Somersault

by Kenzaburo Oe

  “No, I don’t want to bother you with those kinds of chores,” Kizu said, borrowing a ballpoint pen and loose-leaf notebook. “Ikuo should be up soon. I’ll ask him to fix it.”

  Kizu settled down in the armchair Patron had recently occupied, put on the headphone, and pushed the PLAY button on the Walkman.

  Patron was muttering, so at first Kizu couldn’t understand him. He was about to turn up the volume but the switch was taped over. He looked up and Dancer, who’d been watching him all the while, nodded, her eyes like melted pools of ice. She seemed to be telling him to listen to the tape as it was, until Patron’s low murmur itself changed in tone.

  Headphones still on, Kizu turned to look at the snowy garden outside. The small leaves of the azalea hedge shivered under the thick layer of snow; the snow-covered stems of the withered hydrangea leaves shook with the wind. Kizu noticed one clear difference between this scene and the one that greeted him on snowy mornings back in the States. At the thick base of the winter camellia, with its large white flowers, the snow was sticking to one side only. The snow was piled up on the branches and clumps of leaves, but the wind didn’t budge it. At his apartment at the university the day after it snowed, the piled-up snow, as high as the roof and the trees, would blow up in the air and swirl around in dry and powdery flakes.

  Gradually, though it was still muffled and at the same volume level, he could make out what Patron was saying. As he came to the end of the tape, one phrase in particular stood out: Thy will be done.

  Kizu transcribed Patron’s talk on the tape into the notebook. As he did so he felt a force pushing him back, interrupting the flow of the sentences, a force that had its roots in the quiet, calm measures in which Patron spoke. Kizu couldn’t reproduce this style in writing, and he was amazed all over again at the depth and intimacy that Patron and Guide had shared. Still, Kizu managed to finish a first draft, which he tore out of the notebook and placed beside the computer where Dancer was working.

  “This is pretty flat and doesn’t reflect Patron’s tone of voice at all,” Kizu explained timidly.

  Guide has died of a brain aneurysm that was deliberately brought on by those who held him captive and, for a long time, harassed him in a kangaroo trial. The people in this group who victimized him were members of the radical faction of our church at the time, ten years ago, when we did our Somersault. Several of these people belonged to the group that actually committed subversive activities. As a result these people, including ones who were legally sanctioned, took revenge on Guide and carried out their lynch-mob justice.

  They were trying, after a ten-year delay, to make Guide take responsibility for the Somersault. But the Somersault was mostly my responsibility, something Guide did along with me. The relationship between Guide and myself continued all the while, from when it was just the two of us training ourselves spiritually, through when we formed a church, to the time when we undertook large-scale religious activities. The Somersault, too, took place as part of our longtime relationship. But I took the lead. It’s illogical for the radical faction to kill Guide while not pursuing me.

  If they were aware of this inconsistency yet still went ahead with it, it must be part of their strategy for the future. Their intention is to provoke me—but to what end? To direct me to perform another Somersault, this time without Guide backing me up?

  What we did, though, makes that impossible. Having done our Somersault, the two of us fell into hell, where we stayed for ten years. Just when we found the strength to crawl out of this hell, Guide was tortured to death by those people who, clinging to their one-dimensional viewpoint, tried to force him into a backward Somersault. Now that he’s been killed, all I have is a handful of trusted companions to help me begin my new movement.

  This is what the people who killed Guide planned from the start. They weren’t really aiming at a reverse Somersault. Guide’s refusal—unto death—to take a backward Somersault showed them exactly where we stood, stumbling up out of the abyss of our own private hell to begin again.

  I’m announcing this to those who did not distort our Somersault and who patiently awaited our rebirth from hell. I am also appealing to those who only just learned about what happened to Guide and who want to hold him dear in their memory. Guide has been lost to us, but I, Patron, am taking a bold new step forward.

  First of all, though, I will hold a memorial service for Guide. I would like to pray together with my new companions. Hallelujah! Thy will be done!

  4

  Dancer read Patron’s announcement that Kizu had transcribed and, without expression, went to Patron’s room to deliver it to him. Ikuo was up by this time and came over, and Kizu told him about the job he’d just completed, urging him to listen to the Walkman. Ikuo, too, had a hard time at first in trying to turn up the volume. After he was finished listening, he said, excitedly:

  “Patron seems to be focusing on those who still believe in him and people who individually got in touch with him. But wouldn’t this include people left over from the radical faction? Won’t they respond to Patron’s announcement too? Not those who were directly responsible for Guide’s death, of course; that’s out of the question. But don’t some of these former faction members still want to take radical action?”

  “You really seem to be interested in what moves that group is going to make,” Kizu asked. “This meeting that Patron’s going to hold is his way of memorializing Guide.”

  “Patron announced he’s starting a new movement,” Ikuo said, “so after the service there’s no way he can retreat back into the hell he fell into after the Somersault. Not that I understand much about this hell or anything—”

  Dancer rejoined them, interrupting Ikuo, who was about to say more. “Patron says the announcement is fine,” she said to Kizu. “He told me once that when he and Guide used to be engrossed in work together they’d invariably argue. Guide’s task, as you know, was to take from Patron what could not be put into human language and somehow make it understandable, right? I imagine, Professor, that as you listened to the tape you struggled with the same thing.”

  “But what I did was different from what Guide used to do,” Kizu said, “which must have been an amazingly difficult undertaking. There’s a context behind the nuances of what Patron says that I can’t quite grasp, and I’m afraid I had to content myself with writing the sort of humdrum sentences anybody can come up with.”

  “I was talking with Ogi about creating a home page on the Internet for our new movement,” Ikuo cut in. “People could access that and listen directly to Patron’s announcement. What do you think?”

  “Please don’t get our Innocent Youth involved in all kinds of extraneous work,” Dancer replied, sidestepping his question. “While he’s busy at the hospital and crematorium, I’d like you to take care of the business here that needs to be done. I want to pass this announcement to the media, so I’d like you to input it into the computer.”

  Ikuo stretched out a long muscular arm to take the loose-leaf pages and began running his eyes over them.

  “Patron said it’s fine the way it is.”

  Undeterred by the way Dancer had flared up at him, Ikuo began intently working under Kizu’s attentive gaze. Did the tension between these two young people have its origin in their conversation during their forced march through the snow the night before? Kizu wondered.

  Less than an hour later the front doorbell rang, and since Dancer and Ikuo were engrossed in their work it was left to Kizu, ensconced on the sofa, to answer it. He stepped down onto the concrete floor of the entrance, unlatched the lock Ikuo had fastened, and found Ms. Tachibana and a young woman standing just outside the front door. The snow-covered garden behind them was excessively bright. Backlit by this, the pale young woman was introduced to him by Ms. Tachibana as her friend Ms. Asuka; Ms. Asuka merely nodded her head in greeting. Ms. Tachibana continued.

  “There’s someone outside the main gate who says he made a TV program about Patron before the Somersau
lt,” she said. “He hasn’t seen Patron in fifteen years, and asked if Patron would be willing to meet him.”

  The three of them went to the office and found Dancer on the phone. She soon held the receiver out for Ikuo.

  “It’s Ogi,” she told him. “He says a bunch of people showed up at the hospital who are causing trouble. But he doesn’t want the hospital to call the police to clear them out.”

  Ikuo took the receiver and began to talk, and Dancer, in her unaffected way, went over to stand beside Ms. Tachibana and Ms. Asuka, and the three of them went into the kitchen. Ikuo finished his phone call and told Kizu what it was all about.

  “As Dancer said, a few members of the former radical faction saw the news on the morning TV show and came to the hospital. Ogi says he doesn’t know if they have any connection with the ones who killed Guide, but he doesn’t think they’re the ones the police are looking for. Since the former radical faction consisted of people hand-picked and trained by Guide, it’s only natural, I guess, that some of them would grieve over his death. Anyway, Ogi had them wait in a corner of the hospital waiting room while he was busy taking calls and greeting other visitors. He told them someone from our office would be coming in an hour and asked them to wait at a coffee shop between the hospital and the subway station.”

  “I’d like the Professor to stay here, so you go alone, Ikuo,” Dancer said, sticking her face out from the kitchen; she and the other two women had been doing something in there. “I’ll go talk with the TV reporter outside.”

  Kizu expected Ikuo to object to Dancer’s unilateral orders, but he seemed instead to accept them wholeheartedly.

  “What about breakfast? Would you like something before you go?” Ms. Tachibana said, as she too stuck her head out from the kitchen.

  Ikuo picked up his down jacket and muffler from the two Windsor chairs in a corner of the office that he and Dancer had used to drape their clothes over the previous night and, unconcerned about whether they were dry or not, prepared to leave.

  “I’ll pick up something at the McDonald’s near the station,” Ikuo said.

  “I’ve made up these expense forms, so be sure to sign one before you go,” Dancer said, holding out the envelope. She hurried to catch up with him and walked outside to talk with the reporter, who was waiting beyond the still snow-covered gate.

  After some time, Dancer returned. The TV van to be used in a live remote was parked at the large railroad crossing, already cleared of snow, she reported, and they’d discussed how the media crowd was to be handled and the arrangements for the afternoon. The van driver told her about traffic conditions after the snowfall, and Dancer was optimistic that the road from the hospital to the crematorium and then back to headquarters with the remains would be passable. Preparations for breakfast were finished. Dancer went again to help Ms. Tachibana and Ms. Asuka and then took Patron’s meal and her own into his bedroom study.

  Kizu was quite dazzled by these young women’s brisk way of working. The meal they laid out on the dining table was a kind of brunch, a word now even used in Japan, and Kizu found himself unexpectedly nostalgic for life in America. Seeing Japanese homestyle meals becoming, in an entirely natural way, so close to ones in America made him realize how long he’d been away from his homeland.

  Ms. Asuka, with her round forehead and long thin eyebrows, sat across from Kizu, looking quite aloof. She was adroitly eating ham with a slice of soft-boiled egg on top, and this, too, struck Kizu as part of a new Japanese way of eating. Unexpectedly, she asked him a direct question.

  “There’ll be TV cameramen at Patron’s press conference this afternoon, won’t there? If Patron is starting up his movement again, I’d like to record his sermon on video. I mentioned this to Ogi, and he sounded out Patron. I know a press conference and a sermon are different, but when I asked Dancer if I could start filming today for practice, she said I should ask you.”

  “I think it would be all right, though I’m sort of feeling my way into this new role,” Kizu ventured timidly.

  “If Patron is officially launching his new movement, I’d like to bring my brother with me,” Ms. Tachibana said.

  “I have no idea how Patron plans to develop this new movement. One thing he did say in his announcement was that it’s not a reverse Somersault. And it’s clear that he’s appealing to new participants like you,” Kizu said.

  “We’re really looking forward to it,” Ms. Asuka said calmly, and Ms. Tachibana nodded in agreement.

  “Ikuo and I, too, have decided to follow Patron, but honestly speaking, that’s all there is to it. There’s no way I could replace Guide.”

  The three sat there silently, lost in their own thoughts. Their conversation may have come to a halt, but the dining area was filled with unusual vitality.

  5

  Only a handful of reporters showed up for Patron’s afternoon press conference, representing one national newspaper, one national wire service, one Nagasaki newspaper—Kizu wondered why Nagasaki, but Patron said that was where Guide was from—and two weekly magazines. In addition to the reporters, a few photographers also showed up for the conference, which was set up by connecting the dining room and the living room. Though there were so few participants, with the sofas pushed off to one side next to the sliding glass door leading to the garden, and TV cameras from the TV station set up, it did have the feeling of a genuine press conference.

  The reporters were asked to sit directly on the carpeting. Flanking them were Kizu and Ms. Tachibana. Ikuo, who had returned with Ogi, was holding the urn that contained Guide’s remains. In addition, there were three brawny men in their late thirties who had not given their names to Ms. Asuka, who was in charge of having people sign in, insisting instead that they’d already cleared things. The men wore humble-looking outfits not in keeping with their robust physiques. As they settled down hesitantly into seats behind the TV crew, Ikuo watched them carefully but didn’t acknowledge them.

  Kizu could sense that Ogi, who as the emcee made a few opening remarks before Patron appeared, was nervous about the presence of these men. Ikuo, in contrast, couldn’t have appeared more nonchalant.

  Patron came into the room, accompanied by Dancer. The partition between the dining room and the living room, which was one level lower, was set up for use as a table, and they had placed a chair there for Patron. He was dressed in navy blue cotton slacks and a paisley collared shirt, with a black denim shirt over it. Dancer, her arm around his back as they walked, wore a form-fitting green dress, adding a bit of accent to Patron’s conservative appearance.

  Patron sat down in the chair and Dancer stood to one side behind him. Ogi had already taken up a similar position on Patron’s other side. Kizu noticed how Dancer kept her eyes on the young men sitting behind the TV crew. Previously somber, the young men were now suddenly rejuvenated as they trained their attention on Patron. For his part Patron swept the assemblage with his eyes, without paying attention to anyone in particular. He looked at Ogi and began speaking, sounding less like he was holding a press conference than just having a private conversation.

  “I’m planning to hold a memorial service and give a sermon to pay tribute to Guide’s suffering.... I assume you all have a copy of my announcement?”

  Patron paused and looked out, head raised, as if to make sure the television crew had set up their camera in a good position for a view of his face and torso. Ms. Asuka stood beside the TV crew, video camera in hand. Kizu noticed a faint smile on her lips.

  Before the reporters showed up, Kizu had expressed his misgivings to Dancer about allowing Patron to appear, defenseless, in front of the media. She didn’t answer him directly but did say that when she told Patron the name of the TV producer she’d met with he was relieved and seemed to be planning to talk to the TV camera rather than the newspaper reporters.

  “Is Ogi sending out invitations to the memorial service to people who said they’d like to attend?” Patron asked. “Ever since Guide’s disaster was report
ed, he’s been receiving e-mails and other communications. I’d like to hold the service within three weeks, and I’d like you to start thinking about a venue. We need to consider the scale of the meeting, and how many invitations to send out, so you’ll need to confirm by checking Ogi’s list. So far he has over two hundred names.

  “We’ll expand from this base of two hundred people. I plan to give a major sermon at the memorial service. I’m not expecting all the people who attend the service to want to participate in my new movement, but with that many people assembled I do want to announce the restarting of our up-till-now dormant movement. I’m also hoping people in the media will cover this announcement.

  “At the start of our new movement, I want to make one position clear. As our church expands—starting with Japan but including the entire world—we will never again compromise. I will call on every single person on this planet to repent. I want our church and all our activities to be permeated with this urgent call for universal repentance.

  “After the Somersault, Guide and I fell into the abjectness of hell, where I was forced to ponder the salvation of mankind. Guide was the one pilot we could rely on. Just as we resurfaced, though, he was cruelly murdered. At the same time, this proved to me that the time to take action was near. I want to appeal again to people to repent at the coming end of the world. In order to carry this out, I will fight the final battle against the entire human race on this planet. My church does not possess nuclear weapons, nor does it manufacture chemical weapons. People might wonder how we can possibly carry out a such a battle, and laugh at us for trying, but I believe we can and must fight. At the cost of his own life, Guide protected mankind’s Patron—in other words, me. His death has revealed my legitimacy. In the end, people like us will emerge victorious.”