Kenzaburo Oe - Somersault

"It's not the pain that's keeping me up. I'm just absorbing the fact that I'm actually back here."

"Shall I open the curtain?"

"That'd be nice. But let's keep the lights off so the people across the lake won't start worrying."

A large dark object roused itself and slowly drew the curtain back. In the moonlight that filtered in, Kizu was happy to see a brusque smile on Ikuo's deeply shadowed profile. Drawn by Ikuo's gaze outside, Kizu slid himself up so he, too, could see out.

The moon was in the west, hidden behind the huge cypress that filled the whole right side of the window. The shadow of the tree cut across the surface of the lake, where fog was swirling low and beginning to thicken, all the way to the forest on the east bank. The moon shone on the fog on the surface of the lake, illuminating the concrete walls of the chapel on the south shore.

Even the needles of the cedars and the tips of the leaves of the bushes in the forest behind were shining, yet the whole was pitch black. The night sky was clear, with a purity Kizu hadn't seen in some time, with thin clouds sweep- ing briskly and steadily across the sky like sheets of ice.

Kizu had been quiet, concentrating on the moonlit scene for a while, when he noticed that Ikuo wanted to say something but had been hesitating.

"One of my colleagues in America has traced the American sublime in Romantic landscapes of the United States," Kizu said, in a hoarse voice. "I see there's a sublime in the Japanese landscape too."

"The Young Fireflies talk of the Hollow as a special place," Ikuo said.

"During the insurrections at the end of the Tokugawa period and the begin- ning of the Meiji, people dragged down bamboo to use as weapons from the huge bamboo grove. Right here, which used to be a basin, was where they stripped the leaves off, the ground completely covered in green and the farmers drunk. The Base Movement started here as well, as did the Church of the Flaming Green Tree. I believe there really is what everyone calls the power of the land, what Asa-san calls the power of the place."

"Will Patron's church be able to rely on this power?" Kizu asked.

"It's like a stage where something's going to take place, where some- thing sacred will manifest itself… I've felt the same thing once before, in another place… Two days ago, when the moon was full, I came back here, to see how the Fireflies had rearranged the rooms, and spent the night. I couldn't get to sleep either, and as I looked out at the bright moonlit scenery outside I remembered that other time and place."

Kizu waited for Ikuo to continue his reminiscences, but after a moment of silence the young man brought up another subject.

"At noon the next day everyone was asking me, very concerned, about how you were. With what happened with Patron's Sacred Wound, things change so fast. The Quiet Women have started to formulate some plans of their own in addition to their group prayers, while the inner circle of Tech- nicians, who've been wavering a bit since Guide's death, are now much more focused again-as Dancer, for whatever reason, had predicted.

"I came here following Patron rather than his church, hoping he was going to take some action. So I'd like to consider these things going on among the church members as a kind of forewarning of things to come. If the internal pressure building up in the Quiet Women and the Technicians blows, I don't think Patron can just sit around twiddling his thumbs. I'm like Dancer-I much prefer to see signs that something is about to happen.

Two days ago I was convinced that something important is about to take place on the stage before me now, this moonlit Hollow. People say any con- victions you have late at night are illusory, but tonight I'm getting the exact same feelings. I think the reason you're back here, Professor, is so you can observe whatever it is that's going to happen on this stage.

"Whatever it is," Ikuo went on, "I don't want the Young Fireflies to fall victim to it. I bring this up because they consider these grounds in the Hol- low a special place, the site where they're planning to construct their new lives.

So whatever happens, they'll be involved."

Something occurred to Kizu. "Every time I talk with you about the book of Jonah, I see you standing on Jonah's side, grumbling about what the Lord wants you to do. But your attitude right now isn't just that of a Jonah."

"What do you mean?" Ikuo asked, caught off guard.

"It's a simple thing, really. Not long ago I put it this way: Jonah stands up to God, insisting that he destroy Nineveh the way he originally planned.

But God, lamenting the loss of over 120,000 children plus countless head of cattle, doesn't burn the city. And the people repent. And now you're worried about children not becoming victims, right?"

Ikuo turned his forehead, lumpy like the surface of a pumpkin, toward the moonlight, while below his deep eye sockets all was dark and hardened.

"I'm not making fun of you," Kizu said, "merely pointing out this con- tradiction. A contradiction you've never had before in your life, never thought about, but one that's significant nonetheless. If you hadn't come to this place and gotten to know the Fireflies, this contradiction never would have entered your world… never would have grazed you conceptually.

"I began to think about this when you were staying with me in the clinic,"

Kizu said. "In the middle of the night when I looked out at the backyard I saw a group of Fireflies huddled together, all gazing up despondently at my win- dow. Soon after I laid my head back on my pillow, you got up from your sofa and, thinking I was asleep, crept out of the room. Pretty soon I heard an irre- pressible stir. Just seeing you made the children in the backyard so happy. You're very close to these kids, and you have a premonition that something is going to take place here. Whatever it turns out to be, you'll be a part of it, and they can't help but get dragged in. You can't shut out such devoted admirers.

"No matter what sort of amoral activity you get involved with, it's not going to shock me into retreating. This is the stage where I'll spend my final days, and no matter what takes place I'm ready for it. But I must say I don't mind seeing you agonize over how to keep the Fireflies from getting hurt."

Ikuo looked lost in thought. The fog that covered the lake rose up in eddies. At first Kizu thought the wind was making it swirl, but looking closely at the outline of the giant cypress he noticed the fog was still. Was it a change in humidity that made the fog form at night? Still feverish, Kizu was sensi- tive enough to smell the cold coming through the bare window.

"Why don't we close the curtains, Ikuo."

Silently, with unfaltering steps, the young man moved over to the win- dow. After closing the curtains, he walked around the bed to straighten the curtains on the opposite side, through which vertical shafts of moonlight fil- tered in. His eyes were used to the dark, so he moved quickly and surely. Kizu could just make him out as he climbed back in bed and pulled up the covers.

Drawing back slightly, he sat up, clasping his knees together.

"There is something I really wanted to tell you tonight," Ikuo said. "It's connected with what you talked about earlier. It's the most important expe- rience I've had up till now. I was going to tell you about it once-the time that Guide urged me to appeal to Patron, when I had you write that letter for me. But I didn't have the guts.

"I told you about how I heard a voice from above?-the voice of God, I called it, telling me, Do it!-though I didn't tell you what I did in response to that voice, just that I was waiting to hear the voice again. I know you're tired, but I wonder if you would mind listening to me?"