Somersault

by Kenzaburo Oe

  “Anyway, it was left to the experts on nuclear issues at the Izu Institute to figure out how to shake Japan and the Japanese people’s fixed ideas about nuclear power by figuring out which nuclear plant they should target and what scale of accident they should cause. The radical faction’s plans weren’t just some pie-in-the-sky idea but went as far as suggesting a complete destruction of all the nuclear power plants concentrated on the Japan Sea coast—in order to set off the end of the world.

  “The assassinations were a much simpler affair. Members of the radical faction planned to assassinate top leaders in the government, the bureaucracy, and the financial world. The assassins would all officially resign from the church so they could take individual responsibility for their acts. They did, though, curry favor with a citizens’ relief organization by making contributions so they’d help out in court. They came up with a long detailed list of targets. The list of bureaucrats was compiled by a fellow who graduated from the law department at Tokyo University. The list was confiscated later, but the authorities and police never made it public. They were afraid of the effect it might have if the media ever got hold of it.

  “A hundred assassins murdering a hundred leaders in a short space of time. Accidents at two or three nuclear power plants. Once this was done the church members would all take to the streets to announce the coming end of the world and set off an all-out insurrection. Imagine how dangerous it would be, and how much courage it would take, at a time like that to be out on a street corner seeking repentance. Insurrection wouldn’t just be some vague term anymore. Then, with no leadership in place and the government paralyzed, they would establish their millennial reign of repentance. Actually, one or two years would be enough, because it wouldn’t survive Armageddon. In the final analysis it would be a reign of repentance that focused on the end time: in other words, on dying and ascending to heaven.

  “Since the Kansai headquarters followers were to be mobilized in this all-out insurrection too, I didn’t know what to do. This morning I looked at the triptych hanging in the chapel, and I know it’s based on the book of Jonah, but looking at the background of Nineveh up in flames I remembered the fear that gripped me back then.

  “The whole church felt cornered by this crisis, because if you followed the church’s doctrine you couldn’t very well oppose this plan. That was the situation. In my opinion Patron’s Somersault was the appropriate response. The reason the followers at the Kansai headquarters didn’t feel their faith shaken was because we made sure all our members understood that the drastic reaction of the Somersault was necessary to put an end to the radical faction’s violence. Patron and Guide, who made this painful decision and thereby saved the followers from being entangled in the radical faction, would take responsibility through the Somersault but would, after a time, rebuild the church. This is what we all believed.”

  5

  Just as a chilly damp wind blew in through the window on the valley side, raindrops began to pound on the slate roof. In the far corner of the wooden floor, the former junior high principal stepped down to the dirt floor and shut all the windows he could reach and, turning a handle, shut the windows higher up as well. From deep inside the fuigo the roar of the wind from the forest flowed back in. As the former junior high principal approached the dirt floor, he came over to the piece of wood along the entrance, one step lower than the sunken hearth, and waited for the four people seated around the hearth to turn their attention to him.

  When they did, he pointed toward the little kamidana shrine farthest back in the dirt-floor kitchen above the stove with its old-style tiles. A moment later he called their attention to a kind of box like a sea chest in the shadows of the shrine.

  “This is where Meisuke-san is enshrined,” he told them. “A second kamidana, as we say here. You’ll be seeing this in the Spirit Festival procession, but there are two kami—gods—one in a light place, the other in a dark place, and Meisuke-san represents the second kind. He was the leader of the first of two insurrections around the time of the Meiji Restoration, died an untimely death, and was enshrined here.

  “I think it’s significant that a person like that can become a kami, so I don’t feel like criticizing the extreme tactics your church was unable to put into practice. Truthfully, when you get to my age the idea of a millennial kingdom that focuses on repentance is quite an attractive notion. However, there is one practical fact I’d like you to be aware of. Not far from here is the Agawa nuclear power plant. I have nothing to say about some new blood brotherhood pledged to carry out terrorist assassinations, but if the remnants of the radical faction dust off their plans and try to blow up the Agawa nuclear plant, I don’t care what it takes, I will stop them. It’s only twenty-five miles from the power plant to Maki Town. As the crow flies—but radiation won’t neatly follow all the winding mountain roads in order to get here!

  “The buildings in the Hollow were first built by the Church of the Flaming Green Tree, which was quite active for a short time. The peak of their activity was when the congregation all marched out of the Hollow to this very nuclear power plant. When they arrived, all of them, from the Founder down, prayed, and the plant suddenly shut down. There must have been some small malfunction or something.

  “In your case, those who were followers before the Somersault make up the core of the new church. I heard from my wife that Patron’s policy is to accept even the former radical faction. Most churches end up excluding a minority. They push one group to the point where they end up creating a small extremist faction. This sort of intolerance is a common fault of movements in this country, so my wife was quite impressed by your church’s level of forbearance. I’d like to be a tolerant person myself. But there is an absolute line beyond which tolerance is impossible.

  “I respect people who are preparing for the end of the world, I really do. And I feel the same way about believers who value a millennial reign of repentance more than their own lives. I’d like to return the vegetation and plant life around here to the way it used to be and put a brake on the decline in the local people’s diet. I’m just a simple old man, but in a way I do think about the end of the world. But if the former radical faction attempts to collect on their old IOUs, then as I just said you can be sure I will put a stop to it.”

  His hair was white as an old man’s but full, and he shook his head to punctuate each phrase. Her prominent freckled cheeks shining, Asa-san took up where her husband left off.

  “My husband did the cooking tonight in order to let you talk freely without being under the watchful ears of the local women. Another reason was he wanted the chance to tell you his opinion—as he just did! He’s had a bit too much to drink, but it hasn’t affected him, and I know he gave this some careful thought. Even if you hadn’t come here, there still would be a history of Patron, Guide, and the church, wouldn’t there, before and after the Somersault? My husband and my history can’t be separated from this land here. The Former Brother Gii’s Base Movement, the New Brother Gii’s Church of the Flaming Green Tree—these are all part of the history of this land.”

  “Don’t forget Meisuke-san’s insurrection,” her husband added, now definitely showing signs of drunkenness.

  “There’s this history that clings to the land,” Asa-san went on, “but this doesn’t mean that history repeats itself. My older brother, who’s a novelist, has written that most things people do is a kind of repetition-with-slippage. Not just a simple repetition, in other words. Starting with the two insurrections connected with Meisuke-san, through the Base Movement of Former Brother Gii to New Brother Gii’s Church of the Flaming Green Tree, each one was a repetition-with slippage. The slippage, then, is productive.

  “And now here’s Patron and all of you about to build your new church in this land. It’s possible to see it as a repetition of previous events. Or maybe a repetition of things you all have done elsewhere. Either way, it will end up a repetition-with-slippage. In other words, there will be new elements in wh
atever you end up doing. As my husband was lamenting, your church shouldn’t just have to repeat what it was trying to do before the Somersault.”

  An emotion appeared in Dr. Koga’s eyes, now even more dark and shining than usual, and as Asa-san paused he called out to her.

  “Ma’am, I think the principal and you are truly outstanding people. When I opened the clinic here I had the same misgivings the principal spoke of. But wouldn’t it be a little too obvious if the remnants of the former radical faction tried to deceive Patron once again into doing what they planned before the Somersault? For the time being I’m relieved that Patron has put forth his concept of the Church of the New Man. That’s the slippage you spoke of. He’s an obstinate person. He isn’t criticizing his own role in the Somersault, nor is he going to set the clock back to before the Somersault. He’s trying to introduce some slippage.”

  “The liquor’s gotten to me, I’m afraid,” Mr. Soda said, “and I can’t make any proper comment, but I do agree with Dr. Koga that the slippage that Patron has carved out over the past decade is powerful. As long as that holds true, we at the Kansai headquarters made the right decision to lay the groundwork for him here.

  “What do you say we follow the principal’s lead and go down to the floor level? The space below Meisuke-san’s kamidana was wasted space, so we made a cellar for storing sake. It’s a wine cellar, but we also have some very nice whiskey there. It would appear that we haven’t maintained the good drinking habits of the Base Movement, after all. Would you join me for a drink? Koga, be a good guy and bring some glasses for us. There’s water in the cellar.”

  “I’ll take care of the glasses,” Asa-san said in a spirited voice. The former principal told her to rinse them out first, so she went over to the sink to do what he said.

  Mr. Soda turned on a light in the dirt-floored area and the four men, looking down through the window that looked out over the valley and the shiny rain-dewed leaves of the nearby branches of the birches and elms just outside, sat down in a row and began to drink their whiskey and water. The former principal expounded on the topic of the island region where this malt whiskey originated.

  For the first time Mr. Soda expressed his reaction to seeing Kizu’s triptych. “Dancer sent me an e-mail saying that Patron quoted from the letter to the Ephesians. I reread it myself, and it says, ‘He has made the two one and has destroyed the dividing wall of hostility through his own flesh,’ right? When I saw your painting in the chapel, Professor, I thought it shows exactly that: the Old Man and the New Man in one painting. Old Men like us still want to have hope, don’t we?”

  “That’s right, Mr. Soda. Guide died as one of the Old Men, and even though we’re all Old Men ourselves, we want to believe we can coexist with the New Men.”

  Dr. Koga, too, was starting to show signs of being drunk, and when Asasan, who’d quickly finished the dishes, slipped on her sandals and joined them, he reverently poured out some whiskey into a new glass for her, asking how much water she’d like.

  31: The Summer Conference

  1

  Registration was to begin at 10 A.M., on the first Friday in August, at the temporary office set up below the dam. Under the clear sky a line had already formed before seven. Kizu heard that by the time the official registration began, the line extended all the way to where it could be seen from the Mansion, where Mr. Soda was staying.

  The temporary office was set up in the square below the dam with two red and green vertically striped tents that looked like overturned bowls. A festive summery feeling swept through the line of people, making the atmosphere all the more lively.

  Ms. Asuka brought over a Fruit of the Rain Tree lunch box and soup in a paper container for Kizu and was uncharacteristically excited as she reported that by afternoon the number of registrants had topped five hundred. Events planned included the Fireflies on Friday night and their Spirit Procession on Sunday afternoon, followed by Patron’s public sermon, all of which could be seen from the bleachers set up on the newly prepared path around the lake in the Hollow. Plans for the conference were based on the number of seats there, including areas for people to stand. Sightseers from Maki Town and surrounding areas, however, were allowed free entrance without registering.

  Registration cards with numbers were distributed that allowed participants free access to the dining hall in the monastery and to the chapel to view Kizu’s triptych. Having people register was a way for those who’d dropped out of the church after the Somersault to declare their intentions now that the new church was about to be launched.

  The office estimated that over seven hundred people would register on the first day, and since they’d all come from far away there was a need to find lodgings beyond what had already been arranged. They checked at the Maki Town Inn and other Japanese inns that they’d originally left off their list because of the price. They also had to increase the number of shuttle buses taking people from their lodgings to the Hollow. Followers who’d arrived ahead of time helped out as volunteers at the temporary office, but the whole first day was chaotic, to say the least.

  “Patron’s public sermon of course will be one of the highlights, but the small-group meetings tomorrow and the next day at the monastery, where people will talk about their sufferings over the past decade, seem quite popular as well. The Quiet Women are running those.

  “Other followers who haven’t gotten in touch with us have talked with their former fellows in the church and will be holding their own independently organized small meetings,” Ms. Asuka added. “The office has to find rooms for the meetings, so we’ve asked the Farm, the Mansion, and Fushoku temple to provide space, and we’ve had to increase the number of smaller gatherings. Dancer’s been very quick to take on this task and is quite the negotiator.”

  There was one more important reason that brought Ms. Asuka to walk up to Kizu’s house on the north shore of the Hollow. Among the people who registered were those with no previous or present connection with the church, she reported, but who were cancer patients or family members of those who were too ill to make the trip. They wanted to be cured by Patron—or at least have him agree to try—and also hoped to hear directly from Kizu about his miraculous experience.

  It would be impossible to have Patron do anything like that while the conference was in session, and Kizu couldn’t be asked to participate in all these small-group meetings. Patron wouldn’t be participating in the press conference the following day, but could Kizu attend and say a few words? He couldn’t say no.

  Ms. Asuka did everything with great enthusiasm. Undaunted by the heat, she was dressed in short-sleeved khaki work clothes and high laced shoes. She also talked about how she’d been allowed to videotape the Fireflies’ procession scheduled for that evening.

  “Asa-san told me that the Fireflies are children who carry lanterns with candles in them, and other children carry extra candles, and they all climb up into the woods with some object that a soul has been transferred into, which they lay at the base of a selected tree. These small lights moving through the forest are hard to see, and it would take a lot of time, so I’d given up on trying to film it.

  “But what happened was the Maki police and fire department said they wouldn’t allow children to play with fire like that, so Gii drew up a revised plan, and they were given the go-ahead. Which also made it possible to videotape it. I can really see why Ikuo expects great things of Gii!”

  The twilight sky was still brightly reflected on the lake’s surface, though the woods were completely dark, when Kizu heard Dancer’s voice from speakers on the island in the middle of the lake giving an explanation of the Young Fireflies. Kizu sprayed insect repellent all over his arms and legs, turned out the houselights, and sat down in front of the open window to watch the proceedings.

  Before long, as the sky was just losing its reddish tint and the chapel, monastery, and dam sank into the gloom, two groups of children, one quite young, the other junior high age, appeared in front of the revi
ewing stands, where they put lighted candles inside lanterns. As they descended from the stands, illuminated by the lanterns, the bobbing lights flickered on the lake’s surface, drawing a sigh of admiration from the crowds of onlookers on the darkened shores.

  The two groups with their lanterns made it safely up the stairs from the dam. Just as they were about to step onto the flagstone path, though, the lantern lights disappointedly vanished. A sigh went up again from the crowd, along with laughter. A moment later, though, lights reappeared, the same lanterns as before, it seemed, on the slope in back at the same height as the chapel roof; they moved horizontally toward the east, dipping in and out of view in the thick foliage. As soon as it seemed they’d vanished completely in even denser foliage, they’d pop up a few moments later at the same height, farther along the course they were taking to the slopes of the east bank, like some persistent beast moving in the night.

  Fellow Fireflies no doubt awaited them farther down the path they all followed in their morning training sessions. The leader of the whole procession, situated in a spot where he could see all the proceedings—Gii, who had crossed over to the island with its cypress tree—would signal to all the kids on the ubiquitous beepers junior high school children all carried, and have them remove the covers from their lanterns and set off once again.

  Kizu was interpreting the proceedings this way when the Fireflies procession turned to the north slope and left his field of vision. He groped his way to the kitchen, opened the fridge, found a can of beer in the lighted interior, popped it, and returned to his chair. As he drank, he waited for the procession to arrive back at the dam and again make its way to the reviewing stands. Gii must have found it too simple to have them settle the soul at the base of a tree way up in the forest, everything taking place in the dark.