Somersault

by Kenzaburo Oe

  Just as the Fireflies procession had been changed to a course running through the forest surrounding the lake on three sides, the procession in Part One of the Spirit Festival that started at 3 P.M. was also a revised performance. They took the path the Fireflies had run down from the western heights, cut across the northern slope to arrive at the eastern slope, and then came down the glen to arrive beside the chapel on the western slope. They then passed right in front of the spectators and went up to the dam. Once they’d climbed up to the grandstands, they descended again to the dam and the performance came to a conclusion, the participants disappearing off in the direction of the Mansion.

  Those who’d dressed as Spirits were now waiting in the Mansion for Part Two to begin. The Fireflies transporting the good Spirits would, following the legend, go clockwise up the forest. And the bad Spirits, again following the legend—since they were ominous souls who had met untimely deaths—would descend in counterclockwise fashion. The Fireflies who would be playing the Spirits had done their homework.

  Mr. Matsuo went on to describe each of the Spirits in detail, in particular the one called He Who Destroys, the person who first settled this area, and his woman companion, also a gigantic figure, named Oshikome. And the giant named Shirime—“Butthole Eye,” literally—an ostracized figure who, as his named implied, had a single eye looking out from between his buttocks. These were the Spirits handed down as myths, while the Spirits recorded in history included Meisuke-san, the one who led a peasant rebellion and was executed; a postwar woman in the village named Jin who, because of Okura disease, weighed 300 pounds; then Former Brother Gii; and last New Brother Gii, who founded the Church of the Flaming Green Tree. The papier-mâché dolls this year were particularly well made. The brand-new doll of Guide was especially impressive.

  Part Two of the Spirit Festival began at 7 P.M., right after the Quiet Women, ignoring all the protests, locked themselves in the chapel. In the Hollow, the twilight forest was dark, the sky alone painfully bright.

  As the procession set off from the Mansion, the rhythm started up that had pained Morio earlier—dan! dan-dan! dan! dan-dan! beat out on gongs and drums of different sizes—and as the musical part of the procession leading the way made its way up to the dam, the flutes, which had been out of sync, played in a lovely unison.

  The musicians were dressed in ancient kagura court-musician costumes with headgear—green and yellow, red and silver—and coronets on their heads. Their feet, though, were in canvas shoes, and the faces of the boys looked familiar. When they got to the grandstands they went beside them, lined up in a crescent shape, and continued the performance.

  Next, the Spirits came up the dam, each half again larger than life size. Eye holes and breathing holes were cut out of the chest area of each of the papier-mâché dolls. Clothes were put on over this, and some of the dolls carried spears and swords. Mr. Matsuo didn’t explain why, but Ogi could guess the stories behind them.

  After a while the Spirits, which had appeared at the dam in groups of three, passed in front of the grandstands, each with a unique way of walking that was part of the performance, and came down to the reserved special seating. Western-style boats and Japanese boats used in river fishing had come up beside the highest step, which was submerged in water, leading down from the dam. The Fireflies reached out to steady the boats, as the Spirits climbed aboard, and then got in too, pushed off with poles from the dam, and rowed over to the island. Several bare lightbulbs were lit around the giant cypress, which was surrounded by its wooden frame, but they weren’t enough to illuminate the tree. In the midst of that dim light the Spirits took off their papiermâché coverings. Using the bamboo ladder, they carried up the papier-mâché and laid it on both sides of the upper and lower levels. The former Spirits, now young men in T-shirts and jeans, returned to the water’s edge and were rowed back to the dam.

  Now a gloomy pall settled over the events. The music filtering down from above the stands was growing monotonous and lonely and, even worse, boring. Finally, though, a papier-mâché figure of Guide appeared, remarkably larger than any of the previous dolls, dressed in the clothes of a Southern European farm woman, and a cheerful stir swept through the onlookers once more. This Spirit, gesticulating in an exaggerated manner, was rowed out alone to the island.

  Right after this, a papier-mâché figure of Guide, somewhat smaller than the one on the island, appeared in the grandstands where the musical procession had made its exit. Some of the Fireflies brought a microphone over to where that figure was standing. Another mike had been set up right in front of the papier-mâché figure standing in the middle of the top level of the wooden frame on the island. The Spirit of Guide at the grandstands lifted the microphone up to his chest and stepped forward. He thrust out his chest and the stir among the crowd quieted down.

  It was quite an unexpected entrance, but the thousand or so people surrounding the Hollow quieted down. This was Patron, dressed up as Guide, about to begin his keynote sermon. Speakers on either side of the stands and on poles on the island carried Patron’s voice to his rapt audience.

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen all of you,” he began. “I imagine you former members of the church who’ve come from so far away will understand why I’m inside this doll made up to look like Guide to deliver my sermon. As I need not remind those who are from this region, this papier-mâché covering is called a shell in the valley. Wearing this shell to talk is in keeping with your legends.… Whenever Guide related my visions, I was in a sense clothed in his body. The shell covering my spirit was his flesh. Now that I’ve been left behind by Guide, I’m trying to re-create the past, at least on the surface.

  “I would like to speak with all of you about the Somersault. And I’ll begin by talking about a young man who was the first one to evaluate the Somersault in a positive light. He’s the model for Jonah in the triptych in the chapel I’m sure you’ve all seen. He’s so perfect a person to serve as the model that the Fireflies, following Japanese pronunciation, have dubbed him Yonah.

  “After Guide and I did our Somersault and left the church, many people discovered the place where we had taken refuge and came to ask us what the Somersault was all about—its present and future meaning. But only one person and one group understood it as an inescapable calling. The person was Yonah, and the group was the remnants of the Izu radical faction. This group was essentially negative toward the Somersault; Guide was killed by them in place of me. The reason I’d like to begin with Yonah, as I said, is because he viewed the Somersault in such a positive way.

  “Before that, though, let me speak of the interrogation that group did of Guide. They questioned him, grilled him, and he answered—or at least he tried to. I couldn’t share in his pain; I could only listen to the recording made of this kangaroo trial. But throughout it, Guide never once lied, I can guarantee that. And after a long interrogation, Guide was tortured to death.

  “This evening Guide has joined the procession of Spirits—those who have died untimely deaths in the midst of this forest. We will burn up all the shells on the island so the Spirits can return again to the forest. The real shell of Guide’s Spirit is exhibited there on the tower. The papier-mâché I’m wearing is thus nothing more than a shell of a shell.

  “Guide, who died this untimely death, thus joins the procession of Spirits in this land where our Church of the New Man will be built. He was an extremely responsible man, who even took responsibility when I made mistakes, and I know that whenever the Church of the New Man goes through trials he will be there to help us. I am grateful to the Fireflies for letting Guide’s soul join the Spirit Festival. And I’d like to express my respect for them for having the sense to come up with the name Yonah.”

  Applause rang out from three sides of the lake. On the wooden scaffolding on the cypress island, Guide’s Spirit thrust out his papier-mâché chest. Once more the Guide doll at the grandstands lifted up the microphone, and the crowd became so quiet one coul
d hear the cries of insects for a moment.

  5

  “Now, this young man who first viewed the Somersault in a positive way came to me, as you see him in the triptych in the chapel, as Yonah. In addition to what he’s actually said to me, I have also imagined the appeal he’s making to me silently. What he really wanted to ask me, I think, was whether I did the Somersault in order to be the kind of Lord who could rewrite the ending of the book of Jonah. Even if I wasn’t that sort of Lord, he wanted me to know that I could be—I could rewrite the book of Jonah.

  “Here I’d like to re-create what I imagine Yonah’s words to be.

  “Since you are a person who can communicate directly with God, he’d say, isn’t it possible for you to become another Lord yourself? You’re the person who made a fool out of God. Even after God decided against destroying the people, children, and cattle of Nineveh, you’re the Lord who can raise his voice in protest! You’re the Lord who can call not just on Nineveh but on the whole world, to repent as it faces the end time—the Lord who can defend the original calling.

  “When I was a child, Yonah would continue, I heard the voice of God telling me to take action! And I obeyed this voice. But afterward I never heard the voice of God again. I suffered, thinking the reason must lie with me. But it was God who erased this call. Just like Jonah, I have the right to protest.

  “Transmit this protest to God for me! If God still continues to cancel out his call, then I want you—as someone with the courage to make a fool of God—to give me your own special call. Tell me to take action!

  “Because you had done a Somersault, when I met you I thought I’d finally met a person who could rewrite the ending of the Book of Jonah, something I’ve longed to do for such a long time. Let me and my friends stand by, awaiting your call.

  “I think this was the young man’s appeal to me as Yonah.

  “Yonah knew that the Somersault Guide and I did was a decision we were forced into by the tense situation between the Izu radical faction and the authorities, and that carrying it out, we knew, would have great aftereffects on church members throughout the country. Over the past ten years this has become public knowledge through reports in weekly magazines and other media. Yonah had to be aware of this.

  “But Yonah saw a relationship with God in this very dilemma Guide and I found ourselves in. If Guide had shot back the following question to Yonah, this would only have created the grounds for Yonah to question us:

  “Yonah, Guide might have said, have you considered one other possibility? That even before the Somersault neither Patron nor I ever believed in a transcendental being? Just life most Japanese! Still less did we believe in the possibility that we were mediating for God. That this whole setup of Patron’s coming into direct contact with God through his trances and me relating the visions he had is nothing but a bunch of nonsense we made up ourselves?

  “Yonah would be shocked at first on hearing this. No doubt, though, he would come back with his own fearless response. By your Somersault, he’d say, you made a fool of God, Patron. But can you make a fool of something that doesn’t exist? The fact that you had no choice but to do the Somersault is inescapable proof that God appeared to you. Patron acted as he did in front of the TV cameras at the time of the Somersault, but if you think he did it for the viewers, you’re greatly mistaken. He did it for the safe of God, a God who is real.

  “Yonah’s positive questions have made me ponder things, and I now recognize that I made a fool of a God who is real though silent, a God who is definitely keeping watch on me. And because this is so, the descent into hell awaited me after the Somersault. If Guide and I really broke all connections with the other side through the Somersault, why in the world would we have to suffer in hell?

  “What was it like to live as Patron? I’d like to review this very briefly for you. Through the trances—that I couldn’t willfully produce or distance myself from—I had visions that became a part of me. That’s how I spent the better part of my life. Still, though, if people ask me if I saw God’s face or heard his voice, or ask me what the face and voice of God are like, I can’t say.

  “I was asked this once by a lady who helped pave the way for our move here. The former diplomat who spent his final years in the Hollow after retirement tried his hand at writing a science fiction story. The plot apparently involved a being from another universe that covered the planet like a weather system and sent out messages. When I was in the midst of a trance it was like this—as if I were a mushroom in the middle of a wind stream.

  “Friends, after I moved into my residence here in the Hollow I’ve been scattering sunflower seeds under the eaves of the second floor. The nuthatches have taken over, chasing away all other little birds. They eat a few of the seeds right there and take some away to hide for later. While they’re gathering their sunflower seeds they’re quite bold, but just as they’re about to fly away they do a complete about-face, screeching as if they’ve been overcome by fear.

  “When I awoke from my trances, the kind of mutterings I spewed forth were just like the screeching of those birds. Guide was the one who made them intelligible. That’s how I became a mediator for God’s word. Guide devoted his life to it. Then came the Somersault. Yes, Guide and I were driven into a corner, put in a real fix by the radical faction. But did I have to go so far as to make a fool of the God I was intimate with? It’s become clear to me as I’ve mulled over Yonah’s questions that this was absolutely necessary. There was no other choice.

  “By making a fool of God, Guide and I made a confession of faith. It’s clear to me now that fear of our followers committing mass suicide was just an excuse. If that’s all it was, there would have been other ways out.

  “Using that image of God as expressing himself through the weather, Guide and I, like tiny mushrooms shaking in the wind, had to suffer. But by making a fool of God, the existence of this wind-stream God took on an even greater reality.

  “Before Guide was murdered, when he and I were living in seclusion, I had a pitiful little dream about the future. Time would pass, I dreamed, and the world would forget about us, and just at that point my trances would return. I would go over to the other side with a sense of nostalgia, I’d come back in a weakened state, and while I recovered Guide would explain what all my senseless mutterings meant. And weren’t we, at this moment, even more deeply, even more really, just small mushrooms in the rush of wind that is the Lord?

  “Before this could occur, though, Guide was killed. Truthfully, I only made up my mind to rebuild the church after this happened. With Guide gone, I announced the rebuilding of the church to all of you—for all the world like one of those little birds giving out a scared, flustered screech.

  “But having done the Somersault, and now without Guide by my side, would I really be able to lead the church? It was Yonah who made me push aside my hesitancy. This was the calling I got from him, to be the one who made a fool of God, the one who, still protesting against him, could continue to be a mediator. After Guide was murdered, I was searching for a new Guide. Professor Kizu, Morio, and our young Yonah himself may all have been new Guides. That being the case, the triptych in the chapel is the most suitable painting for our church.

  “Well, I don’t have much more time. I’ve told you my story up to this point, but the story from this point on will be told by all of you. Launching the new church means its can’t just be a continuation of the same old story. We need a story that’s entirely new. The Quiet Women are hoping I’ll do a backward Somersault. Yonah was anticipating a Somersault that went even farther forward, done by another Lord who would make a fool of God. But even if that weren’t as boring as going backward, I wouldn’t do it. Even if I were trying to pretend to be another Lord, the Sacred Wound in the painting has now vanished from my body. I imagine that Yonah no longer has the illusion of setting me up as another Lord.

  “So now I want to deliver my message as a person who can only stand on his own, who isn’t the puppet of an
y sect or individual. All I can do is put the finishing touches on the launching of our new church, the Church of the New Man.

  “At the end of the sermon it may confuse and anger some of you if I suddenly add a scatological comment, but even those of you without good hearing or sense of smell will detect—as sort of a basso continuo to my speech—the sound and smell of a group of women unable to hold back their farts and diarrhea, lending an earthy sort of foundation to my philosophy. I don’t want these poor but wonderful women to have to hold back any longer, so their very human sounds will blend with Morio’s music that points toward a pure ascension to heaven.

  “Fireflies, you may begin your ceremony of returning the Spirits to the forest. I will pray now that the Old Man is sloughed off. With the end time upon us, I call on all of you to repent and to embark on becoming New Men. Finally, I leave you with the words of a foreign author, his earnest prayer for New Men: Three cheers for Karamazov!”

  Right as Patron’s sermon drew to a close—the moment when, clearly pressed for time he added this sudden prankish comment that threw his listeners off—one after another, clumsy-looking women, obviously in too much of a hurry to remove the barricades at the front entrance of the chapel, leaped out of the low open windows on the lake side of the chapel. As soon as they hit the ground some of them, either having sprained their ankles or just drained of energy, squatted there like hens. Of those who didn’t, others sprinted straight for the temporary toilets set up on the eastern slope. Most of them, though, raced off to the dark thickets and shrubs. From the stands, where a stir went through the perplexed spectators, a call rang out, chorusing Patron’s final words.

  “Three cheers for Karamazov! Three cheers for Karamazov! Three cheers for Karamazov!”

  Morio’s piano piece “Ascending, Part One” spilled out from the speakers on either side of the stands and on the island.