Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [238]
“Osugi? Here?” said Musashi, reluctant to believe his ears. But there was no mistake. He could hear her hoarse voice seeping through the cracks like an icy wind, addressing Kaname in her stiffest, haughtiest manner.
Osugi had arrived just as the pealing of the midnight bells had ended and Musashi’s aunt was on the point of going to draw fresh water for the New Year. Troubled by the thought of her New Year being ruined by the unclean sight of blood, she made no attempt to hide her annoyance.
“Run away as fast as you can,” she implored. “Your uncle’s holding her off by insisting you haven’t been here. Slip out now while there’s still time.” She picked up his hat and pack and led him to the back door, where she had placed a pair of her husband’s leather socks, along with some straw sandals.
While tying the sandals, Musashi said sheepishly, “I hate to be a nuisance, but won’t you give me a bowl of gruel? I haven’t had a thing to eat this evening.”
“This is no time for eating! But here, take these. And be off with you!” She held out five rice cakes on a piece of white paper.
Eagerly accepting them, Musashi held them up to his forehead in a gesture of thanks. “Good-bye,” he said.
On his way down the icy lane, on the first day of the joyous New Year, Musashi walked sadly—a winter bird with feathers molted, flying off into a black sky. His hair and fingernails felt frozen. All he could see was his own white breath, quickly turning to frost on the fine hairs around his mouth. “It’s cold!” he said out loud. Surely the Eight Freezing Hells could not be this numbing! Why, when he normally shrugged off the cold, did he feel it so bitterly this morning?
He answered his own question. “It’s not just my body. I’m cold inside. Not disciplined properly. That’s what it is. I still long to cling to warm flesh, like a baby, and I give in too quickly to sentimentality. Because I’m alone, I feel sorry for myself and envy people who have nice warm houses. At heart, I’m base and mean! Why can’t I be thankful for independence and freedom to go where I choose? Why can’t I hold on to my ideals and my pride?”
As he savored the advantages of freedom, his aching feet grew warm, down to the tips of his toes, and his breath turned to steam. “A wanderer with no ideal, no sense of gratitude for his independence, is no more than a beggar! The difference between a beggar and the great wandering priest Saigyō lies inside the heart!”
He suddenly became aware of a white sparkle under his feet. He was treading on brittle ice. Without noticing, he had walked all the way to the frozen edge of the Kamo River. Both it and the sky were still black, and there was as yet no hint of dawn in the east. His feet stopped. Somehow they had carried him without mishap through the darkness from Yoshida Hill, but now they were reluctant to go on.
In the shadow of the dike, he gathered together twigs, chips of wood and anything else that would burn, then began scratching at his flint. The raising of the first tiny flame required work and patience, but eventually some dry leaves caught. With the care of a woodworker, he began piling on sticks and small branches. After a certain point, the fire rapidly took on life, and as it drew the wind, it fanned out toward its maker, ready to scorch his face.
Musashi took the rice cakes his aunt had given him and toasted them one by one in the flames. They turned brown and swelled up like bubbles, reminding him of the New Year’s celebrations of his childhood. The rice cakes had no flavor but their own; they were neither salted nor sweetened. Chewing them, he thought of the taste of the plain rice as the taste of the real world about him. “I’m having my own New Year’s celebration,” he thought happily. As he warmed his