Kiku's Prayer Part 10

Pet.i.tjean knew that Unzen was a tall mountain, but why was Father Furet bringing him to such a place?

Early the next morning, they climbed onto two horses provided by Okugawa, and led by two guides, they ascended Unzen.

At the base of the mountain spring, flowers had begun to bloom, but as they climbed, a magnificent landscape, still evincing signs of winter in its withered trees and valleys, opened up before the four men. Though they had heard the call of nightingales only a few minutes earlier, at this elevation the cries of shrikes echoed piercingly from between the trees that s.h.i.+mmered silver in the sun.

Gray clouds lowered overhead, lending the enormous mountain an air of solitude, even ferocity.

"Well, then." It was almost midday. Father Furet, who had been watching the movements of the clouds, said, "Do you have any idea why I brought you up to this mountain?"

"I've wanted to ask you," Pet.i.tjean replied, "but I decided to say nothing until you volunteered the information."

"Then I'll tell you. This mountain path we're climbing right now-more than 210 years ago, they too were forced to climb it...."

"'They'?"

"Yes, the j.a.panese Christians."

"For what purpose?"

"To be tortured." Father Furet blinked his eyes, as though the light hurt them. A shrike screeched in the woods.

"Tortured? Why would they be tortured in these mountains ...?"

"You'll understand soon enough."

Their conversation broke off, and their horses set out once again behind their two guides.

Just about the time the sunlight began to wane, they spotted beneath them a valley thick with white smoke. At first Pet.i.tjean mistook it for the white smoke of a volcano, but then he realized that it was not smoke but steam that reeked of sulfur.

When the horses caught the smell, they stamped their hooves in fear and refused to move any further.

"Fine. We'll walk." Father Furet dismounted and the other three followed suit.

They could hear murmuring like that of a mountain stream. No doubt it was a mountain stream. But it was a stream of boiling water, of water at a blistering temperature. And the foul-smelling vapor from the stream blew like smoke on the wind.

"I suspect the fires of Gehenna mentioned in the Bible were like this," Father Furet muttered as he covered his mouth with a handkerchief. "Watch your step. If you fall in, that water, which must be several hundred degrees hot, will melt your legs off. And-" He paused for just a moment and then in one breath said, "The j.a.panese Kiris.h.i.+tans who would not abandon their faith ... were thrown into this boiling water. The flesh on their legs melted off in an instant, and when they were pulled out again, nothing but their bones remained. Do you understand, Bernard? Nothing was left of their legs but white bones...."

Though spring had begun, evenings in Unzen were still bitter cold. But they were able to endure the cold because of the warmth of the steam spurting from this boiling mountain stream.

"Bernard, this is the kind of tortures the Christians of Nagasaki had to suffer. They were burned alive, subjected to water torture, and plunged into the boiling water here at Unzen.... Come, open your eyes and look down there!" Father Furet pointed at their feet, almost angrily. With an eerie popping sound bubbles from the boiling water rose to the surface and burst.

"Bernard?"

"Yes."

"If you were made to stand here, and you were told that if you did not deny G.o.d and Christ you would slowly be lowered into these ghastly waters ... would you stand your ground?"

Pet.i.tjean lifted his head in surprise at Father Furet's unexpected query. But the look on his superior's face was solemn.

"Well? Could you endure it?"

"I-" Pet.i.tjean stammered painfully. "I-I don't know. What about you?"

"Me? To be honest, I don't know if I could bear it or not. I know I would pray to the Lord.... Bernard, that's why, even if the j.a.panese believers who were subjected to this kind of torture ultimately abandoned their faith ... we have no right to condemn them."

"I agree."

"And another thing. With this degree of persecution and torture going on for so many long years, it's no surprise that not a single Christian remains in j.a.pan. It's to be expected."

Pet.i.tjean finally understood why Father Furet had brought him all the way to Unzen. The priest was trying to turn Pet.i.tjean from his dreams back to reality-something he had not been able to persuade him to do in words-by bringing him to the spot where some of the horrifying tortures had taken place.

"Bernard. I'll be leaving Nagasaki in four days."

"In just four days?"

"Yes, that's when a s.h.i.+p is leaving for the Rykys. My departure has been moved up. You're going to have to care in my stead for our newly completed church at ura."

As Pet.i.tjean nodded apprehensively, Father Furet slapped him on the shoulder and said, "Don't worry. You're not going to be alone. Father Laucaigne2 is coming to Nagasaki to replace me. That's why I need you to snap out of your reveries and your childish imaginings that there are still descendants of the first j.a.panese Christians who secretly maintain their faith...."

With a flushed face Pet.i.tjean listened intently to Father Furet's admonition.

"Let's be rid of the past, shan't we, Bernard?"

Pet.i.tjean nodded feebly.

Father Furet left Nagasaki on the third day after their return from Unzen. Pet.i.tjean, Okane, and Mosaku saw him off at the hato boat landing and kept waving their hands as he set off on a tiny skiff toward the s.h.i.+p that would take him to the Rykys.

In the absence of Father Furet, the ura Church seemed hollow and deserted. Pet.i.tjean's heart swelled with alternating feelings of loneliness and responsibility. More than ever before he was acutely aware of the weighty presence that Father Furet had been. Pet.i.tjean anxiously looked forward to the arrival of Father Laucaigne, Furet's successor.

He now had a clearer understanding of the horrors of the persecutions that were heaped on the j.a.panese Kiris.h.i.+tans at the h.e.l.l of boiling water he had seen at Unzen. Father Furet's counsel to abandon his childish fantasies stung him just as a pungent antiseptic causes the teeth to tingle.

"I'm responsible for taking care of the ura Church," Pet.i.tjean repeated to himself. He made up his mind that in order to fulfill that responsibility, he would study Father Furet's ledger books, keep the church's journals, compose letters to France, and send the weekly report to his superiors in Yokohama. And he put an immediate stop to the "long walks" that had previously been part of his daily routine.

Two days later, the day Father Laucaigne was scheduled to arrive in Nagasaki, the skies were clear. It was a day no different from any other. Pet.i.tjean instructed Okane, "Please ask your husband to sweep the garden." After he finished his lunch, he took a dry cloth and went inside the new chapel. Standing in front of the altar, his eyes took in every corner of the sanctuary that the j.a.panese carpenters had so industriously fas.h.i.+oned under Father Furet's direction.

It's beautiful, he thought. It was not a grand, lavishly ornamented Catholic church like those back home in Chartres, Paris, and Reims, but to him it was as pristine, as fragrant with the scent of wood, and as immaculate as any of the graceful Buddhist temples of j.a.pan. He was grateful that this lovely church had been entrusted to him.

With his cloth he dusted the altar, then the statues that were placed on either side of the altar-one of Jesus, the other of the Blessed Mother cradling the infant Jesus. Then he arranged the candles and counted the cruets of wine used in the Ma.s.s.

Today as every day he could see through the partially opened door the crowd of spectators who were peering curiously toward him.

Because of the prohibition by the magistrate, the j.a.panese would not take one further step toward the church. He had no sense how long the proscription on Christianity would be continued.

When he finished with his cleaning, he knelt down in front of the altar and clasped his hands together. Easter was approaching.

Sunlight poured through the stained-gla.s.s windows. The time was just barely past 12:30.

He heard a faint sound behind him as he prayed. Thinking it must be Okane's husband, he turned around. And there Pet.i.tjean saw four or five j.a.panese quietly staring at him....

They wore shabby clothing and their faces had been baked brown in the sun. They gazed at him timidly, their eyes like those of mice that scrutinize their surroundings from the shadows, but when Pet.i.tjean turned his head in their direction, they quickly retreated. No doubt they had come through the forbidden doorway out of curiosity and were sneaking a quick look at the inside of the chapel.

With a strained smile he again clasped his hands and made to resume his prayer.

Again he heard a faint noise. This time he remained in his kneeling position and paid them no attention. He calculated that this would give the j.a.panese a little more leisure to examine the altar and the statues of Jesus and Mary.

Just as he antic.i.p.ated, they seemed to have taken a bit of courage: behind him he heard footsteps moving two, then three paces forward. There they stopped, and Pet.i.tjean could sense that they were gazing at the altar with the intense curiosity so common among the j.a.panese.

Ah, they've become a bit brazen! The j.a.panese seemed to be coming even closer. Were they trying to move up close and get a clear view of the altar, the gold cross atop the altar, and the candlesticks? And were they then going to boast of what they had learned to their comrades who waited nervously outside?

"These strange things lined up here ... Do you know what they're called?" They were so close Pet.i.tjean could overhear their conversation.

Then a woman's voice spoke. "Sir ... Our hearts are all the same as yours."

It was the voice of a middle-aged woman. She stood directly behind him, whispering softly as though she were divulging an important secret. "Sir ... Our hearts are all the same as yours."

Pet.i.tjean was jerked back into reality, as though startled from a dream, and with wide eyes he turned to look behind him.

The woman must have been about forty, perhaps a little older. It was difficult for a Frenchman to guess the age of a j.a.panese woman. She was so nervous that she was on the verge of tears.

"Our hearts are all the same as yours."

He was so dumbfounded he didn't immediately grasp the meaning of her words. The instant her meaning became clear to him, he felt as though he had been struck with a large club.

It was them! They had finally appeared!

The woman asked, "Sir ... Where is the statue of Santa Maria?"

Pet.i.tjean tried to stand up, but he couldn't get to his feet. The intensity of his emotions made it impossible for him to move.

"The statue ... of Santa Maria," he whispered. "Come with me."

Pet.i.tjean led the woman to the base of the statue of the Blessed Mother on the right of the altar. The young Immaculata stood smiling, a crown on her head and the infant Jesus cradled in her arms.3 The woman, along with the other men and women in the group, lifted their eyes to look where Pet.i.tjean was pointing. They were silent for a time, until the woman muttered, as either a sigh or a moan, "So precious!" The others sighed as well.

Pet.i.tjean's voice was hoa.r.s.e when he asked, "Are you Kiris.h.i.+tan ...?" His throat was parched.

"Yes," a young man at the front of the group nodded as spokesman for them all.

"I-" Pet.i.tjean wanted to tell them that he was a priest. But there was not yet a word in j.a.panese for "priest." "Pet.i.tjean. Pet.i.tjean." He pointed to his nose and repeated his name. "Where have you come from?"

"Urakami."

"Urakami?"

"On the other side of Mount Kompira." Unsure where that would be, Pet.i.tjean said nothing. The silence was prolonged.

"Sir," the young man struggled to use an unfamiliar level of politeness in his speech, "are you truly a padre?"

"Padre." It meant "father" or "priest" in Portuguese. Pet.i.tjean didn't know Portuguese, but he understood the meaning from the Latin and nodded his head. "Yes, a padre."

But the young man still seemed skeptical. "Then you're familiar with the day when Lord Zeusu was born, and His days of sorrow?"

Pet.i.tjean knew that "Zeusu" was their name for Jesus, but he couldn't immediately grasp what was meant by "days of sorrow." He a.s.sumed, however, that it probably referred to the week before Easter.

"I am. We are in the 'days of sorrow' right now." When he gave that response, every member of the group smiled at him as would a mother pleased with her clever child.

"Are there many Kiris.h.i.+tans in Urakami?" It was his turn to ask a question.

"The people in the Magome District of Urakami are Buddhists," someone answered.

Just then, a voice called from the entrance, "Hurry! An officer is coming!" Those in the chapel swiftly turned away from Pet.i.tjean and disappeared like smoke through the exit.

Pet.i.tjean stood motionless in the empty chapel. Wave after wave of inexpressible emotions came cras.h.i.+ng against his heart. He felt like shouting. He wanted to shout to Father Furet: You see! They are here in Nagasaki! They really do exist! What a splendid city this is!

Through two hundred years of ruthless persecution and fierce oppression, the j.a.panese Christians had endured like a single tree in a downpour, and some of them still remained. What the drunken Chinese in the Rykys had told him was no lie. Pet.i.tjean was overcome with a dizzying excitement as he realized that he was the one who had first met up with the j.a.panese Christians who had hidden themselves underground.

"O Lord, I thank Thee. I ... I thank Thee!" He knelt and folded his fingers in prayer as a flood of tears poured from his eyes. Through the tears that veiled his eyes he saw the lovely statue of the Blessed Mother. "So precious!" The woman's words still echoed vividly in his ears.

I'm sure they'll come here again. Surely they will. Pet.i.tjean could not believe that the people who had just vanished like smoke would now sever all contact with him.

I must be prudent. If I'm careless and someone like It Seizaemon from the magistrate's office finds us out, all will be lost.

He realized that he must labor to display a face that revealed nothing to the spectators outside. With a posture of utter indifference he went out of the church and gave Okane an errand to run.

The next day it rained. His heart pounding, he waited for them.

As he antic.i.p.ated, that day a larger crowd of spectators than usual stood in front of the church. Pet.i.tjean deliberately swung open the door to the church to make it clear to them that it was not locked.

Before long, a handful of people crept silently in. They stopped before the statue of the Blessed Mother, whispered in soft voices, then quickly departed. A few minutes later, another four or five slipped in.

They each wore crude clothing. Their rustic faces and sunken eyes were evidence that these were peasants who had endured long years of hard labor.

Toward evening, a rather unhappy-looking It Seizaemon made an appearance.

"Lord Pet.i.tjean," he said, gazing suspiciously around the chapel, "I'm sure Father Furet told you this, but ... you need to understand that j.a.panese people are forbidden from coming in here."

"Why can't they come inside?" Pet.i.tjean feigned ignorance. "This is the first I've heard of such an agreement. I know that I am not allowed to teach the Kiris.h.i.+tan faith to the j.a.panese, but no one told me that I had to stop them from looking at the church."

Seizaemon looked bewildered. Surprised at how stubbornly defiant Pet.i.tjean was, It left, evidently uncertain how to handle this situation. But the following day, he and some of his subordinates set up headquarters at a Buddhist temple close to the church. From there they sent lookouts every half hour to monitor any contact between the spectators and Pet.i.tjean.

"Padre, you must be careful," the young man he had met the previous day sneaked into the church, avoiding the eyes of the officers, and whispered to him. "They suspect that something is going on. Some of the officers have removed their swords so they can blend in with the other spectators, and they're keeping a close eye on us."

Pet.i.tjean nodded. He, too, had noticed this.

"When we see you from a distance, Padre, we'll put our left hands like this on our hearts. That'll mean it's someone from Nakano Village."

Somebody coughed from the shadow of the doorway. It was a signal that an officer was approaching.

"I want to talk with you somewhere. Let me know where we can meet," Pet.i.tjean hurriedly called after the young man who was hurrying out.