Night Boat. Alan Spence

me in my robe and carried me outside.

      That night my father heard what had happened. He raged at me.

      Why do you behave like this? Are you a baby?

      I said nothing.

      If you’re going to scream and cry like a little girl, at least tell us why.

      I’ll tell my mother, I said, and no one else.

      He looked for a moment as if he might slap me. Instead he let out a huge, long-suffering sigh and rubbed his face with his hands. Then he called my mother to come and talk to me.

      So, little one, she said. That was quite a performance.

      I stood with my head bowed, looked down at my feet in the straw sandals I wore indoors. This was me, standing here.

      Well? she said.

      It was the flames, I said. And the noise. And the heat.

      Ah, she said.

      I was afraid.

      Of hell?

      I nodded.

      We have to put an end to this, she said. This fear is consuming you.

      But how? If hell is waiting for us, how can we not be afraid? And if there is no escape, what is the point of anything we do?

      There is a way, she said. But now it’s late and you need to sleep. I’ll tell you in the morning, I promise.

      In the morning! That was no time, no time at all. She would tell me. I would know. I ran to her and she hugged me, stroked my back. The cotton of her robes smelled of incense from the shrine.

      Some time in the night I heard a voice from behind the shoji screen, thin and wavery, a demon-voice wailing.

      You’re going to burn in hell . . .

      I sat up, alarmed, but immediately the demon let out a chuckle and I recognised the voice of my older brother Yozaemon. I laughed and lay down again. Everything was going to be all right. I slept well, released from the fear. In fact my sleep was so deep I woke late, well after eight, and the morning sun was streaming in through the shoji screen. I jumped up and threw my clothes on, rushed into the kitchen to find my mother. But she was bustling about the stove, cooking miso soup in a heavy iron pot.

      Not now, she said, shooing me away. I don’t want you getting under my feet.

      But you said!

      Not now.

      Well, when?

      Later. As soon as I can. Now go and play.

      She was hot and harassed, but she managed a smile.

      Go!

      I barely flinched at the little flames licking the bottom of the pot.

      Outside I heard a gang of the neighbourhood children shrieking and yelling. I ran over, saw them kicking up dust, leaping and dancing like demons. One or two of them had sticks and were beating the ground with them, their screams getting more excited, high-pitched, as they stamped and screeched. I pushed through and saw what they were doing. They had tipped out a nest of baby crows and the boys ran and jumped and struck, chasing them, trying to stamp on them or hit them with the sticks.

      I was excited and horrified all at once. There was a huge exhilaration in the game, in the hitting and beating and striking out, trying to crush and kill, and the crows were carrion, they were vermin, to be rid of them was good. But I could feel the panic and terror of the tiny birds as they fluttered and scurried, tried to escape. I felt it in my stomach, an agitation, discomfort, and maybe torturing the birds was a sin. I was suddenly hot, felt the prickle of tears. I pushed through the crowd of boys and ran back to the house.

      My mother had said she would tell me, as soon as she could. But now she was sitting on the porch, talking to a neighbour whose husband was ill.

      These things are sent to try us, said my mother.

      What’s for us will not go by us, said the woman.

      They were sipping tea. They could talk like this for hours.

      He was fine in the morning, said the woman. Then in the afternoon he took a turn for the worse.

      It’s often the way of it.

      My mother looked over to me.

      I haven’t forgotten, she said. I’ll talk to you soon. Now go and play a little longer.

      Soon. A little longer. The whole morning could pass by and they would still be talking. I heard my mother tell the woman to burn the moxa herbs on her husband’s spine, and to continue chanting the sutras.

      Back outside I saw the gang of boys running off into the distance, whooping and brandishing their sticks in the air. There was no trace of the baby crows, then I saw a scraggy stray cat had dragged one of the tiny carcasses into the shade of a tree and was holding it down with its paws, tearing it apart with its teeth, crunching the little bones.

      My mother was still talking to the woman. At least they had stood up now, but that might mean nothing. They could still take another hour to get to the door and for the woman to actually leave. It was unbearable.

      My head hurts, I shouted. I have a fever.

      My mother smiled, nodded at the woman.

      This young man has things on his mind!

      When more time had passed, and the woman had finally gone, my mother turned to me.

      So, she said. Your head aches. You have a fever. Let us deal with those things first.

      No! You said you would tell me!

      But headache and fever are no joke, she said, and she placed her cool hand on my forehead.

      The thought had been niggling at me, and now it began to grow, that she didn’t have an answer after all, and she had been lying and stalling just to keep me quiet.

      Tell me!

      A remedy is called for, she said.

      You told that woman to burn moxa and chant the sutras, I said. Is that what you’re going to tell me?

      You were listening, she said. You have big ears!

      Tell me!

      Moxa would help your headache.

      But moxa meant burning, and the fear would be there again.

      Not moxa!

      She laughed.

      You’re the wisest child in the world, she said. You’ve found the answer all by yourself. No moxa, you only have to chant a sutra. But not just any sutra. You have to chant the Tenjin Sutra.

      Tenjin. I said the name. Tenjin.

      Tenjin is the deity of Kitano shrine, she said. In life he was Michizane, a scholar and poet, a great calligrapher. As a god he is Tenjin, with the power of fire and thunder. He can drive out angry ghosts and conquer the fear of hell.

      Tenjin, I said again. Tenjin.

      All you have to do, said my mother, is chant the sutra, every morning when you wake and every night before you sleep. It is only a few lines long, a hundred Chinese characters, but it is very powerful.

      I felt a kind of fire kindle in me, in the centre of my chest, and below that, in my belly. I was excited, impatient.

      Teach it to me now!

      She laughed.

      Come, she said, holding out her hand, and she led me out by the back door.

      Where are we going?

      Sanen-ji, she said.

      Sanen-ji was the Pure Land temple, across the road from our house. It had a shrine room