Musashi: Bushido Code (138 page)

"Well, maybe, but love's not logical." Not having stopped to think of what she was saying, she was surprised to see his face go crimson at the mention of the word "love." Recovering quickly, she said, "Thank you for the advice. I'll think it over."

"Do that, but in the meantime, come back to Himeji with me."

"All right."

"I want you to come to our house."

Otsū was silent.

"From the way my father talks, I guess he knew you fairly well until you left the Shippōji.... I don't know what he has in mind, but he said he'd like to see you once more and talk with you."

The candle was threatening to go out. Otsū turned and looked out under the tattered eaves at the sky. "Rain," she said.

"Rain? And we have to walk to Himeji tomorrow."

"What's an autumn shower? We'll wear rain hats."

"I'd like it better if it was fair."

They closed the wooden rain shutters, and the room soon became very warm and humid. Jōtarō was acutely conscious of Otsū’s feminine fragrance.

"Go to bed," he said. "I'll sleep over here." Placing a wooden pillow under the window, he lay down on his side, facing the wall.

"Aren't you asleep yet?" grumbled Jōtarō. "You should go to bed." He pulled the thin covers over his head, but tossed and turned awhile longer before falling into a deep slumber.

The Mercy of Kannon

Otsū sat listening to the water dripping from a leak in the roof. Driven by the wind, the rain whipped in under the eaves and splashed against the shutters. But it was autumn, and there was no way of telling: morning might dawn bright and clear.

Then Osugi came into her thoughts. "I wonder if she's out in this storm, all wet and cold. She's old. She might not last till morning. Even if she does, it could be days before she's found. She could die of starvation."

"Jōtarō," she called softly. "Wake up." She was afraid he'd done something cruel, since she'd heard him tell the old woman's henchmen he was punishing her and had casually made a similar remark on the way to the inn.

"She's not really bad at heart." she thought. "If I'm honest with her, one of these days she'll understand me.... I must go to her."

Thinking: "If Jōtarō gets angry, it can't be helped," she opened a shutter. Against the blackness of the sky, the rain showed whitely. After tucking up her skirts, she took from the wall a basket hat made out of bamboo bark and tied it on her head. Then she threw a bulky straw rain cape around her shoulders, put on a pair of straw sandals and dashed through the sheet of rain pouring off the roof.

On approaching the shrine where Mambei had taken her, she saw that the stone steps leading up to it had become a many-tiered waterfall. At the top, the wind was much stronger, howling through the cryptomerias like a pack of angry dogs.

"Where can she be?" she thought, as she peered into the shrine. She called into the dark space underneath it, but no answer came.

She went around to the back of the building and stood there for a few minutes. The wailing wind swept over her like breakers on a raging sea. Gradually she became aware of another sound, almost indistinguishable from the storm. It stopped and started again.

"Oh-h-h. Hear me, somebody.... Isn't somebody out there? ... Oh-h-h." "Granny!" shouted Otsū. "Granny, where are you?" Since she was literally crying into the wind, the sound did not carry far.

But somehow the feeling communicated itself. "Oh! There's someone there. I know it.... Save me. Here! Save me!"

In the snatches of sound that reached her ears, Otsū heard the cry of desperation.

"Where are you?" she screamed hoarsely. "Granny, where are you?" She ran all the way around the shrine, stopped a moment, then ran around it again. Almost by accident, she noticed what looked like a bear's cave, about twenty paces away, near the bottom of the steep path leading up to the inner shrine.

As she drew closer, she knew for certain the old woman's voice was coming from within. Arriving at the entrance, she stopped and stared at the large rocks blocking it.

"Who is it? Who's there? Are you a manifestation of Kannon? I worship her every day. Have pity on me. Save a poor old woman who's been trapped by a fiend." Osugi's pleas took on a hysterical tone. Half crying, half begging, in the dark interval between life and death, she formed a vision of the compassionate Kannon and hurled toward it her fervent prayer for continued life.

"How happy I am!" she cried deliriously. "Kannon the all-merciful has seen the goodness of my heart and taken pity on me. She's come to rescue me! Great compassion! Great mercy! Hail to the Bodhisattva Kannon, hail to the Bodhisattva Kannon, hail to—"

Her voice broke off abruptly. Perhaps she was thinking that was sufficient, for it was only natural that in her extremity Kannon would come in some form or other to her aid. She was the head of a fine family, a good mother, and believed herself to be an upright and flawless human being. And whatever she did was, of course, morally just.

But then, sensing that whoever was outside the cave was not an apparition but a real, living person, she relaxed, and when she relaxed, she passed out.

Not knowing what the sudden cessation of Osugi's cries meant, Otsū was beside herself. Somehow, the opening to the cave had to be cleared. As she doubled her efforts, the band holding her basket hat came loose, and the hat and her black tresses tossed wildly in the wind.

Wondering how Jōtarō had been able to put the rocks in place by himself, she pushed and pulled with the strength of her whole body, but nothing budged. Exhausted by the effort, she felt a pang of hatred for Jōtarō, and the initial relief she had felt on locating Osugi turned to gnawing anxiety.

"Hold on, Granny. Just a little longer. I'll get you out," she shouted. Though she pressed her lips to a crack in the rocks, she failed to elicit a response.

By and by, she made out a low, feeble chant:

"Or if, meeting man-eating devils,

Venomous dragons, and demons,

He thinks of Kannon's power,

At once none will dare harm him.

If, surrounded by vicious beasts,

With sharp tusks and frightening claws,

He thinks of Kannon's power . . ."

Osugi was intoning the
Sutra on Kannon.
Only the voice of the bodhisattva was perceptible to her. With her hands clasped together, she was at ease now, tears flowing down her cheeks, lips quivering as the sacred words poured from them
.

Struck by an odd feeling, Osugi left off her chanting and put her eye to a crack between the rocks. "Who's there?" she shouted. "I ask you who's there?" The wind had ripped off Otsū's rain cape. Bewildered, exhausted, covered

with mud, she bent down and cried, "Are you all right, Granny? It's Otsū." "Who did you say?" came the suspicious question.

"I said it's Otsū."

"I see." There was a long, dead pause before the next incredulous question. "What do you mean, you're Otsū?"

It was at this point that the first shock wave hit Osugi, rudely scattering her religious thoughts. "Wh-why have you come here? Oh, I know. You're looking for that devil Jōtarō!"

"No. I've come to rescue you, Granny. Please, forget the past. I remember how good you were to me when I was a little girl. Then you turned against me and tried to hurt me. I don't hold it against you. I admit I was very willful."

"Oh, so your eyes are open now and you can see the evil of your ways. Is that it? Are you saying you'd like to come back to the Hon'iden family as Matahachi's wife?"

"Oh, no, not that," Otsū said quickly.

"Well, why are you here?"

"I felt so sorry for you I couldn't stand it."

"And now you want to put me under obligation to you. That's what you're trying to do, isn't it?"

Otsū was too shocked to say a word.

"Who asked you to come to my rescue? Not me! And I don't need your help now. If you think by doing me a favor you can stop me from hating you, you're mistaken. I don't care how badly off I am; I'd rather die than lose my pride."

"But, Granny, how can you expect me to leave a person your age in a terrible place like this?"

"There you go, talking nice and sweet. Do you think I don't know what you and Jōtarō are up to? You two plotted to put me in this cave to make fun of me, and when I get out, I'm going to get even. You can be sure of that."

"I'm sure the day will come very soon when you'll understand how I really feel. Anyway, you can't stay in there. You'll get sick."

"Hmph. I'm tired of this nonsense."

Otsū stood up, and the obstacle that she had been unable to budge by force was dislodged as if by her tears. After the topmost rock rolled to the ground, she had surprisingly little difficulty rolling the one below it aside.

But it hadn't been Otsū's tears alone that had opened the cave. Osugi had been pushing from inside. She burst forth, her face a fiery red.

Still staggering from the exertion, Otsū uttered a cry of joy, but no sooner was Osugi in the open than she seized Otsū by the collar. From the fierceness of the attack, it looked as though her sole purpose in wanting to stay alive was to attack her benefactor.

"Oh! What are you doing? Ow!"

"Shut up!"

"Wh-wh-why—"

"What did you expect?" cried Osugi, forcing Otsū to the ground with the fury of a wild woman. Otsū was horrified beyond belief.

"Now let's go," snorted Osugi, as she started to drag the girl across the sodden ground.

Clasping her hands together, Otsū said, "Please, please. Punish me if you want, but you mustn't stay out in this rain."

"What idiocy! Have you no shame? Do you think you can make me feel sorry for you?"

"I won't run away. I won't— Oh! That hurts!"

"Of course it hurts."

"Let me—" In a sudden burst of strength, Otsū wrenched herself free and sprang to her feet.

"Oh, no you don't!" Instantly renewing the attack, Osugi clutched a fistful of Otsū's hair. Otsū's white face turned skyward; rain poured down it. She closed her eyes.

"You tramp! How I've suffered all these years because of you!"

Each time Otsū opened her mouth to speak or made an effort to wriggle free, the old woman gave a vicious tug at her hair. Without letting go of it, she threw Otsū to the ground, trampled on her and kicked her.

Then a startled look flashed across Osugi's face and she let go of the hair. "Oh, what have I done?" she gasped in consternation. "Otsū?" she called anxiously as she looked at the limp form lying at her feet.

"Otsū!" Bending down, she stared intently at the rain-soaked face, as cold to the touch as a dead fish. As far as she could tell, the girl wasn't breathing. "She's ... she's dead."

Osugi was aghast. Though unwilling to forgive Otsū, she had not intended to kill her. She straightened up, moaning and backing away.

Gradually she quieted down, and it was not long before she was saying, "Well, I suppose there's nothing to be done but go for help." She started to walk away, hesitated, turned and came back. Taking Otsū's cold body in her arms, she carried it into the cave.

Though the entrance was small, the inside was roomy. Near one wall was a place where, in the distant past, religious pilgrims seeking the Way had sat for long hours in meditation.

When the rain let up, she went to the entrance and was about to crawl out, when the clouds opened again. From the stream sluicing over the mouth, water splashed nearly to the innermost part of the cave.

"It won't be long until morning," she thought. Nonchalantly she squatted and waited for the storm to die down again.

Being in total darkness with Otsū's body slowly began to work on her mind. She had the feeling that the chilly ashen face was staring accusingly at her. At first she reassured herself by saying, "Everything that happens is destined to happen. Take your place in paradise as a newborn Buddha. Don't hold a grudge against me." But before long fear and the sense of her awful responsibility prompted her to seek refuge in piety. Closing her eyes, she began to chant a sutra. Several hours passed.

When at last her lips were silent and she opened her eyes, she could hear birds chirping. The air was still; the rain had stopped. Through the mouth of the cave, a golden sun glared at her, shedding fresh white rays on the rough ground inside.

"What's that, I wonder?" she said aloud as she got to her feet and her eyes fell on an inscription carved by some unknown hand on the wall of the cave.

She stood before it and read: "In the year 1544, I sent my sixteen-year-old son, whose name was Mori Kinsaku, to fight at the battle of Tenjinzan Castle on the side of Lord Uragami. I have never seen him since. Because of my grief, I wander to various places sacred to the Buddha. Now I am placing in this cave an image of the Bodhisattva Kannon. I pray that this, and a mother's tears, will protect Kinsaku in his future life. If in later times anyone should pass here, I beg that he invoke the name of the Buddha. This is the twenty-first year since Kinsaku's death. Donor: The Mother of Kinsaku, Aita Village."

The eroded characters were difficult to read in places. It had been nearly seventy years since the villages nearby—Sanumo, Aita, Katsuta—had been attacked by the Amako family and Lord Uragami had been driven from his castle. One childhood memory that would never be erased from Osugi's memory was the burning of this fortress. She could still see the black smoke billowing up in the sky, the corpses of men and horses littering the fields and byways for days afterward. The fighting had reached almost to the houses of the farmers.

Thinking of the boy's mother, of her sorrow, her wanderings, her prayers and offerings, Osugi felt a stab of pain. "It must have been terrible for her," she said. She knelt and joined her hands together.

"Hail to the Buddha Amida. Hail to the Buddha Amida ..."

She was sobbing, and tears fell on her hands, but not until she had cried herself out did her mind again become conscious of Otsū's face, cold and insensitive to the morning light, by the side of her knee.

"Forgive me, Otsū. It was wicked of me, terrible! Please forgive me, please." Her face twisted with remorse, she lifted Otsū's body in a gentle embrace. "Frightening ... frightening. Blinded by motherly love. Out of devotion to my own child, I became a devil to another woman's. You had a mother too. If she had known me, she would have seen me as ... as a vile demon.... I was sure I was right, but to others I'm a vicious monster."

The words seemed to fill the cave and bound back to her own ears. There was no one there, no eyes to watch, no ears to hear. The darkness of night had become the light of the Buddha's wisdom.

"How good you were, Otsū. To be tormented so many long years by this horrible old fool, yet never returning my hatred. To come in spite of everything to try to save me.... I see it all now. I misunderstood. All the goodness in your heart I saw as evil. Your kindness I rewarded with hatred. My mind was warped, distorted. Oh, forgive me, Otsū."

She pressed her damp face against Otsū's. "If only my son were as sweet and good as you.... Open your eyes again, see me begging for forgiveness. Open your mouth, revile me. I deserve it. Otsū ... forgive me."