Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [228]
“I won’t be a bother to you?” she asked as she went up the steps.
“Not at all. No one will mind if you stay here for months.”
The building was pitch black, the kind of atmosphere favored by bats. “Wait just a minute,” said Tanzaemon.
She heard the scratching of metal against flint, and then a small lamp, which he must have scavenged somewhere, cast a feeble light. She looked about and saw that this strange man had somehow accumulated the basic necessities for housekeeping—a pot or two, some dishes, a wooden pillow, some straw matting. Saying he would make a little buckwheat gruel for her, he began puttering around with a broken earthenware brazier, first putting in a little charcoal, then some sticks, and after raising a few sparks, blowing them into a flame.
“He’s a nice old man,” thought Akemi. As she began to feel calmer, the place no longer seemed so filthy.
“There now,” he said. “You look feverish, and you said you were tired. You’ve probably caught a cold. Why don’t you just lie down over there until the food is ready?” He pointed to a makeshift pallet of straw matting and rice sacks.
Akemi spread some paper she had with her on the wooden pillow and with murmured apologies for resting while he worked, lay down. For cover, there were the tattered remains of a mosquito net. She started to pull this over her, but as she did so, an animal with glittering eyes jumped out from under it and bounded over her head. Akemi screamed and buried her face in the pallet.
Tanzaemon was more astonished than Akemi. He dropped the sack from which he was pouring flour into the water, spilling half of it on his knees. “What was that?” he cried.
Akemi, still hiding her face, said, “I don’t know. It seemed bigger than a rat.”
“Probably a squirrel. They sometimes come when they smell food. But I don’t see it anywhere.”
Lifting her head slightly, Akemi said, “There it is!”
“Where?”
Tanzaemon straightened up and turned around. Perched on the railing of the inner sanctum, from which the image of the Buddha was long gone, was a small monkey, shrinking with fright under Tanzaemon’s hard stare.
Tanzaemon looked puzzled, but the monkey apparently decided there was nothing to fear. After a few trips up and down the faded vermilion railing, he sat down again, and turning up a face like a peach with long hair, began blinking his eyes.
“Where do you suppose he came from? … Ah ha! I see now. I thought a good deal of rice had been scattered around.” He moved toward the monkey, but the latter, anticipating his approach, bounded behind the sanctum and hid.
“He’s a cute little devil,” said Tanzaemon. “If we give him something to eat, he probably won’t do any mischief. Let’s let him be.” Brushing the flour off his knees, he sat down before the brazier again. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Akemi. Get some rest.”
“Do you think he’ll behave himself?”
“Yes. He’s not wild. He must be somebody’s pet. There’s nothing to worry about. Are you warm enough?”
“Yes.”
“Then get some sleep. That’s the best cure for a cold.”
He put more flour in the water and stirred the gruel with chopsticks. The fire was burning briskly now, and while the mixture was heating up, he began chopping some scallions. His chopping board was the top of an old table, his knife a small rusted dagger. With unwashed hands, he scooped the scallions into a wooden bowl and then wiped off the chopping block, converting it into a tray.
The bubbling of the boiling pot gradually warmed the room. Seated with his arms around his spindly knees, the former samurai gazed at the broth with hungry eyes. He looked happy and eager, as though the pot before him contained the ultimate pleasure of mankind.
The bell of Kiyomizudera pealed as it did every night. The winter austerities, which lasted thirty days, had ended, and the New Year was at hand, but as always as the year drew to a close, the burden