Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [280]
A clerk, summoned by one of the kitchen girls, came hurrying around the corner of the inn. “Are you looking for the entrance?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“It’s on the corner just to the right of the passageway.”
“The inn faces directly on the street?”
“It does, but the rooms are quiet.”
“I’d like a place where I can come and go without people watching me. I thought the inn was away from the street. Isn’t that little house part of the inn?”
“Yes.”
“It looks like a nice quiet place.”
“We also have some very nice rooms in the main building.”
“There seems to be a woman staying there now, but couldn’t I stay too?” “Well, there’s another lady. I’m afraid she’s old and rather nervous.” “Oh, I don’t mind, if it’s all right with her.”
“I’ll have to ask her when she comes back. She’s out now.”
“May I have a room to rest in till then?”
“By all means.”
The clerk led Akemi down the passageway, leaving Otsū to regret that she had not taken the opportunity to ask a few questions. If only she could learn to be a little more aggressive, she reflected sadly.
To assuage her jealous suspicions, Otsū had assured herself time and time again that Musashi was not the kind of man who played around with other women. But ever since that day, she had been discouraged. “She’s had more opportunities to be near Musashi…. She’s probably much cleverer than I—knows better how to win a man’s heart.”
Until that day, the possibility of another woman had never crossed her mind. Now she brooded over what she considered to be her own weaknesses. “I’m just not beautiful…. I’m not very bright either…. I have neither parents nor relatives to back me in marriage.” Comparing herself with other women, it seemed that the great hope of her life was ridiculously beyond her reach, that it was presumptuous to dream that Musashi could be hers. She could no longer summon up the bravery that had enabled her to climb the old cryptomeria tree during a blinding storm.
“If only I had Jōtarō’s help!” she lamented. She even imagined she had lost her youthfulness. “At the Shippōji, I still had some of the innocence Jōtarō has now. That was why I was able to free Musashi.” She began to weep into her sewing.
“Are you here, Otsū?” Osugi asked imperiously. “What are you doing, sitting there in the dark?”
Twilight had descended without the girl’s noticing it. “Oh, I’ll light a lamp right away,” she said apologetically, rising and going to a small room in the rear.
As she came in and sat down, Osugi cast a cold look at Otsū’s back.
Otsū placed the lamp by Osugi’s side and bowed. “You must be worn out,” she said. “What did you do today?”
“You should know without asking.”
“Shall I massage your legs for you?”
“My legs aren’t so bad, but my shoulders have been stiff the last four or five days. Probably the weather. If you feel like it, massage them a little.” To herself, she was saying that she had to put up with this dreadful girl only a little while longer, until she found Matahachi and got him to set right the evils of the past.
Otsū knelt behind her and started to work on her shoulders. “They’re really stiff, aren’t they? It must hurt to breathe.”
“It does feel as though my chest is clogged up sometimes. But I’m old. One of these days I’ll probably have some sort of seizure and die.”
“Oh, that’s not going to happen to you. You’ve got more vitality than most young people.”
“Maybe, but think of Uncle Gon. He was as lively as could be, but then it was all over in an instant. People don’t know what’s going to happen to them. There’s no mistake about one thing, though. All I have to do to be myself is think about Musashi.”
“You’re wrong about Musashi. He’s not a wicked man.”
“Yes, yes, that’s right,” said the old woman with a slight snort. “After all, he’s the man you love so much you threw my son over for him. I shouldn’t say bad things about him to you.”
“Oh, it’s not like that!”
“Isn’t it? You do love Musashi more than Matahachi, don’t you? Why not admit it?”
Otsū was silent, and the old woman went on: “When we find Matahachi,