January and February were muddy. General Itakura commanded the Bakufu forces. Government agents tried to dig a tunnel into the castle, but the digging was overheard. The rebels filled the tunnel with smoke and regular deposits of urine and feces until the diggers refused to dig farther.
Itakura planned to pummel the castle walls with cannonballs so large it took twenty-five sweating men to move each one to the front lines. The last days of January were spent pulling and pushing the cannonballs into place, but it proved a Sisyphean labor in the end since no cannon, no catapult, was large enough to launch them.
More letters flew across on arrow shafts. “The samurai in Amakusa cannot fight,” the letters from inside the castle said. “They are cowards and only good at torturing unarmed farmers. The sixty-six provinces of Japan will all be Kirishitan, of that there is no doubt. Anyone who does doubt, the Lord Deus with His own feet will kick him down into Inferno; make sure this point is understood.” “Surrender,” said the arrows going in, but the penmanship was beautiful; the letters could almost have been framed. Meanwhile, Lord Matsudaira Nobutsuna and a fleet of sixty ships were moving up the coast from Kyushu, bringing Martha to her son.
General Itakura received a letter from his cousin in Osaka. “All is well. When Lord Matsudaira arrives, the castle, held as it is by mere peasants, will not last another day.” Itakura translated this letter immediately as mockery. He decided to attack before the reinforcements arrived.
His first try was on February 3, a mousy, hilarious effort; his second on New Year’s Day, February 14. Itakura himself led the bold frontal attack across the marsh and was killed by a rebel sharpshooter. After his death, he was much condemned for inappropriate bravura. He had laid the government open to more ridicule, dying as he had at the hands of farmers.
The night before his death Itakura wrote a poem.
When only the name remains of the flower that
bloomed on New Year’s Day,
remember it as the leader of our force.
He attached it to an arrow and shot it out over the ocean in the direction of Lord Matsudaira’s fleet and the moon.
On February 24, the Commissioner of Nagasaki transmitted Lord Matsudaira’s request that the Dutch ship de Ryp begin a bombardment of the castle from the sea. The shelling lasted two weeks until, on March 12, the shogunate canceled the request. Two Dutch sailors had been killed; one, shot in the topmast, fell to the deck and landed on the other. A storm of arrows left the castle. “The government agents,” these arrows said, “are better at squeezing taxes out of starving farmers, better at keeping account books, than at risking their lives on the field of battle. This is why they have to depend on foreigners to do their fighting. We in Hara Castle are armed with faith. We cannot be killed and we will slay all village magistrates and heathen bonzes without sparing even one; for judgment day is at hand for all Japan.”
The Dutch commissioner, Nicolaus Coukebacker, sent a defensive letter by boat back to Holland. “We were, of course, reluctant to fire upon fellow Christians, even though the rebels in question are Roman Catholics and the damage the rebellion has done to trade conditions in Nagasaki has been severe. Our bombardment was, in any case, ineffectual.” He was too modest. The outer defenses had been weakened.
On March 5, in the middle of the lull provided by the Dutch bombardment, a letter flew into the government camp from one Yamada Emonsaku of Hara Castle. Expressing his reverence for the rule of hereditary lords in particular and governments in general, Yamada assured them he had never been a sincere Kirishitan. He then outlined a lengthy plan in which he offered to deliver Shiro to the Bakufu alive. “Please give me your approval immediately, and I will overthrow the evil Kirishitans, give tranquillity to the empire, and, I trust, escape with my own life.” An answer asking for further information was sent back, but Yamada did not respond.
The invisible men, the ninjutsuzukai, went into Hara Castle and returned with information. The rebel leader had a mild case of scabies. While he’d been playing a game of go, an incoming cannonball had ripped the sleeve of his coat. His divinity had never seemed more questionable. The letter to Yamada had been easily intercepted. He was bound in a castle room under a sentence of death.
Around their ankles, the invisible men wore leads which unwrapped as they walked. If they were killed, their bodies could be dragged back out. You might think such cords would have given them away, but you are more inclined to believe in the fabulous skills of the ninjutsuzukai than that a boy has walked on water. Not a single ninjutsuzukai was lost.
Lord Matsudaira judged that the rebel position was weakening. After the silly death of Itakura, he had settled on the inglorious strategy of blockade. The strategy appeared justified. The ninjutsuzukai said that the rebels were living in holes they had excavated under the castle. There was not enough to eat.
• • •
MATSUDAIRA WROTE A LETTER. The letter spoke of the filial piety owed to parents. It assured Shiro of Matsudaira’s reluctance to hurt Shiro’s family and said further that Matsudaira knew a fifteen-year-old boy couldn’t possibly be leading such a large force. “I am pleased, therefore, to offer a full pardon to the boy, asking only that he surrender, recant, and identify the real leader of the rebellion. I look forward to a joyful family reunion.”
Martha knelt in the mud beside Matsudaira and wrote as he directed. “We know that you have forced conversions on some of your followers. If you let those hostages go, Lord Matsudaira will allow your family to join you in Hara Castle. All who surrender may depend on the traditional magnanimity of the Bakufu; no one who freely recants will be punished. Indeed, rice lands will be given to those who surrender!” Matsudaira gestured with one hand that Martha was to finish the letter herself. “For myself, I ask only to see you again. Perhaps we could speak. Lord Matsudaira is willing. Don’t forget your family on the outside who wish only to be with you.”
These letters were carried into the castle by Shiro’s young nephew and little sister. They had been dressed by the Bakufu in kimonos with purple bursts of chrysanthemums. They wore embroidered slippers brought up the coast by boat for the occasion.
Small as they were, the narrow path to the castle held them both, but the path was muddy from the rain, and the children wanted to save their shoes, so they stepped slowly and sometimes, when puddles narrowed the path even more, one did go before the other. Inside the shining kaleidoscope of armor and sunlight, Martha saw the small bobbing chrysanthemums and, high above them, the flag over Hara Castle. “Now we will know what kind of a son you have,” Lord Matsudaira told her. “If you have the wrong kind, only you are to blame for what happens next.”
Soon the tiny figures disappeared from view. Martha counted slowly, trying to guess at the exact moment they would enter the castle. The path was very long and their steps so small. The ocean sobbed behind her. The sun through the trees moved down her face to her hands. If she could send Shiro one more message, she would ask him to keep the children. She imagined the wish like a small, shining stone in Shiro’s hand. He rubbed it with his fingers, feeling it, understanding it. He threw it into the air, as he would any other stone, but it became the bird whose shadow passed over Martha’s face, the shadow Shiro’s answer to her.
Martha struggled to keep her mind on the miracles. Left to itself, her memory immediately chose the most ordinary of moments. A little boy throwing stones. A pair of arms around her neck. A game of hiding. His face when he slept.
Matsudaira had tea prepared. He drank and attended to his mail. He discussed Hara Castle with several of his officers. They were all agreed that the rebellion could not have held out at any other spot. It was a wonderful castle, and after they had taken it they must be sure to destroy it completely. Fire, first, but then the stonework must be carefully dismantled. The unit from Osaka was charged with this.
Matsudaira decided to change the passwords. He sent out the new codes.
Now the sentries were to inquire, “A mountain?” “A river” would be the correct reply. In an optimistic mood, he selected a password to signal the start of an attack. It, too, would be in the form of a question. “A province?” “A province!” was also the answer. He had a meal of rice balls and mullet. While he was eating, Martha heard a shout. The children were returning.
Shiro had written a letter, which his nephew gave to Matsudaira. “Frequent prohibitions have been published by the Shogun, which have greatly distressed us. Some among us there are who consider the hope of future life as of the highest importance. For these there is no escape. Should . . . the above laws not be repealed, we must incur all sorts of punishments and torture; we must, our bodies being weak and sensitive, sin against the infinite Lord of Heaven; and from solicitude for our brief lives incur the loss of what we highly esteem. These things fill us with grief beyond our capacity. There are no forced converts among us, only outside, among you. We are protected by Santa Maria-sama [Mary], Sanchiyago-sama [Jesus], and Sanfuranshisuko-sama [St. Francis].”
To his mother Shiro sent a large parcel of food containing honey, bean-jam buns, oranges, and yams. He had given his little sister his ring to wear.
The ninjutsuzukai had reported starvation. Scavengers from the castle had been seen on Oe beach, searching for edible seaweeds. The bodies of rebel dead had been cut open and their stomachs contained only seaweed and barley. The unexpected sight of bean-jam buns sent Matsudaira into a rage. “Your son thinks very little of you,” he said. “Very little of his sisters. All you ask is to speak with him. What kind of a son is this?”
Martha was filled with grief beyond her capacity. The largest part of it was only the fact that her daughter and her grandson had been allowed to see Shiro and she had not. In Shiro’s presence she would have endured anything. “God is feeding him,” she told Matsudaira. “He is stronger than you can imagine. God will change him into a bird to fly away from your soldiers. You will never kill my son.”
This display angered Matsudaira even more. “Take her back to the boat,” Matsudaira told the soldiers. “Take her and bind her below where she can’t watch the sun set or see the castle. Her son doesn’t love her enough to see her. What kind of a mother is this?”
• • •
WHEN IT CAME, the final attack was a mistake. On April 12 a fire was misread as a signal. The Nabeshima division rushed forward, soon joined by others. The rebels were completely out of ammunition and the sentries too weak from hunger to hold their posts. The agents easily penetrated the outer perimeter. In the inner rings, the women and children defended themselves with stones and cooking pots. They held out for two more days and nights of steady fighting. On April 15, the defenses collapsed.
By nightfall the government had set up tables to count and collect heads. The count was at 10,869. Headless bodies covered the fields about the castle, clogged the nearby rivers. By April 16, only one person from the castle had survived. As a reward for his letter of March 5, Yamada Emonsaku was spared. Eventually he would be taken back to Edo to serve in Lord Matsudaira’s house as his assistant.
The kubi-jikken, or head inspection scene, is a traditional element of feudal literature. Martha saw Shiro one more time. The soldiers collected every head that might belong to a fifteen-year-old boy and summoned Martha to identify her son. “He is not here,” she told them. Her daughters had been killed and her grandson. Their heads would be displayed in Nagasaki. Her own death was very close now. “He was sent by Heaven and Heaven has protected him. God has transformed him to escape you.” There were many possible heads. She rejected them all. Finally Lord Sasaemon held up a recent victim. The boy had been dressed in silks.
Martha began to weep at once, and once she began there was no reason to stop. She thought of her son throwing stones, playing hiding games, his face when he slept. She took the head and held it in her lap. We can imagine this moment, if we let ourselves, as a sort of Japanese pietà, the pietà translated, like the word Kirishitan, into Japanese and out again. “Can he really have become so thin?” Martha asked.
• • •
EVERY MOTHER CAN easily imagine losing a child. Motherhood is always half loss anyway. The three-year-old is lost at five, the five-year-old at nine. We consort with ghosts, even as we sit and eat with, scold and kiss, their current corporeal forms. We speak to people who have vanished and, when they answer us, they do the same. Naturally, the information in these speeches is garbled in the translation.
I myself have a fifteen-year-old son who was once nine, once five, once fit entirely inside me. At fifteen, he speaks in monotones, sounds chosen deliberately for their minimal content. “Later,” he says to me, leaving the house, and maybe he means that he will see me later, that later he will sit down with me, we will talk. At fifteen, he has a whole lot of later.
Me, not so much. To me, later is that time coming soon, when he will be made up almost entirely of words: letters in the mailbox, conversations on the phone, stories we tell about him, plans he tells to us. And you probably think I would have trouble imagining that thirty-seven thousand people could follow him to their deaths, that this is the hard part, but you would be wrong. No other part of the story, except for the sea, is so easy to imagine.
Isn’t it really just a matter of walking on water? To me, today, this seems a relatively insignificant difference, but of course it is the whole point—along with starvation and persecution, peasant messianism and ronin discontent. Was the boy in the castle God, or wasn’t he? Who saw him walking on water? Who says the sunsets were his?
The story comes to us over time, space, and culture, a game of telephone played out in magnificent distances. Thirty-seven thousand Kirishitans and one hundred thousand Bakufu samurai were willing to die, arguing over the divinity of Amakusa Shiro. But what does this mean to us? Nothing is left now but the flag and the words.
“An angel was sent as messenger and the instructions he transmitted must therefore be passed on to the villagers,” the rebels wrote to someone and, eventually, to us. “And the august personage named Lord Shiro who has these days appeared in Oyano of Amakusa is an angel from Heaven.”
Within one moment, anything is possible. Only the passage of time makes our miraculous lives mundane. For a single moment any boy can walk on water. An arrow can hang in the sky without falling. Martha kneels to write a letter. The sun is in her face. Negotiations continue. CNN is filming. The compound will never be taken. There are children inside.
THE ELIZABETH COMPLEX
Love is particularly difficult to study clinically.
—Nancy J. Chodorow
Fathers love as well—Mine did, I know,—but still with heavier brains.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning
There is no evidence that Elizabeth ever blamed her father for killing her mother. Of course, she would hardly have remembered her mother. At three months, Elizabeth had been moved into her own household with her own servants; her parents became visitors rather than caretakers. At three years, the whole affair was history—her mother’s head on Tower Green, her father’s remarriage eleven days later. Because the charge was adultery and, in one case, incest, her own parentage might easily have come into question. But there has never been any doubt as to who her father was. “The lion’s cub,” she called herself, her father’s daughter, and from him she got her red hair, her white skin, her dancing, her gaiety, her predilection for having relatives beheaded, and her sex.
Her sex was the problem, of course. Her mother’s luck at cards had been bad all summer. But the stars were good, the child rode low in the belly, and the pope, they had agreed, was powerless. They were expecting a boy.
After the birth, the jousts and tournaments had to be canceled. The musicians were sent away, except for a single piper, frolicsome but thin. Her mother, spent and sick from childbirth, felt the cold breath of disaster on her neck.
Her father put the
best face on it. Wasn’t she healthy? Full weight and lusty? A prince would surely follow. A poor woman gave the princess a rosemary bush hung all with gold spangles. “Isn’t that nice?” her mother’s ladies said brightly, as if it weren’t just a scented branch with glitter.
Elizabeth had always loved her father. She watched sometimes when he held court. She saw the deference he commanded. She saw how careful he was. He could not allow himself to be undone with passion or with pity. The law was the law, he told the women who came before him. A woman’s wages belonged to her husband. He could mortgage her property if he liked, forfeit it to creditors. That his children were hungry made no difference. The law acknowledged the defect of her sex. Her father could not do less.
He would show the women these laws in his books. He would show Elizabeth. She would make a little mark with her fingernail in the margin beside them. Some night when he was asleep, some night when she had more courage than she had ever had before, she would slip into the library and cut the laws she had marked out of the books. Then the women would stop weeping and her father would be able to do as he liked.
Her father read to her The Taming of the Shrew. He never seemed to see that she hated Petruchio with a passion a grown woman might have reserved for an actual man. “You should have been a boy,” he told her, when she brought home the prize in Greek, ahead of all the boys in her class.
Her older brother died when she was a small girl. Never again was she able to bear the sound of a tolling bell. She went with her father to the graveyard, day after day. He threw himself on the grave, arms outstretched. At home, he held her in his arms and wept onto her sleeve, into her soft brown hair. “My daughter,” he said. His arms tightened. “If only you had been a boy.”
She tried to become a boy. She rode horseback, learned Latin. She remained a girl. She sewed. She led the Presbyterian Girls’ Club. The club baked and stitched to earn the money to put a deserving young man through seminary. When he graduated, they went as a group to see him preach his first sermon. They sat in the front. He stood up in the clothes they had made for him. “I have chosen my text for today,” he said from the pulpit. “First Timothy, chapter two, verse twelve: ‘I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but be in silence.’”
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