The children sang as they kicked rocks. Just as Kiku and Mitsu had sung as young girls in Magome.

The lotus flowers that covered the fields, back when they were innocent, and her dream of becoming Seikichi's wife had all flown off far into the distance. An unending stream of tears welled in Kiku's eyes, then flowed down her cheeks....

After a while- When It Seizaemon stood up, he glanced awkwardly at Kiku, then suddenly in a gentle voice said, "I'll be back again. Before then, think of any messages you'd like to send to that fellow in Tsuwano. You can send money if you want...." With that, he fled down the stairs.

"Oh, are you leaving ...?" The madam looked at It with a strained smile, then winked and said, "So, how was Kiku?"

"Umm ... OK." It hastily went out the door.

After watching him leave rather downcast, the madam quietly went up to the second floor. Kiku had her back to the door and was quietly gathering up the scattered bottles and bowls.

"Once you've finished cleaning up, why don't you take a little break until this evening? We won't have any more customers until after dark." She spoke to Kiku with greater compa.s.sion than usual.

That night, two or three groups of customers came in, and at one point Oy came downstairs to speak to the madam. "Mama, there's something funny about Kiku tonight."

"Funny how?"

"I can't really say, but she's a lot quieter than usual. Did something happen in Tsuwano?"

"Not that I know of," the madam feigned ignorance.

Two or three days later, the madam unexpectedly asked Kiku, "Kiku, this isn't something I'm trying to force you into, so please just relax and listen, OK? Have you given any thought to becoming a geiko like Oy?"

Kiku said nothing.

"A girl as pretty as you with just a little work could become the top geiko in Maruyama. You'd make good money for a long, long while, and you could use it to help your man in Tsuwano...."

Kiku still did not reply. Dark currents of fate had swept her up and were carrying her toward some unknown destination. No matter how hard she struggled against those currents, ultimately she would be borne away.... That was the sort of acquiescence that governed her heart right now.

It came back to the teahouse another two or three times. He was careful to choose the afternoon hours, when no other clients were about, to make his appearance. As a house, they were not particularly grateful to have him for a customer, but since he was an official at the Nishi Bureau, the madam had no choice but to welcome him with a smile.

He always drank sake in the same room on the second floor, and then he would pull Kiku, who sat silently pouring his drinks, into his arms. Wordlessly Kiku laid back, and It climbed on top of her.

But when he was finished with her, he would leave with a strangely uncomfortable look on his face, as though he were ashamed of himself.

Clients were still few in number when It climbed down the slope from Maruyama, now lit by the declining western sun, and he muttered to himself, "I'm ... I'm a despicable man. A truly despicable man."

He blinked his eyes.

1. The mogura-uchi is celebrated most commonly in Kyushu, with the pounding of sticks on the ground symbolizing the extermination of moles, which were the bane of a farmer's existence. Similar to the custom at Halloween, the children usually received candy, tangerines, or coins from the houses they visited.

2. Momo no sekku-literally, "Peach Blossom Festival"-is today more commonly called Hina matsuri, or Girls' Day. Traditionally, it was held on the third day of the third month by the lunar calendar and marked the pa.s.sing of winter to spring. Dolls representing the imperial court of the Heian period are put on display.

A MAN NAMED IT.

OF THE TWENTY-EIGHT men who had originally come to Tsuwano, fourteen had apostatized and two others had died in the three-foot cell. Only twelve continued to insist that they would not abandon their Kiris.h.i.tan faith.

One evening the twelve prisoners heard the sound of digging in the garden. Sen'emon peeked out and saw several men using hoes to dig a hole.

The workers realized they were being watched, so they began talking to one another loudly enough to be heard: "Anyways, it's a grave for men with no hope of becoming buddhas, so we can make it shallow enough so's that wild dogs won't have no trouble diggin' 'em up!"

The prisoners could then visualize the grave that was being dug.

Maybe it won't be long before we're beheaded. That was the consensus among the captives, but strangely, they were no longer afraid of execution; it had begun to seem like a sweet release to them. If all they had to look forward to was one painful day after another and the fear of the three-foot cell, they would prefer to have their heads lopped off sooner rather than later so they could go to Paraiso.

A heavy snow fell on the third day after the hole was dug. Late that night Sen'emon caught the chills, but at dawn while the prisoners were still sleeping a policeman arrived and summoned all twelve to an interrogation, "You're all wanted!"

"I can't go." Sen'emon demurred, suffering from a severe headache.

"Why is that?"

"I'm sick. I can't walk."

"If you can't walk, somebody'll have to carry you. You're coming! Is that clear?" Underscoring the order, the policeman disappeared.

a.s.sisted by Kanzabur, Sen'emon walked slowly behind the others down the long hallway of the temple. The temple edifice was right next to the building where they were interrogated.

The atmosphere in the room was different from usual. Today, an older man who looked like he might be a physician sat beside the interrogating officers, along with several other men seated stiffly, wearing swords and dressed sharply in formal kimono trousers and robes with their sleeves tied up with cords.

Maybe we will be executed after all.... The mood in the room gave all twelve men the sense that their time had come.

"Still no wish to change your beliefs?" It was the same question they were always asked by the officials. When no one replied, they were queried individually.

"Sen'emon, what about you?"

"I don't wish to."

"And you, Kanzabur?"

"I won't change my beliefs."

The men in formal attire, who seemed to be expecting those replies, scrambled to their feet.

"Sen'emon, Kanzabur-outside!" An officer ordered the door to be opened. Through the opening they could see the courtyard blanketed in pure white snow.

All the men were convinced that these two men would be the first to be executed. Both men felt the same way as they got to their feet. Kanzabur held on to Sen'emon, whose legs were shaky because of his fever.

The doctor and the official led the way out into the drifts of snow and stopped in the courtyard.

"Take off your clothes! Then come over here!" The official ordered brusquely.

The men removed their clothing and stepped across the snow to where the official stood.

They hadn't seen it from the distance, but the official and the doctor were standing at the edge of a pond. Because the pond was covered with a thin white layer of ice, they had not been able to distinguish it from the snow-blanketed ground.

"I told you to take off your clothes ... !" the official screamed at Sen'emon and Kanzabur, who were hugging their bodies with both arms. "Take off those loincloths, too!"

The moment the two prisoners submitted and removed their loincloths, the men in formal attire hurled themselves without warning against the bodies of both men. Thrown off balance, Sen'emon and Kanzabur tumbled into the icy pond with a splash.

A spray of water shot up as the ice shattered. The two men's bodies were sucked into the dark water, then bobbed to the surface again. Their hair was disheveled.

The ice broke, and we tried to swim around, Kanzabur later recalled his painful memories of that day. Our feet didn't reach the bottom of the pond, but it was shallower in the middle, so I was able to keep my chin above the surface. I lifted my eyes to heaven and clasped my hands and pleaded to Santa Maria to intercede. I begged for Jezusu to be with me, while Sen'emon prayed the "Our Father." I offered up a devotional prayer. Then an officer mocked us, saying, "Sen'emon, Kanzabur, can you see your heavenly Lord? Eh? How about it?!"

The officers mercilessly scooped up water in a long-handled ladle and poured it over the two men's faces. As a result, they could barely catch their breath.

My body was freezing, I was shuddering, and my teeth were chattering. Sen'emon said to me, "Kanzabur, how are you holding up? I can't see anymore. The world is spinning. Please don't forsake me!" He was about to draw his last breath when the official ordered, "Come out now!" and one of the guards yelled, 'Hurry out!' I was at the point of saying "I can make the climb to heaven but I can't climb out of this lake" when they brought a six-foot-long bamboo pole with a hook on the end and wrapped our hair around the hook and pulled as hard as they could. They dragged us up out of the ice, brushed the snow off us, and built fires with two bundles of brushwood and some logs. Then six of them surrounded our two bodies, warmed us by the fire, and gave us some warm liquid to revive us.

They were not the only two prisoners tortured in the frozen pond. On that day alone, Kanzabur's father, Kunitar, and Tomohachi were subjected to the same punishment. As soon as Kanzabur was pulled from the pond, he was jammed into the three-foot cell. The officials had concluded that unlike the aging Sen'emon, they could shove young Kanzabur in the tiny enclosure without fear of his dying.

Despite these torments that were heaped on them one after another, not one of the twelve men apostatized.

But even though their spirits could not be broken, these tortures, when added to the cold and starvation, led to the deaths of two of the men. A man named Seishir muttered words of encouragement to his friends as he died.

At around that same time- A procession of men and women, led along by officers, was making its way along the cold, snowy road toward Tsuwano.

The procession included not just women and children but even elderly people and infants. It was obvious from their baggy clothes that they brought only what they wore. Some mothers carried their infants on their backs. Behind them climbed the elderly, scarcely able to breathe.

Young children walked beside their grandparents.

These were 125 of the Urakami Kiris.h.i.tans who had been driven from their homes a month earlier and were relatives of the men and who were already suffering in agony in Tsuwano. They had initially been taken to Mikuriya Village in the Hirado domain rather than to Nagasaki; from there they had been loaded onto boats and taken to Onomichi. They had then been separated out from those being exiled to Hiroshima and were now heading toward Tsuwano under armed guard.

We'll be able to see our husbands and fathers again.

Although they feared what might lie ahead, still their hearts thrilled at the prospect of being reunited with their husbands, fathers, and other relatives, about whom they had heard no news.

I wonder how they've been treated.

They were less worried about what would be happening to themselves than they were about the well-being of their husbands and fathers. Had they been ill? Had they been subjected to terrible tortures?

Even the women and children felt that they could endure whatever suffering lay ahead if only they could be with their husbands and fathers from whom they had been so long separated. They had no way of knowing that some of those husbands and fathers had already apostatized.

News of this procession quickly reached the cell in Tsuwano. As one day after another pa.s.sed, the emotions of the prisoners were a mixture of joy and pity.

How inhuman! They didn't have to drive our wives and children from the village!

I didn't want them to have to endure the hunger and cold and the three-foot cell here!

Anger and anxiety clutched at their hearts.

The sounds of trees being cut down and stakes being driven into the ground echoed every day from the garden of the temple.

"You men will be moving over there," one guard secretively alerted them. "Your wives and children will live here."

The men were moved into the new cell as soon as it was completed. On the evening of the following day, they were startled by sounds of crying children and conversing women. They heard an elderly person coughing.

"They must have arrived." As one, the men pressed their ears against the newly completed mud wall. One man picked up a brick from the ground and gouged a hole in the wall. "Ah-they are here!" Unbidden tears flowed from his sunken eyes. As the father of one of the young children who had been led here from Urakami by her mother, the man could not help but weep.

"What are you doing?! Peeking through that hole?!" An officer caught them observing the new arrivals and had one of the guards fill up the hole with mud. The clamor continued for some time, but finally night approached.

"I've just had a horrible thought!" Sen'emon suddenly voiced a concern to his cellmates. "The officers are going to lie to our wives and children. They'll tell them that we apostatized a long time ago, so they might as well go ahead and apostatize, too!"

Sen'emon's fears were right on the mark. They knew that the officers would use any possible means to persuade them to abandon their faith.

"There's nothing to worry about!" Kanzabur said with a laugh. "I left a note on the floor of the privy telling them that the twelve of us haven't left the faith!"

"You did?"

"I did!"

Coincidentally enough, it was Kanzabur's younger sister, Matsu, who found the note he had left in the privy. When she discovered the note in the familiar scrawl of her brother, she hurried to tell the others that the twelve men had not apostatized.

"But what about all the others?" Through the heart of every woman pa.s.sed both the fear that her own husband or father had apostatized and a feeling akin to a prayer that her own relatives were still holding firm.

Among the 125 new prisoners, sixteen were children age five or younger, and there were ten adults who were at least sixty-one. The officers moved all the men over the age of fifteen to a room separated from the women and younger children.

Once they had been a.s.signed to their cells, a voice called out, "Mealtime!"

Their meals consisted solely of a small quant.i.ty of food served on a tray. The side dish was a clump of miso the size of one's thumb and a pinch of salt.

Dauntless by nature, Matsu asked a guard named Takahashi, "Is this all there is?"

Takahashi, who had a face like a ferret, taunted her, "That's all. But if you apostatize, you can stuff yourself full."

Everyone was silent as they chewed their food. But the mothers in the group gave their meager portions to their young children.

"This must be how they've treated my husband the whole time." One woman set down her chopsticks and was choked with tears. It was as though something that had been held within suddenly burst out.

"Why are you crying?" the staunch Matsu, who was twenty-seven, tried to cheer up the woman. "If that's true, all the more reason that we've got to endure this...."

When they finished eating, Matsu led the women in prayer. They could tell that the men were also praying in the adjoining room.

Their first night in Tsuwano was bitterly cold. Since there were elderly people and children in the group, the officers gave them old, threadbare bedding instead of tiny rugs, but even when they snuggled under them, the chill pierced their skin as the night deepened.

"I'm cold! I'm so cold!!" Children clung to their mothers; old men coughed incessantly. That was how the first night pa.s.sed for these 125. But the women took courage from their joy at being in the same location as their husbands and fathers.

Three months later- Everyone was on the verge of starvation. With the scant daily ration of three-quarters of a cup of rice and the remonstrations to apostatize that were heaped on each member of the family day after day, the bodies of the elderly were the first to weaken.

According to the historical records, thirty-one of the 125 new prisoners, equivalent to one-quarter of the total, had died within a mere sixteen months of their arrival. One in four died of starvation. Their single greatest tormentor was hunger.

As an aside, an examination of the death records reveals that nearly twice as many men as women died there-twelve women and twenty-two men. A significant percentage of those who died were elderly, with twelve of them being over the age of fifty, along with seven deaths among those in their twenties and thirties. This may indicate that many of the prisoners were in these age brackets and that the tortures were concentrated on them.