Night Boat. Alan Spence

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 and a little sacred grove dedicated to Tenjin. The place was tended by a young monk who was sweeping the steps as we came in at the gate. He bowed to my mother, then to me, and asked if he could be of help to us. My mother explained about the sutra and he smiled at me, said yes. He could not have been more different from the old monk I had heard at the other temple, Shogen-ji, who had filled my head with hellfire and damnation. This young man had a mildness and a gentleness about him, a kind of lightness. He beckoned us to follow him into the shrine room, leaving our sandals outside. We kneeled beside him on the tatami floor and he lit a stick of incense at the altar. A few flowers had been placed in an old vase in front of a painting of Tenjin, one hand raised in blessing. The expression on the face was benign, kindly, but behind him a thunderbolt emerged from a cloud, and beside him was an ox, looking up at him.

      The ox is his messenger, said the monk. So the best time to pray to him is the hour of the ox, between two and three in the morning.

      My mother shifted uneasily.

      But, of course, said the monk, a young man like you should just meditate as early as you can, whenever you wake up.

      I will wake up at two, I said. The hour of the ox.

      The monk nodded approval, gave a little chuckle. Then he became serious again, reached forward and opened a drawer at the side of the shrine, drew out a scroll of paper which he unrolled and handed to me. I could only read a few of the characters, like wind and fire. But the page had an effect on me – again I felt that sensation in my chest, in my belly, and something in my forehead, a kind of tingling.

      We’ll chant, said the monk. Take it a line at a time. I’ll chant it first, then you repeat it with me.

      He folded his hands and began, his voice surprisingly deep and resonant. I folded my own hands, copied him as best I could, my own small voice cracked and high but eager, and my mother joined in, a clear sweet singsong. By the time we’d gone through the whole thing two or three times I was singing out with all my heart and soul.

      The monk bowed to me again and said I could keep the copy of the sutra, and from the same drawer he took out a smaller copy of the painting of Tenjin.

      You should take this too, he said, for your shrine.

      I carried my treasures home, overcome with excitement, and went straight to the little altar room in our house. I swept the floor and dusted the shrine. I took down the painting that hung in the alcove and replaced it with the image of Tenjin. I laid out my copy of the sutra in front of it. I emptied the ash from the incense holder and cleaned it out, lit a new stick. I pestered my mother for a few fresh flowers from the display in the front room and I put them in a vase. Then I bowed to Tenjin, and I chanted the sutra over and over till I knew the words by heart.

      It was the middle of the night. I didn’t know the exact time, but I knew it must be close to the hour of the ox. The whole house was dark and quiet as I felt my way, step by step, to the altar room where I managed to light the oil lamp, put another stick of incense in the burner. Then I kneeled on the tatami in front of the shrine, folded my hands and started to chant the sutra.

      Namu Tenman Daijizai Tenjin . . .

      I СКАЧАТЬ