Musashi: Bushido Code (67 page)

"Now, Otsū, don't be like that." He shook his head. Though he had no idea what his mother had told Otsū, he was fairly certain it had been intended to deceive her. "It hurts me to have the past mentioned. It's difficult for me to hold my head up in front of you. If it were possible to forget, heaven knows I'd be glad to. But for some reason, I can't bear the thought of giving you up."

"Matahachi, be sensible. There is nothing between your heart and mine. We're separated by a great valley."

"That's true. And more than five years have flowed through that valley." "Exactly. Those years will never come back. There's no way to recapture the feelings we once had."

"Oh, no! We can recapture them! We can!"

"No, they're gone forever."

He stared at her, stunned by the coolness in her face and the finality of her tone, asking himself if this was the girl who, when she allowed herself to reveal her passions, was like spring sunlight? He had the feeling he was rubbing a piece of snowy white alabaster. Where had this severity been hidden in the past?

He recalled the porch of the Shippōji and how she had sat there with limpid, dreamy eyes, often for half a day or more, silently looking off into space, as though she saw in the clouds mother and father, brothers and sisters.

He drew closer, and as timidly as he might have reached among thorns for a white rosebud, whispered, "Let's try again, Otsū. There's no way to bring back five years, but let's begin again, now, just the two of us."

"Matahachi," she said dispassionately, "are you imagining things? I wasn't talking about the length of time; I was talking about the abyss that separates our hearts, our lives."

"I know that. What I mean is that beginning right now I'll win your love back. Maybe I shouldn't say it, but isn't the mistake I made one almost any young man might be guilty of?"

"Talk if you like, but I'll never again be able to take your word seriously." "Oh, but, Otsū, I know I was wrong! I'm a man, but here I am, apologizing to a woman. Don't you understand how difficult that is for me?"

"Stop it! If you're a man, you should act like one."

"But there's nothing in the world more important to me. If you want, I'll get down on my knees and beg forgiveness. I'll give you my oath. I'll swear to anything you wish."

"I don't care what you do!"

"Please don't be angry. Look, this is no place to talk. Let's go somewhere else."

"No."

"I don't want my mother to find us. Come on, let's go. I can't kill you. I couldn't possibly kill you!"

He took her hand, but she wrenched it away from him. "Don't touch me!" she cried angrily. "I'd rather be killed than spend my life with you!"

"You won't come with me?"

"No, no, no."

"Is that final?"

"Yes!"

"Does that mean you're still in love with Musashi?"

"Yes, I love him. I'll love him throughout this life and the next." His body trembled. "That's the wrong thing to say, Otsū."

"Your mother already knows. She said she'd tell you. She promised we could talk it over together and put an end to the past."

"I see. And I suppose Musashi ordered you to find me and tell me that. Is that what happened?"

"No, it is not! Musashi doesn't have to tell me what to do."

"I've got pride too, you know. All men have pride. If that's the way you feel about me—"

"What are you doing?" she cried.

"I'm as much a man as Musashi, and if it takes my whole life, I'll keep you from him. I won't permit it, do you hear? I won't permit it!"

"And just who are you to give permission?"

"I won't allow you to marry Musashi! Remember, Otsū, it wasn't Musashi you were engaged to."

"You're hardly the one to bring that up."

"But I am! You were promised to me as my bride. Unless I consent, you can't marry anyone."

"You're a coward, Matahachi! I pity you. How can you debase yourself like this? I long ago received letters from you and some woman named Okō, breaking our engagement."

"I don't know anything about that. I didn't send any letter. Okō must have done it on her own."

"That's not true. One letter was in your own hand and said I should forget about you and find somebody else to marry."

"Where's the letter? Show it to me."

"I don't have it anymore. When Takuan read it, he laughed, then blew his nose on it and threw it away."

"In other words, you have no proof, so nobody is going to believe you. Everybody in the village knows you were engaged to me. I've got all the proof and you have none. Think, Otsū: if you cut yourself off from everybody else in order to be with Musashi, you'll never be happy. The thought of Okō seems to upset you, but I swear I have absolutely nothing to do with her anymore."

"You're wasting your time."

"You won't listen, even when I apologize?"

"Matahachi, didn't you just now brag that you were a man? Why don't you act like one? No woman is going to lose her heart to a weak, shameless, lying coward. Women don't admire weaklings."

"Watch what you're saying!"

"Let me go! You'll tear my sleeve."

"You ... you fickle whore!"

"Stop it!"

"If you won't listen to me, I don't care what happens."

"Matahachi!"

"If you care about living, swear you'll give up Musashi!"

He let go of her sleeve to draw his sword. Once drawn, the sword seemed to take control of him. He was like a man possessed, a wild light in his eyes.

Otsū screamed, not so much because of the weapon as because of the way he looked.

"You bitch!" he shouted as she turned to flee. His sword descended, grazing the knot of her obi. "I mustn't let her escape!" he thought, and started after her, calling over his shoulder to his mother.

Osugi came racing down the hill. "Has he bungled it?" she wondered, drawing her own sword.

"She's over there. Catch her, Mother!" called Matahachi. But he soon ran back and came to a halt just before colliding with the old woman. Saucer-eyed, he asked, "Where did she go?"

"You didn't kill her?"

"No, she got away."

"Fool!"

"Look, she's down below. That's her. There!"

Otsū, scampering down a steep bank, had had to stop to get her sleeve loose from a branch. She knew she must be near the waterfall, because the sound was very loud. As she rushed on, holding her torn sleeve, Matahachi and Osugi closed in on her, and when Osugi cried, "We've got her trapped now," the sound was right behind her.

At the bottom of a ravine, the darkness loomed like a wall around Otsū. "Matahachi, kill her! There she is, lying on the ground."

Matahachi gave himself over to the sword completely. Jumping forward, he aimed at the dark form and brought the blade down savagely. "She-devil!" he screamed.

With the cracking of twigs and branches came a screeching death cry.

"Take this, and this!" Matahachi struck three times, four—again and again until it seemed the sword would break in two. He was drunk with blood; his eyes spat fire.

Then it was over. Silence ensued.

Holding the bloody sword listlessly, he returned slowly to his senses, and his face went blank. He looked at his hands and saw the blood on them, felt his face, and there was blood there too, and all over his clothes. He blanched and grew dizzy, sick with the thought that each drop of blood was Otsū's.

"Splendid, son! You've finally done it." Panting more from exhilaration than from exertion, Osugi stood behind him, and leaning over his shoulder, peered down at the torn and battered foliage. "How happy I am to see this," she exulted. "We did it, my son. I've been relieved of half my burden, and now I can hold up my head in the village again. What's the matter with you? Quick! Cut off her head!"

Noticing his queasiness, she laughed. "You don't have any guts. If you can't bring yourself to cut off her head, I'll do it for you. Get out of the way."

He stood stark still until the old woman started toward the bushes, then raised his sword and jabbed the hilt into her shoulder.

"Watch what you're doing!" cried Osugi as she stumbled forward. "Have you lost your mind?"

"Mother!"

"What?"

Strange sounds gurgled from Matahachi's throat. He wiped his eyes with his bloody hands. "I've ... I've killed her. I've murdered Otsū!"

"And it was a praiseworthy deed too. Why, you're crying."

"I can't help it. Oh, you fool. You crazy, fanatic old fool!"

"Are you sorry?"

"Yes ... yes! If it hadn't been for you—you ought to be dead by now—I'd have somehow gotten Otsū back. You and your family honor!"

"Stop your blabbering. If she meant that much to you, why didn't you kill me and protect her?"

"If I'd been able to do that, I— Could there be anything worse than having a pigheaded maniac for a mother?"

"Stop carrying on like that. And how dare you speak to me that way!" "From now on I'll live my life the way I want. If I make a mess of it, that's nobody's business but mine."

"That's always been a failing of yours, Matahachi. You get excited and make scenes just to cause your mother trouble."

"I'll cause you trouble, all right, you old sow. You're a witch. I hate you!" "My, my! Isn't he angry.... Get out of the way. I'll take Otsū's head, and then I'll teach you a few things."

"More talk? I'm not listening."

"I want you to take a good look at that girl's head. You'll see then just how pretty she is. I want you to see with your own eyes what a woman is like after she dies. Nothing but bones. I want you to know the folly of passion."

"Shut up!" Matahachi shook his head violently. "When I think of it, all I've ever wanted was Otsū. When I told myself I couldn't go on as I was, tried to find a way to succeed, start out again on the right path—it was all because I wanted to marry her. It wasn't family honor, and it wasn't for the sake of a horrible old woman."

"How long are you going to go on about something that's already finished? You'd do yourself more good chanting sutras. Hail to Amida Buddha!"

She fumbled among the broken branches and dry grass, which were liberally sprinkled with blood, then bent some grass over and knelt on it. "Otsū," she said, "don't hate me. Now that you're dead, I have no more grudge against you. It was all a matter of necessity. Rest in peace."

She felt around with her left hand and got hold of a mass of black hair.

Takuan's voice rang out. "Otsū!" Carried down into the hollow by the dark wind, it seemed as if its source was the trees and the stars themselves.

"Have you found her yet?" he called, his voice sounding rather strained.

"No, she's not around here." The keeper of the inn where Osugi and Otsū had been staying wiped the sweat wearily from his brow.

"Are you sure you heard right?"

"Quite sure. After the priest came from Kiyomizudera in the evening, the old lady left suddenly, saying she was going to the hall of the mountain god. The girl was with her."

Both of them folded their arms in thought.

"Maybe they went on up the mountain or some place off the main path," said Takuan.

"Why are you so worried?"

"I think Otsū's been tricked."

"Is the old woman really that wicked?"

"No," said Takuan enigmatically. "She's a very good woman."

"Not from what you told me. Oh, I just remembered something." "What's that?"

"Today I saw the girl crying in her room."

"That may not mean much."

"The old woman told us she was her son's bride."

"She would say that."

"From what you said, it sounds like some terrible hatred made the old woman torment the girl."

"Still, that's one thing, and taking her up into the mountains on a dark night is another. I'm afraid Osugi's been planning to murder her."

"Murder! How can you say she's a good woman?"

"Because she is without a doubt what the world calls good. She often goes to Kiyomizudera to worship, doesn't she? And when she's seated before Kannon with her prayer beads in her hand, she must be very close to Kannon in spirit."

"I hear she also prays to the Buddha Amida."

"There are lots of Buddhists like that in this world. The faithful, they're called. They do something they shouldn't, go to the temple and pray to Amida. They seem to dream up diabolical deeds for Amida to forgive. They'll quite cheerfully strike a man dead, perfectly confident that if they call on Amida afterward, their sins will be absolved and they'll go to the Western Paradise when they die. These good people are something of a problem."

Matahachi looked around fearfully, wondering where the voice had come from.

"Hear that, Mother?" he asked excitedly.

"Do you recognize the voice?" Osugi raised her head, but the interruption did not disturb her greatly. Her hand still grasped the hair; her sword was poised to strike.

"Listen! There it is again."

"That's strange. If anybody came looking for Otsū, it'd be that boy named Jōtarō."

"This is a man's voice."

"Yes, I know, and I think I've heard it somewhere before."

"This looks bad. Mother, forget about the head. Bring the lantern. Somebody's coming!"

"This way?"