Kenzaburo Oe - Somersault

"So this is what we thought. How about if the young people, who are always treated like idiots, train themselves so when they grab power at the festival they can attack the establishment and continue to fight on even after the festival is over? That's the starting point for our game, and we go on to simulate what would happen if all the authority in the village, from the local government to the police, fell into the hands of the Fireflies."

"You actually had some predecessors in this village, didn't you, people who started reform movements, churches, and the like?" Ikuo said. "There's Former Gii with his Base Movement, Brother Gii and the Church of the Flaming Green Tree. But both those Giis were killed before they could ac- complish anything. The newest Gii, then, is trying to learn from the past and not copy their bad examples. And this simulated training you're into is based on that."

"Adults don't take the Fireflies seriously," Gii said. "They think it's just some childish things the kids are doing. And we've been in existence for two years now. After Patron's church came here, Ikuo was the first person to treat us decently. He listened seriously to what we had to say and even helped us out financially. I know this is also thanks to you, Professor… Now the Young Fireflies movement has a real future ahead of it."

As the Fireflies began to leave, arms full of empty sandwich boxes and paper cups, Ikuo asked Gii to stay behind. Isamu, next to Gii, gave him a look, but he brushed this aside and settled back down on the bed. Isamu appeared hurt, but Gii looked so proud that Kizu found it delightful.

"Three days ago Patron asked to meet Gii again, and they had a nice long chat," Ikuo began, as soon as the three of them were alone. "Morio was sprawled out beside him. It sounds like you had a productive talk. Patron started out asking you about the Church of the Flaming Green Tree, didn't he?"

"My father founded the church," Gii said, "but since I was born after the church was gone, all I know is what I've heard from my mother."

"What was Patron interested in about your father's church?" Kizu asked.

"Anti and ante," Gii answered seriously.

"Patron's talking about the antichrist," Ikuo explained. "Patron is clearly an antichrist, while the leader of the Church of the Flaming Green Tree, whom his followers called savior, insisted that he was an antechrist. He preached that before the real Christ returns there will be countless «^christs, ante in the sense of coming before, and that he was one of them. After he graduated from high school in America, he went to Tokyo University, so he had some ground- ing in classical languages. Maybe he came across the term antechrist in some reference work? I don't know. Patron was quite interested when he heard this story from Asa-san, and he asked Gii to tell him more."

"But I don't know anything more than that," Gii insisted. "When Pa- tron asked me whether it was possible for him to be both an antichrist and an antechrist in the sense that my father used the term, I remembered something my mother had said and told him that that didn't jibe with what my father taught. And Patron said, 'I guess that's right,' in a such a moving way I was quite surprised."

"I think that was a very valuable meeting for Patron," Kizu remarked.

Ikuo, too, considered this, and the three of them were silent for a while until Gii, youngster that he was, couldn't stand the silence anymore and raised a new topic.

"Patron asked me why my mother and I hadn't kept the Church of the Flaming Green Tree going," Gii said. " 'Don't they even call you the new Gii? ' he asked. I was kind of annoyed. I felt almost like picking a quarrel with him, coming back with something like, What if I am? If I asked you to return Brother Gii's chapel to me, would you do it? But I kept my cool and talked about what's always been on my mind. You're asking me why I distanced myself from both the Church of the Flaming Green Tree and the Base Movement and why I had to create the Young Fireflies? Well, the reason is that I have some prob- lems with the leaders of both those movements. I may not be using the term correctly, but I think both leaders were defeatists. That's what I told Patron."

Gii stopped speaking, his pale face quite excited. Ikuo, too, was silent, pondering all this.

"What do you mean by defeatists?" Kizu asked.

Gii's pale cheeks suddenly revived. He'd been afraid they'd point out he'd used the word incorrectly.

"What I mean is from the very beginning neither Former Gii of the Base Movement nor Brother Gii of the Church of the Flaming Green Tree thought their movements would be successful."

Gii pursed his lips tight and turned pale again, so Ikuo explained things to Kizu.

"You know how the Former Gii threatened the people who lived down- stream, saying he was going to blow up the dam and flood them? If he'd re- ally wanted to, he could have done it, but he didn't. When he was murdered and his body dumped in the Hollow, his own tale was finished. Hadn't he known this? He created his movement resigned from the start that it would end up this way, which is why he's a defeatist.

"Brother Gii attracted a lot of followers and got production up and run- ning at the farm, and things would have gone well if only he'd stuck it out.

But suddenly he announced that the church was over, and a handful of fol- lowers would go out as missionaries, and that's when he was killed. I suspect he had a premonition at the beginning of his missionary trip that his story was over too. Gii thinks this is defeatist, and that putting that kind of person in charge is a big mistake."

As Ikuo spoke, Gii looked at him again with trusting eyes, blushing. But a moment later Ikuo turned on him.

"I haven't asked this before, but do you think that Patron, who did the Somersault, is a defeatist too? Are you saying that Patron, without doing a proper self-critique, has come here to this region to restart his church, but he's still a defeatist? And that before anything concrete gets done he's going to be murdered or something? In other words, you guys aren't taking him seriously; you think that if you just bide your time the Fireflies will come out on top?"

Far from flinching, Gii held Ikuo's gaze calmly. To Kizu, Gii's fea- tures-the outline of his ears and nostrils, as well as his clear eyes-looked fresh and soft, like some newly budding plant. Gii chose his words carefully as he replied.

"I haven't given the term defeatist a lot of thought, so there may be con- tradictions in what I said. But I find it interesting that Patron would start his own church and religious movement and then, at a certain point, do a Somer- sault and announce that everything he's preached till then was nonsense. The defeatists I'm talking about never had the guts to do that.

"No, I'm not some optimist sitting just around waiting for Patron's church to self-destruct. We Young Fireflies are planning to make this re- gion independent, and now a formidable opponent has entered the picture- your church. I don't think either Patron or Ikuo are defeatists. The Hollow's legally occupied, as are these large buildings; that's a given. What we have to do is build up our forces so we can compete with you. Anyway, that's the sec- ond thing I wanted to tell you."

Later that day, Kizu recalled their conversation and felt quite keenly that Gii was, as Ikuo had told him, an outstanding young man, the main rea- son being the skillful way he'd wrapped up their conversation.

"Patron told me you have cancer, Professor," Gii had said suddenly, throwing Kizu a challenging look. "The church hasn't begun any new ac- tivities, he said, but he'd like to concentrate his spiritual strength in trying to control your disease."

Looking over Kizu from top to bottom, Ikuo asked, "So has Patron's spiritual concentration had any effect?"