Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [209]
For this reason, Otsū was not as upset now as she might have been, though Jōtarō was crestfallen. Laughing the incident off, she said, “Too bad you were wrong, but don’t get mad at me for going on ahead. I thought I’d find you at the bridge. You know, everybody says that if you start out on a journey in a bad mood, you’ll stay angry all the way. Come now, let’s make up.”
Though seemingly satisfied, Jōtarō turned and cast a rude look at the girls trailing along behind. “What are they all doing here? Are they coming with us?”
“Of course not. They’re just sorry to see me leave, so they’re sweet enough to escort us to the bridge.”
“Why, that’s so very kind of them,” said Jōtarō, mimicking Otsū’s speech and throwing everyone into fits of laughter. Now that he had joined the group, the anguish of parting subsided, and the girls recovered their good spirits.
“Otsū,” called one of them, “you’re turning the wrong way; that’s not the path to the bridge.”
“I know,” said Otsū quietly. She had turned toward the Tamagushi Gate to pay her respects to the inner shrine. Clapping her hands together once, she bowed her head toward the sanctum and remained in an attitude of silent prayer for a few moments.
“Oh, I see,” murmured Jōtarō. “She doesn’t think she should leave without saying good-bye to the goddess.” He was content to watch from a distance, but the girls started poking him in the back and asking him why he did not follow Otsū’s example. “Me?” asked the boy incredulously. “I don’t want to bow before any old shrine.”
“You shouldn’t say that. You’ll be punished for that someday.”
“I’d feel silly bowing like that.”
“What’s silly about showing your respect to the Sun Goddess? She’s not like one of those minor deities they worship in the cities.”
“I know that.”
“Well, then, why don’t you pay your respects?”
“Because I don’t want to!”
“Contrary, aren’t you!”
“Shut up, you crazy females! All of you!”
“Oh, my!” chorused the girls, dismayed at his rudeness.
“What a monster!” exclaimed one.
By this time Otsū had finished her obeisance and was coming back toward them. “What happened?” she asked. “You look upset.”
One of the girls blurted, “He called us crazy females, just because we tried to get him to bow before the goddess.”
“Now, Jōtarō, you know that’s not nice,” Otsū admonished. “You really ought to say a prayer.”
“What for?”
“Didn’t you say yourself that when you thought Musashi was about to be killed by the priests from the Hōzōin, you raised your hands and prayed as loudly as you could? Why can’t you pray here too?”
“But … well, they’re all looking.”
“All right, we’ll turn around so we can’t see you.”
They all turned their backs to the boy, but Otsū stole a look behind her. He was running dutifully toward the Tamagushi Gate. When he reached it, he faced the shrine and, in very boyish fashion, made a deep, lightning-quick bow.
The Pinwheel
Musashi sat on the narrow veranda of a little seafood shop facing the sea. The shop’s specialty was sea snails, served boiling in their shells. Two women divers, baskets of freshly caught turban shells on their arms, and a boatman stood near the veranda. While the boatman urged him to take a ride around the offshore islands, the two women were trying to convince him he needed some sea snails to take with him, wherever he was headed.
Musashi was busily engaged in removing the pus-soiled bandage from his foot. Having suffered intensely from his injury, he could hardly believe that both the fever and the swelling were finally gone. The foot was again normal size, and though the skin was white and shriveled, it was only slightly painful.
Waving the boatman and divers away, he lowered his tender foot onto the sand