Kenzaburo Oe - Somersault

"Mr. Schmidt asked me if I recalled the sketch of the Alpine valleys in the copy of Leonardo da Vinci's Madrid notebook he'd told me to look at before we left Japan. The place where we were headed next was the area where his parents had been born and raised, from which they set off when they moved to America.

He said that place resembled the drawing, which is why he'd wanted me to see it.

"Like the view from our veranda, the drawing showed, beyond gentle hills and thickets, a sunken plain with clumps of houses and groves of trees.

And beyond that a dark, rainy ravine between two mountains, with a cap of clouds like a heavy lid on top. Farther up you could see the sunlit peaks of the clouds and the Alps ranging off into the distance.

"Recalling this, what I saw before me was something with a broader façade than the drawing, a wide-angled version, with a large castle on the mountain in the middle, light on one side, darkness on the other. To the right, farther back, range upon range of the Alps sparkled in the evening sun.

"After making sure that I did recall Leonardo's drawing and that I was mentally comparing it to the scenery outside the glass doors, Mr. Schmidt said, 'My parents were born on the slopes of the mountain far back in that ravine and were raised feeling the electricity that swells up there running through their whole bodies. Every time I look at da Vinci's notebook, that electricity my parents felt shoots right through me. For the people who crossed over to the New World from here, that's what this land meant to them. And in the art that European geniuses have created lies the same effect.'

"Twilight seemed to last forever that day, and as I ate my lonely hamburger and cucumber pickle, served on the same china as in the hotel restaurant but somehow tasting different, I looked at the scene outside for the longest time and thought. It wasn't long before I came up with the idea of beating Mr. Schmidt to death. I was enraged at him for making me study that heavy book of paint- ings, bringing me here to see the real thing, and then implying that-with no European blood flowing in me-neither one had anything to do with me.

"As young as I was, though, I knew getting angry like that was point- less. Instead, I was taken with the idea of feeling the electricity he'd mentioned.

I couldn't get this out of my head. Now I realize it was like I was aware that my soul was being charged with electricity. It was thrilling. I could see my- self from outside my body, high-voltage current running through me, my body emitting a phosphorescent glow. When Mr. Schmidt returned late that night and saw me seated in front of the large fireplace (though I didn't yet have the poker in my hand), he gave a start. But he didn't say a word, just had the blond young man with him push his wheelchair into the bathroom.

"It was my job to help Mr. Schmidt out of his clothes and bathe him.

But on my way there I spied a long, solid-looking poker leaning up against the high side of the fireplace.

"At the same instant, I remembered the voice I'd heard two years be- fore, a voice from outside of me insisting, Do it! Why had I forgotten that up till now? At the time I heard that voice I lacked the courage to carry out to the bitter end what it badgered me to do, and I tried to escape.

"But I knew it was okay now, I remembered it clearly. I wouldn't for- get. There was no need to hurry. Just take your time and carry it out. I left the poker in front of the fireplace where I could reach it in the dark and set off for the bathroom, passing the glum-looking young man on his way out.

"One of the questions I was asked by those professors at the Viennese hospital was whether or not I'd soiled my pants when I hit Mr. Schmidt on the back of the head with the poker. The Austrian professor who'd lived in the United States a long time was the one who asked me this, and seeing that I hesitated to answer, the other professor, the Japanese one, translated the ques- tion into Japanese. His face was red, whether from anger or embarrassment I don't know, but he made sure I understood that by soiling my pants I was being asked not whether I'd lost control of my bowels but whether I'd ejaculated.

"The two adults standing there together asking me this looked to me like a pair of fools. I felt this way because I was filled with that high-voltage electricity, something I now know is connected to the spiritual, and I was cunning enough to take them by surprise with my response. I managed an answer that took the wind out of their sails and made them look silly to boot.

'"Since Mr. Schmidt didn't have his hand inside my pants when I clubbed him,' I said, 'no-I didn't soil my underwear.'

"I said this directly in English, and it was the Austrian professor's turn to blush."

"I undressed Mr. Schmidt and carried him to the bathtub-no big deal, considering how I was built at sixteen-helped him control his limbs as he bathed, dressed him in a gown, and carried him to the bedroom. I helped him change into pajamas. Then, as I hung up his dressing gown in the closet I took the belt and tied it around my head like a Japanese hachimakj, something I'd never done before. I went back to the darkened sitting room and picked up the poker, which was three feet long, longer than the one I'd used before.

"I shook my head to clear it of the excess electricity buzzing around inside and awaited the sound of that voice. Do it! Could I hear it? My head buzzed even more, like the echo of a far-off memory. Do it, do it! I rubbed my sweaty palm against the hachimakj, adjusted my grip on the poker, and went into the bedroom.

"I wasn't sure, but I thought that maybe if I started to do it the buzzing would stop, and everything would become that one voice I'd heard before.

But as I swung the poker I wasn't listening. The next time I thought about that voice was when the two professors were quizzing me. Since this time I really had done it, I felt like I'd become that voice. At the same time, though, I suppressed the thought that maybe I hadn't actually heard anything at all.

"Years passed, and I was in my third year in the university architecture department. In order to graduate I had to either present my own original design or write a thesis on an existing structure. I never had any problems with math or architecture theory, but when I arrived at this stage I realized I didn't know the first thing about critiquing buildings.

"I racked my brain, trying to understand why I was basically empty inside, when the events of Salzburg and Vienna popped into my head-not the murder itself so much as the way I lied to the doctors in the hospital and how they bought it so easily. Little by little, I felt this was canceling out the incident that had preceded it.

"Glibly lying day after day had turned me into a poor little youth, a vic- tim of sexual harassment who had lashed out in self-defense. Setting myself up as a passive child who normally would not have done what he did, I was let off the hook legally. But to arrive at this point I had to set aside everything I'd experi- enced up till then, meager as it was. Helped along by the adults, who were try- ing to make everything consistent, I fit myself right into the ad hoc mold they'd created. And that's how I've lived ever since. Now I have to bring forth what is uniquely mine. But is it any wonder I'm stifled, unable to do anything?

"Once I realized this, it bothered me that I wasn't able to screw up my courage and face things head-on. And each time I felt about to do that I couldn't help but be conscious of what it was that was holding me back.

"When I was fourteen I'd heard it loud and clear, no mistake about it, a voice urging me to act; the same voice had me commit murder at sixteen. But this deception I'd pulled in Vienna made me lose sight of the source of that voice. When I started to think about it, I understood that it wasn't at four- teen that I first heard that voice, but as an infant. This was a voice I knew before I was even born.