Nagami laughed. ‘Now you are being too generous, Sensei, thank you. But you have written a great number of stories on a Christian theme, so many wonderful stories, and so may I ask from where your interest stems? Were you yourself raised in a Christian household, Sensei?’
‘No,’ said Akutagawa. ‘No, not even a particularly religious house in any sense. However, it was and is a superstitious house, and I am told, though of course I do not recall, that I was abandoned as a baby on the steps of a Christian church in Tsukiji, to be found by a certain Bishop Williams, who handed me over to one of the managers of the dairy shops owned by my father, and who then returned me to my parents as a foundling …’
‘How fascinating,’ said Nagami.
‘You may say so, it may sound so, but the whole charade was an attempt to protect me from the ill omens of my parents’ age at my birth. And, I have to say, it was an attempt which seems to have been wholly futile.’
‘I am sorry,’ said Nagami. ‘And forgive me then for being so insistent, but do you think that is from where your interest in Christianity comes?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Akutagawa, a melancholy smile upon his lips. ‘Perhaps the bishop did baptise me before returning me. Perhaps that would explain why then I have always felt drawn to the Bible and its tales …’
‘Yet this is your first time in Nagasaki, is it not?’
‘It is,’ said Akutagawa. ‘Yes.’
‘And yet,’ said Nagami, ‘in a story such as your Death of a Martyr, you write so convincingly, so realistically of this place and its history.’
‘Thank you,’ said Akutagawa.
‘I must confess, the references to ancient local sources at the end of the story had me foolishly scouring the Prefectural Library, until I realised these texts had been but a part of your fiction, a most believable deception.’
‘Then I must apologise,’ said Akutagawa. ‘It was not my intention to make a fool of my reader. Only to entrance them with the tale.’
‘Well,’ said Nagami, now rising from his low red round table, ‘you succeeded, and admirably so, I must say. But now, if you are not too tired, before retiring for the night, may I trouble you to visit my own library, to show you some of the trifles I have collected, bits of local colour …?’
‘I would be delighted,’ said Akutagawa. ‘Thank you.’
Nagami led Akutagawa from the dining room, down a corridor, to his library and study, the lamps already lit and waiting. And there, one by one, Nagami showed Akutagawa various pictures, books and objects; Hasami porcelain and vidro glass from his collection of Nagasaki objets; a painting of a Dutch house at Hirado, a plate depicting a Dutch ship anchored in the bay, old books illustrated with scenes of life in Dejima.
Akutagawa was very taken with the glassware, but naturally seemed most interested in the relics from the city’s Christian past, particularly a white porcelain statue of the Bodhisattva Kannon, about a foot in height, which had been worshipped in secret as the Virgin Mary by Japanese Hidden Christians during their long, long years of persecution.
‘How rare are such statues,’ asked Akutagawa, turning the figure over in his hands, examining it intently. ‘Are they hard to come by?’
Nagami shook his head. ‘White statues such as this are relatively common. More scarce are the ones carved in black ebony.’
‘Really,’ said Akutagawa, looking up from the figure. ‘There were black robed Marys?’
Nagami nodded. ‘Oh, yes. In fact, I have seen one, but only once. It belongs to the family of a friend of mine from university. It was quite beautiful, about the same height as this one, the body carved from black ivory but with a face of white ivory and a touch of red coral on the lips. And the necklace which hung around its neck was styled after a Christian rosary with a cross, and the cross itself was inlaid with gold and blue shells.’
‘Incredible,’ exclaimed Akutagawa. ‘It sounds most exquisite.’
‘Exquisite indeed,’ said Nagami. ‘Yet, according to my friend, there was a strange legend associated with this particular black robed Mary.’
‘How fascinating,’ said Akutagawa. ‘In what way strange?’
Nagami lit his pipe, then said, ‘Well, according to my friend, and he is not a man prone to telling supernatural tales, the power of this particular black robed Mary worked in reverse, changing good fortune to bad.’
‘So it was cursed,’ said Akutagawa, putting down the white porcelain Mary and picking up a cigarette. ‘Please do tell …’
Nagami smiled, then said, ‘Well, I am no raconteur, and would feel somewhat embarrassed before a storyteller such as yourself …’
‘Please,’ said Akutagawa. ‘You have already whetted my interest.’
‘Well then,’ said Nagami, ‘and if it will not bore you, according to my friend, before the black robed Mary came into the possession of his family, it had belonged to a wealthy family called Inugami who lived in Tochigi.
‘For the Inugami family, the black robed Mary was no mere collector’s piece; they worshipped her as a protective deity. But one autumn – in fact, the autumn following the summer in which the Black Ships of Commodore Perry had first appeared at Uraga, and so it must have been the autumn of the sixth year of Kaei, 1853 – the youngest of the family, who was but eight years old, and its only son, and who was named Mosaku, contracted a severe case of measles. Having lost both their parents in a smallpox epidemic a few years earlier, this boy and his elder sister Oei had been raised by their grandmother, who was already over seventy years old. Naturally, the grandmother was most distressed by the boy’s condition, which did not improve at all, despite the best efforts of
