Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [14]
Then she blew out the lamp and lay down beside him. Curling up catlike, she inched closer and closer to his body, her whitened face and colorful nightgown, really too youthful for her, hidden by the darkness. The only sound that could be heard was that of dewdrops dripping onto the windowsill.
“I wonder if he’s still a virgin,” she mused as she reached out to remove his wooden sword.
The instant she touched it, Takezō was on his feet and shouting, “Thief! Thief!”
Okō was thrown over onto the lamp, which cut into her shoulder and chest.
Takezō was wrenching her arm without mercy. She screamed out in pain. Astonished, he released her. “Oh, it’s you. I thought it was a thief.” “Oooh,” moaned Okō. “That hurt!”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was you.”
“You don’t know your own strength. You almost tore my arm off.” “I said I was sorry. What are you doing here, anyway?”
Ignoring his innocent query, she quickly recovered from her arm injury and tried to coil the same limb around his neck, cooing, “You don’t have to apologize. Takezō …” She ran the back of her hand softly against his cheek.
“Hey! What are you doing? Are you crazy?” he shouted, shrinking away from her touch.
“Don’t make so much noise, you idiot. You know how I feel about you.” She went on trying to fondle him, with him swatting at her like a man attacked by a swarm of bees.
“Yes, and I’m very grateful. Neither of us will ever forget how kind you’ve been, taking us in and all.”
“I don’t mean that, Takezō. I’m talking about my woman’s feelings—the lovely, warm feeling I have for you.”
“Wait a minute,” he said, jumping up. “I’ll light the lamp!”
“Oh, how can you be so cruel,” she whimpered, moving to embrace him again.
“Don’t do that!” he cried indignantly. “Stop it—I mean it!”
Something in his voice, something intense and resolute, frightened Okō into halting her attack.
Takezō felt his bones wobbling, his teeth rattling. Never had he encountered such a formidable adversary. Not even when he’d looked up at the horses galloping past him at Sekigahara had his heart palpitated so. He sat cringing in the corner of the room.
“Go away, please,” he pleaded. “Go back to your own room. If you don’t, I’ll call Matahachi. I’ll wake the whole house up!”
Okō did not budge. She sat there in the dark, breathing heavily and staring at him with narrowed eyes. She wasn’t about to be rebuffed. “Takezō,” she cooed again. “Don’t you understand how I feel?”
He made no reply.
“Don’t you?”
“Yes, but do you understand how I feel, being snuck up on in my sleep, frightened to death and mauled by a tiger in the dark?”
It was her turn to be silent. A low whisper, almost a growl, emerged from a deep part of her throat. She said each syllable with a vengeance. “How can you embarrass me so?”
“I embarrass you?”
“Yes. This is mortifying.”
They were both so tense they hadn’t noticed the knocking at the door, which had apparently been going on for some time. Now the pounding was punctuated by shouts. “What’s going on in there? Are you deaf? Open the door!”
A light appeared in the crack between the sliding rain shutters. Akemi was already awake. Then Matahachi’s footsteps thudded toward them and his voice called, “What’s going on?”
From the hallway now, Akemi cried out in alarm, “Mother! Are you in there? Please answer me!”
Blindly Okō scrambled back into her own room, just adjoining Takezō’s, and answered from there. The men outside appeared to have pried open the shutters and stormed into the house. When she reached the hearth room she saw six or seven pairs of broad shoulders crowded into the adjacent, dirt-floored kitchen, which was a big step down, since it was set at a lower level than the other rooms.
One of the men shouted, “It’s Tsujikaze Temma. Give us some light!”
The men barged rudely into the main part of the house. They didn’t even stop to remove their sandals, a sure sign