Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [540]
Once inside the castle, he’d reconsidered and decided that if it meant being a well digger the rest of his life, he wasn’t going to become an assassin. He’d seen the shōgun and his entourage several times and done nothing.
What took him to the foot of Momiji Hill whenever he could manage it during his rest periods was an unforeseen complication. A library was to be built, and when it was, the locust tree would be moved. Matahachi guiltily supposed the musket would be uncovered and this would link him directly to the plot. But he hadn’t been able to find a time when no one was around to dig up the musket and throw it away.
Even when sleeping, he’d break out in a sweat. Once he dreamed he was in the land of the dead, and wherever he looked there were locust trees. A few nights after his confinement in the woodshed, in a vision as clear as day, he dreamed of his mother. Instead of taking pity on him, Osugi shouted angrily and threw a basketful of cocoons at him. When the cocoons rained down on his head, he tried to run away. She pursued him, her hair mysteriously transformed into white cocoons. He ran and ran, but she was always behind him. Bathed in sweat, he jumped off a cliff and began falling through the darkness of hell, falling endlessly through blackness.
“Mother! Forgive me,” he cried out like a hurt child, and the sound of his own voice awakened him. The reality he woke to—the prospect of death—was more terrifying than the dream.
He tried the door, which was locked, as he already knew. In desperation he climbed up a pickle barrel, broke a small window near the roof and squeezed through. Using piles of lumber and rock and small hills of excavated dirt for cover, he made his way stealthily to the vicinity of the western rear gate. The locust tree was still there. He sighed with relief.
He found a hoe and started digging as if he expected to discover his own life. Unnerved by the noise he was making, he stopped and looked all around him. Seeing no one, he began again.
The fear that someone had already found the musket made him swing the hoe frantically. His breathing became rapid and uneven. Sweat and grime mixed, making him look as if he’d just come from a mud bath. He was beginning to get dizzy, but he could not stop.
The blade struck something long. Casting the hoe aside, he reached down to pull it out, thinking: “I’ve got it.”
His relief was short-lived. The object wasn’t wrapped in oil paper, there was no box, and it wasn’t cool like metal. He took hold, held it up and dropped it. It was a slender white wristbone or shinbone.
Matahachi did not have the heart to pick up the hoe again. It seemed like another nightmare. But he knew he was awake; he could count every leaf of the locust tree.
“What would Daizō have to gain by lying?” he wondered, as he walked around the tree, kicking at the dirt.
He was still circling the tree when a figure walked quietly up behind him and slapped him lightly on the back. With a loud laugh, right beside Matahachi’s ear, he said, “You won’t find it.”
Matahachi’s whole body went limp. He almost fell into the hole. Turning his head toward the voice, he stared blankly for several minutes before uttering a little croak of astonishment.
“Come with me,” said Takuan, taking him by the hand.
Matahachi could not move. His fingers went numb, and he clawed at the
priest’s hand. A chill of abject horror spread from his heels upward. “Didn’t you hear? Come with me,” said Takuan, scolding with his eyes.
Matahachi’s tongue was almost as useless as a mute’s. “Th-this … fix …
dirt … I—”
In a pitiless tone, Takuan said, “Leave it. It’s a waste of time. The things people do on this earth, good or bad, are like ink on porous paper. They cannot be erased, not in a thousand years. You imagine that kicking a little dirt around will undo what you’ve done. It’s because you think like that that your life is so untidy. Now come with me. You’re a criminal,