The Case of Faith
I wrote an epilogue for Shusaku Endo’s Deep River during my God in Human Experience course in Spring 2002. I thought you might enjoy reading it.
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The Case of Faith
By Michael Cannon
TRST 230 Spring 2002
In endless repetition, monitors beeped every few moments as a respirator forced life-sustaining oxygen into Otsu’s lungs. His weary bones and taunt, leathered skin slackened as days turned into weeks. His worsened critical condition from whence Enami had last called remained. Opening the curtains in the two-patient university hospital room, Mitsuko wondered to herself why she was still waiting beside Otsu. His Onion has left him here to die and this same Onion denies himself to her pleadings. ‘I’ve come Onion… why do you leave now?’ she thinks over and over again. Now though, drying an eye she asks, ‘what shall I do next?’
Mitsuko stops, counts to ten and settles into her chair beside Otsu’s bed; ‘Here I sit again, how have I gotten here? Why do I allow myself to be tortured like this? He doesn’t mean anything to me!’ Her own internal voice had no reply, the words, their vehemence has cooled, and her mind idled as eyelids became heavy after yet another night of no rest and much thinking. Into a slumber she went.
“So seduce him the way Möria seduced Joseph,” an old dream began anew. (p35) “Drag him down the path of degradation,” the dream moves through university years when her friends first drew attention to young, faith inspired Otsu. (p36) Those times were only to make fun of his God, the one that draws him so deliberately to pray every afternoon in Kultur Heim chapel. How dares Otsu to spite me, “Even if I try to abandon God… God won’t abandon me,” you must give him up if you want me, ‘Now, drink!’ (p42) ‘He didn’t go to church when I asked him to, now I’ll let him be a boy-friend, “to my room” we go.’ (p45) Drearily, I recall not giving myself to him, he turned me off so, too many “sorry’s” and bumbling for nothing done. I let him be mine for as long as he stayed away from his God and church. ‘Why must I relieve this dream again? I know I was hardened then, why again must I see it? I’m tired.’ In reality and unbeknownst to Mitsuko, she let out a small cry and her hand became rested upon Otsu’s forearm.
Mitsuko’s dream swirled ahead to cover the time of when she left her husband in Paris, to visit St. Symphorien only to find darkness hiding in her heart. The void carried her onto Lyons, in search of Augustine Otsu to question his God. ‘How did you come here Otsu,’ Mitsuko recalls asking and Otsu responding about a voice saying “Come to me, Come. I was rejected as you have been. So I will never abandon you,” to which Otsu affirms his belief in God and his calling by saying, “I come.” (p62) The void opens fuller, seeking to drown Otsu and cry out against his God; ‘no more can I take of this,’ Mitsuko cries aloud. At dream bottom, Otsu demonstrates a kindness with Mitsuko to overcome her nervousness in God to call him Onion. ‘He has always shown me kindness even though I push despair unto him,’ Mitsuko reveals to herself finally.
A loud monitor beep awoke Mitsuko from her dreary slumber. Nothing it seems has really changed now, Otsu’s morphine drip has gone dry and a nurse entered to change it. The nurse only passes Mitsuko the briefest of smiles, Otsu should be dead, is what she doesn’t say. Looking down from the nurse, Mitsuko realizes that she has been holding onto Otsu’s forearms and for no real reason, she begins to cry. Once the morphine has been replaced, the nurse moves quickly out of the room to leave a miserable women and poor wretch alone. She has many more patients, far more deserving of her good treatment and resources than this one.
As Mitsuko’s eyes begin to stop their watering, she lays her head down upon Otsu’s hand as if it was a soothing, caress upon her cheek. Tired again, from lack of a real nights sleep, dreams fits draining her, and the sudden crying Mitsuko’s weariness overwhelms her to another time and place.
Mitsuko’s dream this time isn’t as dark as it was so many times before, light shines and bird songs where none has before. ‘Why now is it different? Nothing has really changed.’ Chāmundā forms vividly, suddenly, “she pants for breath, she offers milk to mankind from her shriveled breasts,” she has carried all of the sufferings of India and still tirelessly holds herself open to more. (p140) ‘Isn’t this action the same that Otsu has given, denied the easy life, every path difficult, nowhere welcome but in the places of the worst conditions,’ forms as an old thought, new to cross Mitsuko’s consciousness. The void of before doesn’t appear as deep, nor as black anymore, ‘Why? Where is hope in enduring suffering?’ Viscously the dream liquefies into the moment that Sanjo’s misdeeds laid in Otsu’s grandeur suffering. Shouting “you’ve been completely powerless!” is relived more passionately than before, shocking Mitsuko to realization that she herself is completely powerless.
A warming pat calms Mitsuko out of her self-discovery. Lifting her head to see where it came from, she sees no one but Otsu and his monitors beeping in endless repetition. Through the window, a tender, endearing light shines upon them and throws a rainbow across the wall after passing through a dirtied water glass. ‘Where did the pat come from?’ Dismissingly, Mitsuko lays her head down again only to feel, not a pat, but tender caresses upon her cheek. Alarmingly, Mitsuko awakens to looking deep into Otsu’s eyes and his voice whispering ‘Onion has told me he has called us to him.’
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