Kiku's Prayer Part 35

"He's asking what your name is."

"Kiku."

The customer nodded casually, and again his brush scurried across the paper.

"He's asking how old you are, and he says you're charming."

The sounds of the Chinese quarter streamed through the open window. The ocean was visible beyond the quarter.

As the young man and the client exchanged words incomprehensible to Kiku, she stared out at the ocean and suddenly thought of Oy. What feelings did Oy experience as she looked out at the ocean alongside Yokohama?

As the saying goes, Oy was spending each day "enfolded in flowers of happiness."

Yokohama. Although it was a harbor town just like Nagasaki, it was more alive with energy. The masts of foreign s.h.i.+ps in the harbor lined up like trees in a grove, and while some cargo was unloaded, other cargo was loaded onto the s.h.i.+ps, and at the pier and elsewhere sailors and boatmen swaggered about. They were surrounded by row upon row of stalls set up by the j.a.panese to cater to the foreigners.

The sounds of active building construction echoed from many quarters. These were the sounds of sledgehammers knocking down old, dilapidated j.a.panese houses before erecting foreign-looking buildings in their place. Those sounds, so novel they seemed to waft the fragrance of new wood through the neighborhood, were an audible announcement that a new age was dawning.

The breeze blew invigoratingly through the second floor windows of the house on the bluff that Hond had rented for Oy. Pointing toward the s.h.i.+ps and the sea, Hond said cheerfully, "Look! From now on, our eyes have to be focused in that direction. By 'that direction,' I mean the wide ocean. America lies across that ocean. And there's England and France. I know you're a woman, but ... but it's exactly because you're a woman that it won't be enough for you in the future to just study sewing and housekeeping. I've heard that our leaders are considering sending several of the daughters of former daimyo to America to have them learn about their customs and manners and language."

"Sending young women to ... to America?" Oy's eyes opened wide in surprise. In Nagasaki where Oy was raised, it used to be that the only young women who went to foreign countries were those who were sold into prost.i.tution.

"That's right. It's so they can learn things over there and then teach them to the women of j.a.pan."

"And will these young ladies be traveling on the same s.h.i.+p as you?" Oy asked, feeling faintly apprehensive. Next year, Hond would be journeying to America with Prince Iwakura Tomomi. Oy was jealous that he would be making the long voyage in the company of young women.

"Well, I don't know," he simpered. "Does that bother you?"

"Yes. It didn't take you long to make moves on me," Oy chuckled, remembering those days.

"Don't you worry. We've pledged ourselves to each other as husband and wife. I have no women but you."

That seems almost too good to be true, Oy thought, but still it made her happy. Because Hond had such a large body and a childlike face, she had not imagined he would be so energetically amorous, but she was provided every night with evidence of how exceedingly lecherous he actually was.

"In the middle of the day ...?" When she tried to rebuff him as he suddenly plunged one chubby hand down the front of her kimono, he rejoined with a magisterial look on his face, "We're husband and wife, aren't we? I've got to stock up, after all. Once I go to America, we won't be able to do this for a year or more. So we've got to build up a surplus while we have the chance!"

As he fondled her nipple, Oy narrowed her eyes like a cat. She had already forgotten the jealousy she had felt only moments before. And most certainly there was not a single trace of a memory in her mind of that girl at the Yamazaki Teahouse in Nagasaki named Kiku. Oy was so intoxicated with her own joy....

1. The Gion Festival originally provided an opportunity to pray for protection from plagues, for tranquillity at home, and for peace in the nation. Night stalls selling a variety of wares were set up around the Yasaka Shrine, and on the fourteenth and fifteenth, the courtesans of Maruyama formed a procession to wors.h.i.+p there.

2. Popular legend had it that an individual who made a pilgrimage to the Kiyomizu Temple to wors.h.i.+p Kannon on this day would receive merits equivalent to 46,000 days of wors.h.i.+p.

3. This ritual is the Nagasaki version of the famous Obon celebrations held throughout j.a.pan in the summer. Interestingly, it was only one year after this story took place that the Meiji government banned the floating of these boats in Nagasaki Bay, citing some deaths among those who towed the boats through the water, as well as instances of the candles in the boats starting fires in s.h.i.+ps docked in the harbor.

4. In j.a.panese, Tjin-literally, a "person from Tang-dynasty China"-but the word came to have pejorative connotations.

OTOME Pa.s.s.

ANOTHER AUTUMN CAME to Tsuwano. The foliage atop Otome Pa.s.s,1 which rose to the rear of the temple compound, gradually changed colors, and from their cells the prisoners watched each day with anxious eyes as the autumn leaves eventually turned a deep amber.

The prisoners knew the bitterness of winters in Tsuwano to the very cores of their bones. The end of summer and the coming of autumn represented a palpable threat to them.

Some made preparations to stave off the cold of winter by taking the single sheets of paper they were given each day and pasting them together with rice grains to make something resembling paper garments. They thought that something of that nature might help ward off the cold just a bit.

Around the time the chill of late autumn started taking an increasingly greater toll on their bodies, the officers inflicted a particularly gruesome torture on one young man.

They selected a juvenile rather than one of the adults to torment in an attempt to strike fear into the hearts of the other prisoners, to weaken their resolve, and to push them to the point of apostasy.

The young man's name was Yjir. He was the younger brother of Kanzabur and Matsu, and at the time he was fifteen years old.

"You're being punished like this because your brother and sister are too pigheaded. So if you're going to hate anybody, hate your brother and sister." With that, the officer stripped Yjir naked, bound his hands behind his back, and sat him down on a bamboo-floored veranda. The prisoners knew that a person's legs and knees would begin to ache after sitting this way for a long time, and that the pain would grow progressively unbearable.

But the object of the officials in using this particular mode of torture was not merely to coerce the young man to abandon his faith, but also to force his parents to listen to his screams.

"Heat up the bathwater!" The officer intentionally chose Yjir's brother, Kanzabur, to stoke the fires under the bath that day. The opening where the fires were kindled was near the bamboo veranda, and from where Kanzabur crouched to perform his a.s.signment, the shouts of the officer and the wails of his younger brother were acutely audible.

"Are you hungry? Cold? Embarra.s.sed to be sitting there naked? But we're not finished yet! We've whipped up a real feast, and we want you to have your fill of it!"

At an order from the officer, Takahas.h.i.+ and Deguchi took turns beating the boy with whips.

"That's not real whipping! Don't hold back thinking he's a child! Put all your strength into it!!" The officer rebuked the two men for taking their victim's youthful age into consideration. Eventually a brutally aberrant light flashed in Takahas.h.i.+'s oval eyes and Deguchi's sunken eyes as they flailed Yjir with their whips.

With his hands bound behind him and his body lashed to a pillar, Yjir writhed and howled-"Ah! Ah! Ah!"-each time the whips gave a dull crack in the air and then smacked against his head or back or arms. Kanzabur heard each of his brother's shrieks as he heated up the bathwater. He gritted his teeth and shut his eyes tightly to bear up under the agony. Throughout all of this, in her cell where a stony silence prevailed, Yjir's sister Matsu, encircled by all the other women, buried her face in her hands and prayed earnestly for her brother.

"Still no effect?!"

The tips of the whips that Takahas.h.i.+ and Deguchi took turns swinging at Yjir tore into his nose and mouth. When his nose and mouth were completely swathed in blood, even the officer had to avert his eyes and exclaim, "That's enough!" He spoke to Yjir. "Yjir, you have until tomorrow to think this over carefully. If you haven't changed your mind tomorrow, you'll be in for worse than you got today."

That night, a stark-naked Yjir remained tied to the pillar and exposed to the frigid air of late autumn.

The next day, and the day after, and the day after that- Yjir remained, naked and bound, sprawled atop the bamboo veranda. His cries during the tortures each evening made it known that the young man's body was weakening with each pa.s.sing day owing to the bitter nights and the daily beatings. The screams he emitted as he was struck and kicked gradually grew fainter and fainter.

From time to time, however, the other prisoners would hear him let out a blood-curdling scream, a tear-choked wail that sounded like an infant being set to the torch. The officers had poured water on the boy and then beat him with whips.

Even after the tortures were finished for the day, an endless stream of low moans could be heard. A cold rain fell throughout the night, and the groaning never ceased amid the darkness and the freezing rain.

On the fourteenth day of torture- "Quick! Summon Lord Morioka!" The officers had panicked for some reason and rushed off to call an authority. Eventually the official appeared, and a discussion was held.

"Matsu!" Takahas.h.i.+ and Deguchi poked their heads into the women's cell. "Your brother's sick. Go move him." They scurried away.

Three or four women raced alongside Matsu to the courtyard. There they saw the pitiful sight of the boy, stretched out on the bamboo veranda like a grub worm.

His entire body had swollen up a sickly blue color, dark splotches of blood clung everywhere to him, and in some places they could see purple bruises where he had hemorrhaged. His face, too, was swollen, reducing his eyes to threadlike slits.

"Yjir!"

From the narrow eyes in the swollen face flowed a single thread of tears. Matsu and the other women wept aloud.

They helped Yjir to the women's cell, but Matsu had no medicines to treat him. All she could do was ma.s.sage his body and moisten his lips with water.

"Matsu ..." It was the middle of the night before he spoke, and in a faint voice he said, "I ... I didn't want to cry out when they beat me. But ... it hurt so much ... I couldn't ... I couldn't help shouting."

"It's all right. It's all right." Matsu wept as she ma.s.saged his body and repeatedly nodded her head. "I'm so proud of you. You put up with it so bravely."

"By the eighth day, I couldn't take it anymore. But ... but then I looked up at the roof across the way, and I saw a sparrow bringing food to her babies and putting it in their mouths. And then I thought of Santa Maria. I thought, someday Santa Maria will help me...."

Late that night, the young man's body began to convulse. Although men were prohibited from setting foot in the women's cell, they sent for Kanzabur, who came quietly through the darkness. Everyone was awake, praying for the young man.

"The children ..." Yjir whispered. "Don't let them make the children cry. They mustn't hurt the children.... I'll pray for all of you in Paraiso."

They mustn't make the children cry.... Those were the slaughtered Yjir's last words.

But the abuse of the children did not cease. The officers were convinced that they would be easily frightened by violence and would submit.

Twelve-year-old Suekichi. Suekichi was from Ieno, a child orphaned after both parents and his siblings died.

"Come with me!"

It's said that when Takahas.h.i.+ came for him and took Suekichi to the interrogation room, the boy kept glancing back over his shoulder, pleading with his eyes for help from the adults who were watching him.

"Suekichi! Pray to Santa Maria! Santa Maria will protect you!!" The women all cried in one voice to the child. He paused and nodded his head in agreement.

The three officers in the dim interrogation room were intentionally chewing on candy, putting on a deliberate show for the starving Suekichi.

"So you're Suekichi? This candy is delicious, it just melts in your mouth!"

One of the officers smiled fawningly and brought a piece of candy up to Suekichi's face. "You're a bright boy. Being that you're so bright, listen to me carefully. Some evil grownups have lied to you. Nothing good will come from believing in this Kiris.h.i.+tan nonsense. In fact, it'll end up leading you down the wrong path. The proper path ... it's to do your duty to your parents and be devoted to your country-the dual paths of loyalty and filiality. The Kiris.h.i.+tans are on the wrong path because they don't follow the rules of our country."

Suekichi stood stock still, his eyes glazed over.

"If you'd like some candy, you're welcome to it. Don't be afraid, go ahead and eat it."

Although Suekichi took the candy in his hand, he still looked dazed and made no move to put it in his mouth.

"Do you think it's poisoned?" the officer laughed.

But when Suekichi remained frozen in place and gave no response after continued urgings, the officers finally understood what was going through the child's mind. Suekichi was no different from the adult Kiris.h.i.+tans from Urakami.

"All right. Hold out your hands!"

When he thrust out both of the hands that were clutching the candy, one of the officers poured lamp oil over them.

"Do you understand that this is oil?" The officer thrust a rolled up piece of paper into the hibachi and then removed it. The smell of fire and a thread of white smoke rose from the paper, and a tiny flame flickered like the wings of a moth.

"If you don't give up this Kiris.h.i.+tan stuff, I'll set fire to your hands."

Even then, Suekichi stood unflinching with his arms outstretched, as though he had heard nothing.

The flames sputtered above his hands.

"Stop it!" Another officer shouted. Evidently it was too much for him to see a twelve-year-old's hands set on fire.

"Go back to your cell!"

Suekichi gave the officers a vacant look and left the room.

Late that autumn, It returned to Tsuwano after a long absence and gave the package that Kiku had wrapped in oil paper to Seikichi, but as before, he retained the three ryo for himself.

In addition to a letter, the parcel contained several items that Kiku had collected. Mochi, needles, thread, bleached cotton cloth, a salve for wounds, dried potatoes. Studying the items closely, one at a time, Seikichi had an aching desire to see Kiku.

Before he came to Tsuwano, and even after his arrival here, Seikichi had not developed a sharp mental image in his mind of how Kiku looked. In part it was because he didn't have the mental leisure to focus exclusively on Kiku, and in part it was because the ongoing days of starvation robbed him of the physical and mental energy to think about her. He was certain that she had long ago forgotten all about him, and that seemed only normal to him. He couldn't bring himself to believe that Kiku would continue to love a criminal who had been driven from Urakami and banished to a distant spot like Tsuwano.

But Kiku had not forgotten him. In fact, she had entrusted a touching letter and all these items to It to bring to him.

What she had to offer an Urakami Kiris.h.i.+tan who did not expect aid from any person was a love that transcended sectarian dogma. That realization prompted an earnest desire in Seikichi's heart: "To live ... to see her again."

"Lord It?" One day, he quietly asked It, who had looked into his room, "That woman ... is she really in Maruyama now?"

"She certainly is. Didn't you know that?"

"Maruyama is the red-light district. What could she be doing in ... in a red-light district?"

As a Kiris.h.i.+tan, he didn't want to consider the possibility that the woman who loved him worked in such an area. Surely she hadn't become a prost.i.tute who sells her body to men?

"You want to know what she's doing? She works as a maid at a place called the Yamazaki Teahouse."

Seikichi nodded at It's reply. He could accept the fact that she was a maid.

"Lord It, when ... when will you be going back to Nagasaki?"

"Before the New Year. I have no desire to spend the holidays up here in these mountains. I don't care what my duties are-if I can't at least spend New Year in Nagasaki, then it's not worth what they're paying me."

Then It realized what Seikichi was thinking and gave a thin smile. "Ah? So you want to ask me to deliver a message, eh? What did you want me to say? That when you return to Nagasaki you'll be able to marry her, so please be patient?"

Seikichi did not respond.

"It's not likely you'll be returning to Nagasaki, you know. Our orders from up top are that anyone who doesn't renounce their heretical beliefs will stay locked up in a Tsuwano cell until they die. If you want to see that woman again, the first thing you've got to do is dump this religion of yours."

".... That's not ... not what I want to say to her," Seikichi muttered, with his eyes fixed on the ground.