Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [373]
She had started to run away, but after twenty paces, her love caught and held her. Now, a little calmer, she began to imagine that Musashi’s lust was different from that of other men. More than anything else in the world, she wanted to apologize and assure him she harbored no resentment for what he’d done.
“He’s still angry,” she thought fearfully, suddenly realizing he was no longer before her eyes. “Oh, what’ll I do?”
Nervously, she went back to the little hut, but there was only a cold white mist and the thundering of the water, which seemed to shake the trees and stir up vibrations all around her.
“Otsū! Something awful’s happened! Musashi’s thrown himself into the water!” Jōtarō’s frantic cry came from a promontory overlooking the basin, just a second before he grabbed a wisteria vine and began descending, swinging from branch to branch like a monkey.
Though she hadn’t caught the actual words, Otsū heard the urgency in his voice. She raised her head in alarm and began clambering down the steep path, slipping on the moss, then clinging to rocks to steady herself.
The figure just visible through the spray and mist resembled a large rock but was actually Musashi’s naked body. Hands clasped in front of him, head bowed, he was dwarfed by the fifty-foot flood cascading down on him.
Halfway down, Otsū stopped and stared in horror. Across the river, Jōtarō stood similarly transfixed.
“Sensei!” he cried.
“Musashi!”
Their shouts never reached Musashi’s ears. It was as though a thousand silver dragons were nipping at his head and shoulders, the eyes of a thousand water demons exploding around him. Treacherous eddies tugged at his legs, ready to pull him to his death. One false rhythm in breathing, one faltering heartbeat, and his heels would lose their tenuous hold on the algae-covered bottom, his body would be swept up in a violent current from which there was no return. His lungs and heart seemed to be collapsing under the incalculable weight—the total mass of the Magome mountains—falling on him.
His desire for Otsū died a slow death, for it was closely akin to the hot-blooded temperament without which he would never have gone to Sekigahara or accomplished any of his extraordinary feats. But the real danger lay in the fact that at a certain point, all his years of training became powerless against it and he sank again to the level of a wild, mindless beast. And against an enemy like this, formless and hidden, the sword was utterly useless. Bewildered, perplexed, conscious of the devastating defeat he’d suffered, he prayed that the raging waters might bring him back to his quest for discipline.
“Sensei! Sensei!” Jōtarō’s shouts had become a tearful wailing. “You mustn’t die! Please don’t die!” He, too, had clasped his hands in front of his chest, and his face was contorted, as if he, too, were bearing the weight of the water, the sting, the pain, the cold.
Glancing across the river, Jōtarō suddenly felt himself go limp.
He couldn’t make any sense out of what Musashi was doing; apparently he was determined to stay under the torrent until he died, but now Otsū—Where was she? He was sure she’d leaped to her death in the river below.
Then, above the sound of the water, he heard Musashi’s voice. The words weren’t clear. He thought it might be a sutra, but then … maybe they were angry oaths of self-recrimination.
The voice was full of strength and life. Musashi’s broad shoulders and muscular body exuded youth and vigor, as if his soul had been cleansed and was now ready to begin life afresh.
Jōtarō began to feel that whatever had been wrong had passed. As the light of the evening sun made a rainbow above the falls, he called, “Otsū!” and dared to hope that she had left the cliffside simply because she thought Musashi was in no real danger. “If she’s confident he’s all right,” he thought, “there’s nothing for me to worry about. She knows him better than I do, right down to the bottom of his heart.”
J