Kenzaburo Oe - Somersault

"The girl's mother was quite moved by the Quiet Women's prayer meetings. Before long she said she wanted to renounce the world and move to the Hollow with her daughter. There wasn't any precedent for it-we have yet to welcome the second and third waves of followers, after all-so it's proved to be a sticky problem.

"Still, Dancer said it was better to have her there than to have to en- trust Patron to some barber they didn't know anything about, so the woman was allowed in as a onetime exception. Seeing how things stood, the woman decided to work as a barber in the Hollow. The barbershop had two spe- cial barber chairs. She claimed one was hers and wanted to bring it with her, but her husband refused point-blank. Ikuo and the others are coming today to pick up that precious barber chair. They'll also bring the mother and her daughter back with them. The husband has rallied a few of his relatives and longtime customers, who are ready to stop them by force if necessary."

Dr. Koga finished his story, and some time passed. When they arrived at a spot where they could see the buildings of the elementary school on the other side of the bridge spanning the deep valley, a light truck passed them from behind. They didn't see who was driving, but in the truck bed they saw a large barber chair wrapped in quilts and tied down with rope. Kizu and Dr. Koga could see the backs of two cold-looking men huddled together; they watched until the truck and the men disappeared into the growth of trees overhanging the road.

Ikuo was back in the house on the north shore for the first time in quite a while and had been modeling all morning. The third panel of the triptych, the central piece, was still blank, but Kizu was working on the first and sec- ond panels simultaneously.

The day before, according to Ms. Tachibana, Ikuo and Dancer had quarreled in the office over Kizu's painting, and Kizu was concerned. He didn't mention this, though, as he painted, continuing to work silently on details until, before long, Ikuo broached the subject.

"You don't need to feel responsible, Professor, but I sounded Dancer out about having Patron model for you nude from the waist up. For what- ever reason she blew a gasket. It was quite a mess."

"Patron nude from the waist up? Hmmm," Kizu mused, his brush poised in midair. "What sort of scene are you imagining?"

"Nothing definite. But if the third panel of the triptych is going to show Jonah debating God, don't you need a model for God?"

"So you're envisioning Patron as the God Jonah complains to?" Kizu asked. "But Patron raised a banner of revolt against God, said everything he'd done was a joke, and denied his relationship with God!

"Just as the Fireflies see you as Jonah, I've been viewing you as a Jonah- like person in my work here. But as you've expressed your doubts about it, for the sake of argument let's say that what's written in the book of Jonah isn't the end of the story, that Jonah rejects God's sermon to him, laughs in his face, and leaves. Isn't that close to what Patron did with his Somersault?"

Kizu laid his brush and palette aside and sat down. The reflected light from the lake was so intense he'd moved his easel farther back in the room, and Ikuo was posing near the kitchen. He went over to the leaf-framed win- dow to retrieve his robe. As he walked in front of Kizu, the strong reflection from outside etched his profile from his nose to his chin as distinctly as if they had been made from neon tubing.

Ikuo put on his robe and turned around, his entire face one dark mass.

From out of that came a voice dripping with a childish youthfulness.

"When I argued with Dancer I didn't have any definite idea in mind.

But after what you said, I was thinking it made sense to have Patron in the painting as God, showing him persuaded by Jonah's protest.

"God's given up on it once but has now completely consigned Nineveh to the flames and is standing there with Jonah gazing down at the burning city. That was the vision of God I had."

"If that's the case," Kizu said, "it certainly makes sense to have Patron model for the painting. I'd say the theme for the third panel of the triptych is starting to gell."

That night, after Kizu woke up once and then fell asleep again, he had a dream. Dr. Koga always gave him a great variety and amount of medi- cine, and though he was diligent about keeping up the dosage of the anal- gesic suppositories, he wasn't very conscientious about taking the other medicines, picking and choosing the ones he wanted and taking less than the prescribed dose. Even so, he started to run a slight fever, which he put down to the side effects of the drugs. Whenever he had a fever he'd wake up in the middle of the night, confused about where he was and why he was there.

He switched on the light beside his bed, went to the bathroom, and on the way back, still doubtful of his surroundings, looked into the part of his studio where the canvases weren't covered; and as he drew back the curtain and gazed out at the far-off buildings bathed in moonlight, things became clear to him and his fear and confusion disappeared. But the feelings he had until that moment-the sense of being cut off from this scene and his sur- roundings-remained strong within him. He went back to bed and, after he turned off the light, was struck by the thought that what he'd just witnessed was a scene from after his death.

I'll leave behind this half-finished work, and in less than a year I'll be dead, he thought, and what will remain is that scene. These thoughts led him to consider how pointless his life had been. No, he thought, it can't be that meaningless. He struggled to conjure up significant incidents from his life but couldn't think of a single one; his chest tightened with sadness, and he turned on the light once more and gulped down a sleeping pill.

After all this, he was finally at the threshold of sleep, in the dangerous place neither on this side or the other side of wakefulness, when he saw Patron seated in the precious barber's chair, Ikuo standing beside him, and the two of them gazing down at a city engulfed in flames. Kizu felt relief wash over him. This was the long-pending theme of the third panel of the triptych.

Kizu got up late the next morning, no doubt due to the aftereffects of the sleeping pill. His house on the north shore of the Hollow was surrounded on every side except where it fronted the lake by a thick growth of beeches, Japanese oaks, and other deciduous trees. Kizu had heard that the diplomat who formerly occupied the house had planted the tangerine, citron, and lime trees in order to make a fruit orchard, but that was now overrun by the thick greenery of the camphor trees. Farther back, a layer of oaks formed a sound- proof wall.

As the greenery grew more luxuriant, the several-times-a-week march of the Firefies through the woods grew harder to catch. Instead, every morn- ing, not too early, Kizu heard a flock of Japanese tits, sounding like a fall rain, fly over in search of food. On this particular day the sound was like a ripple through his fitful sleep.

The strangely realistic chair he'd seen in his dream was the one he'd seen being carefully transported in the light truck on his way back from the drive with Dr. Koga. He'd seen it later on, after it was installed, so all the details had been accurate.

The chair that Mrs. Tagawa, the barber's wife and the church's first new member after moving to this place, had brought along with her grade-school daughter was set up inside the chapel. In that makeshift barbershop she started off cutting Patron's hair and shaving him. For many years Patron had had all his tonsorial needs taken care of at a shop in Seijo, and he was pleased with the results at Mrs. Tagawa's hands. Patron found the barber chair comfort- able, even saying that when the church officially restarted that's where he wanted to sit to give his sermons.