Silence by Shusaku Endo Read Free Book Online Page A

fixed on the ground, his voice sharp but hushed. ‘Don’t budge! Remain just as you are!’
    From a hill bathed in the dying sunlight and slightly removed from the thicket from which the bird had sprung up just now, two men stood looking in our direction. We realized immediately that they were not the peasants of Tomogi whom we knew so well. We sat stiff like stones without moving a muscle, uttering a prayer that the western sun would not reveal our faces.
    ‘Is anybody there?’ The two men from the top of the hill raised their voices and shouted aloud. ‘Is anybody there?’
    Were we to answer or to keep quiet? A single word might well betray us. So from fear we said nothing.
    ‘They’re descending the hill and coming here,’ whispered Garrpe in a low voice, remaining seated as he was. ‘No, they aren’t. They are going back the way they came.’
    They went down into the valley growing smaller and smaller as they receded into the distance. But the fact was that two men had stood on the hill in the light of the western sun, and whether or not they had seen us we did not know.
    That same night Ichizo came up the mountain and with him a man named Magoichi who was one of the Tossama. As we explained what had happened in the evening Ichizo’s eyes narrowed and he scrutinized every inch of the hut. At length he stood up silently and after a word to Magoichi the two men began to tear up the floor boards. A moth flew round and round the oil lamp as they worked. Taking a spade that was hanging on the wooden door, Ichizo began to dig up the soil. The silhouettes of the two men as they wielded the spades floated on the opposite wall. They dug a hole big enough to hold both of us, and in it they put some straw; then they closed it up again with boards. This, it seems, is to be our future hideout in case of emergency.
    From that day we have taken the utmost precautions, trying not to show ourselves outside the hut at all, and at night we don’t make use of any light whatever.
    The next event took place five days after the one I have recorded. It was late at night and we were secretly baptizing a baby that had been brought along by Omatsu and two men belonging to the Tossama. It was our first baptism since coming to Japan, and of course we had no candles nor music in our little hut—the only instrument for the ceremony was a broken little peasants’ cup which we used for holy water. But it was more touching than the liturgy of any cathedral to see that poor little hut with the baby crying and Omatsu soothing it while one of the men stood on guard outside. I thrilled with joy as I listened to the solemn voice of Garrpe as he recited the baptismal prayers. This is a happiness that only a missionary priest in a foreign land can relish. As the water flowed over its forehead the baby wrinkled its face and yelled aloud. Its head was tiny; its eyes were narrow, this was already a peasant face that would in time come to resemble that of Mokichi and Ichizo. This child also would grow up like its parents and grandparents to eke out a miserable existence face to face with the black sea in this cramped and desolate land; it, too, would live like a beast, and like a beast it would die. But Christ did not die for the good and beautiful. It is easy enough to die for the good and beautiful; the hard thing is to die for the miserable and corrupt—this is the realization that came home to me acutely at that time.
    When they departed I lay down in the straw, exhausted. The smell of the oil the three men had brought still lingered in the hut. Once again the lice crawled slowly over our backs and legs. I don’t know how long I slept; but after what seemed a short time I was wakened by the snoring of the optimistic Garrpe who was fast asleep. And then—some one was pushing at the door of the hut, trying little by little to open it. At first I thought it might only be the wind from the valley below blowing through the trees and pressing against