Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [432]
The boy came back with a tray, which he placed on the floor in front of Musashi. Falling to immediately, Musashi devoured the salty broiled loaches, the millet and rice and the sweetish black bean paste in record time.
“That was good,” he said gratefully.
“Was it really?” The boy seemed to take pleasure in another person’s happiness.
A well-behaved lad, thought Musashi. “I’d like to express my thanks to the head of the house. Has he gone to bed?”
“No; he’s right in front of you.” The boy pointed at his own nose. “Are you here all alone?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, I see.” There was an awkward pause. “And what do you do for a living?” Musashi asked.
“I rent out the horse and go along as a groom. We used to farm a little too. … Oh, we’ve run out of lamp oil. You must be ready for bed anyway, aren’t you?”
Musashi agreed that he was and lay down on a worn straw pallet spread next to the wall. The hum of the insects was soothing. He fell asleep, but perhaps because of his physical exhaustion, he broke into a sweat. Then he dreamed he heard rain falling.
The sound in his dream made him sit up with a start. No mistake about it. What he heard now was a knife or sword being honed. As he reached reflexively for his sword, the boy called in to him, “Can’t you sleep?”
How had he known that? Amazed, Musashi said, “What are you doing sharpening a blade at this hour?” The question was uttered so tensely that it sounded more like the counterblow of a sword than an inquiry.
The boy broke into laughter. “Did I scare you? You look too strong and brave to be frightened so easily.”
Musashi was silent. He wondered if he had come upon an all-seeing demon in the guise of a peasant boy.
When the scraping of the blade on the whetstone began again, Musashi went to the door. Through a crack, he could see that the other room was a kitchen with a small sleeping space at one end. The boy was kneeling in the moonlight next to the window with a large jug of water at his side. The sword he was sharpening was of a type farmers used.
“What do you intend to do with that?” asked Musashi.
The boy glanced toward the door but continued with his work. After a few more minutes, he wiped the blade, which was about a foot and a half long, and held it up to inspect it. It glistened brightly in the moonlight.
“Look,” he said, “do you think I can cut a man in half with this?”
Depends on whether you know how.”
“Oh, I’m sure I do.”
“Do you have someone particular in mind?”
“My father.”
“Your father?” Musashi pushed open the door. “I hope that’s not your idea of a joke.”
“I’m not joking.”
“You can’t mean you intend to kill your father. Even the rats and wasps in this forsaken wilderness have better sense than to kill their parents.”
“But if I don’t cut him in two, I can’t carry him.”
“Carry him where?”
“I have to take him to the burial ground.”
“You mean he’s dead?”
“Yes.”
Musashi looked again at the far wall. It had not occurred to him that the bulky shape he had seen there might be a body. Now he saw that it was indeed the corpse of an old man, laid out straight, with a pillow under its head and a kimono draped over it. By its side was a bowl of rice, a cup of water and a helping of broiled loaches on a wooden plate.
Recalling how he had unwittingly asked the boy to share the loaches intended as an offering to the dead man’s spirit, Musashi felt a twinge of embarrassment. At the same time, he admired the boy for having the coolness to conceive of cutting the body into pieces so as to be able to carry it. His eyes riveted on the boy’s face, for a few moments he said nothing.
“When did he die?”
“This morning.”
“How far away is the graveyard?”
“It’s up in the hills.”
“Couldn’t you have got somebody to take him there for you?”
“I don’t have any money.”
“Let me give you some.”
The boy shook his head. “No. My father didn’t like to accept gifts. He didn’t like to go to the temple either. I can manage, thank you.”
From the boy’s spirit and courage, his stoic yet practical manner, Musashi suspected