Somersault

by Kenzaburo Oe

  A lot of lessons learned today, Kizu mused. All he had to do was remove his trousers. Back in his pajamas, he laid his drunken body down to rest.

  30: Memories of Guide

  1

  It was decided to hold the summer conference the first week of August, with registration beginning on Friday morning and the conference running through Sunday at the Hollow. A preliminary meeting was scheduled for July 10 at the lodge run by Maki Town to explain the plans for the conference to the local authorities and some of the young leaders of the area, particularly those involved in the river preservation movement. Newspaper and TV reporters from Matsuyama were also slated to attend.

  On the day of the meeting Ogi remained behind in the office, though he and Dancer were the ones in charge of arranging the meeting. New members of the Fireflies, who had helped out the day Kizu was released from the hospital, were formed into a security squad, which was also put in charge of transportation to the Old Town. It took less than thirty minutes to drive from the Hollow to the lodge in the hills surrounding the basin where Maki Town lay. Still, with Patron participating, the security squad left nothing to chance and came up with a detailed plan.

  The car with Patron and Dancer was sandwiched in between two others, this followed by a minivan carrying Ms. Tachibana and Morio, Ms. Asuka, Dr. Koga, Mrs. Shigeno, and Mr. Hanawa (who was in charge of production at the Farm) and, bringing up the rear, Kizu in a car loaded with security squad members and with Gii in the front passenger seat.

  Maki Town had already had a hotel at the time a national soccer tournament was held there but built this lodge in addition; the word was that after that one tournament the place had never again been full. Now, though, all two hundred and fifty rooms were booked solid for the three-day conference. The head of the Kansai headquarters of the church, Mr. Soda, had been in charge of construction of the lodge and had close connections with the town leaders.

  A banquet hall, spacious enough for a wedding reception, was set aside for the meeting. In front of the chairs lined up on the main floor was a low raised platform for the church members to sit on. The media were assigned seats behind the town authorities and other interested parties.

  The mayor made a few opening remarks, and then Dr. Koga, seated on the dais between Patron and Dancer, took the microphone.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we are the Church of the New Man, the name given to the church by the leader we call Patron. This summer conference has given us the opportunity to meet with the town authorities and future local leaders. We are grateful to you, Mr. Mayor, and all of you, for taking time out of your busy schedules to join us today; we’re also joined today by members of the media.

  “We’d like to proceed with a question-and-answer format. However, please be advised that Patron will not be directly answering any questions. In his stead, each of us will field questions based on our own area of expertise. Now I’d like to turn things over to the young woman called Dancer, her professional name within the church, who works most closely with Patron.”

  Dr. Koga started to pass the microphone to her in front of Patron, but she leaned back to take it from behind, and the audience burst out laughing. Kizu understood what a popular local figure Dr. Koga was through his work at the clinic in town.

  Dancer’s hair had been dyed by Mrs. Tagawa with brown mixed in with the natural black, and she had on an open-collared floral-print blouse.

  The comic role Dr. Koga had just played in this mix-up, and Dancer’s calm reaction, underscored all the more the dignified way in which she prepared to speak.

  “There is a reason Patron has on sunglasses,” she began. “Those of you in the media taking pictures, please refrain from using a flash.

  “The upcoming summer conference will be the first national meeting of the Church of the New Man, as well as an opportunity for the local community to get to know us, so Patron is preparing a sermon for the occasion. The concentration required for this is the same needed for the trances that used to be at the core of his religious activities and is one of the ascetic practices he’s engaged in at present.

  “Those of us in the inner circle of the church are eagerly anticipating Patron’s sermon, which will be the climax of the conference. We have the deepest gratitude and respect for Patron for undergoing the emotional and physical strain involved in concentrating as deeply as he is now. This intense concentration every day makes his eyes overly sensitive to light, thus the dark glasses. Despite this sensitivity, Patron has been kind enough to join us here today. He’s doing this because there are two points he’d like to make clear to you. They are as follows:

  “Item one is that our church is not being threatened by any opposing groups. I’m sure all of you have read this in the newspapers and elsewhere, but a combative stance by a radical faction over certain issues led to the sacrifice of a person very dear to us, Guide; these issues, however, have been partly resolved.

  “The so-called former radical faction, people who were at the Izu Research Institute, are here now, devoting themselves to building our new church. Dr. Koga is one of these people, which should give you an idea of the sort of group we’re talking about. So rest assured there’s no danger of any attack by an opposing group that will throw the summer conference into confusion. Nevertheless, we do want to take precautions regarding security. In this regard we’re receiving help from a local organization called the Fireflies.

  “Item two is that we do not intend to use the summer conference as the opportunity to proselytize or expand our church. The members who attend from all over Japan will not be remaining here after the conference.

  “Now I’d like to turn things over to Dr. Koga, who will handle the question-and-answer session.”

  “I’ve been working with the church’s farm production and Maki Town special products to come up with a plan to sell our goods in Matsuyama and the Kansai region,” said the first person to stand up and ask a question, a man Kizu had seen visiting the church. He owned a sake brewery and had participated in the movement of the Fireflies to restore the natural environment along the banks of the Kame and Maki rivers. “I’ve talked to quite a few people in the church, and I get the feeling that I can work with them. It felt like a regular church, with the Fireflies that were just mentioned often attending. Some parents were concerned about this and came to discuss it with me, so I checked things out. The conclusion I reached was that the Fireflies and the church are two independent groups that have an amicable relationship. My opinion of the Fireflies went way up, in fact, and we’re actually considering some joint projects.

  “What I’m hearing now, though, is that the church is solidifying itself around its existing core. Doesn’t this mean that it will exclude outsiders? And if that’s true, won’t this cause difficulties between the Farm and all of us? Instead of being cut off from their present loose connection with the church, won’t some of the Firefies think it’d be better for them to join an increasingly exclusive church? That’s what worries us.”

  The whole time she listened to the question, Dancer fixed her eyes on Patron. To Kizu, it didn’t appear that Patron was sending out any instructions. Dancer turned to face the questioner and, carefully choosing her words, replied.

  “Instead of expanding the church,” she said, “what we’d like to do is firm up our base, but we certainly don’t intend to get tied down by any kind of secretive way of doing things. In order that people can see this, we’re prepared to open our church conference to anyone.

  “We have great hopes for your joint work with the Farm. You’ve already taken a step in that direction, haven’t you? It’s true that the Fireflies and some of our members have a good relationship, and we’re thankful for that. The Fireflies don’t live in any church residences with us, though. They live at home, where they all have plenty of opportunity to speak freely with members of their own families. Not one of the Fireflies has approached us about joining the church.”

  One of the participants from the town, a
lively, ruddy-cheeked young woman who edited the town’s bulletin, Leaves from Maki, had a question.

  “In the program of events we received, the composer of the music for the conference is listed as a Mr. Morio Tachibana, is that right? I understand he’s mentally challenged, so who would be the arranger?”

  “Since the composer is right here, why don’t we have him answer that one directly?” Dr. Koga said, handing the microphone over to Ms. Tachibana.

  “Well, the arranger . . .” Morio muttered, the undulations in his gum line behind stiffened cheeks looking curiously small.

  The young woman inclined her flushed face, pondering how best to continue this conversation with a mentally challenged person.

  “No one has added anything to my brother’s music, nor does he allow anything to be taken out,” Ms. Tachibana said, point-blank.

  2

  Showing his irritation at the young woman editor’s attitude, one of the leaders of the TV crew that Kizu had encountered when he left the hospital broke in. “I’d like to ask about some of the church’s ideas. Patron created a church based on the notion that we must prepare for the end time. At the Somersault he denied this doctrine and declared it all a joke. Now that he’s creating a new church, does he still view the end of the world as a joke?”

  They had already decided who would field which questions, so Dancer stood up and changed seats with Mrs. Shigeno. With a composed, serene air, Mrs. Shigeno picked up the microphone.

  “Patron’s call for repentance in the face of the coming end of the world remains unchanged from before the Somersault,” she replied. “If this wasn’t so, how could he possibly build this new church? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that Patron does not believe now that the end of the world is coming on one particular day in one particular month in a set year in the twenty-first century.

  “Before the Somersault, Patron had divined that the day of wrath was to come on a fixed date, not unlike Nostradamus. And with this in mind he felt the need to call everyone to immediate repentance. Within the church some people appeared, saying that we should draw the day of wrath to us; we should work to bring it on. With the Somersault, though, Patron made it clear how erroneous this way of thinking was.

  “Still, the group in the church that I belong to, the Quiet Women, doesn’t discuss things in terms of the world gradually collapsing to the point of no return. The end of the world will take place on a single day sometime. As we pray for this day, that day will certainly become known to us. And that prayer itself is an act of repentance. We feel that the Church of the New Man must become a place where that sort of repentance can take place.”

  “What is Patron doing to prepare for the end of the world?” the reporter asked. “And how do you think about this as you pray?”

  “Patron may be trying not to lessen the pain of human beings on the day of wrath but to increase it,” Mrs. Shigeno said. “I think he’ll be active that day, gaining power from the source of that wrathful ether filling the air. Patron has declared that he is not the savior, something that must be painful in the extreme to say while he still has the Sacred Wound in his body. It was through the hell he fell into after the Somersault that he was able to establish this faith. Even now he is concentrating very hard on being the mediator for everyone as we approach the end of the world. And he’s created the Church of the New Man as the venue where this takes place.

  “The mistake that the radical faction committed, the ones who drove Patron to committing the Somersault, lay in their attempt to cause the end of the world to happen sooner, through their own efforts. But that’s not something human beings can or should do. The world itself will create its end. God, who is the whole world, will take care of this, rest assured. We learned this from Patron’s sermon, when we were able meet him again after the Somersault. Does this mean there’s nothing we can do for the sake of the end of the world? Of course not. We ourselves are a part of the world, and what is in our hearts is also part of God’s design. And through this we can actively participate in the end of the world. That is true repentance.

  “After Patron’s Somersault, we Quiet Women were struggling to find a way in which we could participate. We’ve been able to meet up with Patron again and live under his guidance, which has borne fruit in this new Church of the New Man. We feel blessed to be included in this official launch of the new church at the upcoming summer conference.”

  Mrs. Shigeno gave a charming little gesture, and a burst of applause followed. The applause came from the floor, from a group of interested local residents, but several of the church members sitting across from them also joined in, including Kizu. Dr. Koga, who didn’t join in the applause, leaned over to Kizu and said in a low voice, “Let’s not forget that the Quiet Women were also one of the sects that drove Patron to do the Somersault.”

  Dr. Koga then turned to face the audience and said, more loudly, “Our meeting here to discuss the upcoming summer conference of the Church of the New Man is now concluded.” He ignored a few raised hands from the reporters. “Details of the program for the conference are as stated in the handout.

  “Next on our schedule is a visit to the basement hot-springs pool, which had been closed and is now reopened for the use of our guests. It’s just been cleaned, and we’ve been invited to try it out today. Getting a little carried away, perhaps, we’d like you to see for yourselves Professor Kizu’s miraculous recovery that I know you’re all interested in. As a special favor to the TV crews, we’ve arranged to have Professor Kizu swim in the pool.

  “One other point. During the conference, the triptych that Professor Kizu painted of Patron’s Sacred Wound will be on public view in the chapel, and we encourage you to visit it.”

  Kizu preceded the participants, who had begun to get up, down to the basement. The pumped-up feeling he got he took as another sign of his recovery. As he was changing into his swimming suit, Ms. Tachibana came in, dressed like a woman swim-team member of a generation ago. She was guiding Morio. Unusually for her, she was telling him to get a move on. As Kizu scrutinized the scars from his two operations in the mirror, Ms. Tachibana said encouragingly, “If you keep a towel wrapped around your shoulders until you get in the pool, you’ll have nothing to worry about. You’re not planning on doing the backstroke, are you?”

  As he came out of the changing room and walked across the concrete floor where the shower nozzles were lined up on one side, Kizu recalled how the first thing he did when he came to stay in Japan was join an athletic club, and how it was at the drying room of the club that he had run across Ikuo again. So much had begun right there—and brought him here, to this point.

  The pool was in the basement, but since the lodge was on a slope the five lanes of the pool looked out a window to a stand of trees, and the cloudy sky still let in a lot of sunshine. Dr. Koga was already at poolside, having passed through the shower and the small pool one rinsed off in first; he carried a portable blood pressure monitor with him. Kizu wiped his dripping chest with his bath towel and Dr. Koga measured his blood pressure and heart rate. A long narrow row of seats along the mezzanine was filled with reporters and curious onlookers.

  After Dr. Koga reported that all the readouts were within normal range, Kizu did a few warm-up exercises and got in the pool. The water was warmer than he was used to, either in the on-campus pool in America he’d used for many years, or the pool in the Nakano athletic club. He adjusted his goggles and started doing the crawl, and though at the first turn he stopped momentarily, resting his hand on the edge before turning, his body took it all in stride and at the end of the next lap he changed to a quick flip turn.

  Kizu swam up and down in his lane. With a twinge of nostalgia he recalled how the term flip turn was actually an Americanism, something in keeping with the American character, he mused, while in French the same move was called saut périlleux—in other words, a somersault. Kizu was taking Patron’s place, performing one somersault after another to entertain the crowd, but he
didn’t mind.

  On his way back, as he turned to breathe he caught sight of the crowd of onlookers and Dr. Koga talking with the leader of the TV crew, who was leaning forward from the railing. He looked around for a moment at Kizu, then looked up again and shook his head decisively. The TV crew reacted casually to that and started to pack up to leave, though the rest of the crowd, including the young editor of the local bulletin, remained behind.

  Beside the pool Ms. Tachibana was still running Morio, palely chubby like a sweet rice cake, through some warm-up exercises. Kizu could tell that Ms. Tachibana had been on the swim team in both junior and senior high school, but actually what she ended up doing, after leisurely getting Morio in the water up to his shoulders and instructing him to walk up and down the lane, was begin swimming the breaststroke herself in the nearer lane, her form and powerful strokes impressive.

  Kizu stood up at the end of his lane and watched her swim. Dr. Koga was struck by her swimming too. After four or five laps, without missing a beat, Ms. Tachibana changed over to Morio’s lane. She skillfully had Morio float up, securing his body with a thin but muscular arm held around his chest up to his shoulders. Paddling with one hand and doing a scissors kick, Ms. Tachibana carried Morio over to the side. As if they were watching the masterly practice rescue of a drowning man, a stir of admiration rose from the mezzanine.

  3

  When August rolled around, the number of people coming to visit the Hollow suddenly shot way up and Kizu hesitated to leave his house. Mostly men and women in their late thirties, these newcomers would appear at the dam like a sudden summer rain, clamber up the flagstone pathway, and disappear into the monastery courtyard. Then they would walk back down to the east shore down the tunnel formed by the overhanging young leaves of the cherry trees at the eastern edge of the chapel, and along the corridor that had been made there. Some of them would look up at the summer sun reflected off the plastic globular canopy that had been attached to one side of the chapel’s dome, some would gaze off toward the giant cypress in the island on the lake, and others would slowly make their way closer to the studio window where Kizu stood observing them.