Night Boat. Alan Spence

flower. I got it in my sights, let fly and missed, the arrow skittering through the open half of the screen and into the room beyond. It was frustrating, twanging the string, seeing the arrow float harmlessly wide of its target.

      I had to concentrate. One of the older boys I’d seen practising spoke mysteriously of kyudo, the way of the bow, as if it was a kind of meditation in itself. You have to act as if you are not acting, he said. Pull the bowstring as if you are not pulling it. Aim at the target as if there is no target.

      None of this made any sense to me. It all just sounded like so much nonsense, and the boy, like my brother, was full of himself, cocksure. Nevertheless, he hit the target more often than not, so perhaps if I tried not trying, I would improve. And after all, I knew a little about discipline, I got up every morning at the hour of the ox to chant the sutra. Perhaps my brother was right, and Tenjin would help me.

      I stood a moment and folded my hands, chanted the opening verse. Then I picked up the bow and breathed deep. I concentrated my gaze on the painted chrysanthemum, at the point right in the centre, the target. I remembered the older boy, tried to copy the way he stood, the way he held his arm out straight, grasping the bow, the way he placed the arrow, pulled back the string. I tried to empty my mind, I asked Tenjin for help.

      Now.

      I released the arrow, saw it fly, higher than I’d shot it before, wide of the target and through the gap into the next room. In the room was the tokonoma alcove where a special scroll hung, a painting of the poet Saigyo standing under a willow tree, composing verses. My mother had very few possessions she treasured – a hair clasp, a silk kimono with a lotus pattern, a little wooden statue of Kannon, Bodhisattva of mercy, and this scroll with the painting of Saigyo.

      The arrow had flown straight and true, as if guided by some malevolent spirit. It had hit the scroll, pierced the poet’s left eye.

      I dropped the bow and ran into the room. I pulled out the arrow and that only made things worse as the arrow tore a bigger hole, as if Saigyo’s eye had been gouged out. I let out a cry then pressed my head to the ground. I asked Tenjin to protect me, to let my crime somehow go undiscovered. But my brother had heard the noise and came rushing in.

      You’re dead, he said.

      And my father was standing in the doorway.

      What is it now? he asked. And he looked where my brother was pointing. He saw the damage to the picture and he grabbed the arrow from me, picked up the bow.

      Useless! he said, and he strode off.

      Then I saw that my mother had come into the room, stood staring at the scroll. She said nothing, and the look in her eyes was not anger, but sadness, and that was much much worse.

      That night I couldn’t sleep, turned this way and that, tortured. If I hadn’t picked up the bow. If I hadn’t fired at the target. If I hadn’t tried not to try. And the final, terrible thought, if I hadn’t asked Tenjin for help. He had failed me. But I mustn’t think that. Ultimately Tenjin would protect me, he would save me from hell.

      I was wide awake at the hour of the ox – I hadn’t slept. So I sat as usual in front of the shrine and lit a stick of incense.

      There was something I had heard, a way of reading the smoke from the incense. I would ask the deity a question, and the smoke would give the answer. I folded my hands.

      Great Tenjin, I sit at your feet and ask you this question. If you can save me from the burning fires of hell, make this smoke rise straight up. But if you cannot help me, make the smoke blow this way and that.

      I concentrated intensely, my eyes clenched shut, my folded hands pressed tight together. Then carefully I opened my eyes and peered at the smoke. It rose in a long white line towards the ceiling, straight and unbroken. I felt sheer relief, elation. Tenjin had given me a sign. I laughed and let my hands fall to my lap, and immediately the smoke started writhing and breaking up, dispersing and drifting across the room.

      The answer was clear. Tenjin could not protect me. I was damned.

      Next morning I was miserable. There was no point in getting out of bed, no point in eating, or playing. No point in chanting the sutra. No point in anything.

      My mother came to me in my room.

      It was just an old painting, she said, a dusty old scroll. It can probably be patched up. And if it can’t, it doesn’t matter. It’s not worth the misery.

      It’s not just the painting, I said. And I told her about asking Tenjin, and the smoke from the incense giving me my answer.

      And, of course, she said, you’re such a terrible, terrible sinner.

      I could see she was trying not to smile, but I turned away. This was serious.

      In the first place, she said, sometimes it’s better if we face up to things. It’s better for our karma if we take our medicine. And second, you’re being very hard on Tenjin! Are you going to give up on him just like that, and believe some hocus pocus about incense smoke? Are you going to be like that smoke, at the mercy of a puff of wind, blowing you this way and that?

      I felt something in my chest, a bubble bursting, and I let out a great sob.

      There, she said, hugging me. There.

      A puppet show was advertised in nearby Suwa, and my mother said she would take me.

      They’re performing a wonderful story, she said, about the great teacher Nisshin Shonin. I wanted to know what happened in the story, but she wouldn’t tell me. She said she didn’t want to spoil it for me, she would let me see it for myself.

      The performance was outdoors, in a temple courtyard. It was early evening, the light beginning to fade, and lamps had been lit all around. A little stage had been set up with a simple black curtain as backdrop. I had never been to a puppet show, or any kind of theatre, so I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew from my mother’s quiet excitement it must be something special. The place was crowded but we had arrived early and sat near the front.

      A group of musicians sat at the side of the stage and suddenly, with the whack of wooden clappers, they began to play, the ripple and twang of a koto, wail of a samisen, breathiness of a shakuhachi flute. Immediately the atmosphere changed. The sense of anticipation intensified and it felt as if we were in a special place. I hadn’t seen the puppeteers come on stage, but suddenly they were there, dressed in black, the little puppet figures slumped in front of them.

      At first I felt a slight disappointment. The puppeteers were in full view, it would be obvious they were manipulating the figures, it would be distracting, it would spoil the illusion.

      Then the music changed, a rapid drumbeat, a man’s voice chanting, intoning the story, and slowly, slowly, one of the puppet figures began to move. The little body straightened up, the little head raised, the little hands came together. He bowed and the little eyes blinked once, stared straight out, right at me, and I caught my breath, completely and utterly transfixed.

      The everyday world fell away. None of it mattered, the courtyard, the crowd, the stage, the puppeteers, none of it was real. We had been drawn into another world where this little being was fully alive. He was Nisshin Shonin, come to life.

      He told us of the true path to enlightenment, the chanting of the Lotus Sutra, and how his devotion to that path might cost him his life. He had fallen foul of the Shogun, Yoshinori, and been denounced as a heretic. Now he was to be tortured and forced to give up his faith.

      Another figure loomed beside him. This was Lord Tokimune, the Shogun’s henchman.

      Tell me, he demanded. If you follow the teachings of the Lotus Sutra, can you bear the