Kiku's Prayer: A Novel

by Endō, Shūsaku. Translated by Van C. Gessel

  “I’ve got to get back to the house. It gets very busy in Maruyama at night. And I bet you’ll be in trouble with the Mistress at the Gotōya if you don’t get back, too.”

  “I’ll see you again, won’t I, Kiku?” Mitsu asked uneasily. Kiku gave a sisterly smile and said, “I’m not sure. I might end up going to Tsuwano. ’Bye!”

  “’Bye!” And with that, Kiku began the climb up the road from the beach without even looking behind her. Mitsu understood that Kiku did not turn back to look at her from want of feeling but because she was determined to devote herself completely to her love.

  Summer came. In Nagasaki, summer nights are almost unbearably hot. There is absolutely no breeze, and it is hard to sleep even in the middle of the night.

  A famous event in Nagasaki, when boats are floated on the water as offerings to the spirits of the dead,3 is held on one of those humid summer nights. On the fourteenth of the seventh month, families spread straw mats on the ground in temple cemeteries throughout the city and hold drinking parties, then eat a dish called p’eihsin and agar-agar formed into the shape of a plate, which they also present as offerings at the family grave sites. From midnight of the following day, the harbor is jammed with crowds of people.

  Many people place lighted candles in their “spirit boats” and release them into the sea. The myriad lights—jostling on the waves, then hidden by the waves, then floating atop the waves—create an indescribably beautiful world of illusion.

  That evening, the customers at the Yamazaki Teahouse took the madam and her geiko to watch the floating of the spirit boats, while Kiku was left behind to care for the house.

  The heat was so stifling that she broke into a sweat even when she tried to stay perfectly still. She finished doing the wash, sat down on the step leading to the entryway, and turned her thoughts vaguely toward Tsuwano.

  This heat! They said Tsuwano sat in a mountain basin, so it might be even hotter than Nagasaki. How intolerable it must be in their cell! With that thought, in deference to Seikichi she lost all desire to cool herself with a fan and simply endured the rivulets of perspiration that coursed down her cheeks.

  She heard a sound. Someone was coming into the house unannounced. Caught off guard, she stood up.

  “It’s me.” With a broad grin on his ruddy face, Itō Seizaemon entered. “Did I surprise you? I got back from Tsuwano a couple of days ago. I wanted to come see you right away, but I didn’t have time. I can’t believe how hot it is for Obon this year. The crowds at the dock just now were overwhelming, but I ran into your madam there. When I heard you were here holding down the shop all by yourself, I came hurrying over. Would you get me some water? My throat’s so dry!”

  He gulped down the cup of water Kiku hurriedly brought to him and said, “Now some saké too!”

  “OK. But I’ll bring it to you here. We’re not going upstairs.”

  As Kiku scurried to get him a bottle, he scanned her body from the top of her head to the ends of her toes and said, “Here’s just fine. You don’t have to treat me like a customer. But you’re still a fine-looking woman, you know. After nothing but sluts stinking of horse dung to sleep with in Tsuwano, there’s too many beautiful women to choose from back here in Nagasaki.”

  “Umm …” As she heated the bottle of saké over the oblong hibachi, Kiku softly asked, “About the letter and the money …”

  “I gave it to him. The letter and the two ryo … I put them right into your fellow’s hands. Not even someone like me is supposed to do that sort of thing, so I went out of my way for you.”

  “And did Seikichi give you any kind of—?”

  “Reply? That’s not allowed. No, no reply.” Itō shifted his gaze away from Kiku, perhaps ashamed at his lie, and snapped almost angrily. “Where’s my saké?”

  He began drinking in silence. It was hot in the room, and raucous shouts could be heard from the distance. Unsightly sweat coursed down Itō’s rust-colored face.

  Normally after a few drinks, Itō’s bloodshot eyes would steal over Kiku’s back, and he would stretch out his arms and pull her body to the floor.

  But he had made no advances yet tonight. For some time he sat deep in thought, nursing his drink with the cup pressed against his lips. In the light of the lantern his bat-like figure cast an unsightly shadow on the wall.

  “Listen.” As though he had made up his mind to something, he gulped down the saliva in his mouth and called to Kiku. “If I’m going to continue treating Seikichi kindly … it’s going to take some money.”

  He muttered the words almost to himself alone. Kiku listened without responding.

  “The Tsuwano domain has three interrogating officers—Chiba, Morioka, and Kanamori. And then there’s the Shinto priest, Saeki. If I’m going to ask those four to take it a little easy on Seikichi, I can’t go to them empty-handed. I think you understand what I’m saying….”

  Since Kiku still said nothing, he continued, “Normally it’d take ten ryo, but with just five I’ll somehow manage to persuade them…. If five is impossible, three ryo would work. You can wrap up one ryo for each of the three officers…. Don’t think you can get that much? Remember, it’s all for Seikichi.”

  Having said that, he began knocking down one drink after another to drown his own guilty conscience.

  Shrieks of delight sounded in the distance again. By now an endless number of spirit boats were probably floating and drifting and sparkling like the lights from a swarm of fireflies in Nagasaki Bay.

  Sweat poured down Itō’s drunken face.

  “What do you say? Don’t you think you can make three ryo for Seikichi? I’m not saying it has to be right away. As long as you’ve got it when I go back to Tsuwano at the end of autumn. Winter comes early in Tsuwano, you know. And winters must be awfully tough on those men.”

  Kiku listened to Itō’s menacing words with her eyes shut. She didn’t know how much she could trust him. But she had no choice but to rely on this man in order to make life easier for Seikichi.

  Behind her closed eyes hovered the image of the statue of the Blessed Mother in the Ōura Church.

  Kiku. Please help Seikichi. You haven’t done enough yet. Those men are suffering for you, so there’s still more for you to do. How can you sit here doing nothing, keeping your body undefiled while they suffer so?

  Keeping my body undefiled??! She wanted to throw the words back at the Blessed Mother Mary. Some women in this world can’t ever attain love without defiling their bodies. You don’t know anything about the suffering of those women! They say you lived your whole life a virgin, so you never had to sleep with a man who sickened you. You’ve never been groped by a disgusting man, never been toyed with by a disgusting man, never been soiled to the very depths of your body by a disgusting man!

  “I’ll … I’ll somehow come up with the money,” Kiku whispered.

  “You will? You know …,” Itō said with relief, “you’re a good woman. I’m honestly jealous of Seikichi for having your love.” He spoke almost out of character.

  Still, it wasn’t long before he placed his hand on Kiku’s shoulder. Pushed onto her back, Kiku looked blankly, emotionlessly into the face above her that breathed fiercely.

  “I’ll … I’ll somehow come up with the money.”

  No, not “somehow.” If Seikichi was going to be treated harshly this winter in Tsuwano unless she did something, then she must find a way to raise the three ryo.

  She would borrow it from the madam. But she’d already borrowed two ryo from her. Whatever the madam’s true intentions might be in lending her the money, it pained her to ask to borrow even more when she had no idea how to repay it. That obnoxious man she met on the street once told her that the madam planned to bind her with debt, but Kiku simply couldn’t bring herself to believe that.

  What should I do?

  For a woman like Kiku with no other viable options, there was only one possible way. Out of love, she would have to surrender her body, to offer herself as a sacr
ifice….

  That night, after Itō had left, the madam came back to the house with a group of customers and geiko. They drank and played the samisen until deep into the night, then finally went to bed.

  Strangely, Kiku felt no hesitation or indecision….

  “Really?!” The following day, after the man heard what Kiku had to say, he scratched his chest and said, “That’s fine! But if you want to become a geiko, it’ll end up costing you a lot of money because of the way the Maruyama quarter operates. It’d be simplest if you became a companion to the Tang fellow I told you about.” The man offered no further explanation, but he was obviously referring to a Chinese resident of Nagasaki; the Chinese were still collectively referred to as “Tangs” in the early years of the Meiji period.4

  During the Edo period, the Chinese, like the Dutch in Dejima, were confined to one predetermined section of the city, and for a time they were prohibited from wandering at will outside their quarter. The Japanese referred to the quarter as the “Chinese Estates” or the “Chinese Settlement.” But with the end of the Edo period and the transition into Meiji, this restrictive segregation was eliminated.

  “So, when can you come to the Nakajuku brokerage house?”

  The Nakajuku brokerage house was located in what was once called Honkago-machi; it was the rendezvous spot for prostitutes who had authorization to work inside the Chinese Estates. Since both the Chinese and the Dutch were barred from entering Maruyama in search of entertainment, it became the practice for a restricted number of prostitutes to go to the brokerage house and wait for a call from a customer.

  “I’m busy every night,” Kiku answered quietly. “The only time I can leave the teahouse is during the day.”

  The man replied that he would have to consult with his client. “You’ll be paid one ryo for a single night as his companion. And you won’t have to spend time with other clients, so it’s the best possible situation for you. My client is ridiculously rich, so it doesn’t get any better than this!” He went on to boast about how he had gotten to know the Chinese man.

  On the afternoon of the appointed day, Kiku left the Yamazaki Teahouse under the pretense that she was going shopping and set out in search of the brokerage house at Nakajuku. The man was standing in front of a Chinese temple known as the Dojindō, located in Kannai-machi.

  The distinctive smell of the Chinese filled the neighborhood: pork, oil, incense, and garlic. They all blended together to produce an odor that had permeated the houses and even the streets.

  “Kiku, I’m over here!” The man raised a bony arm from his worn-out kimono.

  The histories say that originally this Chinese Settlement was enclosed by a bamboo fence or, at times, a moat, and that traffic through the main or inner gate was closely supervised. But such precautions had been done away with by the beginning of the Meiji period.

  Although the restrictions had been lifted, the atmosphere in the Chinese quarter was utterly different from that in Maruyama. The brilliant vermilion colors of such buildings as the Dokōshi, the Kanteibyō, and the Kannondō were unusual, as were the rows of tiny shops selling Chinese liquors and confections, each with signs written in characters that Kiku could not decipher. She could hear the sound of flutes being played inside those shops.

  “My Chinese client doesn’t know much Japanese,” the man said, walking along with his hands in his pockets. “It’d be a good idea for you to learn some Chinese words.”

  “What sorts of words?”

  “Our clients here are called shinkan-san. Shinkan-san means ‘an important person.’ ‘What would you like?’ is in-mou? ‘Good woman’ is ei-gii.”

  The man taught her several Chinese words of dubious accuracy that he had picked up secondhand, but Kiku had no wish to exert herself to listen to them. Her head was filled with thoughts only of the three ryo that Itō Seizaemon had demanded of her.

  They went into one of the shops. It displayed a skillfully penned sign reading, “The Kōgei Pavilion,” but Kiku could not read it.

  The man nodded his head toward a young Chinese man sipping tea inside the shop and introduced him to Kiku. “This fellow will act as your interpreter…. I have to go now, but I’m leaving everything to him, so you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  The young Chinese set down his teacup and said to Kiku, “Your client is upstairs. He’s there waiting for you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He led her upstairs. A plump Chinese man with a healthy complexion sat in a room with an open window, fanning himself with a large fan and sipping tea.

  “Can you read?” the young Chinese asked Kiku.

  “No.”

  “This gentleman says he wants to talk with you by writing down his questions and your answers….”

  The customer held out a piece of paper for Kiku to see.

  “.”

  “What in the world does that mean?” Confounded, Kiku asked the young man.

  “He’s asking what your name is.”

  “Kiku.”

  The customer nodded casually, and again his brush scurried across the paper.

  “.”

  “He’s asking how old you are, and he says you’re charming.”

  The sounds of the Chinese quarter streamed through the open window. The ocean was visible beyond the quarter.

  As the young man and the client exchanged words incomprehensible to Kiku, she stared out at the ocean and suddenly thought of Oyō. What feelings did Oyō experience as she looked out at the ocean alongside Yokohama?

  As the saying goes, Oyō was spending each day “enfolded in flowers of happiness.”

  Yokohama. Although it was a harbor town just like Nagasaki, it was more alive with energy. The masts of foreign ships in the harbor lined up like trees in a grove, and while some cargo was unloaded, other cargo was loaded onto the ships, and at the pier and elsewhere sailors and boatmen swaggered about. They were surrounded by row upon row of stalls set up by the Japanese to cater to the foreigners.

  The sounds of active building construction echoed from many quarters. These were the sounds of sledgehammers knocking down old, dilapidated Japanese houses before erecting foreign-looking buildings in their place. Those sounds, so novel they seemed to waft the fragrance of new wood through the neighborhood, were an audible announcement that a new age was dawning.

  The breeze blew invigoratingly through the second floor windows of the house on the bluff that Hondō had rented for Oyō. Pointing toward the ships and the sea, Hondō said cheerfully, “Look! From now on, our eyes have to be focused in that direction. By ‘that direction,’ I mean the wide ocean. America lies across that ocean. And there’s England and France. I know you’re a woman, but … but it’s exactly because you’re a woman that it won’t be enough for you in the future to just study sewing and housekeeping. I’ve heard that our leaders are considering sending several of the daughters of former daimyo to America to have them learn about their customs and manners and language.”

  “Sending young women to … to America?” Oyō’s eyes opened wide in surprise. In Nagasaki where Oyō was raised, it used to be that the only young women who went to foreign countries were those who were sold into prostitution.

  “That’s right. It’s so they can learn things over there and then teach them to the women of Japan.”

  “And will these young ladies be traveling on the same ship as you?” Oyō asked, feeling faintly apprehensive. Next year, Hondō would be journeying to America with Prince Iwakura Tomomi. Oyō was jealous that he would be making the long voyage in the company of young women.

  “Well, I don’t know,” he simpered. “Does that bother you?”

  “Yes. It didn’t take you long to make moves on me,” Oyō chuckled, remembering those days.

  “Don’t you worry. We’ve pledged ourselves to each other as husband and wife. I have no women but you.”

  That seems almost too good to be true, Oyō thought, but still it made her happy. Because Hondō had such a l
arge body and a childlike face, she had not imagined he would be so energetically amorous, but she was provided every night with evidence of how exceedingly lecherous he actually was.

  “In the middle of the day …?” When she tried to rebuff him as he suddenly plunged one chubby hand down the front of her kimono, he rejoined with a magisterial look on his face, “We’re husband and wife, aren’t we? I’ve got to stock up, after all. Once I go to America, we won’t be able to do this for a year or more. So we’ve got to build up a surplus while we have the chance!”

  As he fondled her nipple, Oyō narrowed her eyes like a cat. She had already forgotten the jealousy she had felt only moments before. And most certainly there was not a single trace of a memory in her mind of that girl at the Yamazaki Teahouse in Nagasaki named Kiku. Oyō was so intoxicated with her own joy….

  1. The Gion Festival originally provided an opportunity to pray for protection from plagues, for tranquillity at home, and for peace in the nation. Night stalls selling a variety of wares were set up around the Yasaka Shrine, and on the fourteenth and fifteenth, the courtesans of Maruyama formed a procession to worship there.

  2. Popular legend had it that an individual who made a pilgrimage to the Kiyomizu Temple to worship Kannon on this day would receive merits equivalent to 46,000 days of worship.

  3. This ritual is the Nagasaki version of the famous Obon celebrations held throughout Japan in the summer. Interestingly, it was only one year after this story took place that the Meiji government banned the floating of these boats in Nagasaki Bay, citing some deaths among those who towed the boats through the water, as well as instances of the candles in the boats starting fires in ships docked in the harbor.

  4. In Japanese, Tōjin—literally, a “person from Tang-dynasty China”—but the word came to have pejorative connotations.

  OTOME PASS

  ANOTHER AUTUMN CAME to Tsuwano. The foliage atop Otome Pass,1 which rose to the rear of the temple compound, gradually changed colors, and from their cells the prisoners watched each day with anxious eyes as the autumn leaves eventually turned a deep amber.