Night Boat. Alan Spence

even worse, even hotter, for this is the Intense Heating Hell. Here you will be boiled in vats of molten bronze, then dragged out and impaled on larger spikes that tear your insides apart, the pain so intense you lose consciousness for an instant, only to wake to the same torment, again, again, again, for twice as long as before.

      He opened his eyes again, looked out from some deep dark place. His voice was low and gravelly, incantatory, the way he would chant the Nembutsu.

      You have heard of the first seven hells, and the tortures and agonies that await you there. But these are as nothing compared to the last, the worst, the deepest hell. This is the Hell of Ultimate Torment.

      I could read the words, blazing in the air, a sign written in flame.

      In this realm, he said, the intense heat is seven times hotter than all the previous hells combined, and the pain is seven times greater. Here you will be trapped for seven times as long, in an immense edifice of blazing hot metal, at the centre of a mountain of white-hot iron. An army of demons will devise ever greater tortures, pouring molten bronze into your open mouth. Your body and the bodies of all the others suffering this damnation will be indistinguishable from the flames engulfing you. You will be separated only by the sound of your anguished screams which will echo back up through all the other hells. At times they can even be heard here in this world of ours, in the darkest night when you are racked with misery and despair. For surely these hells exist deep in your own being, and you can be pitched into them at any time.

      Was that a bird shrieking out there in the courtyard? And was that an owl I’d heard screeching in the night? And was that really a cat that had woken me in the small hours, yowling like a baby stolen from its parents?

      Don’t whimper, said my father.

      Existence is suffering, said the old monk. Its cause is desire. To conquer desire you must follow the Buddha-path. There is no other way.

      His sermon was finished. He bowed and folded his hands, sipped a few more drops of water from his bowl. I was anxious to get out, to get home, to see my mother. The monk stood up, his old legs stiff as he creaked and unfolded himself. He walked slowly towards the door and I bowed my head as he passed. But he didn’t pass. He stopped right in front of me. I kept my head down, stared at his gnarled old feet in their worn straw sandals, the thin toes bony and splayed, the blackened toenails thick and cracked.

      So, he said. Have these words put the fear in you?

      I looked up at him, that great domed head, that ferocious gaze, and my whole body shook. My mouth was dry, my throat closed. I couldn’t say one word.

      A man of silence, he said. This is a good place to begin.

      He held up his right hand, fingers spread, and for a moment I flinched, expecting him to strike me. But instead he closed his hand again, made a fist, clenched it in front of my face.

      Ha! he said, shaking the fist. Then he let out a terrifying roar of a laugh, sprayed spit, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He looked at my father who tensed beside me.

      Look after this one, said the monk. Teach him well.

      He glared down at me again, nodded, gave a kind of rough grunt and moved on. I watched his old feet in their straw sandals, shuffling across the polished floor, then he was out the door and gone.

      My father smacked the back of my head. Why didn’t you speak?

      I had nothing to say, I said.

      Useless, said my father.

      All the way home I kept my head down, looked at my own bare feet leaving their mark in the dust with every step. The sun had baked the ground all day and it burned, made me walk quick, not linger. I looked up at Mount Fuji in the haze. I imagined it throwing up fire and smoke. Beneath me were all these worlds, deeper and deeper underground. I was walking on the roof of hell.

      Back home I still had nothing to say.

      My mother laughed, but she was gentle, not mocking.

      That old monk’s a holy terror, isn’t he? He’d put the fear of death into anybody.

      I still said nothing.

      Sometimes it’s good to be just a little afraid, she said, so we’ll do the right thing.

      She had made noodles with my favourite broth, ginger and scallions and the thing I loved most, tororojiru with the rich earthy taste of mashed-up yams. I ate it in silence apart from the slurping. I drank the last of the broth, pushed the empty bowl away from me.

      My older brother came into the kitchen, made a face at me behind my mother’s back, tongue out, eyes popping, a demon.

      She turned and saw him, laughed and waved him away. Then she stroked my head, ran her hands over the short cropped hair.

      Go out and play a while, she said.

      Outside, it was the same old place, the same old world I knew, but it was different. It was still Hara, way-station on the Tokaido, at the foot of Great Fuji. I was Iwajiro of the Nagasawa family, and my father ran the inn, Omodaka-ya. This was my life, here in this place. But it had changed. It was like somewhere I had dreamed. My friends looked the same, but they were strange to me. They moved around in their own dream, playing, not knowing.

      At night, before I went to bed, my mother told me my favourite story, of the Dragon King’s palace at the bottom of the sea. It calmed me and soothed me a little, imagining the coolness in the depths of the ocean. But when I lay down to sleep, I fell into dreams of fire and torment and I woke in a fever. I burned and howled till my mother came and held me and hushed me, said it was fine, it was fine, it was just a dream and everything would be all right, and she lit a stick of incense, chanted the Nembutsu to protect me from all harm.

      But from that day on, everything had changed. The fear was always there.

      One day my mother took me to the bathhouse. It was something I loved, to soak in the warmth, surrounded by it, to drift away.

      To purify the mind, she said, chant the Nembutsu. To purify the body, sweat out all the poisons, soak in a hot tub.

      The attendant at the bathhouse was a young girl. My mother nodded to her, told her to make the water good and hot.

      Turn it up, she said. The hotter, the better.

      The girl bowed, gave me a smile, set to stoking the fire under the iron tub. She prodded and raked with a poker so the embers glowed, she added more firewood and topped it with chopped logs when it caught and flared. It was hot work. The girl’s face was flushed and a strand of her hair came loose, fell across her face. As she pushed it back, she left a smudge of soot on her cheek. She saw me looking and laughed. The flames flickered. I started to sweat.

      Right, said my mother. Let’s get you scrubbed.

      I stepped out of my sandals, took off my robe and hung it up. I sat on the low three-legged stool and my mother washed me thoroughly, filled a little wooden bucket and poured it over my head, twice, three times, rinsed me down till I stood there dripping, clean and ready for the bath.

      I turned and stepped forward, aware of my own nakedness, this little body of mine so tiny and fragile, so vulnerable, soft flesh. The heat in the room had grown intense. Steam rose, swirled in the air. The water gurgled and churned. Two merchants had come in and their voices boomed. I stood still and could not move. Through the steam I saw the girl’s face as she smiled at me again, nodded encouragement. My mother pushed me forward. The fire was roaring under the tub. A huge flame suddenly leaped and the wood crackled, sent up sparks and cinders. There was a panic in my chest, a trapped bird desperate to escape. The waters would boil and scald me to death, my flesh would melt off the bone. I would plunge into the deepest hell and burn there forever.

      No!

      I heard my own voice, screaming, filling the place, till the girl covered her ears and the two men stopped their talking and stared, and my