Somersault

by Kenzaburo Oe

  “Just at this point they were abandoned by Patron and Guide. Ten years pass and here they are, once again gathered around Patron. Which makes me wonder: Does Patron really have a new plan that will fit all they’ve accumulated over this painful decade? I don’t have any desire to ask him whether he has any plans for action, plans that will surface in the near future to fit what the Technicians are doing. Some people might call me—to use an old union term—a corrupt trade boss for thinking this, but I think we should just let him be himself.

  “The Quiet Women seem fully content just to be living in the same place as Patron and to spend their days near him in prayer. One time Morio had swollen tonsils and came to the clinic, and Ms. Tachibana told me about the way the Quiet Women pray in their rooms. It’s extremely intense, apparently. The Technicians also have a quiet time of reflection after each day’s work that’s so intense it’s guaranteed to make you feel uncomfortable.”

  “Both groups have moved here and settled in, and we need them both to support the activities of the church. Dancer thinks this, too—of course, all under the leadership of Patron.”

  “This contradicts what I said before,” Kizu said, “but the Technicians and the Quiet Women are clearly different types of groups, and it’ll surely be a test of Patron’s leadership skills to get them to cooperate.”

  “I can imagine a scenario,” Dr. Koga said, “where things turn hostile, with both groups surrounding Patron insisting that they be allowed to show what they’re capable of.”

  “I don’t think it’s just the Quiet Women and the Technicians who’d do that,” Kizu said. “You’d have to include Ikuo and those under Patron’s direct supervision—Ogi and Dancer—as well. And let’s not forget the Kansai headquarters, which is lying low at the moment. I wonder if Patron isn’t waiting for the energy of all these people to get compressed and then he’s going to leap into action all at once. If Guide were here I’m sure that’s what he’d do.”

  Kizu and Dr. Koga looked intently at each other. Kizu felt all over again the closeness he’d begun to feel toward this other man. Dr. Koga was visibly exhausted but, with his characteristic magnanimity, was trying to follow his colleagues in their new activities. Wasn’t this exactly what Kizu was trying to do with Ikuo? As was his habit after many years in America, Kizu spoke aloud what he’d already convinced himself of, to make sure of his thoughts.

  “Dr. Koga, you consider the Technicians kindred spirits, but at the same time you feel apart from them enough to keep an eye on them. You want to participate with them yet keep your distance.”

  “That’s correct,” Dr. Koga replied, his eyes at once both slightly worried and filled with a sharp intelligence. “When you said you were moving to Shikoku despite your cancer, I can tell you I was envious. This is a person, I thought, who is truly free.

  “I’ve trained with the Technicians, and as long as I can I want to help them out. The thought occurred to me that it wouldn’t be so bad to end my days as a small-town doctor here in this valley, but if Patron and the Technicians get in a confrontation, I imagine I’d leave here with them.

  “When I think about the future, I have the distinct feeling that someday soon I’m going to be in a difficult fix because of the Technicians: lamenting that we should just get on with it and ending up in some desperate struggle. Still—like you and Ikuo—the fact is, I accompanied them here. Maybe I invited you out today because of this simple yet subtle feeling of empathy? I don’t know.”

  “I’m not saying this to you as patient-to-doctor,” Kizu said, “but my intuition tells me I have a lot of time left to be with you before cancer makes me withdraw from the front lines.”

  Dr. Koga gave him a happy, sympathetic smile, but, veteran physician that he was, he wasn’t about to give any hasty words of encouragement. He urged Kizu to stand up, and when they both did he briskly folded up the plastic sheets they’d been sitting on, stuffed them in his pocket, and made a new suggestion.

  “Why don’t we drive upstream a little? You came into this region by going up the Kame River from the Old Town area, right? If you go upstream a bit more you’ll feel you’re in the middle of the main mountain range in Shikoku. It’s quite interesting from a geopolitical standpoint because it’s the crossroads leading to Kochi on the one hand and Matsuyama on the other.

  “In medieval days the Tosa armies advanced up to that point. Asa-san told me when she was little and didn’t obey her parents they’d scare her by saying, ‘General Chosokabe’s coming to get you!”

  Dr. Koga wasn’t just knowledgeable about local history, he was well acquainted with the local topography too, and he took them down a different road through the woods, one that brought them down to the prefectural road that ran along the river. Kizu was sure the road was a dead end shut off by the mountains, but after passing several hamlets that dotted the roadside they came out onto the road along the valley that ascended to the northeast. The tree branches overhanging the road, with their green leaves freshened by a recent rain, had an animalistic power, and it struck Kizu that he really was living in deep mountain recesses.

  The crossroads leading to the two local cities Dr. Koga had spoken of was a broad basin, the field there much more extensive than in anything in Maki Town, let alone Kame Village before it was incorporated. Dr. Koga avoided the road leading to the hollow where there were rows of old tradesmen’s houses, and did a U-turn at one corner of the road the bus ran along. Dr. Koga hadn’t said a word nearly the whole hour they’d been driving, but as they arrived at the road that went back home he finally spoke.

  “What with their shrine with a huge gingko tree and their old noodle shops, you can really see the region’s cultural differences here. It suddenly popped into my mind that this might lead to a bit of rivalry. Ikuo and the Technicians are coming here with a light truck today. Did you know that?”

  “No,” Kizu said.

  “The wife of the town barber had a religious awakening and decided to move in with the church. Her little daughter has a terrible disease they’ve been able to control with a cortisone-like medicine, but the side effects are terrible. A doctor at the Red Cross Hospital recommended me to her, and she’s been coming to my clinic every week.

  “The girl’s mother was quite moved by the Quiet Women’s prayer meetings. Before long she said she wanted to renounce the world and move to the Hollow with her daughter. There wasn’t any precedent for it—we have yet to welcome the second and third waves of followers, after all—so it’s proved to be a sticky problem.

  “Still, Dancer said it was better to have her there than to have to entrust Patron to some barber they didn’t know anything about, so the woman was allowed in as a onetime exception. Seeing how things stood, the woman decided to work as a barber in the Hollow. The barbershop had two special barber chairs. She claimed one was hers and wanted to bring it with her, but her husband refused point-blank. Ikuo and the others are coming today to pick up that precious barber chair. They’ll also bring the mother and her daughter back with them. The husband has rallied a few of his relatives and longtime customers, who are ready to stop them by force if necessary.”

  Dr. Koga finished his story, and some time passed. When they arrived at a spot where they could see the buildings of the elementary school on the other side of the bridge spanning the deep valley, a light truck passed them from behind. They didn’t see who was driving, but in the truck bed they saw a large barber chair wrapped in quilts and tied down with rope. Kizu and Dr. Koga could see the backs of two cold-looking men huddled together; they watched until the truck and the men disappeared into the growth of trees overhanging the road.

  3

  Ikuo was back in the house on the north shore for the first time in quite a while and had been modeling all morning. The third panel of the triptych, the central piece, was still blank, but Kizu was working on the first and second panels simultaneously.

  The day before, according to Ms. Tachibana, Ikuo and Dancer had quarreled in the offi
ce over Kizu’s painting, and Kizu was concerned. He didn’t mention this, though, as he painted, continuing to work silently on details until, before long, Ikuo broached the subject.

  “You don’t need to feel responsible, Professor, but I sounded Dancer out about having Patron model for you nude from the waist up. For whatever reason she blew a gasket. It was quite a mess.”

  “Patron nude from the waist up? Hmmm,” Kizu mused, his brush poised in midair. “What sort of scene are you imagining?”

  “Nothing definite. But if the third panel of the triptych is going to show Jonah debating God, don’t you need a model for God?”

  “So you’re envisioning Patron as the God Jonah complains to?” Kizu asked. “But Patron raised a banner of revolt against God, said everything he’d done was a joke, and denied his relationship with God!

  “Just as the Fireflies see you as Jonah, I’ve been viewing you as a Jonahlike person in my work here. But as you’ve expressed your doubts about it, for the sake of argument let’s say that what’s written in the book of Jonah isn’t the end of the story, that Jonah rejects God’s sermon to him, laughs in his face, and leaves. Isn’t that close to what Patron did with his Somersault?”

  Kizu laid his brush and palette aside and sat down. The reflected light from the lake was so intense he’d moved his easel farther back in the room, and Ikuo was posing near the kitchen. He went over to the leaf-framed window to retrieve his robe. As he walked in front of Kizu, the strong reflection from outside etched his profile from his nose to his chin as distinctly as if they had been made from neon tubing.

  Ikuo put on his robe and turned around, his entire face one dark mass. From out of that came a voice dripping with a childish youthfulness.

  “When I argued with Dancer I didn’t have any definite idea in mind. But after what you said, I was thinking it made sense to have Patron in the painting as God, showing him persuaded by Jonah’s protest.

  “God’s given up on it once but has now completely consigned Nineveh to the flames and is standing there with Jonah gazing down at the burning city. That was the vision of God I had.”

  “If that’s the case,” Kizu said, “it certainly makes sense to have Patron model for the painting. I’d say the theme for the third panel of the triptych is starting to gell.”

  That night, after Kizu woke up once and then fell asleep again, he had a dream. Dr. Koga always gave him a great variety and amount of medicine, and though he was diligent about keeping up the dosage of the analgesic suppositories, he wasn’t very conscientious about taking the other medicines, picking and choosing the ones he wanted and taking less than the prescribed dose. Even so, he started to run a slight fever, which he put down to the side effects of the drugs. Whenever he had a fever he’d wake up in the middle of the night, confused about where he was and why he was there.

  He switched on the light beside his bed, went to the bathroom, and on the way back, still doubtful of his surroundings, looked into the part of his studio where the canvases weren’t covered; and as he drew back the curtain and gazed out at the far-off buildings bathed in moonlight, things became clear to him and his fear and confusion disappeared. But the feelings he had until that moment—the sense of being cut off from this scene and his surroundings—remained strong within him. He went back to bed and, after he turned off the light, was struck by the thought that what he’d just witnessed was a scene from after his death.

  I’ll leave behind this half-finished work, and in less than a year I’ll be dead, he thought, and what will remain is that scene. These thoughts led him to consider how pointless his life had been. No, he thought, it can’t be that meaningless. He struggled to conjure up significant incidents from his life but couldn’t think of a single one; his chest tightened with sadness, and he turned on the light once more and gulped down a sleeping pill.

  After all this, he was finally at the threshold of sleep, in the dangerous place neither on this side or the other side of wakefulness, when he saw Patron seated in the precious barber’s chair, Ikuo standing beside him, and the two of them gazing down at a city engulfed in flames. Kizu felt relief wash over him. This was the long-pending theme of the third panel of the triptych.

  Kizu got up late the next morning, no doubt due to the aftereffects of the sleeping pill. His house on the north shore of the Hollow was surrounded on every side except where it fronted the lake by a thick growth of beeches, Japanese oaks, and other deciduous trees. Kizu had heard that the diplomat who formerly occupied the house had planted the tangerine, citron, and lime trees in order to make a fruit orchard, but that was now overrun by the thick greenery of the camphor trees. Farther back, a layer of oaks formed a soundproof wall.

  As the greenery grew more luxuriant, the several-times-a-week march of the Fireflies through the woods grew harder to catch. Instead, every morning, not too early, Kizu heard a flock of Japanese tits, sounding like a fall rain, fly over in search of food. On this particular day the sound was like a ripple through his fitful sleep.

  The strangely realistic chair he’d seen in his dream was the one he’d seen being carefully transported in the light truck on his way back from the drive with Dr. Koga. He’d seen it later on, after it was installed, so all the details had been accurate.

  The chair that Mrs. Tagawa, the barber’s wife and the church’s first new member after moving to this place, had brought along with her grade-school daughter was set up inside the chapel. In that makeshift barbershop she started off cutting Patron’s hair and shaving him. For many years Patron had had all his tonsorial needs taken care of at a shop in Seijo, and he was pleased with the results at Mrs. Tagawa’s hands. Patron found the barber chair comfortable, even saying that when the church officially restarted that’s where he wanted to sit to give his sermons.

  Designated as the church’s official barber, then, Mrs. Tagawa offered her services to all the male followers and, if they wished, to the female followers as well. So whenever the chapel wasn’t in use, it did double duty as a barbershop.

  The day after Kizu had the dream of the barber chair, he went over after lunch to check out how well the barbershop was doing. Mrs. Tagawa—Hisayo was her first name—was probably around her mid-thirties, and dressed in the mannish way you often saw women barbers dressed in the countryside. A large old sofa set up between the piano and the barber chair was occupied by three gloomy-looking Technicians. In the next stall the daughter sat with a Hello Kitty notebook on her lap, perhaps noting down the order of those waiting for haircuts.

  Kizu stopped by the office, where Dancer was working alone at her computer. Thinking he’d like to get a haircut, since he hadn’t had one in a while, he asked her if he’d have to wait long for his turn. Dancer looked up at him, mouth open, no trace of a smile on her lusterless face.

  “I’ll check the appointment schedule. The Technicians are all well educated, but there’s a bit of a herd mentality at work. Once one of them gets a haircut they all follow suit.”

  Dancer’s eyes gazed at Kizu from her yellow-ivory face. Kizu was silent, so once more she slowly began to speak.

  “Did you know that Ikuo and I had a quarrel over his idea of having Patron model half nude for the triptych?”

  Kizu found it strange that Dancer would be preoccupied all this time about her argument with Ikuo.

  “Yes, I heard. I still don’t have a definite plan about the third panel, but I had this fleeting vision in a dream that told me not to worry, it’s all settled.”

  “I always thought Ikuo was more the type to stay quiet when he has an idea,” Dancer said. “I imagine you’ve heard about the wound in Patron’s body from Ikuo. I figured Ogi told Ikuo, which piqued his interest, and that’s why he came up with this notion of Patron modeling nude. I couldn’t say this in front of everybody, which is why our argument didn’t go anywhere. If Patron models as Ikuo wants him to, naturally it would be stupid to try to hide the wound anymore. It seems like, with the new church about to be launched, Ikuo wants to
put Patron in a position where he can’t retreat.”

  Kizu knew that lashing out at him was her way of getting rid of her gloomy feelings, but he couldn’t imagine what she meant by a wound in Patron. He brought a chair over, sat down across from her, and urged her to tell him more. Realizing suddenly that Kizu didn’t know anything, Dancer balked. Still, she mustered up a determined look. He was reminded of the dauntlessness she’d shown when he’d first seen her as a young dancing girl so many years ago.

  “Ogi hasn’t told you anything about it because he promised me not to. Still, if Ikuo knows about it he’d use the painting as pretext for breaking that promise. In that case, I think it’s better to speak of it myself.

  “For a long time only Guide and I knew about the wound, but one day I got careless, and Ogi found out about it. Ogi must have let it slip to Ikuo, which led to his idea of having Patron model nude. If Patron agrees, there’s nothing I can do about it. From the start he didn’t plan to keep this a secret.”

  Irritated by how this was all coming out, Dancer closed her mouth, biting down on her thin lips. Kizu found it pitiful to watch and turned toward the lake, the surface reflecting the white cloudy sky.

  “They call it a Sacred Wound, don’t they? The kind Saint Francis of Assisi had, just like Jesus’ wounds when he was crucified.”

  Kizu remembered the word stigma, the word he often, for some strange reason, thought of, and the way he’d connected it with the stigma of the delicate dark red flower of the slippery elm....

  Watching the absentminded-looking Kizu, Dancer ignored her own rhetorical question and went on.

  “On Patron’s left side he has a gaping wound as if he’s been pierced with a spear. Technically speaking it’s not a wound but more like a hole in his side that never closes up, and at the bottom you can see the color of blood. When he’s not feeling well, pus oozes out and dries in yellow strands. Right now, actually, pus is coming out. In the past his doctor would always prescribe antibiotics for him without his having to go to the hospital, and he was able to tough it out that way.