Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [534]
Overcome with nostalgia, Jōtarō reached out to Iori and tried to explain that they should be friends because they were disciples of the same teacher. Still wary, Iori took a swipe at his ribs.
Squeezed precariously between two limbs, Jōtarō barely succeeded in clasping his hand around Iori’s wrist. For some reason, Iori let go of the branch he was holding on to. When they fell, they fell together, one landing on top of the other, both knocked senseless.
The light in Musashi’s new house was visible from all directions, since, though the roof was in place, the walls hadn’t been built yet.
Takuan, arriving the day before for an after-the-storm call, had decided to wait for Musashi’s return. Today, just after nightfall, his enjoyment of his solitary surroundings had been interrupted by a mendicant priest asking for hot water to go with his supper.
After his meager meal of rice balls, the aged priest had taken it upon himself to play his shakuhachi for Takuan, fingering his instrument in a halting, amateurish fashion. Yet as Takuan listened, the music struck him as having genuine feeling, albeit of the artless sort often expressed in poems by non-poets. He thought, too, that he could recognize the emotion the player was attempting to wring from his instrument. It was remorse, from the first off-key note to the last—a wailing cry of repentance.
It seemed to be the story of the man’s life, but then, Takuan reflected, that couldn’t have been too different from his own. Whether people were great or not, there was not much variety in their inner life experience. Any difference lay merely in how they dealt with common human weaknesses. To Takuan, both he and the other man were basically a bundle of illusions wrapped in human skin.
“I do believe I’ve seen you before somewhere,” Takuan murmured thoughtfully.
The priest blinked his almost sightless eyes and said, “Now that you mention it, I thought I recognized your voice. Aren’t you Takuan Sōhō from Tajima?”
Takuan’s memory cleared. Moving the lamp closer to the man’s face, he said, “You’re Aoki Tanzaemon, aren’t you?”
“Then you are Takuan. Oh, I wish I could crawl into a hole and hide this miserable flesh of mine!”
“How strange we should meet in a place like this. It’s been nearly ten years since that time at the Shippōji, hasn’t it?”
“Thinking of those days gives me a chill.” Then he said stiffly, “Now that I’m reduced to wandering about in darkness, this wretched sack of bones is sustained only by thoughts of my son.”
“Do you have a son?”
“I’ve been told he’s with that man who was tied up in the old cryptomeria tree. Takezō, was it? I hear he’s called Miyamoto Musashi now. The two of them are said to have come east.”
“You mean your son is Musashi’s disciple?”
“That’s what they say. I was so ashamed. I couldn’t face Musashi, so I resolved to put the boy out of my mind. But now … he’s seventeen this year. If only I could have one look at him and see what kind of a man he’s growing up to be, I’d be ready and willing to die.”
“So Jōtarō’s your son. I didn’t know that,” said Takuan.
Tanzaemon nodded. There was no hint in his shriveled form of the proud captain filled with lust for Otsū. Takuan gazed at him with pity, pained to see Tanzaemon so tormented by guilt.
Seeing that despite his priestly garb he lacked even the comfort of religious faith, Takuan decided the first thing he should do was bring him face to face with the Buddha Amida, whose infinite mercy saves even those guilty of the ten evils and the five deadly sins. There would be time enough after he’d recovered from his despair to look for Jōtarō.
Takuan gave him the name of a Zen temple in Edo. “If you tell them I sent you, they’ll let you stay as long as you wish. As soon as I have time, I’ll come and we’ll have a long talk. I have an idea where your son might be. I’ll do everything I can to make sure you see him in the not too distant future. In the meantime, give up brooding. Even after a man’s fifty or sixty, he can still know happiness, even do useful work. You may live for many more years.