by Shusaku Endo
The priest had not known that Ferreira was standing beside the interpreter. ‘Sawano, tell him what it is!’
The priest heard the voice of Ferreira, that voice he had heard every day long ago—it was low and pitiful. ‘That’s not snoring. That is the moaning of Christians hanging in the pit.’
Ferreira stood there motionless, his head hanging down like an old animal. The interpreter, true to type, put his head down to the barely opened door and for a long time peered in at the scene. Waiting and waiting, he heard no sound, and uneasily whispered in a hoarse voice: ‘I suppose you’re not dead. Oh no! no! It’s not lawful for a Christian to put an end to that life given him by God. Sawano! The rest is up to you.’ With these words he turned around and disappeared from sight, his footsteps echoing in the darkness.
When the footsteps had completely died out, Ferreira silent, his head hanging down, made no movement. His body seemed to be floating in air like a ghost; it looked thin like a piece of paper, small like that of a child. One would think that it was impossible even to clasp his hand.
‘Eh!’ he said putting his face in at the door. ‘Eh! Can you hear me?’
There was no answer and Ferreira repeated the same words. ‘Somewhere on that wall,’ he went on, ‘you should be able to find the lettering that I engraved there. ‘Laudate Eum.’ Unless they have been cut away, the letters are on the right-hand wall … Yes, in the middle … Won’t you touch them with your fingers?’
But from inside the cell there came not the faintest sound. Only the pitch darkness where the priest lay huddled up in the cell and through which it seemed impossible to penetrate.
‘I was here just like you.’ Ferreira uttered the words distinctly, separating the syllables one from another. ‘I was imprisoned here, and that night was darker and colder than any night in my life.’
The priest leaned his head heavily against the wooden wall and listened vaguely to the old man’s words. Even without the old man’s saying so, he knew that that night had been blacker than any before. Indeed, he knew it only too well. The problem was not this; the problem was that he must not be defeated by Ferreira’s temptings—the tempting of a Ferreira who had been shut up in the darkness just like himself and was now enticing him to follow the same path.
‘I, too, heard those voices: I heard the groaning of men hanging in the pit.’ And even as Ferreira finished speaking, the voices like snoring, now high, now low, were carried to their ears. But now the priest was aware of the truth. It was not snoring. It was the gasping and groaning of helpless men hanging in the pit.
While he had been squatting here in the darkness, someone had been groaning, as the blood dripped from his nose and mouth. He had not even adverted to this; he had uttered no prayer; he had laughed. The very thought bewildered him completely. He had thought the sound of that voice ludicrous, and he had laughed aloud. He had believed in his pride that he alone in this night was sharing in the suffering of that man. But here just beside him were people who were sharing in that suffering much more than he. Why this craziness, murmured a voice that was not his own. And you call yourself a priest! A priest who takes upon himself the sufferings of others! ‘Lord, until this moment have you been mocking me?’, he cried aloud.
‘Laudate Eum! I engraved those letters on the wall,’ Ferreira repeated. ‘Can’t you find them? Look again!’
‘I know!’ The priest, carried away by anger, shouted louder than ever before. ‘Keep quiet!’ he said. ‘You have no right to speak like this.’
‘I have no right? That is certain. I have no right. Listening to those groans all night I was no longer able to give praise to the Lord. I did not apostatize because I was suspended in the pit. For three days, I who stand before you was hung in a pit of foul excrement, but I did not say a single word that might betray my God.’ Ferreira raised a voice that was like a growl as he shouted: ‘The reason I apostatized … are you ready? Listen! I was put in here and heard the voices of those people for whom God did nothing. God did not do a single thing. I prayed with all my strength; but God did nothing.’
‘Be quiet!’
‘Alright. Pray! But those Christians are partaking of a terrible suffering such as you cannot even understand. From yesterday—in the future—now at this very moment. Why must they suffer like this? And while this goes on, you do nothing for them. And God—he does nothing either.’
The priest shook his head wildly, putting both fingers into his ears. But the voice of Ferreira together with the groaning of the Christians broke mercilessly in. Stop! Stop! Lord, it is now that you should break the silence. You must not remain silent. Prove that you are justice, that you are goodness, that you are love. You must say something to show the world that you are the august one.
A great shadow passed over his soul like that of the wings of a bird flying over the mast of a ship. The wings of the bird now brought to his mind the memory of the various ways in which the Christians had died. At that time, too, God had been silent. When the misty rain floated over the sea, he was silent. When the one-eyed man had been killed beneath the blazing rays of the sun, he had said nothing. But at that time, the priest had been able to stand it; or, rather than stand it, he had been able to thrust the terrible doubt far from the threshold of his mind. But now it was different. Why is God continually silent while those groaning voices go on?
‘Now they are in that courtyard.’ (It was the sorrowful voice of Ferreira that whispered to him.) ‘Three unfortunate Christians are hanging. They have been hanging there since you came here.’
The old man was telling no lie. As he strained his ears the groaning that had seemed to be that of a single voice suddenly revealed itself as a double one—one groaning was high (it never became low): the high voice and the low voice were mingled with one another, coming from different persons.
‘When I spent that night here five people were suspended in the pit. Five voices were carried to my ears on the wind. The official said: “If you apostatize, those people will immediately be taken out of the pit, their bonds will be loosed, and we will put medicine on their wounds.” I answered: “Why do these people not apostatize?” And the official laughed as he answered me: “They have already apostatized many times. But as long as you don’t apostatize these peasants cannot be saved.” ’
‘And you … ’ The priest spoke through his tears. ‘You should have prayed. … ’
‘I did pray. I kept on praying. But prayer did nothing to alleviate their suffering. Behind their ears a small incision has been made; the blood drips slowly through this incision and through the nose and mouth. I know it well, because I have experienced that same suffering in my own body. Prayer does nothing to alleviate suffering.’
The priest remembered how at Saishoji when first he met Ferreira he had noticed a scar like a burn on his temples. He even remembered the brown color of the wound, and now the whole scene rose up behind his eyelids. To chase away the imagination he kept banging his head against the wall. ‘In return for these earthly sufferings, those people will receive a reward of eternal joy,’ he said.
‘Don’t deceive yourself!’ said Ferreira. ‘Don’t disguise your own weakness with those beautiful words.’
‘My weakness?’ The priest shook his head; yet he had no self-confidence. ‘What do you mean? It’s because I believe in the salvation of these people … ’
‘You make yourself more important than them. You are preoccupied with your own salvation. If you say that you will apostatize, those people will be taken out of the pit. They will be saved from suffering. And you refuse to do so. It’s because you dread to betray the Church. You dread to be the dregs of the Church, like me.’ Until now Ferreira’s words had burst out as a single breath of anger, but now his voice gradually weakened as he said: ‘Yet I was the same as you. On that cold, black night I, too, was as you are now. And yet is your way of acting love? A priest ought to live in imitation of Christ. If Christ were here … ’
For a moment Ferreira rem
ained silent; then he suddenly broke out in a strong voice: ‘Certainly Christ would have apostatized for them.’
Night gradually gave place to dawn. The cell that until now had been no more than a lump of black darkness began to glimmer in a tiny flicker of whitish light.
‘Christ would certainly have apostatized to help men.’
‘No, no!’ said the priest, covering his face with his hands and wrenching his voice through his fingers. ‘No, no!’
‘For love Christ would have apostatized. Even if it meant giving up everything he had.’
‘Stop tormenting me! Go away, away!’ shouted the priest wildly. But now the bolt was shot and the door opened—and the white light of the morning flooded into the room.
‘You are now going to perform the most painful act of love that has ever been performed,’ said Ferreira, taking the priest gently by the shoulder.
Swaying as he walked, the priest dragged his feet along the corridor. Step by step he made his way forward, as if his legs were bound by heavy leaden chains—and Ferreira guided him along. In the gentle light of the morning, the corridor seemed endless; but there at the end stood the interpreter and two guards, looking just like three black dolls.
‘Sawano, is it over? Shall we get out the fumie?’ As he spoke the interpreter put on the ground the box he was carrying and, opening it, he took out a large wooden plaque.
‘Now you are going to perform the most painful act of love that has ever been performed.’ Ferreira repeated his former words gently. ‘Your brethen in the Church will judge you as they have judged me. But there is something more important than the Church, more important than missionary work: what you are now about to do.’
The fumie is now at his feet.
A simple copper medal is fixed on to a grey plank of dirty wood on which the grains run like little waves. Before him is the ugly face of Christ, crowned with thorns and the thin, outstretched arms. Eyes dimmed and confused the priest silently looks down at the face which he now meets for the first time since coming to this country.
‘Ah,’ says Ferreira. ‘Courage!’
‘Lord, since long, long ago, innumerable times I have thought of your face. Especially since coming to this country have I done so tens of times. When I was in hiding in the mountains of Tomogi; when I crossed over in the little ship; when I wandered in the mountains; when I lay in prison at night … Whenever I prayed your face appeared before me; when I was alone I thought of your face imparting a blessing; when I was captured your face as it appeared when you carried your cross gave me life. This face is deeply ingrained in my soul—the most beautiful, the most precious thing in the world has been living in my heart. And now with this foot I am going to trample on it.’
The first rays of the dawn appear. The light shines on his long neck stretched out like a chicken and upon the bony shoulders. The priest grasps the fumie with both hands bringing it close to his eyes. He would like to press to his own face that face trampled on by so many feet. With saddened glance he stares intently at the man in the center of the fumie, worn down and hollow with the constant trampling. A tear is about to fall from his eye. ‘Ah,’ he says trembling, ‘the pain!’
‘It is only a formality. What do formalities matter?’ The interpreter urges him on excitedly. ‘Only go through with the exterior form of trampling.’
The priest raises his foot. In it he feels a dull, heavy pain. This is no mere formality. He will now trample on what he has considered the most beautiful thing in his life, on what he has believed most pure, on what is filled with the ideals and the dreams of man. How his foot aches! And then the Christ in bronze speaks to the priest: ‘Trample! Trample! I more than anyone know of the pain in your foot. Trample! It was to be trampled on by men that I was born into this world. It was to share men’s pain that I carried my cross.’
The priest placed his foot on the fumie. Dawn broke. And far in the distance the cock crew.
Chapter 9
THERE was little rain that summer. In the calm of the evening Nagasaki was sultry like a steam bath. When dusk came, the reflected light from the bay made one feel the heat even more terribly. Ox-drawn carts moved into the city from outside with their loads of straw sacks, and the wheels glittered as they sent up clouds of white dust. Wherever one went, the air was heavy with the stench of fertilizer.
Now it is the middle of summer. The lanterns are hanging from the eaves of the houses as well as from those of the big trading houses where they bear images of flowers, birds and insects. Though not yet evening the playful children are gathered together singing their song:
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.
Leaning against the window he sang the song to himself. He did not understand the meaning of what the children were chanting, but it somehow held a sad and plaintive note. Whether this stemmed from the song itself or from the heart of the person who sang he could not tell.
In the house opposite, a woman with long tresses flowing down her back was arranging peaches and jujubes and beans on a shelf. This was the shelf for the spirits of the dead, and it was one of the ceremonies that the Japanese performed to console the spirits who were supposed to return to their homes on the fifteenth day. To him it was no longer a rare sight. He had a vague remembrance of looking it up in the Dutch dictionary given him by Ferreira, and the translation he found there was ‘hetsterffest’.
The children played, forming a row and staring at him as he leant against the window. ‘Apostate Paul! Apostate Paul!’ they kept shouting. Some of them even threw stones in through the window.
‘Naughty children!’ It was the woman with long hair who spoke, turning to scold the children and chasing them away. With a sad smile he watched them run away. He thought of the Feast of All Souls in Lisbon, reflecting on its resemblance to the bon festival—that feast when the windows of the houses in Lisbon displayed lighted candles.
His house was in Sotouramachi on one of the many narrow slopes of Nagasaki. Without permission from the magistrate’s office, he could not go out. His only consolation was to lean against the window and watch the people going to and fro. In the morning, women with boxes of vegetables on their heads would pass by to the town from Omura and Isahaya. At noon, men wearing only a loincloth, singing in loud voices and leading lean horses with burdens on their backs, would pass by. In the evening, bonzes ringing their bells would pass down the slope. He would stare at this scenery of Japan, drinking in every detail as though later he were to describe it all in detail to someone back at home in his own country. But then the thought would rise in his mind that never again would he see his native land, and a bitter smile of resignation would pass over his sunken cheeks.
On such occasions, feelings of desperation would rise up in his breast as he reflected on the whole thing. Whether the missionaries in Macao and Goa had heard about his apostasy he did not know. But from the Dutch merchants who were allowed to enter the country at Dejima he gathered that news had probably reached them. This meant that he had been expelled from the mission.
And not only was he expelled from the mission, he was deprived of all his rights as a priest, and perhaps he was regarded as a renegade by the missionaries. ‘What matter about all this. It is not they who judge my heart but only Our Lord,’ he would murmur shaking his head and biting his lips.
Yet there were times during the night when this vision would suddenly rise up before his eyes and the harrowing thought would sear through his soul. Then, all unconsciously, he would cry out and jump up from his bed: the Inquisition, just like the Last Judgment in the Apocalypse, was pursuing him vividly and realistically.
‘What do you understand? You Superiors in Macao, you in Europe!’ He wanted to stand face to face with them in the darkness and speak in his own defence. ‘You live a carefree life in tranquillity and security, in a place where
there is no storm and no torture—it is there that you carry on your apostolate. There you are esteemed as great ministers of God. You send out soldiers into the raging turmoil of the battlefield. But generals who warm themselves by the fire in a tent should not reproach the soldiers that are taken prisoner … ’ (But no, this is only my self-justification. I’m deceiving myself.) The priest shook his head weakly. (Why even now am I attempting this ugly self-defence?)
I fell. But, Lord, you alone know that I did not renounce my faith. The clergy will ask themselves why I fell. Was it because the torture of the pit was unendurable? Yes. I could not endure the moaning of those peasants suspended in the pit. As Ferreira spoke to me his tempting words, I thought that if I apostatized those miserable peasants would be saved. Yes, that was it. And yet, in the last analysis, I wonder if all this talk about love is not, after all, just an excuse to justify my own weakness.
I acknowledge this. I am not concealing my weakness. I wonder if there is any difference between Kichijirō and myself. And yet, rather than this I know that my Lord is different from the God that is preached in the churches.
The remembrance of that fumie, a burning image, remained behind his eyelids. The interpreter had placed before his feet a wooden plaque. On it was a copper plate on which a Japanese craftsman had engraved that man’s face. Yet the face was different from that on which the priest had gazed so often in Portugal, in Rome, in Goa and in Macao. It was not a Christ whose face was filled with majesty and glory; neither was it a face made beautiful by endurance of pain; nor was it a face filled with the strength of a will that has repelled temptation. The face of the man who then lay at his feet was sunken and utterly exhausted.
Many Japanese had already trodden on it, so that the wood surrounding the plaque was black with the print of their toes. And the face itself was concave, worn down with the constant treading. It was this concave face that had looked at the priest in sorrow. In sorrow it had gazed up at him as the eyes spoke appealingly: ‘Trample! Trample! It is to be trampled on by you that I am here.’
