Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [188]
“Uncle Gon. Oh, Uncle Gon!” she wailed.
The waves darkened. She tried and tried to bring warmth back to his body. The look on her face said that she expected him at any minute to open his mouth and speak to her. She chewed up pills from the medicine box in his obi and transferred them to his mouth. She held him close and rocked him.
“Open your eyes, Uncle Gon!” she pleaded. “Say something! You can’t go away and leave me alone. We still haven’t killed Musashi or punished that hussy Otsū.”
Inside the inn, Akemi lay in a fretful sleep. When Seijūrō attempted to adjust her feverish head on the pillow, she mumbled deliriously. For a time, he sat by her side in utter stillness, his face paler than hers. As he observed the agony he himself had heaped on her, he suffered too.
It was he himself who by animal force had preyed on her and satisfied his own lust. Now he sat gravely and stiffly beside her, worrying about her pulse and her breathing, praying that the life that had for a time left her would be safely restored. In one short day, he had been both a beast and a man of compassion. But to Seijūrō, given as he was to extremes, his conduct didn’t seem inconsistent.
His eyes were sad, the set of his mouth humble. He stared at her and murmured, “Try to be calm, Akemi. It’s not just me; most other men are the same way…. You’ll soon come to understand, though you must have been shocked by the violence of my love.” Whether this speech was actually directed toward the girl or was intended to quiet his own spirit would have been difficult to judge, but he kept voicing the same sentiment over and over.
The gloom in the room was like ink. The paper-covered shoji muffled the sound of the wind and waves.
Akemi stirred and her white arms slipped out from under the covers. When Seijūrō tried to replace the quilt, she mumbled, “Wh-what’s the date?” “What?”
“How … how many days … till New Year’s?”
“It’s only seven days now. You’ll be well by then, and we’ll be back in Kyoto.” He lowered his face toward hers, but she pushed it away with the palm of her hand.
“Stop! Go away! I don’t like you.”
He drew back, but the half-crazed words poured from her lips.
“Fool! Beast!”
Seijūrō remained silent.
“You’re a beast. I don’t … I don’t want to look at you.”
“Forgive me, Akemi, please!”
“Go away! Don’t talk to me.” Her hand waved nervously in the dark. Seijūrō swallowed sadly but continued to stare at her.
“What… what’s the date?”
This time he did not answer.
“Isn’t it New Year’s yet? … Between New Year’s and the seventh … Every day … He said he’d be on the bridge…. The message from Musashi … every day … Gojō Avenue bridge … It’s so long till New Year’s…. I must go back to Kyoto…. If I go to the bridge, he’ll be there.”
“Musashi?” said Seijūrō in wonderment.
The delirious girl was silent.
“This Musashi … Miyamoto Musashi?”
Seijūrō peered into her face, but Akemi said no more. Her blue eyelids were closed; she was fast asleep.
Dried pine needles tapped against the shoji. A horse whinnied. A light appeared beyond the partition, and a maid’s voice said, “The Young Master is in here.”
Seijūrō hastily went into the adjoining room, carefully shutting the door behind him. “Who is it?” he asked. “I’m in here.”
“Ueda Ryōhei,” came the answer. Clad in full travel garb and covered with dust, Ryōhei came in and sat down.
While they exchanged greetings, Seijūrō wondered what could have brought him here. Since Ryōhei, like Tōji, was one of the senior students and was needed at home, Seijūrō would never have brought him on a spur-of-the-moment excursion.
“Why have you come? Has something happened in my absence?” asked Seijūrō.
“Yes, and I must ask you to return immediately.”
“What is it?”
As Ryōhei put both hands into his kimono and felt around, Akemi’s voice came