Kiku's Prayer: A Novel

by Endō, Shūsaku. Translated by Van C. Gessel

  The prisoners knew the bitterness of winters in Tsuwano to the very cores of their bones. The end of summer and the coming of autumn represented a palpable threat to them.

  Some made preparations to stave off the cold of winter by taking the single sheets of paper they were given each day and pasting them together with rice grains to make something resembling paper garments. They thought that something of that nature might help ward off the cold just a bit.

  Around the time the chill of late autumn started taking an increasingly greater toll on their bodies, the officers inflicted a particularly gruesome torture on one young man.

  They selected a juvenile rather than one of the adults to torment in an attempt to strike fear into the hearts of the other prisoners, to weaken their resolve, and to push them to the point of apostasy.

  The young man’s name was Yūjirō. He was the younger brother of Kanzaburō and Matsu, and at the time he was fifteen years old.

  “You’re being punished like this because your brother and sister are too pigheaded. So if you’re going to hate anybody, hate your brother and sister.” With that, the officer stripped Yūjirō naked, bound his hands behind his back, and sat him down on a bamboo-floored veranda. The prisoners knew that a person’s legs and knees would begin to ache after sitting this way for a long time, and that the pain would grow progressively unbearable.

  But the object of the officials in using this particular mode of torture was not merely to coerce the young man to abandon his faith, but also to force his parents to listen to his screams.

  “Heat up the bathwater!” The officer intentionally chose Yūjirō’s brother, Kanzaburō, to stoke the fires under the bath that day. The opening where the fires were kindled was near the bamboo veranda, and from where Kanzaburō crouched to perform his assignment, the shouts of the officer and the wails of his younger brother were acutely audible.

  “Are you hungry? Cold? Embarrassed to be sitting there naked? But we’re not finished yet! We’ve whipped up a real feast, and we want you to have your fill of it!”

  At an order from the officer, Takahashi and Deguchi took turns beating the boy with whips.

  “That’s not real whipping! Don’t hold back thinking he’s a child! Put all your strength into it!!” The officer rebuked the two men for taking their victim’s youthful age into consideration. Eventually a brutally aberrant light flashed in Takahashi’s oval eyes and Deguchi’s sunken eyes as they flailed Yūjirō with their whips.

  With his hands bound behind him and his body lashed to a pillar, Yūjirō writhed and howled—“Ah! Ah! Ah!”—each time the whips gave a dull crack in the air and then smacked against his head or back or arms. Kanzaburō heard each of his brother’s shrieks as he heated up the bathwater. He gritted his teeth and shut his eyes tightly to bear up under the agony. Throughout all of this, in her cell where a stony silence prevailed, Yūjirō’s sister Matsu, encircled by all the other women, buried her face in her hands and prayed earnestly for her brother.

  “Still no effect?!”

  The tips of the whips that Takahashi and Deguchi took turns swinging at Yūjirō tore into his nose and mouth. When his nose and mouth were completely swathed in blood, even the officer had to avert his eyes and exclaim, “That’s enough!” He spoke to Yūjirō. “Yūjirō, you have until tomorrow to think this over carefully. If you haven’t changed your mind tomorrow, you’ll be in for worse than you got today.”

  That night, a stark-naked Yūjirō remained tied to the pillar and exposed to the frigid air of late autumn.

  The next day, and the day after, and the day after that—

  Yūjirō remained, naked and bound, sprawled atop the bamboo veranda. His cries during the tortures each evening made it known that the young man’s body was weakening with each passing day owing to the bitter nights and the daily beatings. The screams he emitted as he was struck and kicked gradually grew fainter and fainter.

  From time to time, however, the other prisoners would hear him let out a blood-curdling scream, a tear-choked wail that sounded like an infant being set to the torch. The officers had poured water on the boy and then beat him with whips.

  Even after the tortures were finished for the day, an endless stream of low moans could be heard. A cold rain fell throughout the night, and the groaning never ceased amid the darkness and the freezing rain.

  On the fourteenth day of torture—

  “Quick! Summon Lord Morioka!” The officers had panicked for some reason and rushed off to call an authority. Eventually the official appeared, and a discussion was held.

  “Matsu!” Takahashi and Deguchi poked their heads into the women’s cell. “Your brother’s sick. Go move him.” They scurried away.

  Three or four women raced alongside Matsu to the courtyard. There they saw the pitiful sight of the boy, stretched out on the bamboo veranda like a grub worm.

  His entire body had swollen up a sickly blue color, dark splotches of blood clung everywhere to him, and in some places they could see purple bruises where he had hemorrhaged. His face, too, was swollen, reducing his eyes to threadlike slits.

  “Yūjirō!”

  From the narrow eyes in the swollen face flowed a single thread of tears. Matsu and the other women wept aloud.

  They helped Yūjirō to the women’s cell, but Matsu had no medicines to treat him. All she could do was massage his body and moisten his lips with water.

  “Matsu …” It was the middle of the night before he spoke, and in a faint voice he said, “I … I didn’t want to cry out when they beat me. But … it hurt so much … I couldn’t … I couldn’t help shouting.”

  “It’s all right. It’s all right.” Matsu wept as she massaged his body and repeatedly nodded her head. “I’m so proud of you. You put up with it so bravely.”

  “By the eighth day, I couldn’t take it anymore. But … but then I looked up at the roof across the way, and I saw a sparrow bringing food to her babies and putting it in their mouths. And then I thought of Santa Maria. I thought, someday Santa Maria will help me….”

  Late that night, the young man’s body began to convulse. Although men were prohibited from setting foot in the women’s cell, they sent for Kanzaburō, who came quietly through the darkness. Everyone was awake, praying for the young man.

  “The children …” Yūjirō whispered. “Don’t let them make the children cry. They mustn’t hurt the children…. I’ll pray for all of you in Paraíso.”

  They mustn’t make the children cry…. Those were the slaughtered Yūjirō’s last words.

  But the abuse of the children did not cease. The officers were convinced that they would be easily frightened by violence and would submit.

  Twelve-year-old Suekichi. Suekichi was from Ieno, a child orphaned after both parents and his siblings died.

  “Come with me!”

  It’s said that when Takahashi came for him and took Suekichi to the interrogation room, the boy kept glancing back over his shoulder, pleading with his eyes for help from the adults who were watching him.

  “Suekichi! Pray to Santa Maria! Santa Maria will protect you!!” The women all cried in one voice to the child. He paused and nodded his head in agreement.

  The three officers in the dim interrogation room were intentionally chewing on candy, putting on a deliberate show for the starving Suekichi.

  “So you’re Suekichi? This candy is delicious, it just melts in your mouth!”

  One of the officers smiled fawningly and brought a piece of candy up to Suekichi’s face. “You’re a bright boy. Being that you’re so bright, listen to me carefully. Some evil grownups have lied to you. Nothing good will come from believing in this Kirishitan nonsense. In fact, it’ll end up leading you down the wrong path. The proper path … it’s to do your duty to your parents and be devoted to your country—the dual paths of loyalty and filiality. The Kirishitans are on the wrong path because they don’t follow the rules of our country.”

  Suekichi stood stock still, his eyes gl
azed over.

  “If you’d like some candy, you’re welcome to it. Don’t be afraid, go ahead and eat it.”

  Although Suekichi took the candy in his hand, he still looked dazed and made no move to put it in his mouth.

  “Do you think it’s poisoned?” the officer laughed.

  But when Suekichi remained frozen in place and gave no response after continued urgings, the officers finally understood what was going through the child’s mind. Suekichi was no different from the adult Kirishitans from Urakami.

  “All right. Hold out your hands!”

  When he thrust out both of the hands that were clutching the candy, one of the officers poured lamp oil over them.

  “Do you understand that this is oil?” The officer thrust a rolled up piece of paper into the hibachi and then removed it. The smell of fire and a thread of white smoke rose from the paper, and a tiny flame flickered like the wings of a moth.

  “If you don’t give up this Kirishitan stuff, I’ll set fire to your hands.”

  Even then, Suekichi stood unflinching with his arms outstretched, as though he had heard nothing.

  The flames sputtered above his hands.

  “Stop it!” Another officer shouted. Evidently it was too much for him to see a twelve-year-old’s hands set on fire.

  “Go back to your cell!”

  Suekichi gave the officers a vacant look and left the room.

  Late that autumn, Itō returned to Tsuwano after a long absence and gave the package that Kiku had wrapped in oil paper to Seikichi, but as before, he retained the three ryo for himself.

  In addition to a letter, the parcel contained several items that Kiku had collected. Mochi, needles, thread, bleached cotton cloth, a salve for wounds, dried potatoes. Studying the items closely, one at a time, Seikichi had an aching desire to see Kiku.

  Before he came to Tsuwano, and even after his arrival here, Seikichi had not developed a sharp mental image in his mind of how Kiku looked. In part it was because he didn’t have the mental leisure to focus exclusively on Kiku, and in part it was because the ongoing days of starvation robbed him of the physical and mental energy to think about her. He was certain that she had long ago forgotten all about him, and that seemed only normal to him. He couldn’t bring himself to believe that Kiku would continue to love a criminal who had been driven from Urakami and banished to a distant spot like Tsuwano.

  But Kiku had not forgotten him. In fact, she had entrusted a touching letter and all these items to Itō to bring to him.

  What she had to offer an Urakami Kirishitan who did not expect aid from any person was a love that transcended sectarian dogma. That realization prompted an earnest desire in Seikichi’s heart: “To live … to see her again.”

  “Lord Itō?” One day, he quietly asked Itō, who had looked into his room, “That woman … is she really in Maruyama now?”

  “She certainly is. Didn’t you know that?”

  “Maruyama is the red-light district. What could she be doing in … in a red-light district?”

  As a Kirishitan, he didn’t want to consider the possibility that the woman who loved him worked in such an area. Surely she hadn’t become a prostitute who sells her body to men?

  “You want to know what she’s doing? She works as a maid at a place called the Yamazaki Teahouse.”

  Seikichi nodded at Itō’s reply. He could accept the fact that she was a maid.

  “Lord Itō, when … when will you be going back to Nagasaki?”

  “Before the New Year. I have no desire to spend the holidays up here in these mountains. I don’t care what my duties are—if I can’t at least spend New Year in Nagasaki, then it’s not worth what they’re paying me.”

  Then Itō realized what Seikichi was thinking and gave a thin smile. “Ah? So you want to ask me to deliver a message, eh? What did you want me to say? That when you return to Nagasaki you’ll be able to marry her, so please be patient?”

  Seikichi did not respond.

  “It’s not likely you’ll be returning to Nagasaki, you know. Our orders from up top are that anyone who doesn’t renounce their heretical beliefs will stay locked up in a Tsuwano cell until they die. If you want to see that woman again, the first thing you’ve got to do is dump this religion of yours.”

  “…. That’s not … not what I want to say to her,” Seikichi muttered, with his eyes fixed on the ground.

  “Then what do you want to say?”

  “I want her to forget about me … and find a good man to marry…. That’s what I want you to tell her.”

  Itō saw a tear glisten in Seikichi’s eyes. When he saw the tear, Itō felt both an overwhelming compassion for and an urge to treat Seikichi brutally.

  “I see. A good man to marry? Is that how you really feel?”

  Seikichi said nothing. In all honesty, the agonizing torture he was experiencing right now was worse than any physical abuse he had suffered.

  “Such a waste!” Itō feigned a deep sigh as he launched a taunt at Seikichi. “She’s a charming girl, you know. A nice face. A nice body. Spending the rest of your life here, never able to hold such a girl in your arms … why were you even born into this world?”

  Seikichi had no response.

  “Fine. I understand. You know, every time I go to Maruyama, I see Kiku … and it’s only the thought that she’s your woman that’s kept me from laying a hand on her…. But now I guess I don’t have to hesitate to do whatever I want with her. Besides, the madam at the Yamazaki Teahouse has been asking me to initiate one of her girls into the ways of the flesh.”

  “Kiku …” Seikichi glared at Itō in predictable anger. “Kiku isn’t that kind of girl!”

  “Oh, and how do you know that? Listen to me. No matter how deeply a woman falls for a man, in time her love will grow cold if the man can’t return her affection. No matter how faithfully she’s maintained her chastity for you, once she realizes it’s all been to no avail, Kiku’s resolve will crumble. Once she starts to slide, it’ll turn into an avalanche. And when that happens, I know just how to use my fingers to make her melt….”

  Itō smiled as he relished the way his words hurt and made a mock of Seikichi, who had never known a woman and who understood nothing of a woman’s heart.

  He left Seikichi in that state and stopped by the women’s cell.

  Some of the women had gathered to offer prayers, while others looked after their children or talked quietly together. When they saw Itō, they quickly sat up with proper formality and stopped talking.

  In a gentle voice, Itō said, “How are you—is everyone well today? It’s going to be terribly cold today. It looks as though it will snow in the mountains to the north.” As he spoke, his droopy eyes searched the group for the woman who resembled Kiku.

  “You there!” He called after locating the woman. “What’s your name?”

  “It’s … Shima.”

  “Shima? Come outside with me for a bit.”

  Before long, he was once again inflicting on her the same humiliation as before. He always had the women remove their clothing on the bamboo veranda or on top of the rocks in the garden, and then he made them sit down. It was customary for him to inflict spiritual torture in addition to physical abuse. More than a few women had tearfully apostatized as a result.

  The men who apostatized were moved to the Hōshin-an nunnery, but the apostate women were shifted to a separate room.

  Ample quantities of food were provided to the apostates, and they were allowed to do handwork and labor outside the compound.

  Occasionally an apostate man or woman would secretly share some of their food with those in other cells. According to the historical records, that gesture provided great encouragement to those who continued to sustain their Kirishitan faith.

  Sometimes Itō was strangely gentle with the Kirishitan prisoners, but at other times he behaved with such cruelty that he seemed a completely different person. The prisoners and even his underlings Takahashi and Deguchi considered
him capricious, but the feelings of these two low-ranking officers toward him were in their own way complicated.

  Late on those days when he had tortured prisoners—especially female prisoners—Itō invariably went out drinking with Takahashi and Deguchi. They always went to the same bar, and after he got so drunk that Takahashi and Deguchi found him revolting, he would begin to weep and throw up.

  “There’s people who have good fortune and those with bad. The unlucky ones, no matter how hard they struggle, can never crawl out of the muck. The fortunate ones always have things go their way, whatever the odds.”

  That was Itō’s trademark pronouncement once he got drunk.

  “This fellow named Hondō that I worked with—he’s not all that bright, but since he has good luck, he wound up as an official at Foreign Affairs. And I’ve heard rumors that some high-and-mighty took note of him and soon he’ll be heading to America as an interpreter. And then there’s me….” Itō’s eyes would pool with tears at such thoughts. Occasionally he would stare at his drinking partners as though a thought had just occurred to him and ask, “What do you guys think about those Kirishitans?”

  “What do I think …? I think they’re a bunch of idiots,” Takahashi replied.

  But Itō shook his head. “Idiots …? How could idiots put up with all the horrible tortures we’re inflicting on them and still cling to their beliefs? They’re no idiots. They’re a strong bunch … strong … ! If I were forced into their position, I could never be as strong as they are.” Then, in a solemn voice he muttered, “Do you think there’s any chance … any chance that this God they believe in is real?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Takahashi chuckled. “We’ll have real problems if even you start thinking like that!”

  “But when I see how fervent they are, I start wondering what this being they believe in could be. It’s like the intensity of a woman’s love when she’s completely fallen for a man. When a woman gives her heart to a man, she’ll give up absolutely everything and put her whole body and soul into it.”