Somersault

by Kenzaburo Oe

  Even though the lanterns were far away, whenever they disappeared the dark forest and lake slipped back into monotony and the passage of time slowed down. As the crowd surrounding the lake looked up at the movement of the lanterns cutting across the north slope and descending ever lower, an occasional child’s shout could be heard, but otherwise no loud voices at all. The crowd of onlookers wasn’t just being patient, but awaited further developments with an air of great expectation.

  High up on the eastern slope a cuckoo called out, and another cuckoo answered. A kyororon-kyororon melody of some other bird Kizu heard quite often recently—a call that reminded him of a Vivaldi guitar concerto—echoed loudly across the still lakeside.

  Finally the lanterns began to ascend from the north corner of the dam. The young children holding the lights, and the junior high school pupils with them, lantern light glittering in the high water along the shore, marched on toward the reviewing stands. They turned their backs on the lake as they began to climb up the wooden stairs above the reviewing stands, and after a moment of darkness, the space above the stands was filled with the light from all the lanterns held by this crowd of children. Right above them was a banner, illuminated by their lanterns, that read: Church of the New Man.

  Music came from the speakers on the island, a melody Kizu recognized as Morio’s “Ascension,” parts 1 and 2. The burst of applause of the onlookers at this display of light quickly faded out of respect for the subdued music. Lights went on in the chapel and the monastery, and the lamppost outside went on as well. It was already past nine.

  2

  Friday night’s Fireflies procession was a resounding success. From early Saturday morning on, the people who gathered around the Hollow were abuzz with talk of how much they’d enjoyed it.

  Ogi was in charge of public relations for the conference, so he heard a lot of these opinions from people outside the church. One fiftyish man from the Old Town introduced himself, undaunted, as someone who’d been active in the movement opposing the move of the church to the Hollow, and came out with the following ambiguous words of praise:

  “I asked the deputy mayor why they allowed a procession like that carrying fire over such a wide area, and he said that although it was well planned by some young guy, the important thing was that one of the young people from the fire department was in charge, so they couldn’t very well call a halt to it! You all are very calculating in what you do, which I find rather frightening!”

  On Saturday at 9 A.M. a press conference was held in the dining hall of the monastery for all reporters, including foreign correspondents. Dancer got in touch with Ogi, underscoring her desire for all the leaders of the church, with the exception of Patron, to attend. Dancer herself would be busy at the office, responding to faxes and e-mails and anything unexpected that arose, and wouldn’t be able to participate.

  Ogi was to be the emcee at the press conference. The church representatives all sat together, their backs to the window looking out on the lake. Ogi was in the middle, Kizu on his right, and next to him was Ikuo, thin and haggard, who sat with his chair pushed back a little. He looked as if he wasn’t planning to make any comments but, if need be, was ready to help out.

  Next to Ikuo sat Dr. Koga and Mr. Hanawa of the Technicians, while on Ogi’s left sat Mr. Soda, Ms. Oyama of the Quiet Women, and finally Gii. Before the press conference began, Ms. Oyama was speaking with Mr. Soda in a low voice, but Kizu could catch what she said. Mr. Soda’s reply was to the question of the canceling of the Quiet Women’s children’s participation as a group. The women had been looking forward to spending the summer vacation with their children, but with the unexpected problems in finding lodging for all the conference participants, they’d decided at their prayer meeting to give up the idea of having their children join them.

  One of the people attending the press conference was Fred Parks, the reporter for the New York newspaper who’d originally told Kizu about the modern buildings in the Shikoku woods. In order to keep reporting from Tokyo, Fred was now a freelance journalist and had expanded his areas beyond the architecture and art fields.

  The middle-aged woman Fred had hired as an interpreter turned out to be Ogi’s old friend Mrs. Tsugane. Ogi was surprised to see her, but tracing back the connection it made sense that she was here. Ms. Asuka, official videographer of the summer conference, had invited members of the Moosbrugger Committee, and Mrs. Tsugane had answered the call. But since Ms. Asuka already had two assistants handling lighting and sound, Mrs. Tsugane had to find work elsewhere and had replied to a notice on the bulletin board in the monastery courtyard from a reporter seeking an interpreter. Since Ogi had last seen her, she’d divorced her architect husband, and she thought this would be a good opportunity to make some money to cover her traveling expenses.

  Just before the press conference started, as Ogi settled down in his emcee’s chair, a letter arrived for him, the envelope written on the Japanese washi paper that was a specialty of the Old Town, decorated with a woodblock print. The letter read:

  After not having seen you for so long, I’m so very pleased to see you’re doing well. I’m with a foreigner here to check out the local legends. I’m looking forward to the Spirit Procession today. I understand that if you go deep into the woods on the north side of the valley there’s a place called Sheath. In the local legends they say that’s another word for vagina. As the name implies, when young men and women go in there they can’t help but give in to sexual passion. Putting aside the question of whether I’m young enough to belong there, what do you say? It’s been a while. Why don’t we give our passions a run for their money? I was divorced not long ago, so any moral issue that might restrain you has vanished. I have some free time before Patron’s public sermon.

  You Know Who.

  The press conference began, the opening question coming from a female reporter, a third-generation Japanese named Karen Sato from the Los Angeles Times who was also helping a TV team with its coverage. She was in her mid-twenties, and her question was directed to Kizu.

  “Professor, since you’ve given lectures on cross-cultural symbolism, there’s something I’d like to ask you,” Ms. Sato said, in rapid-fire English, relying too much on what the publicity pamphlet said about Kizu’s background and his abilities in English. (Ikuo, who had sat beside Kizu for this very reason, could tell how nonplussed he was and explained basically what the woman had asked. Kizu was typical of his generation in that he could speak English but often had trouble catching what others said.)

  “I heard that the children carrying the chochin lanterns last night,” the woman continued, “went up into the woods carrying the souls of the dead. And that these souls return to the valley and enter the bodies of newborn babies. The souls, in other words, in a Neoplatonic way, travel back and forth between the profane world of the valley and the spiritual world of the mountains. But if the souls keep on doing this over and over, it reminds one of Buddhist transmigration. So do you interpret it, Professor, from a western or an oriental viewpoint?”

  “I know a little about Neoplatonism from the commentaries on Blake’s paintings,” Kizu replied, “where the soul when it ascends to heaven returns to God’s presence and a community of souls. According to the legends of this region, the soul rests in solitude at the base of the selected tree until the time comes for it to be reborn. In Buddhist transmigration, human souls are also reborn in animal bodies, which is different from souls being reborn inside newborn babies. I see the Young Fireflies’ view of life and death, based on the premodern life of the people of this region, as something quite unique.

  “Imagine, if you will, a solitary village springing up in the midst of a vast forest and coming up with its own legends as if it were a remote island. The souls of people who live in the village after physical death still remain in the forest that overlooks the valley. And they come down to the valley any number of times. I interpret it as the world of the living and the world of the dead forming, in this topogra
phy, a single unit.”

  “If it’s that unique a view of life and death, then I guess it is a religious philosophy, isn’t it?” the woman said. “As people with an anti-Japanese religious philosophy coming into the area and building a church, didn’t you experience opposition?”

  Ms. Sato’s question seemed to want to probe further. Ogi picked up the ball and responded.

  “I’ve heard that there was a movement among the townspeople to oppose our move,” he said, in the English he’d learned in college, “but since we’ve actually moved here there’s been next to nothing in the way of harassment.”

  “Your statement implies there was some. Could you give us some examples?”

  “Young people from along the river in the valley, and from hamlets in the forest, had formed a group to revive some of the cultural legends of the area. One element of this group made a sort of. . . installation in the chapel designed to menace us. But that was the end of it. There are almost no local people participating in our church, nor have we been proselytizing in the hope that they would join us. In fact, this conference is the first official opportunity for us to get together with the local community.”

  “I heard that last night’s wonderful demonstration was done by young people from the community,” the woman reporter went on. “Is this an exception, then, local people who participate in the church?”

  “That’s correct,” Ogi said. “And they aren’t members of the church, mind you. As you know, last night’s demonstration was a revival of an ancient rite. Actually they’re the group I was talking about that confronted us early on. The church is very pleased that now our relationship is on the right track. A representative of that group is here today, so why don’t you ask him directly?”

  Gii made an endearing yet not frivolous move, as if he were caving in and wanting to flee, which brought on a sympathetic burst of laughter from the others. Kizu wondered whether he was just pretending to have such a negative reaction to English, but Karen Sato accepted this at face value and added a final comment in Japanese to wind up her questions.

  “Your demonstration was—subarashikatta—wonderful!”

  3

  The next person who stood up to ask a question was a Japanese woman who looked to be in her late forties. She was dressed stylishly, but her manner was unassertive, and when she began to speak Kizu was struck by her tone of voice, deeply dyed as it was with an emotional and physical exhaustion resulting, no doubt, from the hardships she’d gone through.

  “Patron’s teachings have sustained me over the years,” the woman began. “So much so that at the time of the Somersault, when many people were all upset and left the church, I couldn’t understand why. After his trances, Patron and Guide would craft a message for us. Just hearing a fraction of this I knew how beautiful a person Patron was, how lovely his soul was, and I became a believer.

  “Then Patron announced that, though he’d been preaching repentance, he’d been mistaken, that the people of this country had no fundamental relationship with the God who was in charge of the end of the world. Borrowing the God that Westerners believe in, and thinking that we too must do something in order to show our repentance, was no different from children dressing up as adults and putting on a play. You can’t take it seriously, in other words. ‘And all I did,’ Patron went on, ‘was enjoy directing this little children’s play.’ He also said it was laughable that we thought—by acting out some cute little children’s play—that their God would deign to pay us a glance. When I saw this announcement on the TV news I thought, Ah, so that’s what’s been going on! Because I’d never felt comfortable with the western God, either.

  “Despite all this, though, I saw him—the laughingstock of Japan—as still a beautiful person, with a beautiful soul. Could anything be as painful as this: denying everything about yourself?

  “I accepted what he said, that everything he’d told us up till then had nothing to do with God. That being the case, a thought struck me. If those weren’t the words of God, they were still the words of a beautiful person, of a beautiful soul. Even if he said he’d only been fooling around, he had the right to do that. He said he knew he was crazy but he still kept on talking and talking, and if that’s the case I think he had even more right to fool around like he did.

  “I thought, it’s okay that I was so struck by this unsurpassed, even painful joking, by the words of this unhappy, crazed person. I even felt that what this world needs is a beautiful person just like him, a beautiful crazed soul. Once I’d decided that, my heart melted, and all I hoped was that Patron would be able to find a place where he could be free. And the Somersault no longer bothered me. I stayed in the church, holding dear to me the words that he’d given to us.

  “And now, just a little over ten years later, Patron is back. Guide met with a painful death, but that makes it even clearer to me how precious a person has returned. I’m so happy he’s survived to this point. The reason I could be so calm back then, I think, was because I had a premonition that, happily, things would work out as they have.

  “I don’t really have a question; I just wanted to tell you all of this. There is one more thing I’d like to say, though. Patron has come back to the Church of the New Man and we’re all together again, yet I find the attitude of some of the Quiet Women quite incomprehensible. Yesterday they all gathered in their rooms in the monastery and prayed. The curtains were all shut, the place was dark, and even if you wanted to talk with them you couldn’t because there were men standing guard at the door.

  “The same thing’s happening today. And tomorrow evening, when we’ll all be sitting around the lake listening to Patron’s sermon, aren’t the Quiet Women planning to take over the chapel to hold another prayer meeting?

  “The Technicians, who also moved here along with Patron, will be listening to the sermon along with everybody else in the stands around the lake. Why do the Quiet Women alone have these special privileges, and why do they ignore their former colleagues who’ve come from so far away? With the Church of the New Man about to be launched, is this really a good idea? I’m asking this for all the women believers from the Kansai headquarters, all of whom have their doubts about this.”

  Her question finished, the woman remained standing, awaiting a reply, and Ms. Oyama, who’d been taking notes, raised her head. Normally what struck Kizu about her was her strong-looking body and her no-nonsense look, but now she and the woman asking the questions seemed to share a common fatigue.

  “I’m not sure if I can give a satisfactory answer as a representative of the Quiet Women,” Ms. Oyama said, “but I’ll go ahead and try. Ms. Kajima, it’s so nice to see you after so long. I understand how you were able to maintain your religious life at the Kansai headquarters, and it’s through the efforts of you and others like you that we’re able to open our new church in such wonderful facilities. Seeing as how you’re the ones who’ve stayed in the church all along, it might be strange for me to say that I’m happy you’ve come here, but I do want to convey my heartfelt thanks to everyone who’s participating in the conference.

  “When those of us who share the same faith left the church and made the decision to live collectively, we were counting on your joining us. When, at the last moment, you decided not to, I must say we were quite bewildered. After the Somersault, when we were confused, doubting our faith, and suffering, it was you, Ms. Kajima, who encouraged us. With Patron and Guide no longer in the church, we were trying to live on our own, relying solely on our faith. Everyone believed you were crucial to our success. When we learned that you wouldn’t be joining us, several people actually dropped out of our group, and even after we started our communal life together as the Quiet Women, we never forgot you. We were distressed and talked over why you didn’t join us.”

  “I’d like to be allowed to explain,” said Ms. Kajima, who had remained standing. “Just a moment ago I said I felt it was completely up to Patron where he would go after the Somersault. Truthfully, though, I sti
ll had an attachment to him, which is why I grew close to your group, Ms. Oyama. I was convinced that you were still in secret contact with Patron and Guide and that, with no other place to go, they might join you at your commune.

  “The last day I was with your group, Mrs. Shigeno gave a sermon—I haven’t had a chance to see her here yet, but I’m happy to hear she’s well. I can never forget how she said she would never forgive Patron and Guide for having done the Somersault. She said that through their communal life they would get an even firmer grasp of the God that Patron and Guide rejected and would show them a thing or two. Everyone was quite stirred up by this.

  “I had no ill feelings toward Guide, of course, nor toward Patron. Even having done the Somersault, he was still a beautiful soul. At the same time, I saw him as someone forced to suffer to the point where the Somersault was unavoidable. But someday wouldn’t he come back to us? I kept the words he had told us in mind and tried not to be self-destructive. He said himself that it was all a joke, but once the words were out there, in the public domain as it were, they were mine to deal with as I felt best.… Just around that time I met Mr. Soda and heard that the Kansai headquarters was planning to keep the church organization going.

  “I’ll rephrase my question so a practical and bright person like yourself, Ms. Oyama, can answer directly. This is what I want to know: After the Somersault, what kind of spiritual process did the Quiet Women go through to forgive Patron and be able to rejoin him here and become part of his new church? Unless I know this, your secrecy will continue to bother me. I’d also like to ask the Technicians a similar question.”

  “We’ve managed to live our communal life for more than ten years now,” Ms. Oyama replied. “As you said, at first we did hate Patron and Guide. The power of hatred, in fact, helped bind us together. But in time we overcame those ill feelings, though I’m afraid it’s beyond my ability to analyze the process of how this happened. I say this because each person conquered her feelings in a different way, consistent with how she became converted and the way she had lived her life since.