Silence

by Shusaku Endo

  The next day we continued to walk under the merciless rays of the sun. White steam rose up from the earth still sodden from yesterday’s rain, and beyond the mountain a cloud was glittering brightly. For some time I had been suffering from a headache and a parched throat. Whether or not Kichijirō noticed the pain in my face I do not know; but sometimes he would slowly cross the road, pierce with his staff a snake hidden in the bushes, and put it into his dirty bag. ‘We peasants eat these big snakes as medicine,’ he said, showing his yellow teeth and laughing.

  Why did you not sell me last night for three hundred pieces of silver?, I thought. And there arose in my mind that terribly dramatic scene at the Supper when Christ turned to Judas with the words: ‘What thou dost, do quickly.’ Priest though I am, I find it difficult to grasp the full meaning of these words. Dragging my feet wearily along beside Kichijirō amidst the rising steam, I kept turning them over in my mind. What emotion had filled the breast of Christ when he ordered away the man who was to betray him for thirty pieces of silver. Was it anger? or resentment? Or did these words arise from his love? If it was anger, then at this instant Christ excluded from salvation this man alone of all the men in the world; and then Our Lord allowed one man to fall into eternal damnation.

  But it could not be so. Christ wanted to save even Judas. If not, he would never have made him one of his disciples. And yet why did Christ not stop him when he began to slip from the path of righteousness? This was a problem I had not understood even as a seminarian. I asked many priests about it. Certainly I must have asked Father Ferreira also, but I cannot recall what his answer was. This very fact indicates that he gave no real solution.

  ‘These words were not uttered in anger or hatred. They were words of disgust,’ someone had said. But what kind of disgust? Were they disgust for everything in Judas? Did Christ at that moment cease to love him? ‘By no means,’ came the answer. ‘Take the example of a husband betrayed by his wife. He continues to love her; but he never forgives the fact that she, his wife, should betray him. This is the feeling of the husband who loves his wife but feels disgust at such behaviour. … and Christ’s attitude toward Judas was something like that.’

  This conventional answer failed to satisfy me even as a young man. In fact, even now I cannot understand. If it is not blasphemous to say so, I have the feeling that Judas was no more than the unfortunate puppet for the glory of that drama which was the life and death of Christ. ‘What thou dost do quickly.’ Yet I could not say such words to Kichijirō, one reason being that I wanted to protect my own life, the other that I hoped ardently that he would not heap betrayal upon betrayal.

  ‘This path is narrow. It’s difficult to walk here,’ said my companion.

  ‘Is there a river anywhere?’ I asked.

  The parched, dry feeling in my throat was now unbearable. With the hint of a laugh Kichijirō looked me over: ‘Do you want water? You ate too much of that dried fish.’

  Like the previous day, crows were flying around, forming an enormous crescent in the sky. Looking up, a flash of white light struck my eyes almost blinding me. I began to regret my compromise and my weakness. For a piece of dried fish I had made an irrevocable failure. I searched for the marsh, but in vain. The warm wind was blowing in from the sea. ‘The river! the river! the river! the river!’

  ‘There isn’t even a stream here. Can’t you wait?’ said Kichijirō. But without even waiting for my answer he ran down the slope.

  When his appearance was lost from sight behind a crag, the surroundings suddenly became deadly silent except for the dry sound of insects fluttering in the grass. A lizard crawled uneasily over a stone and then fled away speedily. Its furtive face as it started at me reminded me of the Kichijirō who had just vanished from sight. Had he really gone in search of water for me? Or had he gone to betray me, to tell someone that I was here?

  Grasping my staff and moving on, I found that the dryness in my throat was even more unbearable, and now I realized only too clearly that the wretch had deliberately made me eat the dried fish. I recalled the words of the Gospel how Christ had said, ‘I thirst’; and one of the soldiers put a sponge full of vinegar on hyssop and held it to his mouth. I closed my eyes. In the distance a hoarse call echoed as though someone was looking for me. ‘Father! Father!’ Kichijirō ran dragging his feet in the old slovenly way and carrying a pitcher of water. ‘Are you running away?’, he asked as he looked sorrowfully down at me.

  I snatched the pitcher of water that he offered me, and placing it to my lips drank greedily and shamelessly. The water poured down through my hands wetting my knees.

  ‘Father, you were running away. Don’t you trust me?’

  ‘I don’t want to hurt your feelings,’ I said. ‘We’re both tired. Please go away. Leave me alone!’

  ‘Alone? Where would you go? It’s dangerous. I know a village of hidden Christians. There is a church there and a father.’

  ‘A father?’ Unconsciously I raised my voice. I couldn’t believe that there might be a priest other than myself on the island. I looked at Kichijirō with growing suspicion.

  ‘Yes, father. And not a Japanese. I’ve heard so.’

  ‘Impossible!’

  ‘Father, you don’t trust me.’ He stood there tearing at the grass and snivelling in his weak voice. ‘No one trusts me.’

  ‘And yet you know how to look after yourself. Mokichi and Ichizo have sunk to the bottom of the sea like stones and yet. … ’

  ‘Mokichi was strong—like a strong shoot. But a weak shoot like me will never grow no matter what you do.’ He seemed to feel that I had dealt him a severe rebuke, because with a look like a whipped dog he glanced backwards. Yet I had not said these words with the intention of rebuking him; I was only giving expression to a sad reflection that was rising in my mind. Kichijirō was right in saying that all men are not saints and heroes. How many of our Christians, if only they had been born in another age from this persecution would never have been confronted with the problem of apostasy or martyrdom but would have lived blessed lives of faith until the very hour of death.

  ‘I have nowhere to go. I’m just wandering around the mountains,’ complained Kichijirō.

  A feeling of pity surged up within my breast. I bade him kneel down and in obedience to my command he tremblingly bent his knees down to the earth. ‘Do you feel like confessing for Mokichi and Ichizo?’ I asked.

  Men are born in two categories: the strong and the weak, the saints and the commonplace, the heroes and those who respect them. In time of persecution the strong are burnt in the flames and drowned in the sea; but the weak, like Kichijirō, lead a vagabond life in the mountains. As for you (I now spoke to myself) which category do you belong to? Were it not for the consciousness of your priesthood and your pride, perhaps you like Kichijirō would trample on the fumie.

  ‘Our Lord is crowned with thorns. Our Lord is crucified.’ With all the simplicity of a child imitating its mother Kichijirō repeated my words one by one while a lizard once again crawled over and around the white surface of the rock. In the woods resounded the voice of the cicada; the scent of the grass was wafted over the white rock.

  Then coming along the road we had traversed I heard the sound of footsteps. Men, looking in our direction and hastening their steps, made their way through the bushes.

  ‘Father, forgive me!’ Still kneeling on the bare ground Kichijirō cried out in a voice choked with tears. ‘I am weak. I am not a strong person like Mokichi and Ichizo.’

  Already the men were seizing me and dragging me to my feet. One of them, with a gesture of contempt, threw into the face of Kichijirō still kneeling a number of tiny silver coins.

  Without a word they pushed me in front of them. Stumbling and reeling I was driven along the dry road. Once I looked back, but already the tiny face of my betrayer was far in the distance. That face with its fearful eyes like a spider.…

  Chapter 5

  THE world outside was flooded with sunlight; but the
interior of the village seemed strangely dark. While he was being dragged here children and adults alike, dressed in rags, had kept staring at him with glimmering eyes like animals from between the thatch-roofed huts.

  Perhaps they were Christians, he reflected; and he made an effort to force a smile to his lips. But it was all an illusion: there was no response. Once a naked child tottered up to where he was; but its mother, a woman with dishevelled hair, rushed forward, tumbling over herself in haste, and clasping the child in her arms hurried back again. To calm his anguished trembling that night the priest thought earnestly about a man who had been dragged from the Garden of Gethsemane to the palace of Caiphas.

  Once outside the village his eyes were suddenly dazzled by the glare of the sun. He felt overcome with giddiness. The fellow behind, constantly muttering something, kept pushing him on. Forcing a smile the priest asked if he might be permitted to rest for a moment, but the other, hard-faced and grim, shook his head in refusal. The fields beneath the glaring sun were heavy with the smell of manure; the sky-larks chattered with pleasure in the sky; great trees, the names of which he did not know, cast a pleasant shadow on the road; and the leaves gave forth a fresh sound as they rustled in the breeze. The road through the fields gradually narrowed, and when they reached the far side they found a hollow stretching into the mountain. Here there was a tiny hut made of twigs. Its black shadow fell on the slimy earth. Here four or five men and women clad in peasant clothing, their hands bound, were sitting together on the grass. They seemed to be talking among themselves, but when they recognized the priest they opened their mouths in amazement. Having brought the priest to the group, the guards seemed to think their work was done and began to exchange chatter and banter, laughing all the time. They didn’t even seem preoccupied lest the priest might escape. As the priest sat down on the ground, the men and women bowed their heads respectfully.

  For some time he remained silent. A fly attempted to lick the perspiration which was flowing down his forehead and then it kept buzzing persistently around his face. As he turned his ears to the dull sound of its wings and felt the warm rays of the sun on his back, a glow of well-being gradually began to penetrate his whole body. At last he had been captured—this was indeed difficult to stomach; but on the other hand he had never expected to find such nonchalance here, and he began to ask himself if it might not all be an illusion. For some indefinable reason the word ‘sabbath—day of rest’ rose to his mind. The guards were talking and laughing among themselves as if nothing were afoot. The bright sun fell cheerfully on the bushes and the hut in the little hollow. And so this was the day of his capture, the day he had looked forward to with mingled fear and anxiety. Could it really be a day of such peace and calm? Yet somehow or other he also felt an inexpressible dissatisfaction—a kind of disillusion that he was not privileged to be a tragic hero like so many martyrs and like Christ himself.

  ‘Father!’ It was one of the men, with a decaying eye, who spoke moving his manacled wrists. ‘Father, what happened?’

  At this, all the others raised their heads and with faces filled with curiosity waited for the priest’s answer. They were like a bunch of ignorant beasts, he thought, quite unaware of the fate that awaited them. When he explained that he had been captured in the mountains they seemed not to understand what he said, and the man putting his hand to his ear asked the same question again. Finally they seemed to get the meaning. ‘Ah!’ A sigh, devoid of either assent or emotion, rose from among them.

  ‘Doesn’t he speak well!’ exclaimed one of the women like a child, marvelling at the priest’s command of Japanese. ‘He’s really clever, isn’t he?’

  The guards only kept laughing at all this, making no attempt to scold the men and women nor to forbid them to speak. Indeed the one-eyed man with some degree of familiarity began to speak to one of the guards who answered him with a pleasant smile.

  ‘What are those men doing?’, whispered the priest to one of the women. And she answered that they were waiting for the arrival of the government officials who were supposed to come to the village. ‘Anyhow, father,’ she went on, ‘we are Christians. Those men are not Christians. They are gentiles.’ Obviously she saw deep meaning in this distinction.

  ‘Won’t you eat something, father?’ she continued; and with her manacled wrists she succeeded in taking from her bosom a couple of small cucumbers; then nibbling at one herself she gave the other to the priest. When he bit it, his mouth was filled with its green stench. Since coming to this country, he reflected, he had caused nothing but hardship to these poor Christians; and he nibbled at the cucumber with his front teeth. He had received from them the little hut in which he had dwelt; they had given him the clothing he now wore; he had eaten their food. Now it was his turn to give something. But what could he give? The only thing he had to offer was his life and his death.

  ‘Your name?’, he asked.

  ‘Monica.’ Her answer was somewhat bashful, as though her Christian name was the only ornament she possessed in the whole world. What missionary had given the name of Augustine’s mother to this woman whose body was reeking with the stench of fish?

  ‘And this man?’ He made a gesture towards the one-eyed man still talking to the guards.

  ‘You mean Mozaemon? His name is Juan.’

  ‘What father baptized you?’

  ‘It was not a father; it was a brother: Brother Ishida. You must know him, father.’

  The priest shook his head. The only person he knew in this country was Garrpe.

  ‘You don’t know him?’ The woman spoke with astonishment as she scrutinized the priest’s face, ‘Why, he was killed at Unzen.’

  ‘But are you all at ease?’ Now at last he expressed the doubt that had been in his heart. ‘Don’t you realize that we are all going to die in the same way?’

  The woman lowered her eyes and stared intently at the bushes at her feet. Once again a fly, enticed by the smell of humanity, buzzed around his neck.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Brother Ishida used to say that when we go to Heaven we will find there everlasting peace and happiness. There we will not have to pay taxes every year, nor worry about hunger and illness. There will be no hard labor there. We have nothing but troubles in the world, so we have to work hard. Father, isn’t it true that there is no such anguish in Heaven?’

  He felt like shouting out: ‘Heaven is not the sort of place you think it is!’ But he restrained himself. These peasants had learned their catechism like children; they dreamt of a Heaven in which there was no bitter taxation and no oppression. Who was he to put a cruel end to their happy dream?

  ‘Yes,’ he said blinking his eyes, ‘there nothing can be stolen from us; we can be deprived of nothing.’

  But now, yet another question rose to his lips: ‘Do you know a father by the name of Ferreira?’

  The woman shook her head. Was the very name of Ferreira a word that was not even to be mentioned by the Christians?, he asked himself.

  Suddenly from the cliff above a loud voice rang out. Looking up the priest saw a smiling little plump samurai somewhat advanced in years, followed by two peasants. When he saw the old man’s smile he realized that this was the samurai who had conducted the investigation at Tomogi.

  ‘Hot, isn’t it?’ The samurai, waving his fan, came slowly down the cliff as he spoke. ‘From now on it gets really hot. The open fields become unbearable.’

  Monica, Juan and the other men and women put their manacled wrists on their knees and bowed politely. Out of the side of his eye the old man saw the priest bow his head along with the others, but he ignored him and walked straight on. As he passed there was a dry swish of his cloak. His clothes gave forth a sweet perfume.

  ‘We’ve had no evening showers these days. The road is all dusty. It’s a nuisance for old people like us to come so far.’ He sat down in the middle of the prisoners, cooling his head and neck with his white fan. ‘Don’t keep on causing trouble to an old man like me,’ he said
.

  The light of the sun made his laughing face look so flat that the priest recalled the statues of the Buddha he had seen in Macao. These had never aroused within him an emotion similar to that called forth by the face of Christ. Only the flies kept buzzing around. At one time they would graze the necks of the Christians, then they would fly in the direction of the old man, and then back again.

  ‘It wasn’t from hatred that we arrested you. You must see our reasons. Why should we arrest you when you pay your taxes and work hard? We know better than anyone that the peasants are the backbone of the country.’

  Mingled with the whirling of the flies’ wings was the swish of the old man’s fan. From afar the clucking of the chickens was carried by the fresh warm wind to the place where they were. Is this the famous cross-examination, thought the priest, his eyes cast down like the others. All those Christians and missionaries who had been tortured and punished—had they heard the gentle voice of persuasion prior to their suffering? Had they too heard the buzzing of flies in a sleepy atmosphere like this? He had thought to be overcome with fear and trembling but, strange to say, no terror rose up within his heart. He had no acute realization of the proximity of torture and death. He felt like a man who, on a rainy day, thinks of a sunlit mountain far away.

  ‘I’ll give you time to think it over. Afterwards, give me a reasonable answer,’ said the old man, bringing the conversation to an abrupt end as the forced smile faded from his lips. Now there appeared on his face instead that avaricious pride the priest had seen so often on the faces of the merchants at Macao. ‘Off with you!’ he said.