Kiku's Prayer: A Novel

by Shusaku Endo

Takahashi hastily tried to calm Itō down. “A man responsible for handling these Kirishitans can only damage his position by blubbering like this. C’mon, let’s go!”

  But Itō remained with his head bowed and made no effort to stand. He could almost picture that room lit by the afternoon sun, and the face of Kiku as she lay beneath his body, staring at a point in space, waiting for it all to be over.

  “Damned weepy woman!” He tried using disgust to sweep the image of Kiku’s face from his memory. He had remembered the single thread of pale tears that had flowed slowly from her eyes.

  A sharp pain raced through his heart.

  “Another drink!” He drank more to mask the pain in his heart. Takahashi and Deguchi watched him with fear in their eyes.

  One strange trait of this man named Itō was the fact that even though the previous night he had been wracked with guilt and emotional pain, the very next day he would harness that same measure of pain and use it to torment the prisoners.

  The morning after Itō got drunk on the money Kiku had entrusted to him and then bought a prostitute, he poked his head into the women’s cell and, pointing to a young mother holding an infant on her lap, said, “You there! Come outside, will you?”

  He chose this woman because something about her reminded him of Kiku. She was from Motohara, and her husband had been one of the men brought here along with Sen’emon and the others, but he had apostatized some time ago and was no longer around.

  Itō made the woman sit on the bamboo-floored veranda and shouted at her, “So which do you choose: your husband or your Kirishitan beliefs?” Part of his strategy hinged on his knowledge that a person’s legs became agonizingly painful after sitting formally on this bamboo floor for a long while. “Will it be your husband? Or your Lord Jezusu? Of course, choosing Jezusu over your husband is the height of infidelity! Are you going to be faithless to your husband and still choose your Jezusu?”

  His logic was preposterous, but at this moment Itō cared nothing for logic.

  “Take off your clothes! Strip down!!”

  When he saw the startled look on the young mother’s face and the fact that he had rendered her speechless, Itō was gripped by an urge to inflict even greater pain on her, and he hollered, “Don’t expect me to pamper you people. If I treat you kindly, you’ll turn into a bunch of spoiled shit-kickers. What makes you shit-kickers think you can go against your superiors?!”

  Itō’s furious shouts were audible to all the prisoners incarcerated at the temple.

  “Take off the underskirt too!” Itō callously ordered the woman, who squirmed and clutched her infant to her body.

  “Are you embarrassed? Lord Jezusu will hide your nakedness, so there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I’ll bet your husband would be delighted to see you in this disgusting posture!”

  When the young mother began to weep loudly, the child she held also began to wail as though he had been set afire.

  “So, will you forsake you faith …? How about it? If you do, I won’t make you take off your underskirt.”

  Like a cat tormenting a mouse, Itō sat with his chin in his hand, staring down at the sobbing woman.

  “What’s your choice?”

  Still sobbing, she answered in a low voice. “I … I will … give up my faith.”

  “Splendid! You should have said that sooner.”

  That night, Itō drank himself into a stupor at the Daruma House and said agonizingly to the prostitute beside him, “Would you be kind enough to spit in my face?”

  “Why?!”

  “Because I’m … I’m the sort of man who ought to have his face spit into. Again today I did something terrible to a woman,” he muttered, his face twisted in pain.

  THE BLESSED AND THE UNBLESSED

  SUMMER APPROACHED.

  There are those in this world who are blessed by fortune and those whose fortunes seem cursed. Some achieve acclaim, while others cannot find success in the world and merely squirm in the mud.

  These two types were evident in the differences between Itō Seizaemon and Hondō Shuntarō. Shuntarō attracted the notice of Count Iwakura and ascended to a post as an official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but Itō never became anything other than a low-level administrator at the Nishi Bureau who spent his days shuttling back and forth between Tsuwano and Nagasaki.

  Would I be better off getting myself involved in this revolt?

  Such thoughts crossed Itō’s mind from time to time as he pillowed his face on a prostitute’s wispy chest.

  The various branches of the military in Chōshū domain had been ordered to demobilize because of economic exigencies, but some of the soldiers had risen up in revolt, which in turn ignited an insurrection among the samurai in northern Kyushu who had harbored pent-up resentment toward the new government. It was an explosion of malcontent among those who had fallen behind the times and had not attained success in the new society. The third year of the Meiji era, 1870, was a time of many tests for the new government as it tried to solidify a foundation for its rule.

  “I wonder what that Hondō fellow is doing up in Yokohama.”

  Itō could not stand the thought that Hondō was now of such stature that he could amuse himself with first-class geisha at first-class houses while he was stuck here in the mountains enclosing Tsuwano, swatting away mosquitoes as he slept with this flat-chested whore.

  “What was your name again?”

  “Hideko.”

  “With shriveled breasts like these, there’s nothing for a baby to latch onto,” Itō belittled the prostitute. He thought of Kiku’s beautiful round breasts and strawberry nipples. “Ah, I want to get back to Nagasaki! They must already be celebrating the Kiyomizu Temple festival.”

  Nagasaki hosted a variety of festivals from season to season. The sixth month marked the advent of the Gion Festival1 and the start of the Thousand-Day Festival at the Kiyomizu Temple.2 Custom dictated that the streets along Shinshikkui-machi and Imashikkui-machi near the road to the shrine be purified by the hanging of sacred ropes and sakaki evergreens, and each house prepared to welcome guests with dishes of raw fish and vegetables seasoned in vinegar and mochi that had been frozen and dried.

  As he recalled those celebrations, Itō Seizaemon missed them so desperately he was at the point of tears.

  Around the time of the Gion Festival, in Nagasaki—

  At long last, Shuntarō bought out Oyō’s contract with the Yamazaki Teahouse, and she boarded a ship bound for Yokohama.

  It was swelteringly hot that day, but the madam, Kiku, and several other women from the teahouse set out to the dock to send off Oyō, whose face shone with joy. Male attendants had already loaded her baggage onto a tiny skiff at the dock.

  With a smile, Oyō tried to buoy up Kiku. “Kiku, I know something good is going to happen to you soon, so just be patient, OK?”

  Gazing out at the ocean lit by rays of the sun spilling between the clouds, Kiku nodded her head.

  Something good is going to happen.

  But she had no news of Seikichi. Had Itō actually given her letter and money to him?

  There are those in this world who are blessed by fortune and those who are not. As she looked at Oyō, Kiku felt just as Itō had toward Shuntarō.

  Oyō stepped into the little skiff and waved her hand at those who had come to see her off. The skiff would transport her to the black steamship that waited in the offing. And the steamship would deliver her to her beloved, Hondō Shuntarō.

  Oyō’s white face beamed with happiness. Shafts of sunlight seeping between the clouds warmed her back, and as she slowly pulled away from the wharf she smiled cheerfully, bowing her head toward these friends she would miss seeing.

  “Well, she’s gone,” the madam sighed as the skiff receded into the distance. “She’s going to be so happy. Lord Hondō fell for her, and now she’ll be marrying into wealth and status. One day she’ll find herself the wife of an important government official.”

  The madam st
arted out walking, and the others followed along behind her. But Kiku remained standing at the wharf, looking out toward the silvery ocean in the offing. Oyō, setting off toward happiness. She was incredibly envious.

  “Kiku!” Someone called her name. When she turned around, one of the male attendants who had delivered Oyō’s baggage to the boat was standing there. It was the yellow-toothed man she had met on the streets of Maruyama before she started working at the Yamazaki Teahouse. He was one of those men always skulking around the Maruyama district looking for odd jobs that would bring in a little spending money.

  “Kiku, have you made up your mind that you want to become a geiko?” he asked with a smirk. “I’m sure you’ve figured out why the madam at the Yamazaki lent you two ryo in cash? She’s setting you up so you’ll be stuck there when you can’t pay back the loan.”

  Kiku looked up at the man in surprise. Why would this little hoodlum know about that? It was true, though, that she had borrowed two ryo from the madam. Before Itō Seizaemon left for Tsuwano, he promised he would pass it along to Seikichi.

  “Of course, if you want Seikichi’s life to be made easier, he’ll have to provide a little gift to the officials in Tsuwano. Probably take two or three gold coins.” Seizaemon had stroked his chin as he mumbled the words. The madam lent her the two ryo out of sympathy.

  “That two ryo comes with interest, you know,” the hoodlum said softly. “Two becomes three ryo, and then the three snowballs into four. You’ll be way over your head by then. What are you going to do, Kiku?”

  She had no response.

  “Listen, I know a way for you to earn that two ryo.”

  Still nothing from Kiku.

  “I’m telling you the truth. And in only two nights of work!”

  “What … would I have to do?”

  “You just need to come to the Nakajuku brokerage house in Honkago-machi. Actually, there’s this rich Chinese fellow … One look at you and he’ll be ready to explode! All you have to do is be his companion. He’ll give you the two ryo.”

  Kiku angrily set out walking. Just what kind of person does he think I am?!

  Once her anger had subsided, she was filled with a loneliness that almost led her to tears. Ever since Itō had taken everything from her, she knew exactly how she was viewed by the madam and the others.

  Each time she had found herself in Itō’s arms, she had plunged another level. She had been plummeting to the depths of the earth, from which she would never be able to crawl her way back to Seikichi’s world. This was still the most painful of all for Kiku.

  That field of flowers, blanketed with lotus flowers. Her youth, when skylarks had shrieked through the skies. Those mornings in early summer when she waited, her heart pounding, to hear Seikichi’s voice from the distance as he advertised his wares. Where had it all gone?

  She wanted to be by herself. Gradually she fell behind the group that was following the madam as they returned from the dock, then suddenly slipped away between two houses. Once everyone had disappeared in the direction of Maruyama, she began walking down the road along the waterfront.

  She had no destination in mind. Because she had nowhere in particular to go, her feet began to lead her toward Ōura, a place that was crowded with memories for her.

  The steamship was still just barely visible in the offing. Surely Oyō had already reached and boarded that ship.

  Kiku deliberately averted her eyes from the ship. It was too painful for her to look at a symbol of happiness that was forever beyond her grasp.

  The Ōura Church was directly above. The church Seikichi had attended. The church where Petitjean and Laucaigne had treated her with such kindness. But she knew full well that she was no longer the sort of person who could look those missionaries in the eye.

  She approached the church, careful that no one saw her. The tranquillity of afternoon reigned over the fields and farmhouses adjacent to the church.

  She gently pushed the heavy door open and peeked inside. It was exceedingly quiet in there as well. Only that woman’s statue stood forlornly next to the altar.

  Kiku looked at the woman sorrowfully and muttered, “It’s me. You remember me, don’t you?”

  Kiku resumed the kind of solitary monologue beside the statue that she had so often recited in the past.

  “You must remember Seikichi, too. Right now Seikichi is suffering horribly every day, but you do nothing for him. But I’m no different. I can’t do anything for him either. It’s sad. So very sad! I can’t do a thing for him….”

  She paused and bit her lip. “All I could do for Seikichi was … was make a little money to send him. But to get the money … I had to disgrace my body.”

  Kiku would never forget the terrible, stinging pain and humiliation she experienced the first time Itō Seizaemon climbed on top of her.

  “You … you don’t know anything about that kind of pain, do you? You … you never had a man do that to you, did you?”

  Just then, she heard the faint sound of footsteps. Kiku quickly hid herself behind a column. At a time like this, she did not want to meet Petitjean or Laucaigne.

  But it wasn’t either of the priests. A shabby-looking man appeared from behind the creaking door, and behind him a woman stepped quietly into the chapel.

  Mitsu … !

  Kiku nearly cried out in surprise. It was definitely Mitsu who was walking behind the man toward the altar.

  Neither she nor the man realized that Kiku was watching them as they knelt before the statue of the Blessed Mother Mary. The man lifted his head and crossed himself, after which Mitsu imitated him and clumsily moved her hands in the shape of a cross.

  “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee …” The man spoke the prayer that all the Kirishitans invoked to the Blessed Mother, but Mitsu apparently had not yet memorized the prayer and was silent.

  Even after he finished praying, the man remained where he was for a long while, his drooping head supported by both hands. Looking at his despondent posture, Kiku sensed that the man carried a heavy burden in his heart, though she couldn’t imagine what it was.

  “You don’t need to punish yourself anymore,” Mitsu tried to console the man. “Someday they’ll understand how you feel. Sometime I’ll tell them how long you’ve suffered such terrible guilt for what you did.”

  “Even if they all forgive me, Deus won’t forgive me.”

  “How do you know that? Even if he won’t, though, this Mary you believe in will smooth things over for you with Lord Deus. You’ve always said that Mary is the mother of all people ….”

  “She is.”

  “If she’s a mother, then there’s no way she can just ignore her children when they’re suffering. No mother can turn a deaf ear to the pleas of her own child.”

  Kiku had never heard the Mitsu she knew speak with such intensity. Mitsu was trying so desperately to console this man.

  Since their childhood together, Mitsu had never been able to turn away from anything pitiful or unfortunate that she encountered. She was the type who would hide her own food and give it to stray dogs or cats, no matter how much her brother or Kiku reprimanded her. With that same intensity she was now trying to comfort this man….

  “Let’s go,” the man muttered as he got to his feet.

  “Mitsu!” Kiku could no longer stifle her feelings of affection for Mitsu and finally called out. In astonishment, both Mitsu and the man turned toward her. When she recognized a smiling Kiku standing beside the column, Mitsu’s eyes widened and she cried, “What! What are you doing here? Kiku, oh, I’ve searched and searched for you! Ichijirō’s been going all over the place trying to find out where you are. He’s come here again and again … But the foreigners always just shake their heads….”

  Kiku dodged Mitsu’s unspoken question. “You’re looking well. I hear you’re still working at the Gotōya.”

  Monotonously the waves nipped at the shore, then retreated. The steamship that had until just minutes before flo
ated in the offing had now carried a blissful Oyō out of sight. The canopy of gray rain clouds broke open, and light from the sun steamed on the surface of the sea.

  “So … have you decided you want to marry him?” Kiku asked Mitsu, glancing toward Kumazō, who was sitting on the shore a ways away from them with his head bowed. “Of course, you’ve talked to your brother and your parents about it, right?”

  Mitsu shook her head. “No. Even if I did talk to them, they wouldn’t approve of him…. That’s kind of what I’ve assumed, so I haven’t said anything to them.”

  “That’s so like you. You’ve always been the sort of girl who can’t bring herself to turn away somebody you feel sorry for….”

  “I just feel like if I can do even a little something to help take the pain from his heart …”

  “Funny, isn’t it? You and I never imagined we’d wind up in these relationships with Kirishitan men….” Kiku scooped up some sand in her palm, and as she let it trickle through her fingers, she said earnestly, “We both have pretty difficult associations with our men, don’t we?”

  “Yeah. But, Kiku, where in Maruyama are you working?”

  “It’s better not to ask,” Kiku said forlornly. “I’ve ended up in a place you’re better off not knowing anything about. I’m not like you anymore—I’m a filthy woman.”

  “A filthy woman?”

  Anxiety clouded Kiku’s brow as she let the sand slip from between her fingers.

  “Kiku, don’t you feel like coming back to Magome?”

  “No, I don’t. There’s no reason to go back home. I mean, I don’t regret what I’ve done.” Kiku said with determination as she stared at the offing. “I don’t regret it. After I fell in love with Seikichi, I became a filthy woman just so I could help him, so I don’t feel bad about it. I believe with all my heart that a woman wants to do anything for the man she loves. You understand that feeling, don’t you?”

  Mitsu nodded. All she had to do to understand how Kiku felt was to compare her own situation with that of a passionate woman like Kiku and she could visualize what would happen when such a woman fell in love with a man. Kiku brushed the sand off her lap and stood up.