Kenzaburo Oe - Somersault

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The next day at lunch Kizu heard from Dancer that Patron, who except for his first announcement had remained silent throughout, was quite pleased with the results of the meeting. Patron had also said something else. Dancer lowered her voice so the Technicians seated nearby, who had returned for a late lunch from working to restart the facilities on the Farm, couldn't hear.

"Patron asked me, 'What's with the former radical faction? Why is such a formerly outgoing, active group now living like a bunch of monks?'"

Since his plan to run a children's art class would be using a room in the junior high school, Kizu needed to look into how this would fit in with the second-semester curriculum-and though he had considerable time to con- sider this, with the summer vacation between now and then, he went again with Asa-san, the wife of the former junior high principal, to visit the school's staff room. While they were there he asked Asa-san about the group called the Young Fireflies that Ikuo had mentioned during the meeting in the chapel.

Asa-san began by explaining the local custom of the same name. She was nearing sixty and had first heard about it as a ceremony her mother had participated in as a child. When someone died in the valley, children ages seven to ten would light torches and climb up the surrounding slopes. The children were divided into pairs, and each pair climbed to a designated tree at the top of the forest. One of the pairs carried an object, representing the soul of the departed, to bury under the roots of a tree. Several pairs would go up at the same time in order to keep the chosen tree a secret.

"My mother said her first memory of this was when she was three or four," Asa-san went on, "still too little to be a Young Firefly herself. She said that when she looked up at the forest from the back sitting room of her house she could see countless torches ascending the slopes. The number was greater than the number of seven- to ten-year-olds who lived there, somebody told her later, because they were allowing smaller children to join them.

"One other thing you should hear concerns a child named Doji, who led the second of two rebellions around the time of the Meiji Restoration. After the rebellion was a success, they say Doji returned to the forest. The name Young Fireflies might have grown out of this, since Doji is a homonym for the Japanese word translated as young.

"The present Young Fireflies group that local junior and senior high school children have formed is connected with this history but has nothing to do with the defunct custom. They do, however, assemble at dawn and practice climbing up the forest, so at least they're maintaining the form of the ceremony.

"They're children, so they may very well be drawn to the figure of Doji, the child leader of the insurrection. Satchan told me they debate among them- selves how to live in this land and how to improve the environment. Her son Gii is the leader of the Young Fireflies. When he was little he used to come to our house to talk with my husband. An odd child, I'd say, to want to spend time talking with the principal."

"Don't they say his father is the one who founded the Church of the Flaming Green Tree?" Kizu asked. "When I was buying ham and eggs at the market by the river, another odd person, a woman, told me the boy isn't Satchan's."

"Oh, that's the former music teacher at the junior high. She's been be- having herself these days, but I did hear she got worked up and caused a ruckus. A man by the name of Kamei in the former church gave his entire estate in order to build the chapel, and his wife tried so hard to dissuade him that something snapped in her and they were divorced. That's the woman you met. She still carries a grudge against the church and directs her anger against Satchan."

Not long after this, Kizu heard from Ikuo about this leader of the Young Fireflies he'd been seeing. One evening at twilight, a week after the meeting in the chapel, after a calm, sunny, though unseasonably cold day, Kizu fin- ished putting in order all the drawings and supplies he'd sent from Tokyo and was resting on his bed, which did double duty as a chaise longue, his head propped up high, when Ikuo returned. Youthfully flushed like some formi- dably featured young woman, Ikuo had come back to ask Kizu to dine with him at the monastery. His voice was excited.

"The Gii of the Fireflies, who's regarded as the new Gii, is an amazing guy, a genius, in fact. Because of this, he's quite a confident young fellow. He's so young it's hard to say he has much experience, I guess, but there's a deep connection here between this land and the history of his clan.

"Gii knows everything there is to know about this area's legends and its past, recent events included. You know how we look back on things in our lives and say certain experiences were good and regret others? That's how he has considered historical events that have taken place here. He also has a good idea of what he plans to do in future; he's set on spending the rest of his life here.

"When I suggested that at least he go to college, he shot down that idea with a scornful laugh. He has a strong conviction based on the history of his family as to the path his life should take. His father got a degree in ag- riculture from Tokyo University and started that church here that failed.

His grandfather also graduated from Tokyo University, in education, be- came a diplomat, and retired to the Hollow, where he died of cancer. The things he learned at school didn't help him reform anything in this small lo- cal society, let alone the nation. It didn't amount to anything. So Gii says that living here in this anti-Center valley in the woods he can really do something important. The legends and history of this place will be his textbook. If he needs to know anything else, he said, he'll read some books."

Kizu felt a twinge of childish jealousy, for Ikuo was full of a cheerful enthusiasm that had been missing at the meeting in the chapel.

"When I saw you last time I thought I hadn't yet met Gii," Ikuo went on. "I planned to talk to you and the church only after I'd actually met him.

But now I realize I had met him. Whenever I went to talk with the young people at the Farm there was always one young man who, though he never looked directly at me, was unforgettable. That's Gii. They start their train- ing every day while it's still dark, and after they're done the high school boys ride their bikes to the high school a half hour away. Today's a holiday, Founder's Day at school, so they could take their time practicing, and I was able to join them and finally talk to Gii.

"After we crossed the bridge and entered the woods, I could sense he was the leader, even though he wasn't obviously calling the shots. He has this very fetching way of walking. We followed a kind of animal path beaten down through the woods as we scaled the hill in a clockwise direction. Twice we crossed a river and a road, which they hurried over on tiptoe as if they didn't want to sully their feet with profane ground. As I tried to keep up with them, Gii told me more details about the group. Steadily climbing the steep slope, he told me all this in a very thoughtful, precise way. He's a splendid young man."

Kizu couldn't help smiling when he heard this. His jealousy had van- ished, replaced by a pleasant sense of how excited Ikuo was.

When he saw Kizu's reaction, Ikuo stopped speaking, and Kizu took advantage of the pause. "Let me make a suggestion," he said. "You haven't told any of this to the office staff yet, have you? Let's invite Ogi and Dancer, and we'll all have dinner together while you tell us about it. It's a shame to not share this report with the others."

Kizu called Mrs. Shigeno in the dining hall to ask about the menu for that night-ham steak sandwiches made of ham the Technicians had helped to cure, as well as vegetable soup made of the ham bones. That sort of food was simple to transport, so it was easy enough for all of them to eat together at the office. Kizu asked Mrs. Shigeno to phone the office about his plan, and then he and Ikuo left their house on the north shore.