Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [24]
“He was born in Tajima Province and started training for the priesthood when he was ten. Then he entered a temple of the Rinzai Zen sect about four years later. After he left, he became a follower of a scholar-priest from the Daitokuji and traveled with him to Kyoto and Nara. Later on he studied under Gudō of the Myōshinji, Laō of Sennan and a whole string of other famous holy men. He’s spent an awful lot of time studying!”
“Maybe that’s why there’s something different about him.”
Otsū continued her story. “He was made a resident priest at the Nansōji and was appointed abbot of the Daitokuji by imperial edict. I’ve never learned why from anyone, and he never talks about his past, but for some reason he ran away after only three days.”
Ogin shook her head.
Otsū went on. “They say famous generals like Hosokawa and noblemen like Karasumaru have tried again and again to persuade him to settle down. They even offered to build him a temple and donate money for its upkeep, but he’s just not interested. He says he prefers to wander about the countryside like a beggar, with only his lice for friends, I think he’s probably a little crazy.”
“Maybe from his viewpoint we’re the ones who are strange.”
“That’s exactly what he says!”
“How long will he stay here?”
“There’s no way of knowing. He has a habit of showing up one day and disappearing the next.”
Standing up near the veranda, Takuan called, “I can hear everything you’re saying!”
“Well, it’s not as though we’re saying anything bad,” Otsū replied cheerfully.
“I don’t care if you do, if you find it amusing, but you could at least give me some sweet cakes to go with my tea.”
“That’s what I mean,” said Otsū. “He’s like this all the time.”
“What do you mean, I’m ‘like this’?” Takuan had a gleam in his eye. “What about you? You sit there looking as though you wouldn’t hurt a fly, acting much more cruel and heartless than I ever would.”
“Oh, really? And how am I being cruel and heartless?”
“By leaving me out here helpless, with nothing but tea, while you sit around moaning about your lost lover—that’s how!”
The bells were ringing at the Daishōji and the Shippōji. They had started in a measured beat just after dawn and still rang forth now and then long past noon. In the morning a constant procession flowed to the temples: girls in red obis, wives of tradesmen wearing more subdued tones, and here and there an old woman in a dark kimono leading her grandchildren by the hand. At the Shippōji, the small main hall was crowded with worshipers, but the young men among them seemed more interested in stealing a glimpse of Otsū than in taking part in the religious ceremony.
“She’s here, all right,” whispered one.
“Prettier than ever,” added another.
Inside the hall stood a miniature temple. Its roof was thatched with lime leaves and its columns were entwined with wild flowers. Inside this “flower temple,” as it was called, stood a two-foot-high black statue of the Buddha, pointing one hand to heaven and the other to earth. The image was placed in a shallow clay basin, and the worshipers, as they passed, poured sweet tea over its head with a bamboo ladle. Takuan stood by with an extra supply of the holy balm, filling bamboo tubes for the worshipers to take home with them for good luck. As he poured, he solicited offerings.
“This temple is poor, so leave as much as you can. Especially you rich folks—I know who you are; you’re wearing those fine silks and embroidered obis. You have a lot of money. You must have a lot of troubles too. If you leave a hundredweight of cash for your tea, your worries will be a hundredweight lighter.”
On the other side of the flower temple, Otsū was seated at a black-lacquered table. Her face glowed light pink, like the flowers all around her. Wearing her new obi and writing charms on pieces of five-colored paper, she wielded her brush deftly, occasionally dipping it in a gold-lacquered ink box to her right. She wrote:
Swiftly and keenly,
On this best of days,
The