Silence (23 page)

‘Cruel!’ said Rodrigues.

‘What is cruel?

‘Cruel! Worse than any torture! I can’t think of anything more dastardly.’

Suddenly, as Ferreira tried to turn his face away, the priest saw a white tear glistening in his eye. The black Japanese kimono! The chestnut hair bound back in Japanese style! The name: Sawano Chuan! And yet this man is still alive! Lord, you are still silent. You still maintain your deep silence in a life like this!

‘Sawano Chuan, we did not bring this father here today just for a lengthy discussion.’ It was the interpreter who now spoke and, turning toward the old bonze who, like a stone Buddha, was squatting on the floor bright with the rays of the western sun, ‘Come!’ he said. ‘The bonze is busy too. Get your work done quickly.’

Now Ferreira seemed to lose his former fighting spirit. On his eyelash the white tear still glistened, but the priest felt that the man’s stature had suddenly shrunk so that he looked quite small.

‘I’ve been told to get you to apostatize,’ said Ferreira in a tired voice. ‘Look at this!’ And he pointed quietly to behind his ear where there was a scar. It was a brown scar like that left after a burn.

‘It’s called the pit. You’ve probably heard about it. They bind you in such a way that you can move neither hands nor feet; and then they hang you upside down in a pit.’

The interpreter extended both hands in a gesture of dread, as though he himself shuddered at the very thought of it. He said: ‘These little openings are made behind the ears so that you won’t die immediately. The blood trickles out drop by drop. It’s a torture invented by the Magistrate Inoue.’

Before the priest’s mind there floated the picture of Inoue: the big ears, the rich complexion, the fleshy face. There before him was that face as it had appeared when Inoue slowly played with the bowl, turning it in his hands while sipping the hot water. This was the face upon which had played the smile of assent when the priest argued in his own defence. When yet another man was being tortured, it was said that Herod had sat down to dine at a table decorated with flowers.

‘Think it over,’ went on the interpreter. ‘You’re the only Christian priest left in this country. Now you’re captured and there’s no one left to teach the peasants and spread your doctrine. Aren’t you useless? But now the interpreter’s eyes narrowed and his voice quite suddenly assumed a kind and gentle tone: ‘You heard what Chuan said. He’s translating books of astronomy and medicine; he’s helping the sick; he’s working for other people. Think of this too: as the old bonze keeps reminding Chuan, the path of mercy means simply that you abandon self. Nobody should worry about getting others into his religious sect. To help others is the way of the Buddha and the teaching of Christianity—in this point the two religions are the same. What matters is whether or not you walk the path of truth. Sawano is writing this in his
Gengiroku.’

When he had finished speaking, the interpreter looked toward Ferreira for support.

The full light of the evening sun flowed down upon the thin back of the aging Ferreira clad in Japanese-garments. Staring at that thin back, the priest sought in vain for the Ferreira who had won his respect at the seminary in Lisbon long ago. Yet now, strange to say, no sentiments of contempt filled his mind. He simply felt his breast swell with the pity one feels for a living being that has lost its life and its spirit.

‘For twenty years .. Lowering his eyes Ferreira whispered weakly. ‘For twenty years I have labored in this country. I know it better than you.’

‘During those twenty years as Superior you did marvellous work,’ said the priest, raising his voice in an attempt to encourage the other. ‘I read with great respect the letters you sent to the headquarters of the Society.’

‘Well, before your eyes stands the figure of an old missionary defeated by missionary work.’

‘No one can be defeated by missionary work. When you and I are dead yet another missionary will board a junk at Macao and secretly come ashore somewhere in this country.’

‘He will certainly be captured.’ This time it was the interpreter who quickly interrupted. ‘And whenever one is captured it is Japanese blood that will flow. How many times have I told you that it is the Japanese who have to die for your selfish dream. It is time to leave us in peace.’

‘For twenty years I labored in the mission.’ With emotionless voice Ferreira repeated the same words. ‘The one thing I know is that our religion does not take root in this country.’

‘It is not that it does not take root,’ cried Rodrigues in a loud voice, shaking his head. ‘It’s that the roots are torn up.’

At the loud cry of the priest, Ferreira did not so much as raise his head. Eyes lowered he answered like a puppet without emotion: ‘This country is a swamp. In time you will come to see that for yourself. This country is a more terrible swamp than you can imagine. Whenever you plant a sapling in this swamp the roots begin to rot; the leaves grow yellow and wither. And we have planted the sapling of Christianity in this swamp.’

‘There was a time when the sapling grew and sent forth leaves.’

‘When?’ For the first time Ferreira gazed directly at the priest, while around the sunken cheeks played the faint smile of one who pities a youngster with no knowledge of the world.

‘When you first came to this country churches were built everywhere, faith was fragrant like the fresh flowers of the morning, and many Japanese vied with one another to receive baptism like the Jews who gathered at the Jordan.’

‘And supposing the God whom those Japanese believed in was not the God of Christian teaching
 
…
’ Ferreira murmured these words slowly, the smile of pity still lingering on his lips.

Feeling an incomprehensible anger rising up from the depth of his heart, the priest unconsciously clenched his fists. ‘Be reasonable,’ he told himself desperately. ‘Don’t be deceived by this sophistry. The defeated man uses any self-deception whatsoever to defend himself.’

‘You are denying the undeniable,’ he said aloud.

‘Not at all. What the Japanese of that time believed in was not our God. It was their own gods. For a long time we failed to realize this and firmly believed that they had become Christians.’ Ferreira sat down on the floor with a gesture of tiredness. The bottom of his kimono fell open exposing dirty bare legs, thin like poles. ‘I am saying this neither to defend myself nor to convince you. I suppose that no one will believe what I am saying. Not only you but the missionaries in Goa and Macao and all the European priests will refuse to believe me. And yet, after twenty years of labor here I knew the Japanese. I saw that little by little, almost imperceptibly, the roots of the sapling we had planted decayed.’

‘Saint Francis Xavier
 
…
’ Rodrigues, unable to contain himself any longer, interrupted the other with a gesture. ‘Saint Francis Xavier, when he was in Japan, did not have that idea.’

‘Even that saint,’ Ferreira nodded, ‘failed to notice this. But his very word “Deus” the Japanese freely changed into “Dainichi” (The Great Sun). To the Japanese who adored the sun the pronunciation of “Deus” and “Dainichi” was almost the same. Have you not read the letter in which Xavier speaks of that mistake?’

‘If Xavier had had a good interpreter such a strange and trifling error would never have arisen.’

‘By no means. You don’t understand what I’m saying.’ For the first time nervous irritation appeared around his temples as Ferreira answered. ‘You understand nothing. And the crowd that comes for sight-seeing to this country from the monasteries of Goa and Macao calling themselves apostles—they understand nothing either. From the beginning those same Japanese who confused “Deus” and “Dainichi” twisted and changed our God and began to create something different. Even when the confusion of vocabulary disappeared the twisting and changing secretly continued. Even in the glorious missionary period you mentioned the Japanese did not believe in the Christian God but in their own distortion.’

‘They twisted and changed our God and made something different!’ The priest slowly bit the words with his teeth, isn’t even that our Deus?’

‘No! In the minds of the Japanese the Christian God was completely changed.’

‘What are you saying?’ At the priest’s loud cry the chicken that had been quietly nibbling food on the bare floor fluttered off into a corner.

‘What I say is simple. You and those like you are only looking at the externals of missionary work. You’re not considering the kernel. It is true, as you say, that in my twenty years of labor in Kyoto, in Kyushu, in Chugoku, in Sendai and the rest churches were built; in Arima and Azuchi seminaries were established; and the Japanese vied with one another to become Christians. You have just said that there were 200,000 Christians, but even that figure is conservative. There was a time when we had 400,000.’

‘That is something to be proud of.’

‘Proud? Yes, if the Japanese had come to believe in the God we taught. But in the churches we built throughout this country the Japanese were not praying to the Christian God. They twisted God to their own way of thinking in a way we can never imagine. If you call that God
 
…
’ Ferreira lowered his eyes and moved his lips as though something had occurred to him. ‘No. That is not God. It is like a butterfly caught in a spider’s web. At first it is certainly a butterfly, but the next day only the externals, the wings and the trunk, are those of a butterfly; it has lost its true reality and has become a skeleton. In Japan our God is just like that butterfly caught in the spider’s web: only the exterior form of God remains, but it has already become a skeleton.’

‘Nothing of the sort! I don’t want to listen to your nonsensical talk. I have not been in Japan as long as you, but with these very eyes I have seen the martyrs.’ The priest covered his face with his hands and his voice penetrated through his fingers. ‘With my own eyes. I have seen them die, burning with faith.’ The memory of the rain-drenched sea with the two black stakes floating on its surface arose painfully before his mind’s eye. Nor could he forget the one-eyed man killed in plain daylight; while indelibly imprinted on his mind was the picture of the woman who had given him a cucumber: she had been trussed into a basket and drowned in the sea. If these people had not died for their faith what a blasphemy to man! Ferreira is lying.

‘They did not believe in the Christian God.’ Ferreira spoke clearly and with self-confidence, deliberately emphasizing every word. ‘The Japanese till this day have never had the concept of God; and they never will.’

These words descended on the priest’s heart like the weight of a huge, immovable rock and with something of that power that had been there when as a child he first heard about the existence of God.

‘The Japanese are not able to think of God completely divorced from man; the Japanese cannot think of an existence that transcends the human.’

‘Christianity and the Church are truths that transcend all countries and territories. If not, what meaning is there in our missionary work?’

‘The Japanese imagine a beautiful, exalted man—and this they call God. They call by the name of God something which has the same kind of existence as man. But that is not the Church’s God.’

‘Is that the only thing you have learnt from your twenty years in this country?’

‘Only that.’ Ferreira nodded in a lonely way. ‘And so the mission lost its meaning for me. The sapling I brought quickly decayed to its roots in this swamp. For a long time I neither knew nor noticed this.’

At the last words of Ferreira the priest was overcome with an uncontrollable sense of bitter resignation. The evening light began to lose its power; the shadows little by little stole over the floor. Far in the distance the priest could hear the monotonous sound of the wooden drum and the voice of the bonzes chanting the sad sutras. ‘You,’ the priest whispered facing Ferreira, ‘you are not the Ferreira I knew.’

‘True. I am not Ferreira. I am a man who has received from the magistrate the name of Sawano Chuan,’ answered Ferreira lowering his eyes. ‘And not only the name. I have received the wife and children of the executed man.’

It is the hour of the boar. Once again in the palanquin, escorted by officials and guards, he is on the road. It is now dead of night; no need to worry about casual passers-by peering into the palanquin. The officials had given the priest permission to raise the blind. If he wanted he could have escaped, but he no longer felt like doing so. The road was terribly narrow and twisted; and though the guards told him that they were already within the town, there were still clusters of farmhouses that looked like huts; but when they passed beyond them they found here and there the long fences of temples and groves of trees: Nagasaki had not yet taken on the shape of a city. The moon rose up beyond the dark trees and together with the palanquin seemed to move ever toward the west.

‘You feel better now?’ The official who rode along beside him spoke kindly.

Arriving at the prison the priest uttered a word of gratitude to the guards and the officials, and then went inside. He heard the dull sound of the bolt being shot. It had been a long time since he had been here, and now at last he was back. It seemed such an age since he had heard the intermittent singing of the turtle-dove in the grove. In comparison with his ten days in prison this one day had been long and painful.

That he had at last met Ferreira was scarcely a reason for surprise. And the changed features and manner of the old man—now he came to think of it, this was something he had expected since coming to this country. The emaciated figure of Ferreira as he came tottering along that corridor from afar was not so terrifying. Now it did not matter. It did not matter. But to what extent was all he had said true?

The priest sat staring at the blank wall while the rays of the moon pierced through the bars bathing his back with light. Hadn’t Ferreira talked in this way just to defend his own wrong and weakness? Yes, that was it. Of course it was so. One part of him kept insisting on this; but then quite suddenly a gust of fear would seize him and he would wonder if what Ferreira said were not perhaps true. Ferreira had said that this Japan was a bottomless swamp. The sapling decayed at its roots and withered. Christianity was like this sapling: quite unperceived it had withered and died.