Silence (15 page)

The fellow kept pouring out his answers as though he had learnt them all by rote. Undoubtedly he had examined many missionaries in the past and had kept reflecting on the best way of beating them down. Obviously he had ended up by using big words that he himself did not understand.

‘But you hold that everything exists naturally, that the world has neither beginning nor end,’ said the priest, seizing on the other’s weak point and taking the offensive.

‘Yes, that is our position.’

‘But an object without life must either be moved from outside by something else, or from within. How were the buddhas born? Moreover, I understand that these buddhas have merciful hearts—but antecedent to all this, how was the world made? Our Deus is the source of his own existence; he created man; he gave existence to all things.’

‘Then the Christian God created evil men. Is that what you are saying? Is evil also the work of your Deus?’ The interpreter laughed softly as he spoke, enjoying his victory.

‘No, no,’ cried the priest shaking his head. ‘God created everything for good. And for this good he bestowed on man the power of thought; but we men sometimes use this power of discrimination in the wrong way. This is evil.’

The interpreter clicked his tongue in contempt. But the priest had scarcely expected him to be convinced by his explanation. This kind of dialogue soon ceased to be dialogue, becoming a play of words in which one tried vigorously to down one’s opponent.

‘Stop this sophistry,’ shouted the interpreter. ‘You may satisfy peasants with their wives and children in this way; but you can’t beguile me. But now let me put you one more question. If it is true that God is really loving and merciful, how do you explain the fact that he gives so many trials and sufferings of all kinds to man on his way to Heaven?’

‘Sufferings of every kind? I think you are missing the point. If only man faithfully observes the commandments of our Deus he should be able to live in peace. If we have the desire to eat something, we can satisfy it. God does not order us to die of hunger. All we are asked to do is to honor God our Creator, and that is enough. Or again, when we cannot cast away the desires of the flesh, God does not order us to avoid all contact with women; rather does he tell us to have one wife and do his divine will.’

As he finished speaking, he felt that his answer had been well framed. In the darkness of the hut he could clearly feel that the interpreter was lost for words and reduced to silence.

‘Enough! We can’t go on for ever with this useless banter,’ said the other angrily, now passing into Japanese. ‘I didn’t come here for this nonsense.’

Far in the distance a cock was crowing. From the slightly open door a single ray of light penetrated the darkness of the room, and in it a myriad of dust particles were dancing. The priest looked at them intently.

The interpreter breathed a deep sigh. ‘If you don’t apostatize,’ he said, ‘the peasants will be suspended in the pit.’

The priest could not quite understand the meaning of what he was saying.

‘Yes, five peasants will be suspended upside down in the pit for several days.’

‘Suspended in the pit?’

‘Yes, father, unless you apostatize.’

The priest was silent. Were these words serious? or were they a threat? He peered into the darkness, his eyes gleaming.

‘Father, have you ever heard of Inoue? He’s the magistrate. Sometime you will meet him face to face for investigation.’

‘I-NO-U-E’—only with these syllables did the interpreter’s Portuguese seem to come to life. They hit into the priest’s ears and his whole body instantly shook and trembled.

‘The fathers who apostatized after Inoue’s cross-examination are: Fathers Porro, Pedro, Cassola and Father Ferreira.’

‘Father Ferreira?’

‘Yes, do you know him?’

‘No, I don’t know him,’ cried the priest excitedly shaking his head. ‘He belongs to a different congregation; I’ve never heard his name; I’ve never met him.
 
…
Is this father alive now?’

‘He’s alive alright. In fact he has taken a Japanese name, and he lives in a mansion in Nagasaki together with his wife. He is in good repute now.’

Suddenly there arose before the priest’s eyes the streets of a Nagasaki he had never seen. For some reason he could not understand, this city of his imagination was filled with labyrinthine roads, and the golden sun was glittering on the windows of the tiny houses. And there, walking along the street, wearing clothes just like those of this interpreter, was Ferreira. No, this could not be. Such a fancy was ludicrous.

‘I don’t believe you,’ he said.

But with a scornful laugh the interpreter went out.

The door closed again behind him; the white ray of sunlight was suddenly extinguished; once again, just as before, the voices of the guards resounded against the walls of the hut.

‘A selfish rascal if ever there was one,’ the interpreter was saying. ‘But anyhow he’ll end up by apostatizing.’

This was obviously a reference to himself, the priest thought; and clasping his knees he silently ruminated on the four names the interpreter had trotted out as if having learnt them by rote. Fathers Porro and Pedro he did not know. He felt sure that at Macao he had heard the name of Father Cassola. This missionary was Portuguese but, unlike himself, he had come not from Macao but from the Spanish controlled Manila and he had secretly entered Japan. After his arrival there had been no news of him, and the Society of Jesus had taken it for granted that he had met with a glorious martyrdom. But behind these three figures was the face of Ferreira—Ferreira for whom he had been searching since his arrival in Japan. If the words of the interpreter were not simply a threat, this Ferreira too, as the rumor had said, had betrayed the Church at the hands of the magistrate Inoue.

If even Ferreira had apostatized, would he have the strength to endure the sufferings now in store for him? A terrible anguish rose up in his breast. Violently he shook his head trying to control the ugly imaginings and the words that rose up to his throat like nausea. But the more he tried to crush this picture the more vividly it came before his eyes, eluding the control of his will. ‘Exaudi nos, Pater omnipotens, et mittere digneris Sanctum qui custodiat, foveat, protegat, visitet, atque defendat omnes habitantes.
 
…
’ Repeating the prayer again and again he tried wildly to distract his attention; but the prayer could not tranquillize his agonized heart. ‘Lord, why are you silent? Why are you always silent.
 
…
?’

Evening came. The door opened. One of the guards put some pumpkin in a wooden bowl, placed it in front of him and went out without saying a word. Raising the thing to his lips he was struck by its sweaty smell. It seemed to have been cooked two or three days previously, but in his present mood he would have been glad to eat leather to fill his empty stomach. Before he had finished gulping it down the flies were circling around his hands. I’m just like a dog, he reflected as he licked his fingers. There had been a time when the missionaries had frequently been invited to meals at the houses of feudal lords and samurai. This was the time when the Portuguese ships had come regularly to the harbors of Hirado and Yokoseura and Fukuda, laden with merchandise; and this was a time, too, according to Valignano, when the missionaries were never in want of bread and wine. They had sat at clean tables, said their grace and leisurely eaten their repast. And here he was, forgetting even to pray, and pouncing upon this food for dogs. His prayer was not one of thanksgiving to God; it was a prayer of petition for help; it was even an excuse for voicing his complaint and resentment. It was disgraceful for a priest to feel like this. Well he knew that his life was supposed to be devoted to the praise of God not to the expression of resentment. Yet in this day of trial, when he felt himself like Job in his leprosy, how difficult it was to raise his voice in praise to God!

Again the door grated. The same guard appeared. ‘Father, we’re going now,’ he said.

‘Going? Where?’

‘To the wharf.’

As he stood up he felt giddy from the pangs of his empty stomach. Outside the hut it was already dusk, and the trees hung their branches languidly as though they had been exhausted by the heat of the day. Mosquitoes swarmed around their faces; the croaking frogs could be heard in the distance.

Three guards stood around him, but none of them seemed to worry lest he might try to escape. They talked to one another in loud voices, sometimes breaking out into laughter. One of them separated himself from the others and began to relieve himself in the bushes. If I wished, thought the priest, I could now break away from the other two and make a getaway. But while this thought was passing through his mind, one of the guards suddenly turned to him and said: ‘Father, that hut was a gloomy place.’

Yes, he was a good fellow, this guard. And suddenly the priest felt somehow impressed by the fellow’s pleasant, laughing face. If he escaped it was these peasants who would suffer the consequences. Forcing a weak smile he nodded to his companion.

They passed along the road by which they had come in the morning. The priest’s hollow eyes were fascinated by the huge trees rising up from the middle of fields loud with the croaking of frogs. He remembered having seen these trees before. In them enormous ravens were now flapping their wings and screeching with raucous voice. What a sombre chorus it was—the croak of frogs and the caw of ravens!

As they entered the village, the white smoke rising from the scattered houses drove away the swarms of mosquitoes. A man wearing a loincloth stood clasping a child in his arms. Seeing the priest he opened his mouth like an idiot and burst out laughing. The women with their eyes sadly lowered watched the four men as they marched past.

Through the village they went, and then out again into the paddy fields. The road went downhill until at last a dry breath of salty wind blew into the sunken flesh of the priest’s cheeks. Below was a harbor—if, indeed, it could be called a harbor, for it was no more than a landing-place of black pebbles heaped together with two forlorn little boats pulled up on the beach. While the guards were pushing poles under the boats, the priest picked up the peach-colored shells that were lying in the sand and played with them in his hands. They were the only beautiful things he had seen in this long, long day. Putting one to his ear he listened to the faint, muffled roar that issued forth from its deepest center. Then quite suddenly a dark shudder shook his whole being and in his hand he crushed that shell with its muffled roar.

‘Get on board!’ came the order.

The water in the bottom of the boat was white with dust; it was cold to his swollen feet. His feet drenched, both hands clutching the side of the ship, he closed his eyes and sighed. As the boat slowly moved away from land, his sunken eyes rested on the mountains over which he had wandered until this morning. In the evening mist the dark blue mountain rising up from the sea looked like the swelling breast of a woman. Looking down again to the shore he caught sight of a man, a beggar he seemed, running wildly along. As he ran he was shouting something; then his feet would sink in the sand and he would fall down. Yes, it was the man who had betrayed him. Falling down and then getting up, then falling again, Kichijirō was shouting something in a loud voice. Now it sounded like hissing; now it sounded like weeping; but what he was saying the priest could not make out. Yet he had no inclination to hate the fellow, no feeling of resentment. After all, sooner or later he was bound to be captured, and a feeling of resignation already filled his breast. At last Kichijirō seemed to realize that he would never catch up. And so he stood, erect like a pole, at the water’s edge. As the boat moved away, his motionless figure grew smaller and smaller in the evening mist.

As night came, the boat entered an inlet. Opening his sleepy, half-closed eyes he saw that the guards disembarked and were replaced by other men. Their conversation was interspersed with a dialect that seemed rich in consonants; but in his utter exhaustion the priest did not feel like making the effort to understand what they were saying. The only thing he noticed was that the words Nagasaki and Omura were used frequently, and he felt vaguely that it was in this direction that he was being brought. When he had been in the hut, he had had the strength to pray for the one-eyed man and for the woman who had given him the cucumber; but now he had no longer strength to pray even for himself—much less to speak to others. Where he was being brought, what was going to be done to him—even this did not matter. Closing his eyes he again fell asleep. Sometimes he would open his eyes, and always he could hear the monotonous sound of the oars in the water. One of the men was rowing; the other two crouched in the boat with dark, sullen faces. ‘Lord, may Thy will be done,’ he murmured as though in his sleep. But even though his halting words seemed to resemble those of so many saints who had entrusted their all to the providence of God, he felt that his were different. What is happening to you?, he asked himself. Are you beginning to lose your faith?, said the voice from the depths of his being. Yet this voice filled him with disgust.

‘Where are you going?’ he called in a husky voice to the three new guards, as he opened his eyes again. But the others remained stiffly silent as if to threaten him. ‘Where are you going?’ he called again in a loud voice.

‘Yokose-no-Ura’ answered one of the men in a low voice that somehow seemed filled with shame.

He had frequently heard the name of Yokose-no-Ura from Valignano. It was a port which had been opened with the permission of the local lord by Frois and Almeida; and the Portuguese ships which until then had called at Hirado began to make use of this port alone. A great Jesuit church had been built on the hill overlooking the harbor and on it the fathers had erected a huge crucifix—so big indeed that the missionaries could clearly see it from their ships when, after many days and nights of long travel, they finally reached Japan. The Japanese residents also on Easter Sunday would walk in procession to the top of the hill, singing hymns and carrying lighted candles in their hands. Even the feudal lords themselves would come here; and some of them eventually received baptism.