34 - Fifth Tale of the Japanese Cemetery - The Lecher Priest

Miu stepped into the shrine, and bowed her head slightly before she picked up a candle on the topmost step. None had been laid inside the shrine itself, which was dark.

"The first Japanese here had no priest. Later, though, a need was felt. For prayers, for exorcisms, for weddings; sometimes only for difficult conversations and guidance. A letter was sent west. A priest was called for. One arrived. This it the tale of

THE LECHER PRIEST

His name was Takogawa. Tall and lean-muscled, with a shaven head, and always dressed in a traditional style for a priest. The son of a family of carpenters. He had studied at a Shinto shrine in Tokyo, and passed the examination. There had been some trouble, in Tokyo; he always hinted it was political, and so he came to America. He tarried in San Francisco for a while. I think he learned much there, for many pass through that way, and he had a friendly face and a ready ear. Yet it seemed he was waiting for something, for when our letter arrived, he was quick to answer it.

Well, there were many Japanese families then, enough to help him build the shrine. Takogawa had great energy, and spent considerable time putting the graves in order, taking rolls of the community, recording who was buried in which grave and when marriages, births, and deaths happened. Many of his records survive today.

The problem that arose was not the shrine itself, but the kami that it was to enshrine. The spirit of the place which we were to honor and entreat. The building rose quickly, but there was a void at the center of it. Something missing.

So Takogawa walked the length of the town and country. He visited each field, farm, and house. Some on the East side received him rudely, or not at all. Some invited him in, and they spoke. He skirted the potter's field and the Eastside cemetery. He visited the brothel by the railroad tracks and spoke to the Lady, and stepped beyond the tracks to view the little cemetery there with the wrought-iron fence and gate. Some of the stories he heard no doubt weighed on his soul.

Then he came to Dagon's Hollow, the cave itself.

He went down into the dark.

They say night fell.

When he returned, he carried something, a stone. In the darkness, it shone with a light like cold fire.

It was installed in the shrine, and ringed about with paper streamers. It was prepared as a place for the kami to occupy. Perhaps it did. Certainly, Takogawa claimed that at last, the shrine could open. The whole community came out to witness it.

Some of those present were surprised to see that the pale stone had been carved into a definite phallic shape. A symbol of fertility and luck in some temples in Japan and China. Others noticed a change that had come over Takogawa. The way his once soft, humble eyes seemed to linger, in a very un-priestly way.

No one could say a word against him. He made no move in public. As married women, young or old, came to the shrine to pray, he greeted them with great courtesy. His eyes watched them as they came, and watched them as they left.

The rapes began not long after.

The stories were much the same. Always, it was a woman alone for the night. Perhaps the husband was out of town, or they slept separately because he snored, or was drunk in a tavern. The night was the full moon. And the window was left open. Sometimes it was because of the heat. Or because suddenly the dark was too oppressive, and the scared woman wanted to let a little light in. Or because she had absent-mindedly forgotten to close it.

Yet it was always the same. She lay awake in the dark, and a figure would climb in. All in white, naked, burning with cold fire. His rod jutting out from him with terrible, painful intensity. Young or old, he would pull aside the covers, open the kimonos—or, if they wore western clothes, take off shifts and nightgowns—and all naked that cold prick would pierce them.

The women described it not as making love. There was no give and take of passion. They were limp and helpless, and the cold touch stole the heat from their bodies. They could not even cry out as they were defiled, for when they tried to scream a mouth covered theirs and swallowed all sound. One old woman, near her eightieth year and childless, had described it as if she ravished by the cold and distant moon. A life so different and alien to her own that it could only take, never give of itself.

In time, their bellies swelled. All three women, no matter the age. The woman I spoke of gave birth when she was eighty-one, her hips cracking from the strain, he sagging breasts bloated with milk. She spent the rest of her life in chairs, unable to walk, nursing a daughter she would never see grow up. Every daughter was the spitting image of her mother, as she had been at that age. Even to the color of her eyes, or the place of a mole.

A few whispered of Takogawa. None knew what became of him, on those bright moon nights. None, however, had the courage to confront him either. There was no evidence against him. Takogawa, for his part, seemed to grow gaunt with the years. Women had learned not to ask for favors from the kami. No women came to touch the enshrined kami.

The daughters grew up. In time, when the eldest came of age, she begged her parents to learn the ways of Shinto and become a priestess. Her name was Miu.

Takogawa taught her. Many a father and brother watched him carefully now. The priest's eyes still lingered on any woman that he met. Some fundamental bond of trust was broken, and they eyed Takogawa and Miu with suspicion, even though outwardly, all was proper.

When they found him hanging from a tree in the corner of the Japanese graveyard, none were surprised. Miu had begun to show, her child would be born half a year later—a daughter in the spitting image of her mother, who would also take the name Miu, when her training was complete. Did he kill himself, out of guilt? Or did some other finally take justice into their hands? That is a secret none know.

I say only this—the daughters now maintain this shrine. When their time comes, they pray for a child, and leave their window open at night. Perhaps a bright, cold figure climbs through. Perhaps not. Yet the line has been unbroken. One night, perhaps, I will discover the truth of this for myself.

They could not see Miu's smile, behind the black mask. She doused the candle with a quick motion of her hand.