The Mask of Shikyo
by Mike Rogers
At every monastery in Japan, however small, those in distress, in need of shelter or comfort, may call and stay as long as they need or will. So it was no surprise to Jakuhaimono, the novice, when a little old lady in tears came knocking at the door one winter afternoon.
Her tale was sad. All her life she had saved and, at the end, acquired title to a little cottage where she hoped to end her days. But now she heard that the miser, Shusendo, who owned all the land and property thereabouts, had obtained the deed to her cottage and would surely put her out of it that day or the next, leaving her to wander the roads in age and winter weather and end her life frozen in a ditch instead of by her own warm fire, however small it might be.
Jakuhaimono, the novice, sat her down, gave her a bowl of rice and a cup of green tea and went to tell the tale to his master, the abbot Shuinchou, the only other monk at the monastery. The abbot listened and said, “Jakuhaimono, my novice, I am no longer of the youngest, and the time is coming and may soon be here when you will have to be the abbot of this monastery. You must learn to make decisions that will be the right ones. So, now, you must decide what I should do, and I will do it, and from what happens we shall both learn.”
“Shuinchou, my abbot,” said Jakuhaimono, the novice, “you must know that before I became a monk, I was an actor in the Nō theatre and, every day, I put on masks: three, four, five different ones. In the end, I became afraid that behind the masks there was no reality. And that is why I became a monk: to touch reality. Therefore, in this matter I think there should be no pretence and no hiding. I think you should go straight to Shusendo, the miser and tell him to return the deed to the little old lady’s cottage.”
“And my reasons?” asked the abbot.
“Tell him that he has enough property already; that the little old lady’s cottage is too small and trifling to be worth his attention and that, in any case, given his age, all his property will soon be stripped from him by Death.”
The abbot bowed to his novice and went up the field path to the miser’s house, which was nearby, and found him in the kitchen, by the stove. Shusendo was too mean to heat any other part of his house and was doing his accounts on the kitchen table.
“What do you want, priest?” said the miser.
“I hear,” said the abbot, “that you have acquired the deed to the cottage of the little old woman who lives near here, and I have come to ask you to return it. You have so much other property, that is worth so much more, that it can be of no real importance to you. Besides, you and I are of an age when it must be clear that what is ours cannot be ours forever. Why take a pleasure away from her that cannot add to the pleasure you have?”
“You are a meddler and must be taught to mind your own business, priest,” said the miser, “and I am a traditional teacher.” He reached for the bamboo cane, weighted with lead, which he always kept by him, and began to beat the abbot.
First, the the miser beat him on the legs, but the abbot stood firm and did not yield or kneel. Then he beat him on the arms, but the abbot never moved his arms out of the way. Then he beat him about the head and face, till the blood ran down where the skin was thin over the bone, but the abbot never raised his hands to ward off the blows or wipe away the blood, but stood and endured.
At length, the miser grew tired and short of breath from the exertion. He stopped beating the abbot and said, “Now go away,” and the abbot bowed and left the house and stumbled down the field path and staggered to the door of the monastery, where the novice, Jakuhaimono, found him half-collapsed and carried him to his bed in the small chamber beside the main hall of the monastery.
“Oh, Shuinchou,” said Jakuhaimono, as he washed and salved his master’s wounds, “I see how wrong my advice was by what has happened to you. I greatly fear that Death may come to take you, and I do not know what I should do.”
“If you are afraid that Death may come to take me,” said the abbot, “then maybe you should have a word with Him. He and I are well acquainted. For you must know, Jakuhaimono, my novice, that before I became a monk, I, too, was an actor in the Nō theatre. Every day I, too, put on a mask, but only one: the Mask of Shikyo, the Mask of Death. Only an actor can put on and take off a mask with safety. For part of the wearer enters the mask, and part of the mask enters the wearer.
“I became so close to Death that, when I left the theatre, I could not leave him behind. I brought the Mask of Death with me. If you wish to have a word with Him on my behalf, you must go into the little shrine at the end of the main hall, the one with the dusty purple velvet curtain.”
And as he finished speaking, he closed his eyes in sleep, and Jakuhaimono laid him down gently on the pillow and slipped out into the main hall and went to the little shrine at the end of it.
He pulled back the dusty purple velvet curtain, slipped inside and saw not the face of the Mask of Death but the back of the Mask of Death, for it was set up ready to be put on by an actor. Since he was an actor, and his hands itched to put on the mask, he did so. At that moment, he knew just what he had to do, just as he had always known under other masks in the Nō theatre.
Leaving the shrine, he shielded his face with his robe, so as not frighten the little old lady who was dozing by the fire, nor the other stranger stretched out, apparently asleep, on the other bench, and he made his way up the field path, to the house of Shusendo, the miser, through the gathering dusk.
Silently, silently, for he was an actor and could move without sound when he wished, he opened the door of the miser’s house and made his way in perfect silence through the kitchen, where the miser no longer sat, for there was now too little light for him to see to do his accounts, and he was loth to spend money on candles.
Without the least noise, Jakuhaimono, the novice, climbed the creaky stairs to the bedroom, where the miser lay dozing, and stood at the foot of the bed. He made only the slightest sound that was needed to get the miser’s attention.
Shusendo sat up, saw the figure at the foot of his bed and stammered in a horrified whisper, “What must I do to make you go away?”
“That is simple,” said the novice, “you must give me the deed to the cottage that you acquired today.”
The miser’s hand went out to the vast set of pigeonholes beside his bed, where he kept all his documents, flew without hesitation to one of them, grasped the piece of paper and offered it with a great deal of rustling, for his hand trembled all the while, to the figure at the end of the bed, who took it and left the room.
Silently, silently down the stairs, out through the kitchen, down the field path, through the main hall of the monastery, his face wrapped in his robe, into the little shrine at the end, to restore the mask to its place, then into the abbot’s tiny bedchamber, divided only by a paper screen from the main hall.
There, Jakuhaimono found the abbot looking much better, rested from his sleep. The novice told the abbot all that he had done, at which the abbot looked very pleased. Then the novice went out into the main hall, slipped the deed into the hands of the sleeping old woman and lay down to sleep himself in his own small room.
But someone else had listened to the tale he told the abbot. Nusutto, the thief, was also taking shelter in the monastery, pretending to be a wandering monk, though it was not a robe that he wore but a bedsheet he had stolen from someone’s clothesline. Satisfied that both monks had retired for the night, he went to the shrine at the end of the main hall, pushed aside the dusty purple velvet curtain, put on the Mask of Death and strode off up the field path in the gloom.
When he came to the miser’s house, he barged in through the door, clattered past the cooking-pots in the kitchen and clumped up the staircase. No need to announce his presence at the foot of the bed by some polite cough; the miser was already wide awake and sitting up in bed. To tell the truth, his previous experience had rankled him and refused to let him sleep.
“Well,” said the miser, “what do you want?”
“Money,” said Nusutto, “you must give me all your money to make me go away.”
“This is what I will give you to make you go away,” said the miser, and he reached under his bed and brought out his chamber-pot, that he had already used that day. With a swing of his strong arm, he flung the contents over Nusutto. Drenched with evil-smelling urine and sticky with stinking faeces, he stumbled as fast as he could back out of the room and down the stairs into the kitchen, where his rapid retreat stopped with a cry of horror: “I didn’t know there was a mirror here,” he said, staring straight ahead.
“There isn’t,” said a voice.
In terror, Nusutto raised his hands to his face, to pull off the Mask of Shikyo. But try as he might, it was impossible, for there was no mask. His face had turned into a skull. Looking down at his hands, he saw that they were nothing but a collection of bones and, as he watched, they separated one from the other and tumbled to the floor, and then the whole of his body dissolved into a heap of dust, which the wind from the open door scattered and blew away.
Meanwhile, turning over to go to sleep, satisfied with himself, the miser was suddenly aware that there was a figure at the foot of his bed.
“Why have you come a third time?” he cried.
But a voice answered, “This is the first time I have been here. Surely, you know that I only ever come once?”
And the miser knew that was true and knew who it really was. “What must I do?” he stammered. “What must I do, so that you will give me more time?”
“You must write down how you acquired all your wealth and property,” said the voice, “whom you swindled out of it and how and when.”
The miser’s hands flew to the pigeonholes beside his bed; he pulled out document after document and scribbled away. As he remembered each piece of trickery on his part and each piece of folly and naiveté on the part of those he had swindled, he smiled. At long last, the list was complete, and he held it up. “What must I do now?”
“You must write out a will in favour of the monastery in the valley.”
The miser hesitated.
“When you are dead, the property will no longer be yours in any case.”
The miser wrote and signed the characters of his name and held out the piece of paper, saying, “How much more time will you give me?”
The voice said, “I think you’ve had quite enough.”
Copyright © 2026 by Mike Rogers
