Night Boat. Alan Spence

I said. It was an accident.

      But this pain, now, reminded me how little I could take, and how this was nothing, less than nothing, compared to that other, endless fire. And I knew it was the fire of desire that had brought me here, that fierce little dragon. I had read about it, and I’d seen beasts in their season, cattle in the fields, dogs in a dusty backyard, grimly coupling. My brother had taken a leering delight in telling me our mother and father had done this, that it was how we were made, how we came into the world.

      I made up my mind. The only way to conquer this desire, to go beyond it, was to throw myself into the spiritual life. It was time for me to go away, to become a monk.

      Fuji was this constant presence, this vastness, towering above the village, filling the horizon. It changed from moment to moment, day to day, season to season. It was hidden by spring mists, shimmered in summer haze, burned almost red in autumn, shone pure white in winter. But the shape of it, the form, was always there, taking the breath away, quickening the heart.

      I was wandering at the edge of the village, gazing up absently at the mountain, when I heard shouts in the distance. I had forgotten the procession would be passing through – the Daimyo and his entourage, his retinue, returning from Edo. Every year he had to make this journey – to Edo and back – on pain of death and at huge expense, to declare his loyalty to the Shogun.

      We heard crazy stories about the Shogun. He was known as Inu-Kubo, the Dog Shogun. He’d been born in the Year of the Dog and some rogue of a Buddhist monk had told him he’d been a dog in his last animal incarnation, before becoming human. So he’d issued an edict, On Compassion for Living Things, making a law that dogs should not be harmed and should be treated with respect. Anyone disobeying was liable to summary execution.

      I’d heard people talk about it at the inn. If they had too much to drink they might start by criticising the Daimyo, then they’d move on to the Shogun. (Somebody would bark.) Or they’d even criticise the emperor himself. Then a friend would make a cut-throat gesture or my father would clear his throat loudly and change the subject.

      I’d always loved watching the procession pass through Hara, the endless ranks of pikemen and flag-bearers, riflemen, armed samurai on horseback, ranks of foot-soldiers, priests and servants, palanquins wobbling on the shoulders of the bearers, the Daimyo himself in his elaborate norimon, curtained to shield him from view. There must have been a thousand men in the procession, and it took hours to pass through the village. Some of the Daimyo’s retainers would stop at the inn to water their horses, and my father would take charge and be suitably deferential as they ate and drank and shouted out their orders. The critics and gossips would stay well back, emerging later to share the news they’d picked up from the footsoldiers, rumours from the capital, tales from the floating world.

      I found a vantage point, back from the road, and settled to watch. The pikemen appeared first, the vanguard, all dressed in black silk, walking with their strange exaggerated slow march that was almost a kind of dance, raising the foot high then gliding forward. They did this in concentrated silence, the only sounds the swish of silk, the crunch of gravel underfoot.

      The lead man stepped for a moment to the side of the road, hitched up his loincloth and let out a great stream of piss, spattering in the dust. A few of the young girls from the bathhouse had been standing nearby and they jumped back, laughing.

      Did you see his thing?

      What a pike!

      The size of it!

      They laughed even louder, but the pikeman had returned to his position sombre and dignified, and resumed his slow march.

      A little way behind came the Daimyo himself, carried on high, hidden inside the norimon with its silk curtains, its elaborate carvings, and some way further back came another norimon, smaller, less ornate, but still beautifully decorated. This too had its curtains closed, but just as it passed me, they opened with a swish of silk and a woman was looking out at me. Her face was the most beautiful I had ever seen, like an ukiyo-e painting, like the goddess Kannon herself, embodied.

      I must have been staring, and I’m sure my mouth fell open so I gulped like some stupid carp surfacing. The woman smiled and the curtain fell shut. I was shaken, but I bowed and turned away, continued walking up the hill, Fuji ahead of me.

      There was a haiku I had read.

      Beloved Fuji –

       The mist clears and reveals

      Your snowy whiteness.

      When I’d climbed far enough, I looked back, saw the procession still trailing into the distance, but so small, so insignificant. I imagined each and every one of that huge entourage plodding along with head down, eyes fixed on the ground, not once looking up at this. This.

      I knew when I went back to the inn I would have to help clear up the mess. My father would ask where I had been and raise his eyes to heaven.

      I bowed once more to the mountain, and dragging my steps I headed back down.

      Now I made drawings of Fuji, with swift simple strokes, and I tried to draw Bodhisattva Kannon. Sometimes her face looked like my mother, sometimes like the woman who had looked out at me through the curtains of the norimon.

      My restlessness increased and I went out walking every day, climbed the slopes of Mount Yanagizawa in search of a quiet place to sit, away from the everyday world. I found the perfect spot, a flat rock above a mountain stream, a sheer cliff face rising up behind. I sat for hours, totally absorbed, reciting what I knew of the sutras, looking down at the rushing stream, or up at Fuji.

      One day I noticed that a configuration of the rock, viewed from a certain angle, resembled Kannon herself. The next morning I brought a chisel and a small mallet, borrowed from my father’s workshop, and I set to carving the likeness into the stone, accentuating what was already there, bringing it to life. When I’d finished I stood looking at it in amazement, the Bodhisattva smiling at me. I bowed my head and chanted to her in reverence.

      Enmei Jikku Kannon Gyo.

      That afternoon there were heavy rains and I took shelter under an overhang of rock. When the rain had subsided I climbed down to head for home. The stream was swollen, the waters rushing fast, and I had to wade across, carrying the chisel and mallet, wrapped in cloth, above my head. Twice I stumbled, lost my footing and almost went under, the water reaching up to my chin. I made it to the other side, and I got home, drenched and shivering, my clothes sticking to me. But I was elated, and my mother could see it in me.

      Perhaps it’s time, she said.

      My mother was Nichiren Buddhist. That was why she had loved the story of Nisshin Shonin walking through fire, saving himself by chanting the Lotus Sutra. So it was no surprise when she suggested I go to Shoin-ji, a Nichiren temple. But then she said something else that did surprise me.

      And after all, she smiled, it is where your father studied as a young man.

      At first I thought I had misheard, or misunderstood.

      My father? I said. He studied at the temple?

      For a few short years, she said, he trained for the priesthood. He was taught by his uncle, Daizui-Rojin.

      My head felt cold. There was a taste like iron in my mouth.

      I didn’t know, I said. I had no idea.

      There is much you do not know about your father, she said.

      I bowed.

      Where do you think that brush and inkstone came from? she said. The ones you’ve been using.

      They