by Shusaku Endo
As he anticipated, that day a larger crowd of spectators than usual stood in front of the church. Petitjean deliberately swung open the door to the church to make it clear to them that it was not locked.
Before long, a handful of people crept silently in. They stopped before the statue of the Blessed Mother, whispered in soft voices, then quickly departed. A few minutes later, another four or five slipped in.
They each wore crude clothing. Their rustic faces and sunken eyes were evidence that these were peasants who had endured long years of hard labor.
Toward evening, a rather unhappy-looking Itō Seizaemon made an appearance.
“Lord Petitjean,” he said, gazing suspiciously around the chapel, “I’m sure Father Furet told you this, but … you need to understand that Japanese people are forbidden from coming in here.”
“Why can’t they come inside?” Petitjean feigned ignorance. “This is the first I’ve heard of such an agreement. I know that I am not allowed to teach the Kirishitan faith to the Japanese, but no one told me that I had to stop them from looking at the church.”
Seizaemon looked bewildered. Surprised at how stubbornly defiant Petitjean was, Itō left, evidently uncertain how to handle this situation. But the following day, he and some of his subordinates set up headquarters at a Buddhist temple close to the church. From there they sent lookouts every half hour to monitor any contact between the spectators and Petitjean.
“Padre, you must be careful,” the young man he had met the previous day sneaked into the church, avoiding the eyes of the officers, and whispered to him. “They suspect that something is going on. Some of the officers have removed their swords so they can blend in with the other spectators, and they’re keeping a close eye on us.”
Petitjean nodded. He, too, had noticed this.
“When we see you from a distance, Padre, we’ll put our left hands like this on our hearts. That’ll mean it’s someone from Nakano Village.”
Somebody coughed from the shadow of the doorway. It was a signal that an officer was approaching.
“I want to talk with you somewhere. Let me know where we can meet,” Petitjean hurriedly called after the young man who was hurrying out.
“Tomorrow in the early afternoon, we’ll wait for you at the entrance to the Suwa Shrine at the base of Mount Kompira.” He quickly went outside.
When the officer appeared, Petitjean was nonchalantly tidying up the altar. There was no sign of any other person in the sanctuary. His contact with the Kirishitans had been handled prudently, and the spectators simply pretended to be observing the church from afar.
He could hardly wait for the next day. It took a disquietingly long time for the sun to set that evening.
Petitjean wrote a letter to his superiors in Yokohama, reporting the miraculous discovery of some Japanese believers. His hand occasionally paused at the joy of his news, leaving an ink smudge on the paper.
The next day Petitjean lied to Okane and her husband to keep them offguard. “I’m off on one of my long walks.”
“Long walk? You haven’t taken one of those for a long time!” Mosaku laughed.
Petitjean planned to stroll down the hill as he always did, passing between fields and coming out on the road near the ocean. When he stepped out of the church, the startled spectators bowed their heads to him, and Itō Seizaemon, who was standing in front of the church, blinked his eyes with curiosity and asked, “Lord Petitjean, where are you off to?”
“I’m going to learn more about kite flying.” With a lighthearted look on his face, he mimed the pulling of a kite string with his right hand.
“Excellent.” Seizaemon nodded, appearing quite relieved. He knew that Petitjean had engaged in the kite battle with the Dutchman.
Petitjean came out onto the coastal road that was separated from Dejima by a canal, then strolled leisurely in the direction of Mount Kompira—just as he always had on his long walks. So seemingly carefree …
His diversionary tactics were supremely successful. Because everyone knew about Petitjean’s “long walks,” not a soul was even the least bit suspicious seeing him unhurriedly climbing the slope leading to the Suwa Shrine.
The spring sun illuminated the stone steps of the shrine. A young man was sitting on the sunny steps, a scale set down next to him. It was the young man who had promised at the Ōura church to meet him here today.
The young man was equally cautious. Even though the only people in the vicinity were two children kicking rocks, he gave no sign of recognition when he saw Petitjean, but merely stood up, hoisted the scale onto his shoulder, and began walking. Petitjean realized at once that he was meant to follow along.
The young man walked along beside the shrine and headed toward the mountain. The mountain was Kompira, famous for kite flying. On the other side of this mountain were the villages that made up the Urakami District, including Nakano and Magome.
The cherry trees were in bloom. Somewhere on the mountain a bush warbler squawked. These two peculiar men acted like total strangers to each other and maintained a gap between themselves as they climbed the mountain path. They saw blossoms along the path and heard birds crying overhead.
Eventually the young man stopped and turned around, appearing to think they were now in a safe location.
“We’re OK here.” He invited Petitjean to sit on a rock alongside the path, and he took a bamboo flask out of the basket he had carried on his shoulder. “Your throat’s probably dry.”
Petitjean greedily gulped down water from the bamboo flask. When he had finished drinking, he handed the flask back to the young man and asked, “What’s your name?”
“Seikichi.”
“I’ve been searching every single day for Kirishitans. I’ve taken long walks, I’ve quizzed the children … but all to no avail. Did you know I even went kite flying?” Petitjean muttered with some resentment.
“Yes, I knew.”
“Then why didn’t you identify yourself to me sooner?”
“Padre. It’s dangerous.” Seikichi shook his head in consternation. “The magistrate’s office is keeping such close watch …”
“Seikichi, please tell me,” Petitjean almost choked on the words. “Are there Kirishitans in places besides your village?”
“Not so many. Besides Nakano, a lot of the people in Ieno and Motohara are Kirishitans. And I’ve heard there are Kirishitans in Sotome and Hirado, and on Ikitsuki Island and the Gotō Islands.”
Petitjean had no idea where Sotome or Hirado, Ikitsuki or Gotō might be located. But it moved him to the point of breathlessness to learn that in each of those places, followers of Christ had lived in silent fear for more than two hundred years.
“Miracle! C’est miracle!” Petitjean unexpectedly cried out in French. But how had these Japanese Christians maintained their faith undetected by others?
According to the piecemeal information he gathered from Seikichi—
With no priests to teach them and no church to provide them a spiritual foundation, the people of Nakano and Ieno and Motohara Villages had no recourse but to transmit the teachings of their parents orally to their children and grandchildren.
But everything had to be done in secret. They must not ever let people from any other village know that they were Kirishitan.
Under orders from the magistrate, every household became Buddhist. Once each year the fumie was set out, and they each had to trample on the face of Christ or the Blessed Mother.
However, they covertly continued to have their infants baptized as Christians, celebrated Christmas and Easter, and offered up their daily prayers.
Naturally, since they had no priest to perform their baptisms or offer their Masses, they chose from among their group those who would perform those various roles.
The person who calculated the dates for Christmas and Easter each year and communicated them to the others was known as the Chōkata, the “Register Official.”4
The one who performed baptisms as soon as an infa
nt was born was called the Mizukata, the “Water Official,” because he sprinkled water on the infant’s forehead at the time of baptism.
The individual who formed the line of communication between the Mizukata and the Chōkata was known as the Kikiyaku, the “Listener.”
Yet even though they had created these clandestine roles and maintained a strict sense of group solidarity, there was always the possibility that they might sometime be detected by the magistrate’s office.
There had, in fact, been several crackdowns on Urakami by the magistrate’s office—twice in the Kan’ei period (1624–1644) and once in the Tempō period (1830–1844). Urakami was a problematic, untrustworthy village in the eyes of the magistrate of Nagasaki.
“But they haven’t brought us down!” Seikichi smiled with the pride of youth. “We’re being very obedient right now, so the magistrate can’t clamp down on us. For one thing, they’d run into trouble with the higher-ups if they created a big incident right now, so they pretend not to see anything we do.”
“Seikichi.” With a sparkle in his eyes, Petitjean unexpectedly asked, “Will you take me to Nakano? I want to meet your people. Meet them and administer bautismo to their infants. I want to celebrate Mass for you.”
With the cries of the bush warblers echoing over their heads, the two men parted by separate paths. Seikichi went over the mountain and returned to Nakano, and Petitjean went back to his church at Ōura, a look of sheer innocence on his face.
But Petitjean had not realized or been aware when he headed toward the Suwa Shrine, pretending that he was taking one of his “long walks,” that a man was stealthily trailing behind him.
The magistrate of Nagasaki was not such a pathetic fool after all….
1. Built between 1618 and 1624, Shimabara Castle stood until the early Meiji period, when most of it was torn down to make way for a school and farmland. Restoration of the keep and towers of the historic castle began in the 1960s.
2. Joseph-Marie Laucaigne (1838–1885) was ordained a priest of the Société des Missions-Étrangères de Paris in 1862 and became auxiliary bishop of Japan in 1873. After nursing Bishop Petitjean through his final days, Laucaigne himself succumbed to a fatal illness.
3. The statue is still on display in the Ōura Church in Nagasaki.
4. I have adopted the translations of these roles from Stephen Turnbull, The Kakure Kirishitan of Japan: A Study of Their Development, Beliefs, and Rituals to the Present Day (Richmond, Eng.: Japan Library, 1998).
SPIES
AFTER WATCHING PETITJEAN disappear into the church, the man who had been following him returned to the Buddhist temple just down the slope from the church. The temple, which was serving as the locus of operations for the detectives, was called the Nikkanji and still exists today.
“Ah, you’re back.” An anxious Itō Seizaemon greeted the man. “So, where did the foreigner go?”
“He took a leisurely walk as far as the entrance to the Suwa Shrine. But I felt like there was something suspicious about the way he was behaving, and sure enough, a young man carrying a scale was waiting at the entrance….”
“Hmm.”
“The two of them climbed up Mount Kompira. While I was watching them through the trees, they carried on some secretive conversation. I think the peddler was a young man from Urakami.”
“So I was right. That foreigner says all the right things, but he’s quite the charlatan.” Seizaemon nodded and nervously batted his eyelids.
“What are we going to do?” the man asked. “Would you like me to rake the young fellow over the coals?”
“Hold on now! If things get more serious, we can always resort to that. This involves a foreigner. If we take matters into our own hands and try to deal with him, it could end up in a quarrel between countries. We’d better consult with Lord Hondō.”
It was not so much discretion that Itō was displaying as a fear that all responsibility might fall on his shoulders, so that afternoon when he returned to the magistrate’s office he gave a report to the interpreter Hondō Shuntarō and then sought his advice.
Hondō Shuntarō had come to Nagasaki from Edo in order to learn Dutch, but he was also under orders to work as an interpreter at the Nagasaki magistrate’s office. He was given the nickname “Stone Mortar” later in life, not primarily because his body was as massive as a mortar, but because in all situations he was scrupulous and never made a careless move.
“Lord Itō, you did well to be patient. Rather than making the situation worse through a hasty decision, I think it’s best to watch and wait for a time. If this becomes known publicly, the Nagasaki magistrate might well be accused by the shogunal authorities of turning a blind eye to the outlawed Kirishitans…. That would be awkward.”
Hondō deliberately repeated the word “awkward” in a low voice while pretending to slit his own throat with his hand. “I think the best plan would be to pretend for a time that you’re not aware of what is going on.”
“But won’t the Kirishitan peasants and the foreigner end up going too far and make a fool of the magistrate?”
“No, when I said ‘pretend that you’re not aware,’ I wasn’t saying you shouldn’t be watching them. In fact, you must keep a close eye on the Ieno, Kano, and Motohara Districts in Urakami. You should hire on a trustworthy peasant to be your spy.”
“Hire a peasant?”
“That’s right. Even if you send in an unarmed officer from the magistrate, they’re eventually going to sniff him out. Meanwhile … I will keep an eye on the foreigner’s movements.” Hondō spoke confidently, though Itō did not know what he had in mind.
Unlike the other officials at the magistrate’s office, Hondō Shuntarō had his own concerns about the future of Japan because of his study of Dutch and his interactions with the Dutch at Dejima. The others in the magistrate’s office were so caught up in issues concerning their own stipends and status that they accepted without question the shogunate’s conservative closed-country policy, but Hondō was a proponent of opening the country, believing that at some point Japan would have to throw open its heavy doors and interact with the other nations of the world. But he was sufficiently shrewd to know he could not openly advocate such a position so long as he worked at the magistrate’s office.
However—
Though he favored opening the country, he found it hard to forgive the foreigner Petitjean for breaking his firm promise to the magistrate and covertly scheming to spread the Kirishitan teachings.
A promise is a promise. The magistrate gave him a house in Ōura and allowed him to build the Nambanji on the condition that he would not advocate the Kirishitan teachings. But the foreigner has treated that exceptional magnanimity with contempt and seeks to violate his promise even more blatantly.
It seemed to Hondō that the foreigner considered the Japanese as fools.
But it would be a mistake to take the man into custody too quickly. In negotiations with foreigners, logic was more important than feelings. One must assemble evidence to support one’s logic. This he had been made fully aware of through his interactions with the Dutch.
Consequently—
He had given orders to Itō Seizaemon to remain watchful while he himself would make a casual call on Petitjean.
As for the purpose for his visit, he had thought it through and decided to tell the foreigner that as an interpreter of Dutch, he also wished to learn French. That would leave no margin for suspicion.
“From me?”
Two days after his secret meeting with Seikichi, an unsuspecting Petitjean received a visit from a plump young samurai, but surprise filled his eyes when he heard the samurai’s reason for coming.
“You say you work as a Dutch interpreter at the magistrate’s office?”
“I do.”
As his visitor nodded, Petitjean did a quick mental calculation, as he always did in such situations. This fellow seems fairly bright. He might be useful to me in following the magistrate’s movements. He was convin
ced that as he taught the man French, he could elicit from him just how much the magistrate’s office knew of his activities.
“All right. I’ll teach you.” Petitjean smiled as he nodded his head.
Beginning the next day, before lunch, this peculiar tutorial began. Although it was a teacher–pupil relationship, the real focus of study for both of them lay in probing each other.
“C’est une table,” Petitjean would recite, and Shuntarō would respond, “C’est une table,” though their motives were unrelated to these drills.
Because he already knew Dutch, Shuntarō made far more rapid progress than he had anticipated in his study of French—which had started with the ABCs.
Three hundred years earlier, Saint Francis Xavier, the first man to come to Japan to preach Christianity, had been astonished at the quick minds of the Japanese, and Petitjean, too, could not help but be impressed with the intellect of this young man from the magistrate’s office.
During breaks in the lessons, Petitjean would summon Okane to bring out the coffee she had prepared, and as he offered it to Shuntarō, he made casual conversation. It was in casual conversation that he hoped to achieve his true goal.
“Is it bitter?” Petitjean laughed as Shuntarō screwed up his face at the taste of the coffee.
“No. I want to experience everything from your country.” The young Japanese man’s face flushed as he tried to swallow the liquid.
“You want to experience everything from my country?” Petitjean pressed the question.
“Yes,” Shuntarō nodded, but he appeared to have understood Petitjean’s true intention, because he corrected himself by adding, “Of course, only those things that wouldn’t poison us Japanese …”
Petitjean immediately went on the counterattack. “Poison? What is there from France that could be poisonous to the Japanese?”
Shuntarō did not respond. Instead he sat holding his coffee cup in one hand and staring intently at the missionary.
Under that unwavering gaze, Petitjean understood precisely what this young Japanese from the magistrate’s office was saying. In a voice laced with a trace of anger, he asked, “So do you think that the Kirishitan teachings are poisonous to the Japanese?”