Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [610]
Osugi put a pot of rice on the brazier to make gruel. “It’s nothing,” she said. “But you’re sick. You have to eat properly, so you’ll feel strong when the boat comes in.”
Otsū held back a tear and looked out to sea. There were some boats fishing for octopus and a couple of cargo vessels. The ship from Sakai was nowhere to be seen.
“It’s getting late,” said Osugi. “They said the ship would be here before evening.” There was a hint of complaint in her voice.
News of the departure of Musashi’s ship had spread rapidly. When it reached Jōtarō in Himeji, he sent a messenger to tell Osugi. She, in turn, had hurried straight to the Shippōji, where Otsū lay ill, suffering from the effects of the beating the old woman had given her.
Since that night, Osugi had begged forgiveness so often and tearfully that listening to her had come to be rather a burden for Otsū. Otsū did not hold her responsible for her sickness; she thought it was a recurrence of the malady that had kept her confined for several months at Lord Karasumaru’s house in Kyoto. In the mornings and evenings, she coughed a lot and had a slight fever. And she lost weight, which made her face more beautiful than ever, but it was an excessively delicate beauty and saddened those who met and talked with her.
Still, her eyes shone. For one thing, she was happy about the change that had come over Osugi. Having finally understood that she had been mistaken about Otsū and Musashi, the Hon’iden dowager was like a woman reborn. And Otsū had hope, springing from the certainty that the day was near when she would see Musashi again.
Osugi had said, “To atone for all the unhappiness I’ve caused you, I’m going to get down on my hands and knees and beg Musashi to set things right. I’ll bow. I’ll apologize. I’ll persuade him.” After announcing to her own family and the whole village that Matahachi’s betrothal to Otsū was nullified, she destroyed the document recording the promise to marry. From then on, she made it her business to tell one and all that the only person who would be a proper and fitting husband for Otsū was Musashi.
Since the village had changed, the person Otsū knew best in Miyamoto was Osugi, who took it upon herself to nurse the girl back to health, calling each morning and evening at the Shippōji with the same solicitous questions: “Have you eaten? Did you take your medicine? How do you feel?”
One day, she said with tears in her eyes, “If you hadn’t come back to life that night in the cave, I would have wanted to die there too.”
The old woman had never before hesitated to bend the truth or tell outright lies, one of the last of which turned out to be about Ogin’s being in Sayo. In fact no one had seen or heard from Ogin for years. All that was known was that she had married and gone to another province.
So at first Otsū found Osugi’s protestations unbelievable. Even if she was sincere, it seemed likely her remorse would wear off after a time. But as days turned into weeks, she grew more devoted and more attentive to Otsū.
“I never dreamed she was such a good person at heart,” was how Otsū came to think of her. And since Osugi’s newfound warmth and kindness extended to everyone around her, this sentiment was widely shared by both the family and the villagers, though many expressed their astonishment less delicately, saying things like, “What do you suppose got into the old hag?”
Even Osugi marveled at how kind everyone was to her now. It used to be that even those people closest to her were inclined to cringe at the very sight of her; now they all smiled and spoke cordially. At last, at an age when simply being alive was something to be thankful for, she was learning for the first time what it was like to be loved and respected by others.
One acquaintance asked frankly, “What happened to you? Your face looks more attractive every time I see you.”
“Maybe so,” thought Osugi later that same day, looking at herself in her mirror. The past had left