‘Look and see, all these exotic Western plants – rose and olive, laurel and cinnamon – growing here among the native pine and cypress trees, and see and smell the mysterious aromas, the sweet perfumes, the faint scent of the roses just beginning to bloom, for we are in the springtime still, the springtime now and the springtime then, yet somehow no longer Japan, yet somehow still in Japan; do you know where we are, Ryūnosuke? Do you recognise this place? The ringing of that bell, sounding and echoing …’
His eyes wide, his mouth agape, Ryūnosuke could smell the scents of the roses, could hear the ringing of the bell as he whispered, ‘Nanbanji …’
‘Exactly,’ said the man. ‘This is the garden of the Great Temple of the Southern Barbarians, and now – look, look! – who do we see here, we find here?’
And now he looked and now he saw the silhouette of a man, walking with a melancholy gait down a path of red sand, the dark skirts of his long robe trailing in the pink dust, and Ryūnosuke said, ‘Padre Organtino!’
‘Exactly,’ said the man again, taking Ryūnosuke by his elbow and his arm, lifting Ryūnosuke up from the steps, saying, ‘Come on …’
Arm in arm, the man led Ryūnosuke briskly down the red path, over its pink sand, quietly following the figure of Padre Organtino, step by step, closer and closer, until they could hear the priest mumbling, hear the priest muttering – how much he missed Rome, how he longed for Lisbon, the taste of almonds, the music of the rabeca lute, the heavenly voices of the Magnificat – then again and again, now over and over, chanting and reciting the name of Deus, Deus, Deus, his eyes on his feet, his eyes on the path, then on the dark moss beside the path, now on the pale petals upon the moss, the petals stopping him dead in his tracks, seemingly blocking his path and filling him with fear, the priest startled, looking up at the trees of the garden, and there, among the gloomy shadows of the dwarf palms, there Organtino saw a single weeping cherry tree, its branches hanging bowed and low, its ghostly, spectral blossoms spread and splayed, haunting the garden –
‘God save me! Lord protect me,’ cried the priest, falling to his knees, crossing himself again and again, calling over and over to ‘Deus …’
On the path, beside him, Ryūnosuke’s Western companion had one hand over his mouth, quelling his laughter, his other hand holding his ribs, his shoulders shaking, his whole being consumed by mirth at the sight of this foreign priest on his knees beneath the falling blossoms of the weeping cherry, making the sign of the cross, crying out at Christ –
‘How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord …’
Suddenly, the man stopped laughing. He looked at Ryūnosuke, shook his head, rolled his eyes and hissed, ‘Jesuits! They want the world, but when the world doesn’t want them, they fall to their knees in tears and blame Christ! Incredible, would you not agree? They blame the one who should not be blamed; the only man – and believe me, Ryūnosuke, I have met many – the only one among the many who was truly blameless …’
Beneath the blossoms, on his knees, Organtino must have heard the laughter and the whispers in the shadows behind him, for now the priest span round, rising to his feet, pointing into the dark at the man and Ryūnosuke, wagging his finger and shouting, ‘You! You again!’
The man looked at Ryūnosuke, shrugged his shoulders, and then, with the most innocent smile one can imagine, asked, ‘Does he mean me?’
‘Who else would I mean,’ spat Organtino, coming closer to the man. ‘Of course I mean you! How on earth did you find me?’
‘Find you,’ laughed the man. ‘I rather think you found me. As I told you before, many times before, you will find me in the garden, if you want me.’
‘I do not want you,’ yelled the priest. ‘Get away! Get ye hence!’
The man turned to Ryūnosuke again, shook his head again and said, ‘You see what I mean? Jesuits! Telling me to go away, to go hence, when it is they, it is you …’ – the man turning to Organtino now, turning on Organtino now – ‘it is you, you who are the uninvited, unwelcome guest here, Padre …’
‘God save me, Lord protect me,’ whispered Organtino again, crossing himself again, then looking back into the dark, to the shadows and the man, saying, ‘This is God’s place on God’s earth, and I have been sent here to do God’s work, I have come here to spread God’s word …’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ said the man, walking around behind the priest, turning back to whisper in his ear, ‘I’ve heard it all before, many times before, so save your breath, Padre, and save your time and go back to your palaces in Rome, back to your burnings in Lisbon or wherever, because this time, in this place, you will be defeated, and you will lose.’
Padre Organtino clutched the cross around his neck, shook his head and said, ‘The Lord God is omnipotent and so there is no one, no place or no thing that can triumph over Him, so the Lord God will be victorious …’
‘Well,’ said the man, glancing up from the ear of the priest, winking at Ryūnosuke, ‘naturally, I would beg to disagree. And once again, and as always, reality, history, fact – all would seem to agree with me …
‘And so listen carefully, Padre, and you might even learn something for once, because you and your God are far from the first to come to this land. Greater men than you, bringing wiser words than you, have come from far away to here and yet floundered in this place: Confucius and Mencius, to name but two. Yet is this now China, or still yet Japan?
‘And the Chinese, they
