Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [42]
“I always thought you were kind,. Takuan, but deep down you’re quite hard, aren’t you? I didn’t think you cared about the daimyō’s laws.”
“Well, I do. I think that good should be rewarded and evil punished, and I came here with the authority to do just that.”
“Oh, what was that?” cried Otsū, jumping up from her place by the fire. “Didn’t you hear it? It was a rustling sound, like footsteps, in those trees over there!”
“Footsteps?” Takuan, too, became alert, but after listening closely for a few moments he burst into laughter. “Ha, ha. It’s only some monkeys. Look!” They could see the silhouettes of a big monkey and a little one, swinging through the trees.
Otsū, visibly relieved, sat down again. “Whew, that scared me half to death!”
For the next couple of hours, the two sat silently, staring at the fire. Whenever it would dwindle, Takuan would break some dry branches and throw them on.
“Otsū, what are you thinking about?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. Although I do it all the time, I really hate holding conversations with myself.”
Otsū’s eyes were puffy from the smoke. Looking up at the starry sky, she spoke softly. “I was thinking of how strange the world is. All those stars way up there in the empty blackness— No, I don’t mean that.
“The night is full. It seems to embrace everything. If you stare at the stars a long time, you can see them moving. Slowly, slowly moving. I can’t help thinking the whole world is moving. I feel it. And I’m just a little speck in it all—a speck controlled by some awesome power I can’t even see. Even while I sit here thinking, my fate is changing bit by bit. My thoughts seem to go round and round in circles.”
“You’re not telling the truth!” said Takuan sternly. “Of course those ideas entered your head, but you really had something much more specific on your mind.”
Otsū was silent.
“I apologize if I violated your privacy, Otsū, but I read those letters you received.”
“You did? But the seal wasn’t broken!”
“I read them after finding you in the loom shed. When you said you didn’t want them, I stuck them in my sleeve. I guess it was wrong of me, but later, when I was in the privy, I took them out and read them just to pass the time.”
“You’re awful! How could you do such a thing! And just to pass the time!”
“Well, for whatever reason. Anyway, now I understand what started that flood of tears. Why you looked half dead when I found you. But listen, Otsū, I think you were lucky. In the long run, I think it’s better that things turned out the way they did. You think I’m awful? Look at him!”
“What do you mean?”
“Matahachi was and still is irresponsible. If you married him, and then one day he surprised you with a letter like that, what would you do then? Don’t tell me, I know you. You’d dive into the sea from a rocky cliff. I’m glad it’s all over before it could come to that.”
“Women don’t think that way.”
“Oh, really? How do they think?”
“I’m so angry I could scream!” She tugged angrily at the sleeve of her kimono with her teeth. “Someday I’ll find him! I swear I will! I won’t rest until I’ve told him, to his face, exactly what I think of him. And the same goes for that Okō woman.”
She broke into tears of rage. As Takuan stared at her, he mumbled cryptically, “It’s started, hasn’t it?”
She looked at him dumbfounded. “What?”
He stared at the ground, seemingly composing his thoughts. Then he began. “Otsū, I’d really hoped that you, of all people, would be spared the evils and duplicities of this world. That your sweet, innocent self would go through all the stages of life unsullied and unharmed. But it looks like the rough winds of fate have begun to buffet you, as they buffet everyone else.”
“Oh, Takuan! What should I do! I’m so … so … angry!” Her shoulders shook with her sobbing as she buried her face in her lap.
By dawn, she’d cried herself out, and the two of them hid in the cave to sleep. That night they kept