Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [431]
He realized with no small hint of irony that were he a more poetic type, he might savor these moments in a poignantly lonely landscape. As it was, he wanted only to escape it, to be with people, to have some decent food and get some rest. Yet the incessant buzzing of the insects seemed to be reciting a litany to his solitary wandering.
Musashi stopped on a dirt-covered bridge. A definite splashing noise seemed to rise above the peaceful rippling of the narrow river. An otter? In the fading daylight, he strained his eyes until he could just make out a figure kneeling in the hollow by the water’s edge. He chuckled to note that the face of the young boy peering up at him was distinctly otter-like.
“What are you up to down there?” Musashi called in a friendly voice. “Loaches,” was the laconic reply. The boy was shaking a wicker basket in the water to clean the mud and sand off his wriggling catch.
“Catch many?” Musashi inquired, loath to sever this newly found bond with another human.
“Aren’t many around. It’s already fall.”
“How about letting me have some?”
“My loaches?”
“Yes, just a handful. I’ll pay you for them.”
“Sorry. These are for my father.” Hugging the basket, he leapt nimbly up the bank and was off like a shot into the darkness.
“Speedy little devil, I must say.” Musashi, alone once again, laughed. He was reminded of his own childhood and of Jōtarō. “I wonder what’s become of him,” he mused. Jōtarō had been fourteen when Musashi had last seen him. Soon he would be sixteen. “Poor boy. He accepted me as his teacher, loved me as his teacher, served me as his teacher, and what did I do for him? Nothing.”
Absorbed in his memories, he forgot his fatigue. He stopped and stood still. The moon had risen, bright and full. It was on nights like this that Otsū liked to play the flute. In the insects’ voices he heard the sound of laughter, Otsū’s and Jōtarō’s together.
Turning his head to one side, he spotted a light. He turned the rest of his body in the same direction and made straight for it.
Lespedeza grew all around the isolated shack, almost as high as the lopsided roof. The walls were covered with calabash vines, the blossoms looking from a distance like enormous dewdrops. As he drew nearer, he was startled by the great angry snort of an unsaddled horse tied up beside the hovel.
“Who’s there?”
Musashi recognized the voice coming from the shack as that of the boy with the loaches. Smiling, he called, “How about putting me up for the night? I’ll leave first thing in the morning.”
The boy came to the door and looked Musashi over carefully. After a moment, he said, “All right. Come in.”
The house was as rickety as any Musashi had ever seen. Moonlight poured through cracks in the walls and roof. After removing his cloak, he couldn’t find even a peg to hang it on. Wind from below made the floor drafty, despite the reed mat covering it.
The boy knelt before his guest in formal fashion and said, “Back there at the river you said you wanted some loaches, didn’t you? Do you like loaches?”
In these surroundings, the boy’s formality so surprised Musashi that he merely stared.
“What are you looking at?”
“How old are you?”
“Twelve.”
Musashi was impressed by his face. It was as dirty as a lotus root just pulled out of the ground, and his hair looked and smelled like a bird’s nest. Yet there was character in his expression. His cheeks were chubby, and his eyes, shining like beads through the encircling grime, were magnificent.
“I have a little millet and rice,” said the boy hospitably. “And now that I’ve given some to my father, you can have the rest of the loaches, if you want them.”
“Thanks.”
“I suppose you’d like some tea too.”
“Yes, if it’s not too much trouble.”
“Wait here.” He pushed open a screechy door and went into the next room.
Musashi heard him breaking firewood, then fanning the flame in an earthen hibachi. Before long, the smoke filling the shack drove a host of insects