Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [77]
“You may as well give up now,” Okō said to Seijūrō. “For some reason the child can drink all night without getting drunk. The best thing to do is to let her play the shamisen.”
“But this is fun!” said Seijūrō, now thoroughly enjoying himself.
Sensing something strange in his voice, Tōji asked, “Are you all right? Sure you haven’t had too much?”
“It doesn’t matter. Say, Tōji, I may not go home tonight!”
“That’s all right too,” replied Tōji. “You can stay as many nights as you wish—can’t he, Akemi?”
Tōji winked at Okō, then led her off to another room, where he began whispering rapidly. He told Okō that with the Young Master in such high spirits, he would certainly want to sleep with Akemi, and that there would be trouble if Akemi refused; but that, of course, a mother’s feelings were the most important thing of all in cases like this—or in other words, how much?
“Well?” Tōji demanded abruptly.
Okō put her finger to her thickly powdered cheek and thought.
“Make up your mind!” urged Tōji. Drawing closer to her, he said, “It’s not a bad match, you know. He’s a famous teacher of the martial arts, and his family has lots of money. His father had more disciples than anybody else in the country. What’s more, he’s not married yet. Any way you look at it, it’s an attractive offer.”
“Well, I think so too, but—”
“But nothing. It’s settled! We’ll both spend the night.”
There was no light in the room, and Tōji casually rested his hand on Okō’s shoulder. At just that moment, there was a loud noise in the next room back. “What was that?” asked Tōji. “Do you have other customers?”
Okō nodded silently, then put her moist lips to his ear and whispered, “Later.” Trying to appear casual, the two went back to Seijūrō’s room, only to find him alone and sound asleep.
Tōji, taking the adjacent room, stretched out on the pallet. He lay there, drumming his fingers on the tatami, waiting for Okō. She failed to appear. Eventually his eyelids grew heavy and he drifted off to sleep. He woke up quite late the next morning with a resentful look on his face.
Seijūrō had already arisen and was again drinking in the room overlooking the river. Both Okō and Akemi looked bright and cheerful, as though they’d forgotten about the night before. They were coaxing Seijūrō into some sort of promise.
“Then you’ll take us?”
“All right, we’ll go. Put together some box lunches and bring some sake.”
They were talking about the Okuni Kabuki, which was being performed on the riverbank at Shijō Avenue. This was a new kind of dance with words and music, the current rage in the capital. It had been invented by a shrine maiden named Okuni at the Izumo Shrine, and its popularity had already inspired many imitations. In the busy area along the river, there were rows of stages where troupes of women performers competed to attract audiences, each trying to achieve a degree of individuality by adding special provincial dances and songs to their repertoire. The actresses, for the most part, had started out as women of the night; now that they had taken to the stage, however, they were summoned to perform in some of the greatest mansions in the capital. Many of them took masculine names, dressed in men’s clothing, and put on stirring performances as valiant warriors.
Seijūrō sat staring out the door. Beneath the small bridge at Sanjō Avenue, women were bleaching cloth in the river; men on horseback were passing back and forth over the bridge.
“Aren’t those two ready yet?” he asked irritably. It was already past noon. Sluggish from drink and tired of waiting, he was no longer in the mood for Kabuki.
Tōji, still smarting from the night before, was not his usual ebullient self. “It’s fun to take women out,” he grumbled, “but why is it that just when you’re ready to leave, they suddenly start worrying about whether their hair is just right or their obi straight? What a nuisance!”
Seijūrō’s thoughts