Silence

  ‘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.

  ‘It’s not because of any prohibition nor because of persecution that Christianity has perished. There’s something in this country that completely stifles the growth of Christianity.’ The words of Ferreira, uttered slowly syllable by syllable, pierced the priest’s ears. ‘The Christianity they believe in is like the skeleton of a butterfly caught in a spider’s web: it contains only the external form; the blood and the flesh are gone.’ So Ferreira had gone on with blazing eyes. And somehow in his words there was a certain sincerity unlike the self-deception of a defeated man.

  Now the footsteps of the guards could be heard in the distance. When they faded out, the only sound was the hoarse rasping of insects in the blackness of the night.

  ‘It cannot be true. No, no. It is impossible.’ Rodrigues did not have enough missionary experience to refute Ferreira; but to accept the other’s word was to lose everything for which he had come to this country. Banging his head against the wall he kept murmuring monotonously: ‘It cannot be so. It is impossible.’

  Yes, it is impossible, impossible. How could anyone sacrifice himself for a false faith? With his own eyes he had seen those peasants, poverty-stricken martyrs. If they had not had a true belief in salvation, how could they sink like stones in the mist-covered sea? On any account they were strong Christians. Even if their belief was simple and crude, it breathed a conviction that had been implanted in Japan not by these officials nor by Buddhism, but by the Christian Church.

  The priest recalled Ferreira’s sadness. In the course of their conversation Ferreira had said not one word about the poor Japanese martyrs. Of course he had deliberately avoided this issue; he had tried to avoid any thought of people who were stronger than himself, people who had heroically endured torture and the pit. Ferreira was trying to increase, even by one, the number of weaklings like himself—to share with others his cowardice and loneliness.

  In the darkness he asked himself if now Ferreira was sleeping. No, he could not be asleep. The old man, in some part of the same city, was sitting in the darkness like himself, his eyes open, staring in front of him, biting at the depths of his solitude. And this loneliness was much colder, much more terrible than that which he endured in this prison cell. In order to pile weakness upon weakness he was trying to drag others along the path that he himself had walked. Lord, will you not save him? Turning to Judas you said, ‘What thou dost, do quickly.’ Will you number this man, too, among the abandoned sheep?

  And so, comparing his own loneliness and sadness with that of Ferreira, he felt for the first time some self-respect and satisfaction—and he was able quietly to laugh. Then, lying down on the hard, bare floor, he waited for the onrush of sleep.

  Chapter 8

  THE next day the interpreter visited him again. ‘Well, have you thought it over?’ he said. This time he did not talk like a cat that plays with its prey; his expression was somehow stern. ‘Sawano has told you. Give up this stubbornness! We’re not telling you to trample in all sincerity. Won’t you just go through with the formality of trampling? Just the formality! Then everything will be alright.’

  The priest remained silent, his eyes fixed on a point on the wall. It was not that the other’s eloquence irritated him; it simply passed through his ears without conveying any meaning.

  ‘Come now! Don’t cause more trouble. I’m asking you in all sincerity. It’s not pleasant for me either.’

  ‘Why don’t you hang me in the pit?’

  ‘The magistrate keeps saying that it’s better to make you see reason and accept our teaching.’

  Clasping his knees with his hands, the priest shook his head like a child. The interpreter heaved a deep sigh and for some time remained silent. A fly buzzed around with whirling wings.

  ‘I see … well, it can’t be helped then.’

  The dull sound of the bolt shot into place fell on the priest’s ears; and with that dull sound he knew that all reasonable discussion had come to an end.

  To what extent he would be able to endure the torture he could not tell. Yet somehow it no longer held for his exhausted body the terror it had aroused when he wandered through the mountains. He was numbed with pain now. He felt that it would be better for death to come as soon as possible if it was the only way to escape from this painful day-after-day suspense. Even life with anguish about God and about faith was a melancholy prospect. Secretly he prayed in his heart that the fatigue of mind and body would quickly bring him death. Behind his eyelids like a hallucination floated the head of Garrpe sinking down into the sea. How he envied his companion! Yes, how he envied Garrpe freed from anguish such as this!

  The next day, as he had expected, no breakfast was brought to him. Toward noon the door was opened; and a big fellow he had never yet seen, naked to the waste, showed his hollow face inside. He bound both of the priest’s hands behind his back so tightly that when he moved his body even a little, the rope would bite into his wrists and an involuntary cry of pain would escape from his clenched teeth. While binding his hands, the fellow kept muttering insults which the priest could not well understand. ‘At last the time has come,’ he thought within himself; but strange to say, this emotion was accompanied by a freshness and a sense of elation such as he had never before experienced.

  He was dragged outside. In the courtyard bathed in sunlight were three officials, four guards, and the interpreter—all standing in line and staring at him. The priest looked at them, especially at the interpreter; and a smile of triumph passed over his face. No matter what the circumstances, no man can com
pletely escape from vanity, he reflected; and then he joyfully recalled that until this moment he had not even noticed this fact.

  The big fellow grabbed the priest lightly in his arms and set him astride the bare back of a horse. Rather than a horse, it looked like a thin and starved donkey. It tottered forward and behind it marched the officials, the guards and the interpreter.

  Already the road was jammed with Japanese waiting for the line to pass by; and from his position astride the horse the priest smiled down at them. Old people, mouths agape with astonishment; children nibbling at cucumbers; women who would first laugh, stare at him like idiots and then suddenly retreat in terror when their eyes met his. On each of these faces the light threw a different shadow. Then behind his ear came flying something like a brown clump—it was a piece of horse manure that someone had pitched at him.

  He made up his mind that he would not let the smile leave his lips. Here he was riding through the streets of Nagasaki on a donkey. Another man had entered Jerusalem—likewise riding a donkey. And it was that man who had taught him that the most noble expression on the face of man is the glad acceptance of injury and insult. He would preserve such an expression until the end. This was the face of a Christian among the infidel.

  A group of Buddhist monks, openly displaying feelings of hostility toward him, gathered under the shade of a huge tree and then, coming up and thronging around the donkey on which he was seated, brandished sticks as if to threaten and intimidate him. The priest looked at the faces that surrounded him, wondering if he might find some secret believer; but it was in vain. There was no face that was not stamped with hostility or hatred or curiosity. And there in the midst of them he caught sight of one who looked just like a dog that begs for pity. Unconsciously the priest stiffened. It was Kichijirō.

  Clad in tatters, Kichijirō stood in the front rank waiting. When his eyes met those of the priest, he cowered and quickly tried to conceal himself in the crowd. But the priest from his position on the tottering donkey knew just how far the fellow had followed after him. Amongst all these infidels this was the only man he knew.