Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories (16 page)

Back then, as soon as a person was discovered to be following the teachings of the Heavenly Lord, he was either burned at the stake or impaled on the rack. “The Lord for whom all things are possible” seemed to provide especially miraculous protection to believers here in proportion to the severity of the persecutions they had to endure. Angels and saints often came with the light of the setting sun to visit the villages around Nagasaki, and tradition has it that San Jo-an Batista himself once appeared to the believer Miguel–Yahei
¹
in his Urakami mill. Satan also frequently appeared in the villages then to disrupt the devotions of believers. He would take the form of a strange black man, say, or an imported flowering plant, or a wickerwork carriage. Even the rat that tormented Miguel–Yahei in his underground dungeon, where he could not distinguish night from day, was said to be an incarnation of Satan. Yahei was burned at the stake with eleven other believers in the autumn of the eighth year of Genna.

This, then, was the situation in Urakami during Genna and Kan'ei—a long time ago.

In the village of Yamazato in Urakami there lived a girl named O-Gin. Her father and mother had wandered to Nagasaki from far-off Osaka, but before they could establish a life there, they died, leaving O-Gin alone. Because they came from another part of the country, they could not have known anything about the teachings of the Heavenly Lord. What they believed in was Buddhism—Zen, perhaps, or Tendai, or Pure
Land Buddhism—in any case, the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha. Jean Crasset, a French Jesuit, tells us that Shakyamuni was a man of innate cunning who roamed across the length and breadth of China, preaching the Way of a Buddha called Amida.
²
From China, Shakyamuni came to the Land of Japan to teach the same Way. His doctrine claimed that at death a human being's
anima
would become a bird or an ox or a tree depending on the degree of the person's sinfulness. According to Crasset, Shakyamuni killed his own mother at the time of his birth; his teachings were obviously a pack of lies, and just as obvious was the enormous evil of Shakyamuni himself.

As suggested earlier, however, O-Gin's parents would not have had the opportunity to learn these truths. Even after death, they continued to believe in the teachings of Shakyamuni, dreaming their fragile dreams of a Buddhist Paradise there beneath the graveyard pines, never knowing that, in the end, they would fall into Inherno.

Fortunately, however, O-Gin was not tainted by her parents' ignorance, for the farmer Jo-an–Magoshichi, a longtime resident of Yamazato and a man of deep compassion, poured the holy water of baptismo upon the girl's forehead and gave her the name Mariya. O-Gin did not believe that Shakyamuni was born pointing to the sky and the ground and proclaiming, “Throughout heaven and earth, I alone am the honored one.” Instead, she believed that “Santa Maria, a maiden profoundly gentle, profoundly compassionate, and sweet above all others,” had come spontaneously to be with child. She believed that Zesus, who had “died upon the cross and been laid in a stone sarcophagus deep in the earth,” came back to life three days later. She believed that when the trumpet sounds on Judgment Day, “Our Lord will descend from Heaven in great power and glory, and reunite people's material bodies, which have turned to dust, with their original
anima
. Then the good people will enjoy the pleasures of heaven above, and the bad people will fall down into hell with the devil.” And she especially believed in the holy sagramento in which “the bread and wine, though unchanged in shape and color, became the actual flesh and blood of Our Lord through the divine power of the Word.”
O-Gin's heart was not, like those of her parents, a desert swept by searing winds. It was an abundant field of ripened wheat mingled with simple wild roses.

After she lost her parents, O-Gin was adopted by Jo-an– Magoshichi. His wife, Joanna–O-Sumi, was as tender-hearted as her husband. O-Gin spent day after happy day with them, tending the cattle and mowing the wheat. Nor did the three of them fail, as they went about their chores, to observe fasting and prayer as often as they could without attracting the attention of the other villagers. Many times O-Gin would stand in the shade of the fig tree by the well, looking up at the large crescent moon and praying with her whole heart. So young that her hair still hung loose to her shoulders, this sweet girl would offer up prayers of great simplicity:

“All hail to you, O compassionate Mother. This wanderer, this child of Ewa, cries out to you alone. Please turn your gentle gaze upon this vale of tears. Ammei.”

But then one Natala (Christmas) eve, Satan burst into Magoshichi's house along with several officials. In the great sunken hearth of Magoshichi's house blazed the Yule log, and on this special night alone, the holy crucifix was ceremonially displayed upon the soot-smeared wall. And finally, in the stable out back, the officials found the manger full of water for the infant Zesus' first bath. They nodded to each other and bound Magoshichi and his wife with ropes. O-Gin, too, they tied up. None of the captives, however, showed anything but the most complete composure. They were prepared to endure any torment for the salvation of their
anima
. They shared the same deep, unspoken faith:
Our Lord will surely favor us with His divine protection. Is not the very fact that we were arrested on Natala eve proof of the depth of His love for us?

The officials led their bound prisoners to the residence of the local magistrate. But along the way, even as the night wind struck them, the three continued to intone their nativity prayers. “O Young Lord of Ours, born in the Land of Belem, where art thou now? Honored and praised be thy Name!”

As he watched them being captured, Satan laughed and clapped his hands with joy. But he was obviously more than a
little angered by their courageous demeanor. Later, alone again, he spat in disgust and, transforming himself into a great millstone, he rolled into the darkness and disappeared.

Jo-an–Magoshichi, Joanna–O-Sumi, and Mariya–O-Gin were not only thrown into an underground dungeon: they were subjected to many tortures to make them abandon the teachings of the Heavenly Lord. Despite torture by water and torture by fire, however, their resolve remained firm. Even as their torn flesh began to fester, they knew the gates of Haraiso would open to them with but another moment's endurance. Indeed, at the thought of the Heavenly Lord's great benevolence, even this dark underground dungeon had all the sublimity of Haraiso. And often at times when they drifted between dream and waking, august angels and saints would come to comfort them. O-Gin in particular was favored with such moments of bliss. Once, she saw San Jo-an Batista scooping up many locusts upon his broad palms and saying to her, “Eat!” Another time she saw the great angel Gabriel, his white wings folded, giving her water in a golden cup.

The local magistrate, meanwhile, ignorant of the teachings of the Heavenly Lord (and of the teachings of Shakyamuni, for that matter), had no idea why his prisoners were being so obstinate. He sometimes wondered if all three of them were crazy. When he finally realized that they were by no means crazy, he began to feel they might be serpents or unicorns—or at least some kind of animal unrelated to humanity. To allow such animals to go on living would not only be a violation of present-day law, it could compromise the security of the country. And so, after he held them for a month in the earthen prison, the magistrate decided that he would burn all three of them. (In fact, like most people, this magistrate hardly ever thought about the security of the country. He had both the law and popular custom to rely on. That was quite enough for him without the extra effort of thinking about such things.)

The believers showed no sign of fear as they were led to the execution ground on the village outskirts, an empty, rock-strewn patch of earth next to the cemetery. Upon arrival, they were read the indictments against them and tied to stout square
posts. The posts were then set in the center of the execution ground, with Joanna–O-Sumi on the right, Jo-an–Magoshichi in the middle, and Mariya–O-Gin on the left. O-Sumi looked suddenly much older now after days of torture. Magoshichi's bewhiskered cheeks seemed drained of blood. And O-Gin… O-Gin, by comparison, looked more like her usual self. Standing on top of piles of firewood, all three wore the same calm expression.

A large crowd had been gathering all day along the edges of the execution ground. Against the sky above the spectators, a half-dozen pines stretched out their branches like a sacred canopy above a Buddhist altar.

When all preparations were complete, one of the officials stepped out grandly before the three convicts and announced that he would offer them a reprieve: they could take a few more minutes to think about giving up their faith in the teachings of the Heavenly Lord. All they need do was say they renounced the holy teachings, and he would immediately loosen their bonds. None of the three responded to him. All kept their gazes fixed on the distant heavens, and all had smiles on their lips.

The next few minutes were a time of utter silence—for the officials, of course, but for the crowd as well. Countless eyes were locked, unblinking, on the faces of the convicts. This is not to say that all the spectators were holding their breath out of pity for the victims. Rather, most were waiting in suspense for the moment when the fires would be lit. And the execution was taking so long that the officials, for their part, were too bored to talk to each other.

Then suddenly the ears of the assembled throng caught a wholly unexpected declaration:

“I have decided to abandon the holy teachings.”

The voice was that of O-Gin. A stir went through the crowd, but no sooner had the muttering begun than the spectators fell silent again, for Magoshichi had turned sadly toward O-Gin with a feeble cry:

“O-Gin! Have you been blinded by Satan? Just hold on a little longer, and you will be able to see Our Lord's holy face!”

Even before his words had ended, O-Sumi strained to make
herself heard from her distant perch: “O-Gin! O-Gin! Satan is taking possession of you! Pray hard, now! Pray hard!”

But O-Gin answered neither Magoshichi nor O-Sumi. Her eyes stayed trained on the canopy of the graveyard pines above the heads of the spectators. Before long, an official gave the order for O-Gin to be untied.

As soon as he saw this, Jo-an–Magoshichi closed his eyes in apparent resignation. “O Lord, to whom all things are possible, I humbly submit to Your Divine Plan.”

Once her ropes were off, O-Gin merely stood where she was, a blank expression on her face. But then, catching sight of Magoshichi and O-Sumi, she went down on her knees in front of them and wept. Magoshichi's eyes were still closed, and O-Sumi averted her face.

“Father! Mother! Please forgive me!” O-Gin cried at last. “I have abandoned the holy teachings, and it is because I noticed the canopy of pines over there. Asleep under those pines in the graveyard, my parents do not know the teachings of Our Heavenly Lord, and by now they must have fallen down into Inherno. It would be unforgivable of me to enter the gates of Haraiso without them. And so I will follow them down to the bottom of Hell. Please go now, Mother and Father, to be with Lord Zesus and the holy Maria. And I—now that I have abandoned the holy teachings—I cannot go on living…”

O-Gin said this in broken snatches, and then she gave way to weeping. Now Joanna–O-Sumi, too, rained down tears on the firewood beneath her feet. To indulge in useless lamentation was by no means proper behavior for a believer about to enter Haraiso. Jo-an–Magoshichi turned a look of loathing on his wife next to him, and screamed at her, “Have you been possessed by Satan, too? Go ahead if you want to: abandon the teachings of Our Heavenly Lord. I'll burn to death alone. Just watch!”

“No no,” said O-Sumi. “I will go with you. But not… but not…”

Swallowing her tears, O-Sumi, half-shouting, flung out her words: “Not because I want to go to Haraiso, but because I want to be with you.”

Magoshichi remained silent for a long time, but his face changed from ghastly pale to blood red and back, and broke out in beads of sweat. Now, in his mind's eye, Magoshichi was watching his
anima
. He watched as an angel and Satan struggled to gain possession of it. If O-Gin, collapsed in tears at his feet, had not at that moment raised her face to him—but it was too late now, for that is exactly what she did. She fixed her overflowing eyes on his with a strange gleam. The light that flashed in those eyes revealed not merely the heart of an innocent girl. It was the heart of all human beings, all the “wandering children of Ewa.”

“Father! Let's go to Inherno together! And Mother, and I, and my father and mother who are already there—let's let Satan take us all together!”

And in the end Magoshichi, too, fell from grace.

Another tradition has it that Satan, overjoyed at the way things turned out, changed himself into a huge book and flew around the execution ground all night. The author of the present tale is highly skeptical: was it so great a victory for Satan as to prompt such excessive celebrating?