Somersault

by Kenzaburo Oe

  “Individual believers have been arriving since last week,” Ikuo told him, “and they’ll be assigned to stay in the closed elementary school in the outskirts or in some unoccupied private homes. Ms. Asuka is among them, and she’ll be taking turns helping me here. You’re able to use the toilet yourself, so you don’t mind having a woman take care of you, do you?”

  “I suppose not,” Kizu said. “I’m thinking of starting work again today on the triptych. Have you eaten?”

  “I’ll bring my food in here.” Ikuo started out toward the kitchen, stopped, and turned around. “I got a little carried away in the moonlight last night, and I apologize for talking for so long. It was stupid of me to do that with you just out of your sickbed. It’s just that when you were staying at the clinic I decided I had to tell you.”

  He seemed to be trying to sound out Kizu as to how far he’d managed to stay awake and what he’d heard, but Kizu gave nothing away, and they began to eat a mostly silent meal. Ikuo lined up on the tray the various medicines Kizu had to take, along with a clean cup of water, and then went off to make some coffee. Ms. Asuka had already been given a key, which she used now to open the door and stick her head in the bedroom.

  “How have you been, Professor? It must have been very hard on you,” she said, in her usually diffident way. “I’ll be taking care of you starting today. Ikuo-san has so many other places he needs to be. Everybody on the south shore is quite energized. Quite a stir, I can tell you. The Sacred Wound has had a remarkable effect on everyone.”

  26: People Like Unedited Videos

  1

  It was a bit too much for Ms. Asuka, after she started taking care of Kizu, to carry food for them both from the dining hall, so she would go down as soon as it opened and, after finishing her own meal, bring back a tray for Kizu. The days were getting longer so she didn’t need a flashlight even after dinner.

  Ms. Asuka and the other individual followers who’d moved there had been assigned rooms temporarily, in the monastery along with the Technicians or with the Quiet Women, until their own lodgings were decided, but even so she didn’t run across Ikuo in the dining hall. The three of them met in Kizu’s bedroom, however. When she collected Kizu’s dinner tray and sat down at a window seat facing the lake, there across from her sat Ikuo.

  The first thing Ikuo said was that since tonight would be her first night staying over with Kizu, if she wanted he would stay over as well. Since she’d worked in the trade, Ms. Asuka replied, sharing a room overnight with a man certainly didn’t faze her.

  Kizu felt sorry for Ikuo and how flustered this must have made him. Ikuo’s face turned red as a devil’s, and he got a little overbearing, telling her that lots of different people would be calling on Kizu to see how he was doing, and they were bound to talk about all sorts of things, so she had to promise to keep whatever she heard strictly confidential.

  Ms. Asuka couldn’t figure out exactly what he was getting at. Gazing back at the clearly irritated Ikuo in silence for a while, she said that video cameras had become even smaller and easier to use than the stories you used to hear about French fountain-pen cameras and the like. “When I use them,” she said, “I find I don’t have any particular feelings one way or another about the person I’m videotaping. So I’ve ended up with reels of unedited material. I might overhear what visitors say when they come to pay a visit to Professor Kizu, but that’ll just mean I’ve got one more unedited videotape in my memory.”

  What Ms. Asuka said struck Kizu as logical. Ikuo seemed to think so too. Ms. Asuka’s words meant that whenever she was in the house taking care of Kizu, any guests should feel free to say what they wanted. She wasn’t going to abuse her position.

  Indeed, as Kizu continued his painting during his recuperation, one visitor after another came to see him. When he told them how Ms. Asuka, who was waiting in the next room, had come up with this metaphor about people being unedited videos, everyone had a good laugh, which loosened them up.

  The first visitor was Dr. Koga, who questioned his patient and checked his vital signs and then pulled the desk chair over near the bed and sat himself down far enough away that he and Kizu could study each other as they spoke.

  “Were you aware that Ikuo’s been visiting the Technicians and the Quiet Women a lot,” Dr. Koga began, “and carrying out an ideological inquiry of sorts?”

  “I know the Young Fireflies have been questioning him,” Kizu replied, “and he said he’d have to explain to them about the various sects in the church. Most of all I think he wants to clarify things for himself.”

  “I can see that. There are things about the Technicians that even somebody like me who’s known them for years can’t understand, and that goes double for the Quiet Women.

  “When I went to the monastery to have lunch, Ikuo cornered me to ask me about the Technicians. ‘Why are they deemphasizing religious matters?’ he asked. Not that they seem to be pushing forward with some social agenda like they did in the old days, but he doesn’t think the repentant radical faction—the men responsible for killing Guide—will remain in the shadows forever. He wanted to know what direction I see them trying to nudge Patron in.

  “I told him that since he was so close to them I’d like to hear his opinion. I wasn’t trying to sidestep his question but just to let him know he’s much more aware than I am of what the Technicians are up to.”

  “What about the Quiet Women?” Kizu asked.

  “Ikuo and I view them in about the same way,” Dr. Koga said. “The Technicians are certainly sly old foxes as far as faith is concerned, but the really formidable ones are the Quiet Women. The Technicians are trying to incorporate Patron in their own strategies, but there the Quiet Women beat them hands down. They’ve always been using Patron for their own purposes—before the Somersault and afterward.

  “This idea of falling into hell is something Patron originally came up with, but the Quiet Women made it out as Patron’s atonement for everyone, and they’ve repositioned Patron and Guide at the center of their faith. Depending on how you look at it, it’s been the Quiet Women who’ve kept Patron and Guide tied down. I would imagine that these past ten years it’s the Quiet Women who were their heaviest burden.”

  “I think Ikuo’s sensed this too,” Kizu said. “He’s formed ties with the Technicians—cooperating with them is another way of putting it, I suppose—to keep an eye on them so they don’t go off on their own. But he’s also been attending the Quiet Women’s prayer meetings along with the Fireflies.

  “Dancer went so far as to ask him whether he’s been spying on the Quiet Women for the Technicians, but what he’s really trying to pin down is what the Quiet Women are all about. Where they’re coming from, so to speak. Patron is very important to Ikuo. And he figures that the Quiet Women’s faith may be the path that will lead him to Patron.”

  “I agree with you there,” Dr. Koga said. “Ikuo has his own individual feelings about the transcendental, as you’ve said. As someone who’s been driven by inevitable circumstances to be with Patron, I can certainly understand that.

  “But a part of Ikuo still hasn’t decided whether Patron’s the one he seeks. As things stand now, parading Patron around all over the place may not get you anywhere. Ikuo’s keeping an eye on both the Technicians and the Quiet Women to make sure they don’t try something like that. Favoring the Young Fireflies may be his way of introducing a third force into the equation.”

  “I have no doubt that Ikuo views Patron as the person who can mediate for him with the Almighty,” Kizu said, “and he has an urgent reason for doing so, something I didn’t know about until recently.”

  Dr. Koga looked questioningly at Kizu, who didn’t go on. Sensing his reluctance, Dr. Koga changed the subject, though to something still related to Ikuo. “Ikuo told me once that Patron’s teachings before the Somersault had a strong Christian element, especially in the personalized view of the divine—though now the notion of the antichrist has appeared. Ikuo said that when h
e attended the Quiet Women’s prayer meeting there was an even stronger feeling of Christianity present. He wondered what that meant.

  “The Quiet Women were able to make it on their own for ten years because they got deeper into their own special doctrine of faith. After the Somersault, people from Protestant churches who specialize in deprogramming mind-controlled cult members approached them, but the women held firm. In other words, the doctrine they’d been taught by Patron was stronger than mainstream Christianity.

  “And now they’ve joined forces with the church Patron’s going to found here. They have no particular problems with Patron, even though he hasn’t withdrawn his Somersault, but I’m left wondering whether at some point in the near future they might not try to drag him back into this faith-minus-the-Somersault. To truly save Patron from hell.”

  “Do you think this upcoming summer conference Ikuo’s involved in will bring about any great changes?” Kizu asked.

  “I’m sure the Technicians, the Quiet Women, and the Fireflies all have their agendas,” Dr. Koga said, “which means that the office staff, too, who are at Patron’s beck and call, aren’t just sitting on their hands either.… And among the followers coming for the summer conference, the people from the Kansai headquarters already have a clear-cut idea of what they want: namely, that this first-ever national conference will clarify what direction the new church will be moving in.”

  Ms. Asuka appeared at the door of Kizu’s bedroom, dressed in a jersey dress with a broad neckline. A set of headphones hung on her bare shoulder blades as if to underscore to Kizu and Dr. Koga that she’d been listening to classical music on the radio while they were talking, instead of eavesdropping. Dr. Koga welcomed her cheerfully, for all the world like some still-youthful urban boy. As usual, Ms. Asuka had a faint neutral smile on her face, and her words were brusque.

  “I know I shouldn’t be saying this to a doctor,” she said, “but maybe visiting hours are about over?”

  “You’re very lucky, Professor Kizu,” Dr. Koga said, “to have such independent, thoughtful people helping you. I include Ikuo in this as well. Who is this?”

  “This is Ms. Asuka. She usually works in film production,” Kizu said, “and is going to be videotaping the summer conference.”

  2

  The next person to visit was Asa-san, wife of the former junior high school principal, who had helped Kizu with the aborted art school project. In the meanwhile they’d grown close.

  When Kizu had moved into the house, the leaves on the maple trees jutting out on the west side were still reddish purple but had now turned a light green. In the fall the leaves would no doubt change again. Faint drops had gathered on the small leaves and were now full-sized raindrops. A gentle drizzle had been falling intermittently from morning. Ikuo had dropped by between lunch and his afternoon appointments and was sitting with Kizu, both of them gazing out at the chilly blurred surface of the lake, when Asa-san showed up. They could hear her at the entrance passing over the presents she’d brought to Ms. Asuka, explaining how her husband had raised this and caught that—vegetables, Chinese citrons, freshwater trout. Ever since the former owner of this house passed away, she went on, they’d let the vegetation around it just grow, but she’d noticed that the boundary between the trees in the garden around the house and the trees and shrubs pushing down from the lower reaches of the forest was blurring and she couldn’t stand it, so she’d have her husband come over to do some serious pruning.

  When she entered the bedroom, Asa-san spoke the sort of old-fashioned greetings one paid to an ailing person. She told Ikuo how adults were quite pleased with the work that the Fireflies had done in restoring the grove of low bamboo bushes and the group of red pussy willows along the original shoreline inside the dam at the Yabe River. She then turned to the matter that had brought her here.

  “Since I have some connections with the church,” she said, “I’m somewhat worried about where it’s headed. I’d like to ask the opinion of Professor Kizu—someone living here who isn’t a church member. I’m particularly worried about the direction the Quiet Women are taking. It’s such a level-headed group, with highly educated people at the core, that I don’t feel it’s my place to say anything. But being the kind of women they are, if they do take action you can be sure they’ll be quite fanatic about it. That’s what worries me.”

  Kizu was immediately curious. Propped up in bed he noticed that Ikuo, too, sitting beyond the foot of the bed, wanted to hear more. Kizu had heard beforehand from Ms. Asuka of Asa-san’s visit. Perhaps Ikuo had also heard she was coming and had been standing by.

  “This is something I’ve been holding inside for quite a while,” Asa-san went on, “but the day before you returned from the clinic, when I attended the prayer vigil with Patron, I became even more concerned. I found the prayer itself at the meeting deeply moving. Ikuo and the Fireflies attended, so you may have already heard this, but I wanted you to hear my reaction.

  “Mrs. Shigeno gave the prayer preceding the sermon. Patron sat in his favorite barber’s chair while we all listened, Quiet Women and non-church members alike. It was all very nice and democratic. Then it was time for a performance of Morio’s music, so Ikuo got up and walked over to the piano, set up in front of where Patron was sitting. Morio went over with him, but after Ikuo had decided which pieces to play, Morio withdrew and sat down on the mechanical footrest of Patron’s chair.

  “I thought it was strange that Morio didn’t sit beside Ikuo to turn pages—don’t they do that in most concerts?—but pretty soon I realized why. When the music started, Morio buried his face in Patron’s shins, which were stretched out on the footrest. Ms. Tachibana, afraid maybe that her brother was having an attack, crouched down beside him. Before long Patron rested his hands on the tops of their two heads, both of which had the same round shape when you looked at them from behind.

  “When the music was over, before they went into the silent prayer time, Patron gave a short sermon from where he sat. He said that Morio had said the music they’d just heard ‘captured on paper the sound that echoes in the ears of one’s soul when it ascends to heaven at the end time.’ He said he heard this from Ms. Tachibana, ‘but as we listen to this music aren’t we all sharing the experience right here and now of ascending to heaven? This is a wonderful prelude to our prayers.

  “‘It’s meaningless,’ he went on, ‘to ask which is more real, the experience of ascending to heaven at the end of the world or what we’ve experienced through this music. Ms. Tachibana has taught me that the end time is both experienced countless times, and as a onetime event. I’d like you to really feel this, think deeply about it, live it.’

  “After Patron said this, a rustle of agreement rose up, especially from the Quiet Women, and the meeting moved into the prayer portion. But you know what? I couldn’t stand it!”

  Kizu and Ikuo were both startled and stared at her. Undeterred, everything about Asa-san revealed the unyielding stance of an old woman determined not to compromise. Despite the rainy-season cold blowing down from the forest, the skin around her eyes was flushed. Clearly struggling to suppress her emotions, though, a different sort of expression came over Asa-san’s sunburnt, freckled face.

  “I’ve worked hard to get you all accepted here, so I think I have the right to oppose something I don’t like that’s about to happen. And as someone who convinced the faction that opposed your move here, I’d say I have the duty to do so too. No doubt my husband would say that if something bad happens it’s due to my hastiness, but before it does I have to speak out. Professor, you keep your distance from the various groups within the church, so I thought you’re the best one to talk to about this. I’m sure Ikuo has a different way of looking at the situation, but I’m happy at least that you heard me out.”

  She was already getting to her feet. She didn’t seem to be expecting any quick and easy answers.

  A moment earlier they had heard Ms. Asuka welcoming a new visitor at the door. Kizu soon re
alized it was Gii. Ms. Asuka seemed to be holding the young man back until Asa-san stopped speaking.

  Asa-san turned to Gii, who was still standing in the entrance. (He had driven himself up, and Asa-san, as the wife of the former principal of the junior high, was about to give him some candid advice).

  “My, you certainly got up to the Hollow quickly!” she said. “Didn’t you just finish school? No matter how much you might want to see Ikuo, you young people are our future, you know, so you’d better be careful!” Then she left.

  3

  It was obvious that Gii wasn’t old enough to have a license, but everyone who mattered, from the authorities along the riverside to the patrolmen in the police station, turned a blind eye to the young man’s driving. Coming from the city, Ms. Asuka found it amusing that this little local community made an exception for Gii, though she was also, naturally enough, worried. As Gii walked into the room, her voice could be heard from behind him.

  “Don’t forget what Asa-san told you. Remember that council member who said if he gets on the bad side of you and your friends, the adults who have a weakness for children won’t support him in the election? It scares me to imagine what you’ll be like when you grow up.”

  “If I do grow up,” Gii said pointedly. “My mother apparently told Asa-san not to let me become too attached to Ikuo,” he went on to tell Kizu and the others as he came into the bedroom. “But she isn’t very logical most of the time.”

  “Asa-san’s logic is fine,” Ikuo scolded.

  Despite the scolding, Ikuo motioned Gii over to the seat vacated by Asa-san and turned to speak with Kizu, ignoring Gii in a relaxed guys-only way.

  “Early this morning,” Ikuo began, “I went to check out the extension to the piggery they’re building at the Farm. They’ve had to build it in the highest spot around because of the foul odor, and with the rain I wasn’t sure our little truck would make it up the slope. Right after I got there, one of their leaders, Mr. Hanawa, who accompanied those of us who came by train, asked me a question. I was impressed then by how attentive he seemed, but he also is a bit uncompromising, the way he won’t say a word to the Fireflies, for instance, even when he has them help out.”