by Неизвестный
Some ten days after she had reduced the blood letter to ashes, Shizuko set off for the Tama cemetery, a place she hadn’t visited in years. She had kept meaning to go sometime soon after the end of the war but had found neither the time nor the mental leisure and hadn’t gotten around to it. Now she was setting off to sweep her grandfather’s long-neglected grave. It was Chise’s blood letter, of course, that had finally got her moving.
It was a sunny afternoon, but with the New Year’s festivities fast approaching, there was hardly anyone to be seen in the suburban graveyard. In the broad, clear sky, the lofty treetops of red pines rustled in the breeze, making a dry sound. The scene was refreshing. Grave plots were arrayed right and left along a broad path, and here and there on the grounds were azaleas and nandina bamboo mixed in among the evergreens, their bright foliage glowing even this late in the year.
The Sagane family plot, in section five, looked long unvisited. In the basin before the gravestone there was nothing but some wind-tossed dry pine needles, not even a trace of wilted flowers. Shizuko washed the grave with water she had brought in a bucket from a tea stall and put some flowers in the vase. As she squatted there, with her hands pressed together in prayer and her eyes tightly closed, the memory of the day some twenty years earlier when they had put her grandfather’s bones to rest here came back to life.
The stonemason was waiting with the slab lifted off the front of the grave. After removing it from a plain wooden box, her uncle placed the white porcelain urn containing her grandfather’s ashes in the grave’s Chinese chest. He put it next to Ritsu’s urn, which had been placed there previously. The interior of the Chinese chest was rather spacious, intended as a burial receptacle for several generations, and a number of other urns were visible, clustered in a corner.
Dressed in a formal black crested kimono and with a quartz rosary around her wrist, Shiga was there along with the family. After the ceremony they all walked back to the tea stall, chatting in groups of twos and threes as they followed the broad path bordered with swaying pines trees, which were then nowhere near as tall as now. Even now Shizuko couldn’t help remembering that day Shiga had looked splendidly beautiful, even though she was well over fifty and dressed in mourning.
When she was young, Shiga’s glossy jet black hair was extremely thick and grew from a perfectly even hairline. She had hated it when people told her that she looked like the girls pictured in cloth collages on the festive battledores for New Year’s games of shuttlecock. Even in her old age it hadn’t turned white, and on that day she had done it up in a style with the front of her somewhat thinned hair softly puffed out. On her supple, small-boned body, she was wearing her kimono with the neckband somewhat loose, and though her obi was tied rather low, the undercord around her waist was pulled tight, raising a corner of her hem and giving the kimono skirt the smooth trim appearance called “willow-hipped.” It was a stylish look, calling to mind precisely the image of a turn-of-the century concubine, like a high-class geisha who somehow retained an appearance of innocence.
“Dear old Shiga’s looking terribly alluring today, isn’t she? She’s really at home in a black-crested kimono. The young folks pale by comparison, don’t you think?” One of Shizuko’s elder cousins, much the young man-about-town, said this, tapping Shizuko on the shoulder playfully; and in truth, all those young ladies with their tidily arranged neckbands did look quite unprepossessing in comparison to Shiga.
It came about naturally with the death of Sagane Yoshimitsu that Shiga was finally able to emerge from the shadowy position she’d been kept in all her life, but by that time Shiga herself had reached an age that afforded her no prospects of love or marriage. For good or ill, it had been Shiga’s life to be raised by Yoshimitsu and to have grown old with him.
Before her grandfather’s possessions were to be divided up, Shizuko’s mother was summoned to her ancestral home to sort through his clothing. Shiga was by her side, and with the palm of her hand, she lovingly stroked an indigo-striped garment that Yoshimitsu used to wear when he went out.
“My master liked this. He wore it often. It really suited him well, even when he’d grown old,” she said to Shizuko’s mother.
Then Shizuko’s mother gazed with amazement as, despite her advanced age, Shiga’s large round eyes moistened and filled with tears.
“Well, after all, since they’d been together so long, it seems she did feel that he cared for her and she wasn’t bothered by the difference in their ages. She didn’t show the least hint of relief over his passing,” Shizuko’s mother told her.
Shiga had never had any children. She was given enough stock certificates to allow her to manage independently and was set up living with her niece in a Sagane family rental house. But just before the war became severe, she died of pneumonia. Shizuko was away from Tokyo at the time, so she couldn’t even go to pay her last respects, but in all likelihood Shiga’s bones were interred here in this grave as one of the Sagane family, right along with the urns of Yoshimitsu and Ritsu.
When she imagined the bones of Ritsu and Shiga flanking Yoshimitsu’s bones, Shizuko thought once again of her grandmother’s bedtime story about Ishidōmaru’s father. But then, when they’ve turned to white ash that could pass for asbestos, stuff that rustles dryly in a porcelain urn, the physical attributes of wife or mistress, man or woman, have long since been lost.
Who knew what end in life had finally come to Chise, the author of the blood letter? Her words alone lived on for some sixty or seventy years sewn inside Ritsu’s obi, and knowledge of the passionate attachment that she could not suppress was transmitted to Shizuko. That blood letter was definitely written by Chise, but somehow Ritsu must have had similar feelings. To Shizuko this seemed the reason why instead of destroying and discarding it on the spot, as one might expect, she sewed it into the lining of her obi, keeping it to survive for so long, hidden from the light of day.
Perhaps when Shizuko burned up the letter, the attachments felt by both Chise and Ritsu met their blazing conclusion together.
“Shizuko, I suspect there’s something more to your story,” I said when I’d heard her out.
“Oh, you’re sharp. Couldn’t you just let it go at that?” Shizuko smiled vaguely.
“You must have visited Minami’s grave. I’m sure his grave is there, too.”
Minami was an elder cousin of Shizuko’s husband, a diplomat with whom she’d had an affair after her husband’s death. Put in mind of the charms of nasty men by Shizuko’s story of her grandfather, I’d been taking in her story and associating the better part of it with the Minami affair.
Of course she didn’t write a blood letter, but when she and Minami parted company and he was leaving to assume a post in Europe, she pursued him, following him to the port at Shimonoseki, and finally returned without meeting up with him. I’d heard the whole story. That impetuous behavior was atypical of Shizuko. Minami died during the war at his foreign post.
Shizuko reddened about the eyes and blinked, looking a bit embarrassed. She said that she’d supposed I would think of Minami while she was telling her story, but she’d thought I’d keep quiet about it.
After visiting her grandfather’s grave, carrying another bunch of flowers in her bucket, Shizuko went looking for Minami’s grave, which was a good way back in the cemetery. She was relying on the map she had consulted in the cemetery office. Even when she’d gotten fairly close to his grave, she couldn’t find it and inadvertently started over to the grave of someone else with the same surname.
“It was like the plot of ‘Mistaken Judgment,’ ”2 said Shizuko, smiling brightly.
When she finally found Minami’s grave and put her flowers in the vase, Shizuko felt relieved. As she stood there bowing deeply, the white bones beneath the grave seemed to fade dimly, and it was as if the haze congealed into the form of Minami.
The sun slipped behind the clouds and a strong wind came up. Some sort of bird cried boisterously in the top of the lone tree, straigh
t and tall as a cryptomeria, that stood by Minami’s grave.
ENDŌ SHŪSAKU
At the age of ten, Endō Shūsaku (1923–1996) was baptized into the Catholic Church, primarily to please his mother. Moreover, he often described his literary career as an attempt to “retailor the Western-style suit of clothing” in which his mother had dressed him. Not surprisingly, Endō shared with many of his war-generation contemporaries a concern for the weakling who is compelled to renounce his personal beliefs. But he stood virtually alone in his quest to locate—in such powerful novels as Silence (Chinmoku, 1966) and Deep River (Fukai kawa, 1993), as well as in the following story, “Mothers” (Haha naru mono, 1969)—spiritual solace for his suffering characters, a solace that takes the form of a forgiving Christ figure who shares with them the pains of mortal existence.
MOTHERS (HAHA NARU MONO)
Translated by Van C. Gessel
I reached the dock at nightfall.
The ferryboat had not yet arrived. I peered over the low wall of the quay. Small gray waves laden with refuse and leaves licked at the jetty like a puppy quietly lapping up water. A single truck was parked in the vacant lobby of the dock; beyond the lot stood two warehouses. A man had lit a bonfire in front of one of the warehouses; the red flames flickered.
In the waiting room, five or six local men wearing high boots sat patiently on benches, waiting for the ticket booth to open. At their feet were dilapidated trunks and boxes loaded with fish. I also noticed several cages packed full of chickens. The birds thrust their long necks through the wire mesh and writhed as though in pain. The men sat quietly on the benches, occasionally glancing in my direction.
I felt as though I had witnessed a scene like this in some Western painting. But I couldn’t recall who had sketched it or when I had seen it.
The lights on the broad gray shore of the island across the water twinkled faintly. Somewhere a dog was howling, but I couldn’t tell whether it was over on the island or here on my side of the bay.
Gradually some of the lights which I had thought belonged to the island began to move. I finally realized that they belonged to the ferryboat that was heading this way. At last the ticket booth opened, and the men got up from the benches and formed a queue. When I lined up behind them, the smell of fish was overpowering. I had heard that most of the people on the island mixed farming with fishing.
Their faces all looked the same. Their eyes seemed sunken, perhaps because of the protruding cheekbones; their faces were void of expression as if they were afraid of something. In short, dishonesty and dread had joined together to mold the faces of these islanders. Perhaps I felt that way because of the preconceived notions I had about the island I was about to visit. Throughout the Edo period, the residents of the island had suffered through poverty, hard, grinding labor, and religious persecution.
After some time I boarded the ferryboat, which soon pulled away from the harbor. Only three trips a day connected the island with the Kyushu mainland. Until just two years before, boats had made the crossing only twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening.
It was, in fact, little more than a large motor launch and had no seats. The passengers stood between bicycles and fish crates and old trunks, exposed to the chilling sea winds that blew through the windows. Had this been Tokyo, some passengers would undoubtedly have complained at the conditions, but here no one said a word. The only sound was the grinding of the boat’s engine; even the chickens in the cages at our feet did not utter a peep. I jabbed at some of the chickens with the toe of my shoe. A look of fear darted across their faces. They looked just like the men from the waiting room, and I had to smile.
The wind whipped up; the sea was dark, and the waves black. I tried several times to light a cigarette, but the wind extinguished my match at every attempt. The unlit cigarette grew damp from my lips, and finally I hurled it overboard . . . though the winds may very well have blown it back onto the boat. The weariness of the twelve-hour bus ride from Nagasaki overcame me. I was stiff from the small of my back to my shoulders. I closed my eyes and listened to the droning of the engine.
Several times, out on the pitch black ocean, the pounding of the engine grew suddenly faint. In an instant it would surge up again, only to slacken once more. I listened to that process repeat itself several times before I opened my eyes again. The lights of the island were directly ahead.
“Hello!” a voice called. “Is Watanabe there? Throw the line!”
There was a dull, heavy thud as the line was thrown to the quay.
I got off after the locals had disembarked. The cold night wind bore the smells of fish and of the sea. Just beyond the dock gate stood five or six shops selling dried fish and local souvenirs. I had heard that the best-known local product was a dried flying fish called ago. A man dressed in boots and wearing a jacket stood in front of the shops. He watched me closely as I stepped through the gate, then came up to me and said, “Sensei, thank you for coming all this way. The church sent me to meet you.”
He bowed to me an embarrassing number of times, then tried to wrest my suitcase from my hands. No matter how often I refused, he would not let go of it. The palms that brushed against my hand were as solid and large as the root of a tree. They were not like the soft, damp hands of the Tokyo Christians that I knew so well.
I tried to walk beside him, but he stubbornly maintained a distance of one pace behind me. I remembered that he had called me “sensei,” and I felt bewildered. If the church people persisted in addressing me in terms of respect, the locals might be put on their guard against me.
The smell of fish that permeated the harbor trailed persistently after us. That odor seemed to have embedded itself in the low-roofed houses and the narrow road over the course of many years. Off to my left, across the sea, the lights of Kyushu now shone faintly in the darkness.
“How is the father?” I asked. “I came as soon as I got his letter . . .”
But there was no answer from behind. I tried to detect whether I had done something to offend him, but that did not appear to be the case. Perhaps he was just diffident and determined not to engage in idle chatter. Or possibly, after long years of experience, the people of this island had concluded that the best way to protect themselves was to avoid imprudent conversation.
I had met their priest in Tokyo. He had come up from Kyushu to attend a meeting just after I had published a novel about the Christian era in Japan. I went up and introduced myself to him. He, too, had the deep-set eyes and the prominent cheekbones of the island’s fishermen. Bewildered perhaps to be in Tokyo among all the notable clerics and nuns, his face tightened and he said very little when I spoke to him. In that sense, he was very much like the man who was now carrying my suitcase.
“Do you know Father Fukabori?” I had asked the priest. A year earlier, I had taken a bus to a fishing village an hour from Nagasaki. There I met the village priest, Father Fukabori, who was from the Urakami district. Not only did he teach me how to deep-sea fish, he also provided me with considerable assistance in my research. The purpose of my visit had been to visit the kakure, descendants of some of the original Christian converts in the seventeenth century who had, over the space of many years, gradually corrupted the religious practices. Father Fukabori took me to the homes of several of the kakure, who still stubbornly refused to be reconverted to Catholicism. As I have said, the faith of the kakure Christians over the long years of national isolation had drifted far from true Christianity and had embraced elements of Shinto, Buddhism, and local superstition. Because of this, one of the missions of the church in this region, ever since the arrival of Father Petitjean in the Meiji period [1868–1912], was the reconversion of the kakure who were scattered throughout the Goto and Ikitsuki islands.
“He let me stay at his church.” I continued to grasp for threads of conversation, but the priest clutched his glass of juice tightly and muttered only monosyllabic responses.
“Are there any kakure in your parish?”<
br />
“Yes.”
“They’re starting to show up on television these days, and they look a little happier now that they’re making some money out of it. The old man that Father Fukabori introduced me to was just like an announcer on a variety show. Is it easy to meet the kakure on your island?”
“No, it’s very difficult.”
Our conversation broke off there, and I moved on in search of more congenial company.
Yet to my surprise, a month ago I received a letter from this artless country priest. It opened with the customary Catholic “Peace of the Lord” salutation and went on to say that he had persuaded some of the kakure who lived in his parish to show me their religious icons and copies of their prayers. His handwriting was surprisingly fluent.
I looked back at the man walking behind me and asked, “Are there any kakure around here?”
He shook his head. “No, they all live in the mountains.”
Half an hour later we reached the church. A man dressed in a black cassock, his hands clasped behind him, stood at the doorway. Beside him was a young man with a bicycle.
Since I had already met the priest—though only once—I greeted him casually, but he looked somewhat perplexed and glanced at the other two men. I had been thoughtless. I had forgotten that unlike Tokyo or Osaka, in this district the priest was like a village headman or, in some cases, as highly respected as a feudal lord.
“Jirō, go and tell Mr. Nakamura that the sensei has arrived,” he ordered. With a deep bow the young man climbed on his bicycle and disappeared into the darkness.