Kiku's Prayer: A Novel

by Shusaku Endo

  With heaving shoulders, a breathless Kiku began the climb up the hill to the Nambanji. There were no spectators today, perhaps due to the rain. She could not even see any officers standing watch.

  Her clothing and face sopping wet and her hair splayed across her forehead, Kiku stood at the entrance to the Nambanji and looked around her. The pace of the rain had intensified, and the ocean and beach were swathed in haze.

  She stepped beyond the boundary set by the officials and passed through the gate. Softly she opened the door at the entrance to escape the rain.

  The thick door yielded with a dull creak, and she had a clear view of the tall ceiling, the black pillars, and the altar at the innermost part of the sanctuary. Gingerly she went inside, feeling a mixture of fear and curiosity.

  To the right of the altar was a statue of a woman arrayed in foreign attire. The woman in the statue was cradling an infant, and she wore a crown on her head.

  Taking a deep breath, Kiku stared at the woman. Never before today had she seen the face of a woman so pure, so clear. The woman in turn looked down at Kiku from her platform. It seemed as though the face looking down at her wore a gentle smile.

  Ah … it’s you, isn’t it?

  Kiku took a step backward, just a little afraid of the strange female image. She stood there frozen, not moving a muscle.

  The sound of the rain outside faded. She heard the call of a sparrow that must have been hiding somewhere until this moment.

  Just then the door at the entrance rasped. A man drenched by the rain stepped in noiselessly. Unaware that Kiku was watching him, he walked ahead, bent forward in front of the statue of the woman, knelt down, clasped his hands and bowed his head….

  It was Seikichi.

  On those mornings when he came by the shop, carrying his wares on a pole over his shoulder, Kiku could never have imagined Seikichi in such a pose. She had never pictured such a look on his face. It was a look of rapture that was beyond her comprehension.

  An inexpressible anger welled up inside her. Her rival was nothing more than an idol, but it made her unbearably jealous that Seikichi could look at another woman in such a way.

  “Seikichi!” Her voice from behind him was piercing. “What do you think you’re doing?!”

  BATTLES IN THE DARK

  FEAR, WORRY, THEN confusion. The three emotions swirled like a revolving lantern across Seikichi’s face. He couldn’t understand what Kiku was doing here, and he was embarrassed that she had seen him in the attitude of prayer. To disguise his feelings, he asked, “And what are you doing here?” It was almost an angry cry, and he hurriedly rose to his feet.

  “Me?” Kiku did her best to remain composed. “I was just trying to get out of the rain. And you …?”

  He said nothing.

  “I saw, you know. I saw what you were doing just now.” Kiku’s triumphant announcement left Seikichi even more bewildered.

  “You saw what? What was I …? I wasn’t doing anything.”

  “You don’t have to hide it. I know everything. I know that you and the people in Nakano are Kirishitans.”

  “Who … who’s telling lies like that?”

  “Lies? Seikichi. You’re the one lying to me.”

  Seikichi’s face contorted with indescribable pain.

  “Seikichi!” Kiku cried. “Why are you a Kirishitan? You’ve got to leave them! The priest at Shōtokuji says it’s a dangerous heresy.”

  Again Seikichi had nothing to say in response.

  “They only teach you evil things, those Kirishitans. That’s why the magistrate has banned it. So why can’t you give it up?”

  “The Kirishitan faith … is not a heresy!” Seikichi spoke resolutely, his fists clenched. “It’s not a heresy. How can you just say such things when you don’t know anything about it?”

  “But it’s what everybody says. They say that everything the Kuros do is strange.”

  “What kinds of strange things? Let’s hear one.”

  Kiku was stumped for a reply. She really knew nothing about the Kirishitan faith. “Well, why is the magistrate ready to arrest everybody in Nakano?” With reluctance she played the trump card she held.

  “The magistrate? Who told you that?” He grabbed her arms and held them tightly.

  “Doesn’t matter who. That hurts! Let go of me!”

  Seikichi scowled but did not release her. “It does matter who it was! Tell me who!”

  “I won’t tell you. But it’s not a lie. Seikichi, that’s why you’ve got to give up this Kirishitan silliness!”

  It was then that Seikichi sensed that something lay behind Kiku’s desperate voice and desperate expression.

  Until that moment, Kiku to him had been a willful, impertinent girl who got peevish and livid over the tiniest things. But now he understood why this brazen girl was quick to sulk and bluster.

  Abruptly he let go of her arms. His face flushed in embarrassment. In the Kiku he had always thought of as a young girl, he now could sense a woman.

  “Seikichi, won’t you give up these Kirishitan beliefs?”

  “I can’t … I can’t do it.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s the faith my dad and mom and all my ancestors have believed in for generations. The faith that all the people of Nakano have defended. How can I be the only one to give it up?”

  “But Seikichi, if you don’t abandon it, you’ll be punished by the magistrate. Is that … OK with you?” As she said the words, tears filled her lovely almond eyes.

  “I can’t do anything about it.” As he spoke, Seikichi realized that he had to find out how this girl had learned about the intentions of the magistrate. And he must swiftly report all this to Nakano Village and to Petitjean. “I can’t help it. Even if I am punished.”

  “I can’t bear that! I can’t!” Kiku covered her face with her hands, shaking her head.

  It was her first declaration of love. This first love had not brought her happiness, only pain and sorrow.

  “I’m sorry this is so hard for you, but …”

  “Isn’t there anything you can do?”

  “Kiku. You really don’t want me to be punished, do you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then why won’t you tell me? Tell me who you heard this from. That the magistrate will be raiding Nakano soon.”

  After some hesitation, Kiku finally admitted that it was her cousin Ichijirō.

  “Ichijirō?” Seikichi pondered. What Kiku said was surely not a lie. “Listen, Kiku. I have got to get word of this to the people in Nakano. If I don’t notify them, we’ll all be bound up and carried off by the magistrate.”

  Kiku realized how the words she had carelessly spoken had set a vortex in motion. She was guilty of betraying and selling out not just the magistrate but Ichijirō as well.

  “Don’t worry.” Had Seikichi sensed the workings of her mind? He shook his head. “I won’t mention your name to anyone. And don’t you say anything about this, either.”

  Kiku nodded compliantly, a first for her.

  Some time later when she returned to the Gotōya, Kiku ran into Mitsu, her face tight, outside the rear entrance.

  “Kiku!” Mitsu stared hard at her rain-soaked cousin. “Where have you been? You ran off without saying anything, and the Mistress and Oyone are really mad. I was so scared! You’ve got to hurry and apologize, or they’ll be just furious!”

  “Yeah.” She had resigned herself to what awaited her, but still she was frightened to go into the kitchen. She tried to make herself small and peeked cautiously into the room, but the Mistress and Oyone were standing there, gazing at her coldly.

  The Mistress callously turned her head away and said with piercing sarcasm, “Oyone. I couldn’t say who it is, but we appear to have an important visitor.”

  “Well, I wonder who this fine lady could be?” Oyone’s reply oozed of disdain.

  “I really couldn’t say. But since she is such an elegant lady, we certainly can’t expect her t
o cook the rice or do any cleaning. She’ll be going out to have fun without saying anything to anybody.”

  The biting exchange continued for some time, and when Kiku tried to apologize, they retorted with feigned surprise, “Oh, really? And where did Our Ladyship go? And what was she doing?”

  That night when everyone ate dinner, no tray was set for Kiku. She was left alone to clean up in the kitchen, all the while sensing Mitsu’s timorous gaze darting sporadically in her direction.

  This is all to help Seikichi.

  To take her mind off her hunger, Kiku put more than ordinary energy into the hand that swiped the cleaning rag back and forth, her thoughts focused on Seikichi all the while.

  Her troubles now had come because she was trying to help Seikichi. But that, paradoxically, was a joy to her. It made her happy.

  “Someday, Kiku, you’ll understand that I’m not doing anything wrong.” That was Seikichi’s firm declaration to her as they parted. He was so confident in his assertion that she wanted to believe him. But why would the magistrate want to arrest someone who hadn’t done anything wrong?

  The only things certain in her mind were that even if Seikichi was a Kirishitan, she could never bring herself to believe that he was a bad person, that she could never despise him, that in fact, her heart was increasingly drawn toward him.

  That night, after they had gone to bed, Mitsu poked her and said, “I bet that was really hard for you.” She handed Kiku a rice ball. She had made it for Kiku when Oyone wasn’t looking.

  “It wasn’t anything.” It wasn’t sour grapes, but how Kiku truly felt. Suffering for someone you love “isn’t anything” to a young girl….

  Once again the rain picked up noisily.

  “Padre, you’d better not come to Urakami for a while. The magistrate is keeping a close eye on you.”

  With gloomy eyes, Petitjean, having heard the full story from Seikichi, nodded his head. His own folly in underestimating the Nagasaki magistrate was now obvious to him. No matter how oblivious Itō Seizaemon had pretended to be, he had, in fact, found out everything.

  Most likely Itō had taken his directions from Hondō Shuntarō. The young, wily interpreter had given him veiled warnings, but Petitjean had taken them too lightly.

  “But, Seikichi, if I don’t go … who will hear your confissão? Who will perform the bautismo for your babies?”

  Petitjean’s response left Seikichi in a quandary, and all he could do was sigh.

  It was certain that if Petitjean stopped going to Urakami, the Kirishitans of Nakano and Motohara and Ieno were the ones who would be left in a quandary. They would have to go back to the old practices of appointing men to such positions as Chōyaku and Mizukata.

  It was only after Petitjean pointed it out to the Kirishitans of Urakami, who for so many long years had been without a church or missionaries, that they realized they had introduced a variety of errors into the doctrine and practice of the church as they verbally passed down the teachings through the generations.

  Elements of the Shinto purification ceremony had been inserted into their practice of baptism, and they had inappropriately merged the Festival of the Buddha’s birth with the Kirishitan Easter. But these were the corruptions of lesser importance. There were numerous ways in which they had erased vital points of doctrine or rendered them ambiguous. If Petitjean stopped visiting them, they would end up back exactly where they had started.

  “But we don’t have any choice. At least until the pressure is off,” Seikichi muttered, but that was merely because he had nothing else to suggest.

  Was there no way that Petitjean could make contact with the Urakami Kirishitans without the magistrate detecting it?

  Blessed Mother, please give me wisdom. Petitjean turned toward the statue beside the altar and prayed in his heart. Ever since the day he had found them, he had been praying to the statue of the Blessed Mother, in much the same way a child depends on its mother…. They … they want my help. I don’t want to leave them.

  The image of the Immaculata smiled down on Petitjean—like a mother listening to the fervent prayer of a very young child….

  You have your kite, don’t you? Petitjean could almost hear the clear voice of the Blessed Mother.

  “Kite?”

  You learned how to fly it, didn’t you? It’s the season for kite flying in Nagasaki. It’s not going to arouse the suspicions of the magistrate if you send up your kite. Use your kite!

  Petitjean was certain he had heard the voice of Our Lady, like a mother guiding her child.

  Ah, of course! Thank you, Blessed Mother! Petitjean’s face lit up, and in jest he winked at Mary’s effigy.

  “Seikichi, I’ve had a great idea. We’ll use kites to signal each other!”

  “Use kites?” Seikichi was initially dubious, but after hearing Petitjean’s explanation, he said, “Padre, that’s a wonderful plan!” and clapped his hands in agreement.

  Urakami and Nagasaki were separated by Mount Kompira, which was renowned for kite flying. No one in Nagasaki would be suspicious of a kite sent aloft in this season. Kite flying continued until around the time the new leaves burst forth.

  “Seikichi, when you want me to come, send up a red kite. When the magistrate is on the lookout and might be suspicious, use a black kite. Don’t you think that flying kites of different colors above Mount Kompira would work?”

  Seikichi and Petitjean put their heads together and came up with a variety of kite signals. Using not only colors but also the shapes of kites, they were able to create a quite sophisticated system of communication.

  “With this plan,” Seikichi said as he was leaving, “the magistrate will never know what we’re doing.” He made it sound as though this were an exciting game.

  The following day Petitjean reinstated his long walks, which he had furloughed for a time. At a set hour, accompanied by the newly arrived Father Laucaigne, he paraded in front of the Nikkanji, where the officials had set up their base camp, wearing a broad smile on his face and bowing politely to Itō Seizaemon’s men.

  The two priests made a circuit around the streets of Nagasaki. If they paid close attention, they could tell that someone was following them. Depending on the day, the man might be dressed as a craftsman or perhaps as a merchant’s apprentice, but the priests had no difficulty discerning that they were spies sent out by the magistrate.

  Once they were certain they were being tailed, Petitjean couldn’t help but play pranks on them in the French manner. He and Father Laucaigne would stroll into the Chinese residential area and quickly hide behind a house, and when they caught a glimpse of the spies frantically searching for them, they would unexpectedly step out directly in front of them—it was hilarious to see the expressions on the men’s faces at such times.

  Even as he was pulling these pranks, Petitjean’s eyes were ceaselessly fixed on Mount Kompira, which separated Nagasaki from Urakami.

  By checking the color and shape of the kite sent up at a set hour, he was able to determine what the Kirishitans of Nakano wanted of him.

  An ago kite with a black design.

  That meant “Warning! Don’t come.”

  Apparently Seikichi and his comrades had decided it was best to be discreet for a while, since they flew a black ago kite day after day.

  To anyone else’s eyes, it was nothing more than a tiny, unexceptional kite. But that little kite floating in the sky had profound meaning for Petitjean and the Japanese Kirishitans. The only other person who knew of this arrangement was Father Laucaigne.

  When about seven days had passed, finally it was not a black kite but a paper shōji kite shaped like the frame of a paper sliding door that drifted lazily above Mount Kompira.

  Please come, Padre. No spies today was the shōji kite’s message to Petitjean as he looked up at it from the street.

  “Ça y est!” A cry of victory sprang to Petitjean’s lips. The magistrate’s spies were not keeping watch today.

  That night, after making
certain that Okane and her husband had left, Petitjean put on the farming clothes he had stashed away, tied a kerchief under his chin as many Japanese did, and set out. It was already pitch dark when he reached the shortcut that descends from Mount Kompira to Urakami, but a young man from Nakano was waiting there for him, taking care that the flame in his lantern did not go out.

  In the shed that they used in place of a church, Petitjean said the Mass. Old and young, male and female, from not only from Nakano but also Ieno and Motohara, had crowded into the shed, and the space reeked from the smells of sweat, body odors, and their expelled breath.

  The citizens of Nagasaki thought of Urakami as a foul-smelling village caused by the stench from the animals that were raised there. The smell had gotten worse especially of late, when the villagers began to raise goats and pigs for the foreigners who lived in Nagasaki. As he recited the Mass, Petitjean thought of the horse stable where Jesus had been born. This shed that functioned as a church was similarly filled with the smells of cow dung and urine.

  And yet Lord, is there another church this beautiful anywhere in the world? As he intoned the Latin words of the Mass, Petitjean thought of the catacombs where the primitive Christians had secretly assembled during the years of Roman persecution. This shed, with its oppressive air of human and animal smells, seemed as beautiful to him as those catacombs. It was magnificent.

  O Lord, these Japanese have endured beyond endurance and employed all manner of stealth to maintain their faith in Thee. Please look upon the faces of these Japanese. Petitjean whispered the words in his heart, and he was unable to suppress the swell of his emotions.

  The eyes of every man, woman, elderly lady, and aged male jammed into the shed were fixed on him as he spread his arms wide, made the sign of the cross, and blessed them. They were eyes like those of the parched who plead for water.

  When the Mass was finished, he listened to many confessions. On some visits he would also baptize an infant. He was taken to the homes of the sick. Usually by the time he made it back to Mount Kompira, light had already begun to dispel the darkness while the city of Nagasaki continued to sleep.