Kenzaburo Oe - Somersault

"When Ikuo-who's come with me here-and I visited you on that snowy day," Kizu said, "we were very impressed by your lifestyle. Your chil- dren were so quiet, it was like some nostalgic scene from the past… When they join you, I imagine things will get much more lively around here."

Kizu had addressed this to Mrs. Shigeno, who looked at her two col- leagues and then urged Ms. Oyama to reply.

"For the time being we're not planning to have the children join us.

Maybe we will just accept the name that's been given to us and carry on as the Quiet Women."

Kizu couldn't quite follow this, but he hesitated to ask further questions.

"We've been living communally for the last ten years, deepening our faith along with the children. And after these ten years, Patron has, on Guide's martrydom, started up a new religious movement and called us to join him.

This is extremely important. Being allowed to live together once again with Patron means accepting his teachings. Which means we have a lot of learn- ing to do to connect his denial of our doctrine and faith with the activities of his new church. We have come here with great hopes and resolve.

"We've lived together for ten years, but when this change in direction came about, differences of opinion started to surface in our group. Some women were opposed to an unconditional return. They felt that since we'd been abandoned by Patron and Guide we should continue down our own spiritual path and that remaining in the church Patron created was not the honorable thing to do. They wanted Patron first of all to give a thorough self-critique of his actions at the time of the Somersault. I can understand their reaction. This sort of opposition arose even in regard to whether or not we should partici- pate in the memorial service, and we came to Tokyo at that time without coming to any sort of agreement. At the service the adults from our commune sat in two separate groups. Ogi kept the former Izu research group from saying anything, and we kept our opposing faction from speaking up, let- ting Mrs. Shigeno speak for us from the floor. This allowed the service to take place without incident.

"When we returned to our commune, nearly half the women said Patron hadn't criticized himself enough and they were against returning to the church.

So we ended up leaving them behind. But we'll be sending faxes to them every day regarding the teachings of Patron's new church. We're hoping this will convince some of them, who could then form a second group and move here… That brings you up to date on what's been happening with us."

"You've given it a lot of thought, obviously, and I think your response is unique-and very logical, too," Kizu said, reevaluating this Quiet Women's group, who were unlike any Japanese women he'd ever known. "But why aren't any of the children participating? Are you afraid the church will try to take over their education?"

"We listened to the children's opinion," Mrs. Shigeno answered.

"Through our communal life together the children have grown very close.

Most of them said they didn't want to be separated, so we decided to let the children in the two groups be entrusted to whichever side the majority of them voted for, which would then take responsibility for their education. I'm an optimistic person and I was sure the children would want to come with us.

But when the votes were counted they'd decided to stay."

"But you were quite decisive about it, weren't you," Kizu said, his defenses down in the face of the elegant Mrs. Shigeno's smile.

Ms. Takada didn't let this go by. Her right eye wide open, she turned it and her blank left side toward Kizu and said, quite resolutely, "We may have been decisive, but that meant we gave our lives over to faith only to be aban- doned by our leaders. From our perspective, that's what the Somersault was.

Pondering this over the past ten years, our initial hatred and resentment dis- appeared, but to be truthful, right now we're not sure how the faith we've kept for the past decade can merge with this new movement.

"Knowing this meant risking everything, we split into two groups. If we had had more confidence in Patron's new movement, we should have been able to convince the others and bring the children along with us. We are most definitely aware of the feelings of those who had to leave their children behind to come here. We didn't do this because we wanted to. Moving here and being with Patron again represents the last chance for our faith. If Patron had been murdered instead of Guide, I don't know how things would have turned out.

Is it so strange to have such desperate thoughts?"

Neither Mrs. Shigeno-her earlier smile now replaced by a look of con- centration-nor the intrepid Ms. Oyama-head bowed and fingers moving ceaselessly-spoke up to help Kizu. To break the momentary tension, Dancer spoke instead.

"Professor Kizu hasn't just come here as a lark. He's suffering from a severe case of cancer, and yet he's been doing all he can. He'd been plan- ning to teach an art class, for both the local children and the church's chil- dren, and I imagine he finds the fact that your children aren't coming a great disappointment."

"Well, then, maybe he should consider taking in older students,"

Mrs. Shigeno suggested, and the gentle mood of the discussion was restored.

Dr. Koga had asked Kizu for a painting for his clinic, based on a sketch he liked, and after it was finished, Kizu took it over himself to the riverside.

He had had the frame made in the woodworking shop that, he was told, had originally been set up by the former Base Movement, a workshop that had for a time been absorbed into the Church of the Flaming Green Tree and afterward continued as an independent operation. Kizu was quite impressed that the cultural movement begun in this mountainous region by young people some forty years ago had been so carefully maintained. Apply a little stimu- lus, he mused, and in a short time it could easily be revived on a larger scale.

One of the Technicians who had been helping outfit the clinic fixed a nail on the freshly painted wooden wall, and Dr. Koza and Kizu hung the painting on it. Dr. Koga looked steadily at the work, a portrait of Ikuo, naked from the waist up.

"Is this work a study for a tableau?"

"I did the sketch with that in mind," Kizu replied. "I haven't done any real painting for a long time, and I haven't formed any particular plan. In my own defense I should say that I'm searching as I draw."

"As long as you continue in this vein," Dr. Koga said, "I have no doubt you'll end up with a magnificent painting… Since models all have a unique shape, character, and movement, is your main focus then the outer surface?

Or are you influenced by the inner world of the model?"

"I'm not sure I make a distinction between the two. Especially with this model. It's as if as I drew his shape I gradually came to a greater under- standing of his inner being, which leads me to confirm how very appealing he is."

"Now that you've settled here, why not use it as an opportunity to begin a large-scale painting? There's a lot of space to hang such a work in the chapel."

"That's a thought," Kizu replied. He appeared to be considering the suggestion seriously. "A series of events happened in Tokyo, but well before that I was planning to paint a tableau based on a biblical theme. The first time I met Ikuo, in fact, he told me he was interested in the illustrations of the Bible I'd done for a children's picture book."

Although the walls and ceiling were freshly painted, the desks and chairs neat and tidy, the clinic overall had an old-fashioned look to it. Dr. Koga was seated beside the window looking out on the road, but since the Technicians had taken all the chairs for patients out to the courtyard to repair them, the only place for Kizu to sit was on the examination bed. Dr. Koga looked at him with invigorated eyes. All of a sudden, as if finally getting to the heart of the matter, he said, "How about using Ikuo as your model for Jonah? He seems to have an unusual interest in that book."