Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [425]
Behind the Sumiya stood the frame of the new building, roof partly finished, no walls.
“Hanagiri! Hanagiri!”
This was the name they had given Akemi, who was hiding between a stack of lumber and a small mountain of shavings. Several times the searchers had passed so close she had had to hold her breath.
“How disgusting!” she thought. For the first few minutes her wrath had been directed at Kojirō alone. By now it had expanded to embrace every member of the masculine sex—Kojirō, Seijūrō, the samurai at Hachiōji, the customers who manhandled her nightly at the Sumiya. All men were her enemies, all abominable.
Except one. The right one. The one who would be like Musashi. The one she had sought incessantly. Having given up on the real Musashi, she had now persuaded herself that it would be comforting to pretend to be in love with someone similar to him. Much to her chagrin, she found no one remotely like him.
“Ha-na-gi-ri!” It was Shōji Jinnai himself, first shouting from the back of the house, now drawing closer to her hiding place.
He was accompanied by Kojirō and the other two men. They had complained at tiresome length, making Jinnai repeat his apologies over and over, but finally they went off toward the street.
Akemi, seeing them go, breathed a sigh of relief and waited until Jinnai went back inside, then ran straight to the kitchen door.
“Why, Hanagiri, were you out there all the time?” the kitchen maid asked hysterically.
“Shh! Be quiet, and give me some sake.”
“Sake? Now?”
“Yes, sake!” Since coming to Edo, the times when Akemi had sought solace in sake had become more and more frequent.
The frightened maid poured her a large cupful. Shutting her eyes, Akemi drained the vessel dry, her powdered face tilted back until it was almost parallel with the white bottom of the cup.
As she turned away from the door, the maid cried in alarm, “Where’re you off to now?”
“Shut up. I’ll just wash my feet, then go back inside.”
Taking her at her word, the maid shut the door and returned to her work.
Akemi slipped her feet into the first pair of zōri she saw and walked somewhat unsteadily to the street. “How good to be out in the open!” was her first reaction, but this was followed very closely by revulsion. She spat in the general direction of the pleasure-seekers strolling along the brightly lit road and took to her heels.
Coming to a place where stars were reflected in a moat, she stopped to look. She heard running feet behind her. “Oh, oh! Lanterns this time. And they’re from the Sumiya. Animals! Can’t they eyen let a girl have a few minutes’ peace? No. Find her! Put her back to making money! Turning flesh and blood into a little lumber for their new house—that’s the only thing that’ll satisfy them. Well, they won’t get me back!”
The curled wood shavings hanging loosely in her hair bobbed up and down as she ran as fast as her legs would carry her into the darkness. She had no idea where she was going, and couldn’t have cared less, so long as it was away, far away.
The Owl
When they finally forsook the teahouse, Kojirō was barely able to stand. “Shoulder … shoulder,” he gurgled, grabbing onto both Jūrō and Koroku for support.
The three lumbered uncertainly down the dark, deserted street. Jūrō said, “Sir, I told you we should spend the night.”
“In that dive? Not on your life! I’d rather go back to the Sumiya.” “I wouldn’t, sir.”
“Why not?”
“That girl, she ran away from you. If they find her, she could be forced to go to bed with you, but for what? You wouldn’t enjoy it then.”
“Umm. Maybe you’re right.”
“Do you want her?”
“Nah.”
“But you can’t quite get her out of your mind, can you?”
“I’ve never fallen in love in my life. I’m not the type. I’ve got more important things to do.”
“What, sir?”
“Obvious, my boy. I’m going to be the best, most famous swordsman ever, and the quickest way to do that is to be the shōgun’s teacher.”
“But he already has the House of Yagyū to teach him. And I hear he recently hired