Kiku's Prayer Part 29

When It emerged from the toilet, dragging the hems of his formal skirt behind him, Kiku was holding out a basin for him to wash his hands. He gaped at her with dissolute, drooping eyes and whispered, "Hey, how about it? Why don't you come to bed with me? Then I'll see what I can do for your fellow in Tsuwano."

Kiku turned bright red and scowled reflexively at him.

"That angry face of yours makes you look even more beautiful. You're a fine girl, now aren't you?" With a chuckle he returned to the room.

For a time, the rage lingered in her breast. This was the first time the innocent young woman had ever been insulted in such vulgar terms.

"Silly child, to get upset over something so trivial," the madam smilingly took her to task. "We don't have any harlots here, but we're a house where gentlemen come to amuse themselves with geiko. You've got to learn to laugh off a few harmless jokes." She then instructed Kiku to take more sake bottles upstairs.

When the inebriated It saw Kiku, he called to her as though he had forgotten that Hond and Oy were in the room. "Com'ere! Over here! Whyn't you pour me a drink?"

"Here, I'll pour for you," Oy responded in place of Kiku. "Please tell this girl whether her friend is doing all right in Tsuwano."

"Her friend? Wha's 'is name?"

"Seikichi," Kiku answered, her knees tightly pressed together as though in self-defense.

"Seikichi. Hmmm, seems like there was a fellow with that name. Yeah. I remember now. One of the pushy b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. I imagine right about now he's prob'ly ready to give in 'cause of the cold."

"Is it that cold a place?" Oy asked.

"It's a little village surrounded by the San'in Mountains, so it's a lot colder than you can imagine here in Nagasaki. In the morning there's icicles hanging from every roof. At night the snow freezes over, and it's hard to even walk. The ones who cave in get fed all the rice they want, and they give 'em bedding. But the stubborn b.a.s.t.a.r.ds like this girl's friend get nothing but a little straw rug. They don't feed 'em more than two cups of rice a day."

"Two cups of rice? That's horrible!" Oy cried instinctively. "That's the same as letting them starve to death."

"Can't be helped," Hond, who had remained silent until now, interjected. "Those who don't follow orders from their leaders must be sternly punished. The ban on Christianity is one of the core policies of the new government."

Oy easily acquiesced to words spoken by the man she loved. On the one hand, she felt sorry for the Urakami Kiris.h.i.+tans, but on the other, she felt there were no alternatives, since they had gone against the will of the government. Feeling thus conflicted, she said nothing.

Suddenly Kiku leaped up and stumbled from the room.

Outside the room, she leaned against the wall of the staircase and wept aloud.

Two cups of rice a day. Seikichi has nothing to sleep on, so he has to wrap himself in a thin little rug. And in such bitter cold ...

But there was nothing she could do to help him. She had no money to travel to Tsuwano. She had no way to help him.

Before long It had fallen asleep, snoring vulgarly.

"Bring something to cover him. Can't let him catch a cold," Hond said to Oy, smiling sardonically as he looked into the face of this man, drooling into the unkempt whiskers that had sprouted around his mouth. "No matter how you look at him, he's a pathetic soul."

"Why pathetic?"

"He's good-natured enough. But it's because of his good nature that he'll never amount to anything his whole life."

Sitting with his arms folded while Oy ma.s.saged his shoulders, Hond pondered the difference between himself and Seizaemon.

Hond had been born into an underprivileged, low-ranking samurai family, so the points of departure for him and It were essentially the same. They had previously worked together at the Nagasaki magistrate's office. But Hond was the type who looked to the future, and while he was a.s.siduously studying foreign languages, It remained oblivious to the s.h.i.+fts and flows in the times and carried on, being far too much devoted to his official duties. Those differences had now created a wide gap between the two of them.

"About the Urakami Kiris.h.i.+tans. A short time ago, there was a heated debate in Tokyo, at a place called Takanawa, between several foreign envoys on one side and Chancellor Sanj3 and Minister of the Right Iwakura representing j.a.pan. I acted as interpreter," he added with some self-importance.

Hond remembered that day clearly. The British envoy, Parkes; the French amba.s.sador, Outrey; the American charge d'affaires, DeLong; and the Dutch envoy, Von Brandt, complained vehemently to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the wholesale banishment of the Urakami Christians. The gist of the protest from these foreign legacies was "If foreigners hear that these people have been punished because of their religious faith, it could damage the friends.h.i.+p that has been fostered between us," and "If you don't modify your handling of this situation, your country will be despised by the entire world."

In the meeting room at Takanawa where Hond partic.i.p.ated as interpreter alongside Prince Iwakura, Prince Sanj, Councillor Soejima, and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sawa, Hond was able to renew an old acquaintance with Dr. Siebold, who was also present as interpreter for the opposing side.

Hond's precise manner of translating on that occasion enabled him to make a favorable impression not only on the j.a.panese representatives but also on the foreign delegation. Perhaps for that reason, two or three days later Hond was singled out for commendation by Chief Councillor of State Iwakura.

"Even Siebold applauded your linguistic abilities," Prince Iwakura said as he handed Hond a gla.s.s of imported wine. "In the near future-that is to say, probably in another two or three years-would you be interested in going to America?"

"To ... America?"

"Yes. Our country signed a pact with America in the 1850s, but resentment over its terms is tremendous. We are planning to travel to America to sound them out on possible revisions. I'm considering taking you along as interpreter."

Shuntar's face flushed as he bowed his head. The joy of that moment still cascaded through his heart.

But right now, here before his eyes It Seizaemon was fast asleep, drooling. Framed in scruffy whiskers, his face, exhausted and muddied from his visits to Tsuwano ...

1. Although the j.a.panese began using the Western calendar during the Meiji period, the Asian lunar calendar remained in common use until after World War II.

2. It has long been the custom in j.a.pan to eat nanakusa kayu, a rice porridge with seven herbs intermixed, on the seventh day of the first month of the year in the belief that it will help digestion and protect from illness throughout the coming year.

3. Sanj Sanetomi (18371891) also served the Meiji government as Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal and briefly in 1889 as interim prime minister.

THE VALLEY OF PAIN.

SEVERAL BOYS HAD finished their midwinter training exercises at the Tsuwano clan school and were walking home, the bags that held their fencing sticks propped on their shoulders, their breath white in the frigid air, and frost crystals crunching under their feet. The clan school was named the Yrkan and had been built by the earlier rulers of the domain, who placed a high premium on education.

One of the boys whispered furtively to a cla.s.smate, a short fellow they called "Rin-saa," as though he were pa.s.sing along some great secret, "Say, Rin-saa, did you hear? The Kiris.h.i.+tans at the Krinji were thrown in the frozen lake."

Rin-saa looked up in surprise and said, "In the lake?"

"That's right. That's what happens to people who don't do what they're told."

The Kiris.h.i.+tans were confined at the Krinji Temple on the outskirts of town. Even young children in this tiny village of Tsuwano knew about them. The children sensed something frightening about this situation, but at the same time they were in their own way curious and interested in it.

When Rin-saa got home, he set down his fencing stick and told his mother what he had just heard.

"You children don't need to know anything about this," his mother chided him, her brows knit.

But they tell us at school that people who don't know the right path should be taught it with kindness and reason, so why would they be so cruel as to throw them into a frozen lake? With glum eyes, he pondered this to himself.

The young man's real name was Mori Rintar, who later became known as Mori gai. In his biography of the literary giant, Yamasaki Kuninori demonstrates persuasively that the brutal treatment of the Kiris.h.i.+tans at the Krinji, which gai knew about while he attended the Yrkan School, left traumatic wounds in the writer's heart.

After eight men at the Krinji apostatized when they could no longer bear the hunger and cold, the authorities inflicted even more ruthless punishments on the twenty who still stood firm.

First, those who had renounced their faith were moved to a nunnery known as the Hs.h.i.+n-an. They were taken to a stream in front of the Hachiman Shrine and there subjected to a ritual purification to memorialize the vow they had made to abandon their Kiris.h.i.+tan beliefs. Afterward, they were given warm clothing and warm food, and every day they received an allowance of seventy-one mon,1 were allowed to move about outside the nunnery, and were granted the opportunity to do piecework.

In contrast, the twenty men who refused to apostatize had their allotment of food reduced even further. Occasionally they were called out three at a time and taken to observe the traitors at the Hs.h.i.+n-an savoring copious amounts of food and living in comfortable rooms.

The apostates naturally averted their eyes when their former brethren were herded in to see how they were living. They were ashamed of their own weakness. Somewhere in their hearts they despised those who resolutely maintained their convictions. They could not have coped with their own emotions had they not scorned those who were strong.

The apostates tried to sway those who were brought to observe them: "Even if you try to stand up to them, what's the point of wasting away and dying here? Jezusu and Santa Maria aren't coming to help you. Don't you think it's better to pretend to apostatize and go on living so we can go back to Urakami? You've been duped by Sen'emon and Kanzabur."

Those who had apostatized singled out Sen'emon and Kanzabur from among the stalwarts as the targets of their loathing, while the officers waited for them to begin squabbling among themselves....

Why do we have to endure all this suffering?

At times, when the captives would lie awake in the middle of the night, unable to sleep because of the severe cold, such questions would a.s.sail their minds. These questions were accompanied by terrifying doubts about the love of G.o.d and the validity of their faith. Doubts stabbed like a sharp knife at their chests, inflicting excruciating pain.

When these thoughts arose, their teeth began to chatter-and not merely because of the cold. It was also because of the dark, chilling feelings of loneliness that come when one's faith wavers.

"Lord Jezusu suffered even more than we are. Think of that and don't give up!" Sen'emon tried to encourage them all. But even his steadfast encouragement had no impact on their vacillating minds. Jesus's sufferings ended after a single day. But there was no way to tell when their own torment and hunger would cease....

Seikichi was among those struggling against uncertainty. In his darker moments he would recall happy scenes from the past in an effort to dispel his feelings of loneliness: those mornings when he would stroll through the streets of Nagasaki, selling whatever might be in season. Seikichi was proud of the resonance in his vendor's call.

"Such a lovely voice!" He was often complimented by the women who stood outside their doors waiting for him. Among those women ... yes, Kiku was one of them.

I wonder what that plucky girl is up to right now. Was she still working at the padres' house in ura? Or had she ended up working somewhere else?

But the details of Kiku's face and figure had grown hazy in his weary mind. He could not imagine that she was still in love with him. This emaciated, grimy body with hair and whiskers growing in wild disarray. In his condition he no longer had the leisure to even think about a woman.

"Come here!" One day, Seikichi was unexpectedly beckoned by an officer. It seemed strange that he would be summoned by himself, but he did as he was told.

"You're still so young. Don't you think it would be a waste for someone as young as you to spend your whole life here like these other men? If you'll just apostatize, I'll pretty much let you do what you please." The officer's face was perfectly serious. Even though they had pushed eight of the others to renounce their faith, they were losing patience with the ones who were still unshakable.

Seikichi did not respond. Even the words this officer spoke lacked a sense of reality for him, and he felt as though he were hearing them from the distance.

"I see. So you won't comply no matter what we do, eh?" The officer sounded resigned, but then he gave orders to several policemen, who forced Seikichi into a tiny box. It was a mere three feet in width and height, with thick planks of pine wood for walls. A single hole had been cut in the roof to pa.s.s items through. Seikichi was unable either to stand or to stretch out his legs.

"If you just say, 'I give it up,'" he heard the officer's voice through the hole in the roof, "I'll let you out of here. Give it some thought."

Inside the box, his sense of the pa.s.sage of time went amok. One second came to seem like an hour, and an hour felt longer than an entire day.

White, threadlike slivers of sunlight seeped between the cracks in the planks of wood that served as walls. They were his only connection with the outside world. Since he could neither lie down nor stand up, he had to remain in the same position all day long.

Before long his hips and back began to ache, and he could no longer contain the urge to urinate. A dull pain flared through his neck. He ma.s.saged his neck with his right hand and let the urine spray out. The warm liquid drenched his immobilized knees and legs.

The square door in the roof opened, and by turns two policemen poked their leering faces inside. Their names were Takahas.h.i.+ and Deguchi-and for the rest of his life Seikichi would remember those two names along with the pain he suffered in that three-foot box. Takahas.h.i.+ had a round face that made him look like a racc.o.o.n dog, while Deguchi resembled a fox or a badger.

"What do you think? Nice little house, isn't it?" The two took turns amusing themselves. "Have you taken a liking to it? If you've taken a fancy to it, you can stay there as long as you like. n.o.body will complain."

Along with their taunts, they pa.s.sed two tiny rice b.a.l.l.s and a single dried plum through the hole each day.

"Lord It will be coming back to Tsuwano soon. When he gets here, your little box won't be the worst of your problems."

Takahas.h.i.+ and Deguchi seemed to be cut from the same cloth as It Seizaemon, and they behaved like his underlings whenever he paid a visit from Nagasaki.

After suffering five days of torment in this narrow box, Seikichi, covered in excrement and barely half alive, was dragged out and returned to the cell with the others. Takahas.h.i.+ scrambled to cover his face with a cloth to keep him from dying of trauma when the light of the sun suddenly struck him. That is how wasted his body had become.

"Think maybe that had a little effect?" Deguchi said hatefully, his eyes beady like a badger's.

Sen'emon and the others cared for Seikichi throughout the night.

Because he was still young, Seikichi somehow recovered, but the next man crammed into the box, a man from Ieno named Wasabur, was older than Seikichi and had not been in good health for some time, so the men worried what the outcome might be.

"I'm not so sure Wasabur can survive in a place like that." Sen'emon and Kanzabur, having heard from Seikichi about the torment of the three-foot box, conferred with the other men about possible steps they might take to help Wasabur.

No one had any good ideas. They recognized that pleas to the officials or the guards would be of no avail.

"We can't die without making it back to Urakami." With closed eyes, Sen'emon mumbled as though to himself. In his heart he was praying fervently to be blessed with a stroke of inspiration. "We can't let Wasabur die."

He was not alone in his feeling. Wasabur was docile and self-effacing, and he was kind to everyone and loved by all.

"Is there any way we could slip out of here ... and sneak over to the box?"

No one had an answer. It didn't seem possible.

For the entire day, Sen'emon sat in a corner of the room hugging his knees and sunk in thought. Everyone knew what their leader was brooding over, so they left him alone and did not try to speak to him.

Near evening- Abruptly he spoke. "Kunitar! You had a copper coin, didn't you?"

"Yeah. Did you want me to give to a guard and ask him to help?"

"Naw," Sen'emon shook his head. "D'you think you could use the coin as a tool to make a knife?"

He explained himself. Back in Nakano, every now and then a farmer would dig up a knife-shaped rock in the fields. They a.s.sumed that people in former times had ground these rocks and used them as knives.

"So when we're taken out for questioning, I think we should be able to pick up a roof tile from the courtyard. We'll use the copper coin to grind it and make it into a knife. Once we have a knife, we can cut through these floorboards and dig a hole to the outside."

"That's too dangerous!" Several voices rose in opposition. If an officer or a guard were to discover what they were doing, they'd be in serious trouble. Their food rations would be cut back even further, and they might be subjected to severe torture. Several of the men were opposed to the plan.

"I don't suppose you have any other ideas, do you? Or are you saying you just want to leave Wasabur in that box to die?" Seikichi retorted, casting a sharp glance toward the cowards. "I know the pain of being in that box! We can't abandon Wasabur!"

Seikichi's entreaty led to the adoption of the hard-liner plan.

Taking care not to be seen by the officials and guards, the men swiped a roof tile and carved it into a stone knife. To drown out the noise of their efforts, several of the men, by design, sang in loud voices.

The knife was finished. Taking turns, they hacked away at the floorboards. That was the easy part. By the third day they had made a hole large enough to poke one finger through; then, squeezing one hand through the gap, they managed to pull up the floorboard and commenced to dig out the soil beneath the wall of their cell. Somehow or other they managed to create a tunnel to the outside.

"Sen'emon!" That night, each man contributed the meager allotment of rice he had received for that day to make two rice b.a.l.l.s, which they gave to Sen'emon. "Give this to Wasabur to eat."