Silence (16 page)

From the boat the priest strained his eyes for any trace of a village or its harbor that might be Yokose-no-Ura, but sea and land alike were painted in the same thick black nor was any light to be seen. There was absolutely no trace of village or house. Yet the thought was constantly in his mind that somewhere here, as in Tomogi and Goto, there might still be Christians in hiding. If so, did they know that here in a little boat, crouching with fear and trembling like a wild dog, was a priest?

‘Where is Yokose-no-Ura?’, he asked one of the guards.

‘There’s nothing left of it,’ came the answer.

The village had been burnt to the ground; and its inhabitants had been completely dispersed. The sea and the land were silent as death; only the dull sound of the waves lapping against the boat broke the silence of the night. Why have you abandoned us so completely?, he prayed in a weak voice. Even the village was constructed for you; and have you abandoned it in its ashes? Even when the people are cast out of their homes have you not given them courage? Have you just remained silent like the darkness that surrounds me? Why? At least tell me why. We are not strong men like Job who was afflicted with leprosy as a trial. There is a limit to our endurance. Give us no more suffering.

So he prayed. But the sea remained cold, and the darkness maintained its stubborn silence. All that could be heard was the monotonous dull sound of the oars again and again.

Will I turn out a failure?, he asked himself. He felt that unless grace gave him courage and strength he could endure no more.

The sound of the oars ceased. One of the men faced the sea and yelled: ‘Is anyone there?’

The oars had stopped; but from somewhere beyond the sound of other oars could be heard.

‘It might be someone night-fishing. Leave him alone.’ This time it was the old man who spoke in a whisper, the one who had been silent until now.

The noise of the oars from beyond stopped, and a weak voice could be heard trying to answer. The priest had a feeling that he had heard this voice somewhere before, but he could not recall where.

Now it was morning. They had reached Omura. As the milky mist was gradually blown away by the wind, his tired eyes fell upon the white wall of a castle surrounded by a grove at the side of the bay. It was still in process of construction, and the scaffolding of logs was all around it. A flock of crows flew crossways over the grove. At the back of the castle was a cluster of houses of thatch and straw. This was his first view of a Japanese town. As the light grew brighter, he noticed for the first time that the three guards who had been his companions in the boat had great thick bludgeons at their feet. Probably they had received orders to throw him mercilessly into the sea should he show any signs of trying to escape.

At the wharf was a jostling crowd of spectators, headed by some samurai wearing great big swords by the sleeves of their garments. The samurai would yell at the spectators who would alternately stand up and sit down on the hill on the beach waiting patiently for the arrival of the boat. When the priest disembarked there was a great cry from amongst the people; and as he was escorted by the samurai through their midst, his eyes met those of a number of men and women staring at him with looks of pain and anguish. He was silent; they too were silent. But as he passed in front of them he raised his hand and lightly gave them a blessing. Immediately, alarm and consternation showed itself on their faces and they lowered their eyes. Some even turned away their faces. If things were normal, he should have been able to place the bread of the body of Christ in those mouths now tightly shut. But here he had neither chalice nor wine nor altar with which to celebrate Mass.

When he was set up on the bare-backed horse with his wrists tightly bound a howl of derision arose from the crowd. Although Omura was dignified with the name of town, with its thatch-roofed houses it looked little different from the villages he had seen until now. The bare-footed women with flowing hair and skirts stood arranging shells and firewood and vegetables on the road. From amongst the people on the road strolling minstrels in
bakama,
and black-clothed bonzes would look up at him and laugh scornfully. Sometimes stones from the hands of children skimmed past his face as he was led along the long and narrow road. If Valignano was right, this Omura was the district upon which the missionaries had expended their greatest effort. It had had many churches and a seminary; the peasants and even the samurai ‘listened to our talks with great enthusiasm’—as Frois had put it in one of his letters. Even the feudal lords had become ardent Christians and he had heard that they were practically converted in a body. But now, when the children threw stones and the bonzes shouting in derision covered him with ugly spittle, there was no samurai amongst the officials who made any attempt to check them.

The road skirted the sea and then headed straight for Nagasaki. When they passed a village called Suzuda, he noticed a farmhouse filled with flowers the names of which he did not know. The samurai at one time stopped their horses and ordered one of the men to bring some water which they then offered to the priest. But it simply dribbled down from his mouth on to his hollow chest.

‘Look! Isn’t he big?’ The women, pulling their children by the sleeves, pointed at him with derision.

When the sluggish procession got under way again, he looked back. The sad thought occurred to him that he might never again see blooming white flowers like those he had just looked at. As they rode along, the samurai would pull off their plumed hats and wipe the sweat from their brows; then fixing their hair they would sit up astride their horses.

Now the road became white and winding and the priest noticed the figure of a man like a beggar leaning on his staff and following after them. It was Kichijirō. Just as he had stood on the shore open-mouthed watching the boat move away, so now with kimono thrown open he slouched along. Seeing that the priest had noticed him, he got all excited and tried to hide in the shelter of a tree. The priest was perplexed. Why did this fellow who betrayed him come following after him in this way? And now it occurred to him that the man who had been in the other ship that morning might have been Kichijirō.

Jostled up and down upon the horse, his sunken eyes sometimes fell vaguely upon the sea. Today it was shimmering black and threatening.

After they got away from Suzuda, the number of people on the roads began slowly to increase. Merchants leading cattle that had burdens on their backs; travellers with big, umbrella-like straw hats and wearing straw coats. When these saw the procession they would stand by the roadside gaping in astonishment at the strange thing they had run into. Sometimes farmers would throw away their hoe and come running to stare at the funny sight. Previously the priest had always been keenly interested in the Japanese—in their appearance, in their clothing and so on; but now he could arouse no interest within himself, such was his utter exhaustion. He simply closed his eyes and thought of the Stations of the Cross, one by one, now being prayed at some monastery; and he kept moving his dry tongue as he tried to mutter the words of the prayers. This was a prayer well known to all seminarians and Christians, a meditation calling to mind the details of the Passion of Christ. When this man had gone out through the gate of the Temple up the sloping path to Golgotha bearing his cross, struggling for every step and reeling as he walked, the swelling mob, all agog with curiosity, had followed after him. ‘Women of Jerusalem, weep not for me but for yourselves and for your children. For the day will come.
 
…
’ These words came up in his mind. Many centuries ago, that man tasted with his dried and swollen tongue all the suffering that I now endure, he reflected. And this sense of suffering shared softly eased his mind and heart more than the sweetest water.

‘Pange lingua.
 
…
’ He felt the tears streaming down his cheeks. ‘Bella premunt hostilia, da robur fer auxilium.’ No matter what happens never will I apostatize, he said to himself.

In the afternoon they reached a town called Isahaya. Here stood a mansion surrounded by a moat and an earthen wall, while clustered around it were houses of straw and thatch. When they came in front of one of the houses, some men wearing swords bowed respectfully to the procession of samurai and brought along two big dishes of rice. While the samurai ate, the priest was taken down from his horse for the first time and strapped to a tree like a dog. Nearby, beggars with tousled hair sat squatting and staring at him like beasts with glimmering eyes. He had no longer the energy to give them a smile. Someone put a few grains of rice in a broken dish in front of him. Casually he raised his eyes to the donor. It was Kichijirō.

There he was squatting now in the middle of the beggars. Sometimes he would turn his eyes as though he wanted to look at the priest, but when their eyes met he would turn his face away in haste. The priest looked at that face with serenity. When he had seen this fellow at the shore, he had been too tired even to hate him; but now he was simply incapable of showing any generosity. Seething with anger he reflected on the scene in the plain when the dried fish he had been forced to eat caused in his throat that terrible thirst. ‘Go, what thou dost do quickly.’ Even Christ had cast these words of anger at the Judas who betrayed him. For a long time the priest had thought that these words were a contradiction in the love of Christ; but now when he saw the trembling face of this fellow as he squatted on the ground, sometimes raising his eyes like a whipped dog, a black and cruel emotion rose from the very depths of his being. ‘Go,’ he whispered in his heart, ‘what thou dost do quickly.’

The samurai had finished eating their rice and were already astride their horses. The priest was put up on his; and the procession began its slow march again. The bonzes raised their voices in derision; the children threw stones. The men with their beasts of burden and the travellers in their Japanese clothes looked up at the samurai and stared at the priest. All was just the same as before. He looked back—and there he was, Kichijirō, separated somewhat from the others, leaning on his staff and following after. What thou dost do quickly, muttered the priest in his heart. What thou dost do quickly.

Chapter 6

T
HE
sky grew dark; clouds moved slowly over the mountain tops and down over the fields. This was the open plain of Chizukano. Here and there clusters of shrubs seemed to be crawling over the earth; but everywhere else only the black-brown ground stretched out endlessly. The samurai were engaged in earnest discussion; and when they had finished they gave the order for the priest to be taken down from his horse. The long period of sitting on horseback with hands tightly bound had taken its toll; and when he stood up on the ground, a searing pain shot through his thighs. So he crouched down to the ground.

One of the samurai was smoking tobacco with a long pipe. This was the first time since coming to Japan that the priest had seen tobacco. The samurai took two or three pulls, belched out the smoke and then passed on the pipe to his companion. Meanwhile the officials looked on enviously.

For a long time, now standing, now sitting on a rock, they all stood looking toward the south. Some of them relieved themselves in the shadow of the rock. The northern sky was still clear in spots, but toward the south heavy, evening clouds were already gathering. Sometimes the priest would look back over the road along which they had come, but there was no sign of Kichijirō—he must have been delayed on the way. Probably he had got tired of crawling after them and had dropped away.

‘They’re here! They’re here!’ yelled the guards, pointing toward the south; and from that direction there slowly approached a band of samurai and their attendants, similar to the ones here waiting.

Immediately the samurai with the pipe jumped astride his horse and galloped with all speed toward the oncoming crowd. Still on horseback he greeted the newcomers with a bow which was solemnly answered. Now the priest knew that he was going to be handed over to a new escort.

When the exchange of greetings had come to an end and the band that had escorted him from Omura turned their horses and vanished off along the road to the north where the sun’s rays still fell gently, the priest was surrounded by the group that had come for him from Nagasaki. Once again he was put up on the barebacked horse.

The prison was on the slope of a hill, surrounded by trees. Only just built, it looked like a kind of storehouse; inside, it was slightly raised from the ground. Light entered through a little barred window and a small grating, fixed with a sliding wooden door through which a plate could barely be passed. Here food was pushed in to him once each day. After arriving, he had been brought out twice for investigation, and this gave him a chance to see what the place looked like outside—a bamboo fence faced threateningly inwards, while further outside were the thatch-roofed houses in which dwelt the guards.

When he was thrown in here there were no other prisoners except himself. All day long he sat silently and pensively in the darkness listening to the voices of the guards; it was not unlike his previous stay in that hut on the island. Sometimes the guards would talk to him, anxious as they were to while away the time; and so he learnt that he was just outside Nagasaki, but he could not find out what his position was in relation to the center of the city. Only during the day he could hear far in the distance the loud cries of working men, the sound of trees being hewn down, of nails being driven in; and this made him guess that this region was being newly developed. When night fell, he could hear the song of the turtle-dove amidst the trees.

In spite of everything his prison life was filled with a strange tranquillity and peace. The tension and anguish of those days of wandering through the mountains now seemed like a dream from a past life. He could not guess what the next day might bring, but he felt almost no fear. He got some strong Japanese paper and string from the guards, and with this he made a rosary with which almost all day long he prayed, biting at the sacred words. At night as he lay in bed with his eyes closed listening to the song of the turtle-dove in the trees, behind his closed eyelids he would pass through every scene in the life of Christ. From childhood the face of Christ had been for him the fulfillment of his every dream and ideal. The face of Christ as he preached to the crowd the Sermon on the Mount. The face of Christ as he passed over the Lake of Galilee at dusk. Even in its moments of terrible torture this face had never lost its beauty. Those soft, clear eyes which pierced to the very core of a man’s being were now fixed upon him. The face that could do no wrong, utter no word of insult. When the vision of this face came before him, fear and trembling seemed to vanish like the tiny ripples that are quietly sucked up by the sand of the sea-shore.