CHAPTER 46

When Hiro returned to the common room, Father Mateo was kneeling by the hearth with the coin in his hand. He gestured for Hiro to join him.

“Why do you think he wants this coin so badly?” the Jesuit asked. “And do you think the yoriki was really by the river when Emi died?”

“You were listening behind the door?” Hiro glanced toward the kitchen.

Father Mateo nodded. “He wouldn’t answer my questions. I thought the conversation might go better if I left.”

Hiro stared at the priest, impressed with his cunning.

“You don’t have to look so surprised.” Father Mateo poured himself another cup of tea. “Yoriki Hosokawa didn’t mention seeing Emi by the river the night she died.”

Hiro knew what the priest was thinking. “He wouldn’t mention it, if he killed her. Unfortunately, that omission does not prove his guilt. He may not have noticed the girl at all. Samurai overlook commoners all the time.”

Father Mateo sighed. “Everyone saw everyone else by the riverbank that evening, and everyone has a valid excuse for being there.” He laid the coin on the tray beside the teapot. “I do not want to leave Kyoto with Emi’s murder unresolved.”

“So you have mentioned. More than once.” Hiro noted the priest’s unusual sorrow. “This killing bothers you more than others. Why?”

“The girl is your cousin,” Father Mateo said.

“Which explains why her death should bother me, not why it impacts you so deeply.”

Father Mateo stared at Hiro for several seconds. “When I saw her body, it reminded me of another—whose death I caused.”

“You? You killed a girl?”

“I did not kill her,” Father Mateo said, “and yet, I am responsible for her death.”

In the silence that followed, Hiro longed to ask what happened, but friendship and etiquette barred the question. He realized, yet again, how little he knew about the priest. It struck him as odd that he felt so close to a person whose past he knew essentially nothing about.

“Her name was Isabel,” Father Mateo said. “She was my sister.”

“You had a sister?” Questions swirled in Hiro’s mind like leaves in a whirlpool, though he would never ask them. Friends did not summon the ghosts of the dead for the sake of curiosity.

Father Mateo nodded. “I have not spoken her name aloud in years, though I think of her, and pray for her, every day.”

“You need not speak of this,” Hiro said. “I apologize for intruding on your privacy.”

“No, I want to tell you. Perhaps, then, you will understand why Emi’s death impacted me so deeply. That is, unless you would rather I did not speak.”

Hiro nodded, knowing Father Mateo would take the gesture as consent.

“In my country, most couples have many children,” Father Mateo said, “but God allowed my parents only two. They had given up hope of having any children at all. But then, God answered their prayers—first with me, and, six years later, with Isabel.

“I adored my sister from the moment she was born. When she grew old enough, we played together constantly. She loved to run and explore, like a boy, and though my parents scolded me, I encouraged her wild ways. I protected her. I never believed that she would come to harm. . . .”

Father Mateo clenched his jaw. His hand crept up to the scar on his neck, and he rubbed it absently, lost in memory.

Hiro waited as the silence stretched between them.

Father Mateo’s eyes refocused. “On the day I turned fourteen, my father gave me a horse of my own—a fine gray stallion—and told me he had apprenticed me to an acting troupe. All of my childhood dreams were coming true.

“I couldn’t wait to ride my horse. I didn’t even bother with a saddle. Isabel wanted to ride behind me, but Mother said no, and Isabel cried so hard it broke my heart. Then Father said that she could ride, provided she held onto me tightly and that I held the horse to a walk.”

“Your father allowed a woman to ride a horse?” Hiro asked. Father Mateo’s reactions to Japanese women had made Hiro think that women in Portugal couldn’t do much at all.

“No one could ever say no to Isabel. She had ridden before, on Father’s mares, and I was a good enough horseman that my father trusted me to keep her . . . safe.” Father Mateo cleared his throat. “As soon as we left the stable, Isabel wanted the horse to go faster. I refused. I didn’t know the stallion yet, and Father said to keep him at a walk. Isabel called me a frightened mouse and dared me to make the stallion run. When I refused a second time, she kicked the horse in the ribs as hard as she could.”

Father Mateo’s eyes grew red. “The stallion bucked. He ran. I couldn’t hold him. Isabel fell off. . . .”

Hiro’s chest grew tight. To his surprise, his own eyes threatened tears. He regretted forcing Father Mateo to relive such vibrant pain.

The priest continued, “I jumped from the horse and ran to her, but she had broken her neck in the fall. I had no time to go for help. She died there, in my arms.” He looked at Hiro in despair. “It was my fault.”

“It was not your fault. Her death was an accident.”

Father Mateo shook his head. “I should have refused to let her ride.”

“Your father gave permission.”

Father Mateo looked into the fire. “That does not expunge my guilt.”

Hiro sat completely still. No words would ease the pain his friend was feeling. Silent support was the only comfort Hiro had to offer.

Eventually, Father Mateo spoke. “The day she died, and for many days thereafter, I prayed that God would kill me too. Guilt overwhelmed me. I could not bear my father’s sadness or my mother’s grief. I never joined the theater troupe. I could not summon the strength to hide my sorrow, let alone pretend at joy. I found some small relief at Mass. When I bowed my head to pray I pretended Isabel was there beside me.”

“Is that why you became a priest?”

Father Mateo smiled. “A few months after Isabel died, I dreamed I was in church, and when I raised my head she was beside me. She took my hand and said, ‘Do not worry about me anymore. God wants you to care for others, for the ones who are left behind.’

“I awoke with tears running down my face and the first real peace I had felt since my sister died. God allowed her to speak to me—he called to me through her.”

“It was only a dream,” Hiro said. “Your god was not in it.”

“But he was. He spoke through Isabel. That night I offered him my life, and now I live to serve the ones he loves.”

Hiro was not convinced that Father Mateo’s god had spoken, but respected his friend enough to keep that opinion to himself.

“You don’t believe me.” Father Mateo smiled.

“I believe that it happened the way you described it, which makes it true in the only way that matters.”

Father Mateo stood up. “If you will excuse me, I am late for afternoon prayer.” At the door to his room, he turned back. “Thank you.”

“For what?” Hiro asked.

“For being the kind of person I could trust with Isabel’s memory. In twenty years, there has not been another.”