsciously he rose from the stool on which he was sitting. Bit by bit the group drew near the pine grove and now he was able to distinguish individuals one from another. Two samurai, acting as guards, were walking in front. Behind them followed three prisoners bound to one another by chains. Then Monica, reeling and stumbling. And behind the three the priest saw the figure of his companion Garrpe.

  ‘Aha!’ shouted the interpreter with an air of triumph. ‘Is that what you expected, father?’

  The priest’s eyes followed Garrpe, taking in every detail. Probably Garrpe did not know who awaited him in this grove. Like himself he was wearing peasant clothing; like himself from the knees down his white legs protruded awkwardly; stretching out his legs as best he could and breathing deeply, he walked behind the others.

  It was no surprise to the priest to find that his old friend had been captured. From the time of their landing at the shore of Tomogi, they had both been convinced that the day of their apprehension would come. What the priest wanted to know was where Garrpe was taken and what were his thoughts now in captivity.

  ‘I would like to talk to Garrpe,’ he said.

  ‘You would, would you? But the day is long. It’s still morning. No need to hurry.’

  As if to tantalize the priest, the interpreter deliberately yawned and began to cool his face with his fan.

  ‘By the way, father, when I spoke to you on the island there was something I forgot to ask. Tell me. This mercy that the Christians talk about—what is it?’

  ‘You’re like a cat that teases a little animal,’ murmured the priest, looking at the other with his sunken eyes. ‘This is a despicable delight you take in talking to me. Tell me, where was Garrpe captured, and how?’

  ‘Without reason we are not allowed to reveal to prisoners the business of the magistrate’s office.’

  But now, suddenly the procession had stopped on the gray sand. The officials were unloading a pile of straw mats from the animal at the rear.

  ‘Ah!’ The interpreter looked at the scene with a smile of delight. ‘Do you know what they are going to use those mats for?’

  The officials began to roll the mats around the bodies of the prisoners, only Garrpe being left free. Soon, with only their heads protruding from the matting they looked just like basket worms.

  ‘Now they’ll be put on boats and rowed out into the shoals. In this inlet the water is so deep you can’t see the bottom.’

  The sluggish waters made the same monotonous sound as they gnawed at the shore. Clouds covered the leaden sky which hung down low over the earth and sea.

  ‘Look! One of the officials is talking to Father Garrpe.’ The interpreter seemed to be singing, such was his glee. ‘What is he saying? Probably he is saying something like this: “If you are a father possessed of true Christian mercy, you ought to have pity for these three unfortunates wrapped around with straw coats. You shouldn’t stand by idle and see them killed.” ’

  Now the priest understood only too well what the interpreter was getting at; and anger shook his whole body like a gust of wind. Were he not a priest, he would wring the fellow’s neck.

  ‘And the magistrate. He says that if Father Garrpe apostatizes—well, in a word, all three lives will be spared. In any case, these three have already apostatized. Yesterday, at the magistrate’s office they trampled on the fumie.’

  ‘They trampled … and yet this cruelty … even now.’ The priest stammered as he spoke, but words did not come.

  ‘The people we want to apostatize are not these small fry. In the islands off the coast there are still lots and lots of peasants who are secretly faithful to Christianity. It is to get them that we want the fathers to apostatize.’

  ‘Vitam praesta puram, iter para tutum.’ The priest tried to recite the Ave Maris Stella but instead of the words of the prayer there arose vividly in his mind the picture of the cicada singing in the crepe myrtle, the trail of red-black blood on the ground of the courtyard beneath the blazing sun. He had come to this country to lay down his life for other men, but
instead of that the Japanese were laying down their lives one by one for him. What was he to do? According to the doctrine he had learnt until now, it was possible to pass judgment on certain actions distinguishing right from wrong and good from evil. If Garrpe shook his head in refusal, these three Christians would sink like stones in the bay. If he gave in to the sollicitations of the officials, this would mean the betrayal of his whole life. What was he to do?

  ‘What answer will this Garrpe give? I have been told that in Christianity the first thing is mercy and that God is Mercy itself … Oh! Look at the boat.’

  Suddenly two of the Christians, all wrapped up as they were, stumbled forward as if to run away. But from behind, the officials pushed them, sending them flying forward so that they fell prostrate in the sand. Only Monica, looking like a basket worm, remained staring at the sluggish sea. In the priest’s heart there arose the taste of that cucumber she had taken from her breast for him, and her laughing voice.

  ‘Apostatize! Apostatize!’ He shouted out the words in his heart to Garrpe who was listening to the officials, his back turned toward the priest.

  ‘Apostatize! You must apostatize.’ Feeling the perspiration trickle down his forehead he closed his eyes and then, cowardly though it might be, turned away from the scene that would meet his eyes.

  You are silent. Even in this moment are you silent? When he opened his eyes the three basket worms, goaded on by the officials, were already facing the boat.

  I would apostatize. I would apostatize. The words rose up even to his throat, but clenching his teeth he tried to stop himself from uttering the words aloud. Now two officials with lances followed the prisoners and, rolling up their kimonos to the waist, clambered into the boat which, rocked by the waves, began to leave the shore. There is still time! Do not impute all this to Garrpe and to me. This responsibility you yourself must bear. But now Garrpe had rushed forward and, raising both arms, had plunged from the shore into the sea. Sending up clouds of spray he was approaching the boat and, as he swam, he was shouting something.

  ‘Lord, hear our prayer … ’

  In that voice there was no tone of censure, nothing of anger, and it would fade out as the black head sank down between the waves. ‘Lord, hear our prayer … !’ Leaning over the side of the boat, the officials showed their white teeth as they laughed. One of them, passing his lance from one hand to the other, mocked Garrpe as he tried to get near the boat. But now the head was lost in the sea and the voice was still. But then, all at once, it appeared again like a piece of black dust, buffeted about by the waves. The voice was feebler than before, but again and again it kept shouting something.

  Now an official set up one of the Christians at the side of the ship and pushed him vigorously with the tip of his lance. Just like a puppet the figure of straw fell into the sea and disappeared from sight. Then with dramatic speed the next went under. Finally Monica was swallowed up by the sea. Only the head of Garrpe, like a piece of wood from a shipwrecked boat, floated for some time on the water until the waves from the boat covered it over.

  ‘This is a horrible business. No matter how many times one sees it, it’s horrible,’ said the interpreter getting up from his stool. Then suddenly reeling on the priest with hatred in his eyes he said: ‘Father, have you thought of the suffering you have inflicted on so many peasants just because of your dream, just because you want to impose your selfish dream upon Japan. Look! Blood is flowing again. The blood of those ignorant people is flowing again.’

  Then, as if to spit out the words, ‘At least Garrpe was clean. But you … you … you are the most weak-willed. You don’t deserve the name of “father”.’

  ‘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.’

  The bon festival was over; but still far in the distance the children chanted their song. In the houses of Nagasaki they were now giving the beggars and outcasts all kinds of vegetables to comfort the spirits of the dead. The crepe myrtle showed no change; the cicada continued its daily song; but gradually these voices were losing their power.

  ‘How is he?’ It was one of the officials who spoke in the course of his daily round.

  ‘No change. He just sits staring at the wall all day long.’ Answering in a low voice, the guard pointed to the room in which the priest was confined.

  The official looked through the barred window at the priest sitting on the floor in the rays of the sun, his back to the window. All day long, facing the wall, he watched the dark sea and the little black head of Garrpe floating on its surface. Now the three Christians, all rolled up, sank like pebbles.

  When he shook his head, the vision would disappear; but when he closed his eyes it would come stubbornly up again behind his eye-lids.

  ‘You’re weak-willed,’ the interpreter had said, rising from his stool. ‘You’re not worthy to be called “father”.’

  He had not been able to save the Christians; nor like Garrpe had he been able to sink beneath the waves in pursuit of them. His pity for them had been overwhelming; but pity was not action. It was not love. Pity, like passion, was no more than a kind of instinct. Long ago he had learnt this, sitting on the hard benches of the seminary; but it had only been bookish knowledge at that time.

  ‘Look! Look! For you blood is flowing; the blood of peasants is flowing out over the ground.’

  Then in the garden of the sun-drenched prison the trail of blood went on and on. The interpreter had said that it was the selfish dream of the missionaries that trailed out this line of blood. The Lord of Chikugo had compared this selfish dream to the excessive love of an ugly woman. The persistent love of an ugly woman was an insupportable burden for a man, he had said.

  ‘And yet’—before his eyes floated the laughing face of the interpreter and the rich, fleshy face of the Lord of Chikugo, one superimposed upon the other—‘you came to this country to lay down your life for them. But in fact they are laying down their lives for you.’

  The contemptuous laughing voice opened the priest’s wounds, piercing them like a needle. He shook his head weakly. No, it was not for him that the peasants had been dying for so long. They had chosen death for themselves—because they had faith; but this answer had no longer power to heal his wounds.

  And so the days passed by, one by one. In the crepe myrtle, the lifeless voice of the cicada went on as ever.

  ‘How is he?’ It was one of the officials who spoke in the course of his daily round.

  ‘No change. He sits staring at the wall all day long.’ The guard pointed to the room as he answered in a low voice.

  ‘I got instructions from the magistrate to come and see how things are going. Everything is proceeding according to the Lord of Chikugo’s plan.’ The official removed his face from the bars and a smile of satisfaction played about his lips, like that of a doctor inspecting the progress of a patient.

  Now the obon is over. The streets of Nagasaki are quiet. At the end of the month a thanksgiving day is held, and the village heads from Nagasaki and Urakami contribute chests of early ripened rice to the magistrate’s office. On August 1st every official and representative of each town has to present himself in white ceremonial robes to the magistrate.

  Slowly the full moon comes. In the grove behind the prison the owl and the turtle-dove answer each other, singing in the night. Above the grove the moon, completely round, is bathed in an eerie red color as it comes out from the dark clouds and then is hidden again. The old men whisper ominously that this coming year may bring something untoward.

  It is August 13th. In the houses of Nagasaki, people make fish salads and cook sweet potatoes and beans. On that day the officials working at the magistrate’s office offer fish and cakes to the magistrate who in turn gives the officials sake, soup and dumpling.

  That night the guards drank sake until it was late. The raucous voices and the clinking o
f the cups were brought constantly to his ears. The priest squatted on the ground, his hunched shoulders bathed in the silver moon-light that pierced the bars of his prison. His wasted form was reflected on the wall; sometimes he gave a start as a cockroach chirruped in the trees. Closing his sunken eyes, he relished the thick darkness that enveloped him. On this night when all those whom he knew were fast asleep, a thrust of poignant pain passed through his breast; and he thought of yet another night. Yes, crouching on the ashen earth of a Gethsemane that had imbibed all the heat of the day, alone and separated from his sleeping disciples, a man had said: ‘My soul is sorrowful even unto death.’ And his sweat had become like drops of blood. This was the face that was now before his eyes. Hundreds and hundreds of times it had appeared in his dreams; but why was it that only now did the suffering, perspiring face seem so far away? Yet tonight he focused all his attention on the emaciated expression on those cheeks.

  On that night had that man, too, felt the silence of God? Had he, too, shuddered with fear? The priest did not want to think so. Yet this thought suddenly arose within his breast, and he tried not to hear the voice that told him so, and he wildly shook his head two or three times. The rainy sea into which Mokichi and Ichizo had sunk, fastened to stakes! The sea on which the black head of Garrpe, chasing after the little boat, had struggled wildly and then floated like a piece of drifting wood! The sea into which those bodies wrapped in straw matting had dropped straight down! This sea stretched out endlessly, sadly; and all this time, over the sea, God simply maintained his unrelenting silence. ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani!’ With the memory of the leaden sea, these words suddenly burst into his consciousness. ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani!’ It is three o’clock on that Friday; and from the cross this voice rings out to a sky covered with darkness. The priest had always thought that these words were that man’s prayer, not that they issued from terror at the silence of God.