Somersault

by Kenzaburo Oe

  Gii nodded in agreement.

  “What he asked me,” Ikuo went on, “was this: ‘Why is Patron so special to you? Here you are, building a barn for pigs up on the top of a ridge, but is he really worth all this?’ ‘How about you?’ I shot back, and he said that they’ve long seen Patron as their intermediary with God and they don’t recognize the Somersault as valid.

  “‘The first time you met Patron,’ he said, ‘was after the Somersault, when he wasn’t having any deep trances and was just an ordinary person, and even after you moved here with him all he’s done is give these evasive, fuzzy sermons. So where is the charisma to rouse people to a new faith? Except for the Sacred Wound. . .’

  “As I listened to Mr. Hanawa’s questions,” Ikuo said, “it struck me that maybe he thinks I’m a spy. All I could do, I figured, was tell him the truth.

  “‘When I was a child,’ I told him, ‘I heard a voice that had to be that of God. And when I was fourteen I definitely heard God’s voice, though my reaction to it left something to be desired. And when I was sixteen I thought now I would respond to it, and I did something that couldn’t be undone.

  “‘But now I don’t think I really heard God’s voice when I was sixteen; I’ve never heard it since. Perhaps this was for the best, since I was able to go on without it, but with graduation from college at hand, and my life’s work set out in front of me, I sensed that I couldn’t go on any more. If I didn’t return to the call I heard at fourteen, my life would be a sham.

  “‘When I awakened to this, I struggled with the idea, but I had no way of making the voice of God appear again. Established churches and cults were no help to me in my quest. Either they kicked me out or laughed at me, or else I was the one to wash my hands of them.

  “‘Just by chance, I ran across Patron and Guide, and here I am. I came here because I have the hope that Patron—connected to God until the Somersault—will be, to borrow your words, the intermediary for me with God. If it doesn’t work out, it wasn’t meant to be. But for me there’s no other choice.

  “‘I’m particularly drawn to the way Patron—all by himself—cut off the pipeline connecting him and God. For the past ten years all he’s done is suffer, as much as it’s humanly possible to suffer. Sometimes I think maybe this suffering has taken shape as his Sacred Wound.’

  “Once I’d finished saying all this, Mr. Hanawa asked me another question. ‘After the so-called Somersault, Patron apparently didn’t have any deep trances that brought him face-to-face with God. But from the beginning we didn’t accept the Somersault. We’re confident that before long Patron will become the mediator for God once more. We base this on our long experience living in the church. But how do you know,’ he asked me, ‘that the voice of God that Patron might transmit to you, and the voice of God you heard when you were a child telling you to do something that couldn’t be undone, are really one and the same?’

  “‘I learned that from all of you,” I answered. ‘When you pray, you Technicians always have religious texts from a lot of different religions with you; sometimes you even quote from books by scientists—in your case, Mr. Hanawa, it was a mathematics book, wasn’t it? Dr. Koga told me that this stems from your conviction that, quite simply, God is one.

  “‘I feel exactly the same way. They’re all one and the same: the God whose call messed me up as a child, Patron and Guide’s God whom they made a fool of and yet clung to as they suffered. And the God that Jonah debated thousands of years ago.’”

  “How did Mr. Hanawa react? And the Technicians?” Kizu asked.

  “They just laughed.”

  “Damn them!” Gii said angrily.

  Ignoring this, Ikuo went on. “If they don’t kick me out as a spy, the preparations for the summer conference should go smoothly. I just hope the Quiet Women see things the same way.”

  That evening, as she served dinner, Ms. Asuka butted in, something she rarely did. “I think Ikuo went into such detail about his conversation with the Technicians because he wanted to educate Gii,” she said. “I think he’s quite considerate in that way. Mr. Hanawa might be too, for all we know.”

  “When Ikuo came to work for Patron at the Tokyo office,” Kizu said, “and even when he moved here, I don’t think he knew what it was he sought from Patron. It was still taking shape within him. He gets worked up; that’s why he talks so much.”

  “But if you go to the dining hall,” Ms. Asuka said, “you’ll find out it’s not just Ikuo who’s excited. It’s like everyone’s a smoldering fire. Patron’s wound was what started it all, though your symptoms, too, Professor, were a factor. There’s a palpable urgency in the air.

  “Asa-san seemed tense too, today, when she came to see me. She had told me that the first thing she wanted to talk to you about, Professor, was her worries over the Quiet Women. I think you need to talk one-on-one with Patron about this excitement that’s taken hold of the Hollow. I’ve just moved here, so everything is quite strange to me, but I agree with Asa-san. There’s something about it I just don’t like.”

  Ms. Asuka looked down as she refilled Kizu’s coffee cup on the tray, and as she did so her profile, now cleansed of the greasepaintlike make-up she used in her former life, looked graceful. Her usual smile was missing as well, the smile that downplayed whatever she’d just said.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have the strength to make it over to the south shore,” Kizu said.

  “Then let’s have Patron come over here. When I pressed Dancer about when Patron would be posing for you again, she said it all depended on your condition.”

  “Have you been able to meet with Patron directly?” Kizu asked.

  “I’m sure people will think I’m a hopelessly pushy woman, but I asked permission through Dancer and was allowed to videotape Patron’s Sacred Wound. It was my first job since I came here. On the tape, Patron is naked from the waist up and Morio is wiping the wound with gauze that has a penicillin ointment on it. The outlines of the Sacred Wound are quite distinct, kind of a kitschy color, and the whole thing’s quite wonderful. As I filmed I was able to talk with Patron and learned something surprising. I thought he’d already started the new church, but he said he hasn’t yet.”

  “Since we moved to the Hollow, Patron’s said quite a lot about the new church, though,” Kizu said. “The Technicians are busy with their own work, the Quiet Women are getting deeper into the sort of prayer meetings that have Asa-san worried, and I must admit I interpreted all this activity in the same way as you—that the new church had already been established.”

  “Patron seems to want to use the summer conference as the venue for officially launching the new church,” Ms. Asuka said. “The office has the same idea, and Ikuo has talked with me about recording the whole conference on video. Though we’d have to budget for people to handle the sound and the lights.”

  “There aren’t many days left, but maybe Patron’s planning something really remarkable for the summer conference,” Kizu said. “Maybe all the excitement that’s swirled up since people found out about the Sacred Wound has had an influence on him. I guess I’d better hurry up and finish my triptych.”

  “I’ll go talk with the office staff, then, about having him come over to your studio to model. This Sacred Wound fever even seems to be getting to me, doesn’t it?”

  4

  If tomorrow there’s a break in the rainy season and it’s warm and sunny, I’ll come to your studio to model for you. Patron had entrusted this message to Ms. Asuka, on her way home after lunch the next day, much to Kizu’s surprise. The weather was fine the next day, and though the surface of the lake, bloated by the rains, was a dirty brown, it clearly reflected the cylindrical chapel and the long walls of the monastery.

  Early that morning a large ruddy-faced man with cropped white hair showed up on the north shore and with steady strides made a circuit of the grounds around the house. He seemed to be appraising the trees, washed to a brilliant green by the rains that had only ended two days before, a
nd when his gaze met that of Kizu, who was reading in bed, they nodded a greeting to each other. The man was Asa-san’s husband, the former principal of the junior high school, who’d come to trim around the house. He looked a little chilly in his long-sleeved high-collared shirt, but once he started working he had to wipe the sweat away with the towel draped around his neck.

  He started by pruning the trees visible from the window that faced the lake. As he trimmed, the rich white flowers of the camellia and the pomegranate, the latter a faded light purple due to lack of sunshine, emerged from the overgrown clump of greenery. Next year, Kizu thought, I won’t be around to see these flowers. He turned his gaze outside from time to time, to find the petals of the camellias, wrapped in pods and now exposed to the sun, trimmed in a neat horizontal line that was attractive enough, but lacking its previous otherworldly feeling.

  In the afternoon Ms. Asuka threw open the window facing the lake to see how warm it had gotten, and the room was filled with the volatile fragrance of newly cut branches. For the first time since his most recent illness, Kizu had on the jeans and loose cotton shirt he favored when doing some serious drawing.

  Patron arrived at Kizu’s house at two-twenty. It had taken exactly twenty minutes for him to go from the south shore along the weir and up the slope on the north shore. Patron had been less concerned, it appeared, about his own physical condition than that of Morio, whose legs were slightly impaired.

  Patron was in the best shape he’d been in in quite some time, and emotionally upbeat as well. Kizu had always thought of himself and Patron as virtual contemporaries, but now he had to admit that he was no match for Patron when it came to vitality. Patron had changed into summer clothing, which also added to this impression. Below the stiff collar a deep U-shaped depression was visible, and his maroon shirt stood out under his ice blue jacket. Morio wore an identical set of clothes.

  “I’ve really been looking forward to modeling for you,” Patron said, by way of greeting. “Now that I see you I realize you’re fit enough to go back to painting. Shall I sit down here? The sun was so warm I’ll be glad to get out of this jacket and shirt. You don’t want me completely nude, do you?”

  Morio smiled happily as if he’d just heard an amusing joke. Ms. Asuka took Patron’s jacket to the bedroom and then adjusted the chair and footstool for him. As he checked the reflected light off the lake, Kizu adjusted the cushion at Patron’s back, while Ms. Asuka brought in another chair for Morio.

  Preparations went smoothly, but when they reached the point where Patron was about to remove his shirt and tank top, Kizu couldn’t help but tense up. Patron, though, cheerfully stripped down, removed the palm-sized gauze covering his wound, wrapped it up in fluttering strips of surgical tape, and tossed it on Morio’s lap. Morio took out a plastic bag from his pocket and stuffed the gauze inside.

  “This is the first time I’ve been able to get a good look all the way to the bottom of the wound,” Patron remarked. “The antibiotic Dr. Koga gave me seems to be working. Before, I just had this vague notion of the hole being a certain size, wider than it is deep, but now I can see it’s heading straight for the heart. I asked Dr. Koga about this and he said it’s only to be expected—seeing as how it’s a sacred wound.

  “Well, how would you like me to pose? I understand I’m supposed to supplement Ikuo’s Jonah.”

  “Just sit facing me is fine,” Kizu replied, and began sketching. Ms. Asuka stood behind Kizu, videotaping the proceedings. The video camera was completely silent and didn’t bother Kizu. After some twenty minutes Patron spoke up.

  “Modeling’s hard if you don’t talk. The last time you sketched me I was only half conscious. Is it all right to talk?”

  “That’d be fine,” Kizu said. “Though I’ll mostly listen, if you don’t mind.”

  “Seeing you after such a long time reminded me of something I’d wanted to tell you,” Patron said. “It’s delightful to have such a diligent listener.”

  Patron spoke smoothly and cheerily, though his topic was quite serious. Kizu had somehow sensed that it would be.

  “At the memorial service for Guide, I announced I was starting a new church. You’ll recall how I also said that I’m one of the countless antichrists who will appear at the end of the world and vowed to oversee this new church as one of these antichrists. I didn’t just blurt this out. It’s something I’ve been pondering for the past decade. It’s not surprising that I restart my church as an antichrist, but I was pretty worked up when I said it, and it’s placed me in quite a predicament. It would be a lot easier if I’d kept this idea of being an antichrist to myself.

  “So I had to think and think about the best way to rebuild the church. The process of moving here after the memorial service, getting everything ready, is very likely the final obstacle in my ten years of being in hell. Guide isn’t with me, yet things are moving forward. I felt driven into a corner.”

  Listening to all this as he sketched, Kizu noticed Morio, seated diagonally in front of him, begin to stir. His whole body, not just his legs, was impaired, but his movements were always natural. Kizu was a moment late in sensing that something was wrong, but Patron responded immediately.

  “I’m afraid I’ve said something to worry you, Morio. I’m just remembering the suffering I’ve had and am telling Professor Kizu about it, that’s all.”

  “You’ve posed long enough—that’s plenty,” Kizu said, for the sake of Morio, who still looked up worriedly at the half-naked Patron. “I’d be happy if we could discuss how this sketch might be incorporated into the triptych.”

  As Patron slipped down from the high chair, Ms. Asuka passed him a freshly laundered dressing gown, helped Morio up, and led them to the dining table, which had been set up in the bedroom. Tea and pound cake awaited them. As the guests settled into their seats, Ms. Asuka brought the hot water for tea, while Kizu took the triptych panels down from the easel and lined them up in front of the partition. As he did so, Ms. Asuka said, “Why don’t you lie down on the bed and talk? Painting wears you out. You look pale.”

  Looking back on it later, Kizu realized it was at this point that something strange was starting to take place in his body. He reluctantly did as she said, though he wasn’t about to let go of the excitement he’d felt since morning or this chance to talk with Patron.

  “The foreground of the middle panel shows Ikuo as Jonah. Are you planning to use my image in the open part on the left?” Patron asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “In other words, I’ll be depicted as the Lord?”

  “Since that’s who Jonah quarrels with, yes, it would be the Lord, though my conception has changed a little since I first started. It doesn’t have to be the Lord, exactly, though it does have to be someone who transmits God’s will to Jonah.”

  “And he goes to all the trouble of showing this wound in his side to convince Jonah?”

  “Rather than the biblical Jonah, I’m starting to see it more as the Ikuo-as-Jonah image the Young Fireflies have, Ikuo as the young man awaiting God’s intermediary to give him the word to act.”

  “Since I’m less a model for God than for an antichrist,” Patron said, “even if I tell him to act it makes it a complicated sort of instruction, doesn’t it? If you show the antichrist here with a wound in his side debating with Jonah, it’s like you’re depicting this young man as seeing beyond the antichrist to God. This Jonah gives you the feeling that’s entirely possible, what with that inscrutable look on his face.”

  “You’re very perceptive,” Kizu said, his comment heartfelt.

  “This is changing the subject,” Patron said, “but when Dr. Koga came to check on me, Asa-san came with him to see how I was doing. This was when you were in the clinic, Professor. I mentioned earlier about the depth and width of the wound, but Dr. Koga said this: There are still reports of women and children in Mexico and the Philippines having these kinds of spontaneous wounds, but they’re always superficial. In my case, though, less
than half an inch deeper and it might have been fatal.

  “And then Asa-san told me this: Brother Gii was an amateur scholar of Dante’s Divine Comedy, and he told her there were all sorts of issues involved when the heretic Cato the African committed suicide and was then appointed gatekeeper of the island of Purgatory. According to Plutarch, Cato cut open his own belly and then had a doctor friend sew it back up, only to cut it again himself and commit suicide.

  “‘I can’t explain it well,’ she went on, ‘but for Patron to make his own wound worse in order to die—it’s doubly, triply wrong. You can’t let that happen!’ Once she decides to say something, Asa-san’s the kind of person who can get pretty adamant.”

  Patron laughed out loud. Unable to join him, Kizu turned a confused smile toward Ms. Asuka. He couldn’t even give a forced laugh, for he was already feeling the rumblings of something uncontrollable happening inside him.

  Finding it impossible to follow Patron’s loquaciousness, and so that Patron wouldn’t misinterpret his tense expression, Kizu turned to look out the window. The white camellia flowers were in full bloom, but with the yellow pistils jutting out, as if seeking something, the flowers struck him as disagreeable. He could no longer deal pleasantly with people and things outside him; his entire world was measured solely by the tension rising up in his gut.…

  Memories of his recent bout with disease let him know what to expect next, though he knew this time the pain would be even fiercer. Kizu turned his restless eyes back to the room and saw that only Morio, silently, was watching him closely. Patron was deep in conversation with Ms. Asuka, but to Kizu their voices blended into one.