Kenzaburo Oe - Somersault

"I suppose not," Kizu said. "I'm thinking of starting work again today on the triptych. Have you eaten?"

"I'll bring my food in here." Ikuo started out toward the kitchen, stopped, and turned around. "I got a little carried away in the moonlight last night, and I apologize for talking for so long. It was stupid of me to do that with you just out of your sickbed. It's just that when you were staying at the clinic I decided I had to tell you."

He seemed to be trying to sound out Kizu as to how far he'd managed to stay awake and what he'd heard, but Kizu gave nothing away, and they began to eat a mostly silent meal. Ikuo lined up on the tray the various medi- cines Kizu had to take, along with a clean cup of water, and then went off to make some coffee. Ms. Asuka had already been given a key, which she used now to open the door and stick her head in the bedroom.

"How have you been, Professor? It must have been very hard on you," she said, in her usually diffident way. "I'll be taking care of you starting to- day. Ikuo-san has so many other places he needs to be. Everybody on the south shore is quite energized. Quite a stir, I can tell you. The Sacred Wound has had a remarkable effect on everyone."

It was a bit too much for Ms. Asuka, after she started taking care of Kizu, to carry food for them both from the dining hall, so she would go down as soon as it opened and, after finishing her own meal, bring back a tray for Kizu.

The days were getting longer so she didn't need a flashlight even after dinner.

Ms. Asuka and the other individual followers who'd moved there had been assigned rooms temporarily, in the monastery along with the Techni- cians or with the Quiet Women, until their own lodgings were decided, but even so she didn't run across Ikuo in the dining hall. The three of them met in Kizu's bedroom, however. When she collected Kizu's dinner tray and sat down at a window seat facing the lake, there across from her sat Ikuo.

The first thing Ikuo said was that since tonight would be her first night staying over with Kizu, if she wanted he would stay over as well. Since she'd worked in the trade, Ms. Asuka replied, sharing a room overnight with a man certainly didn't faze her.

Kizu felt sorry for Ikuo and how flustered this must have made him.

Ikuo's face turned red as a devil's, and he got a little overbearing, telling her that lots of different people would be calling on Kizu to see how he was do- ing, and they were bound to talk about all sorts of things, so she had to prom- ise to keep whatever she heard strictly confidential.

Ms. Asuka couldn't figure out exactly what he was getting at. Gazing back at the clearly irritated Ikuo in silence for a while, she said that video cameras had become even smaller and easier to use than the stories you used to hear about French fountain-pen cameras and the like. "When I use them," she said, "I find I don't have any particular feelings one way or another about the person I'm videotaping. So I've ended up with reels of unedited material.

I might overhear what visitors say when they come to pay a visit to Professor Kizu, but that'll just mean I've got one more unedited videotape in my memory."

What Ms. Asuka said struck Kizu as logical. Ikuo seemed to think so too. Ms. Asuka's words meant that whenever she was in the house taking care of Kizu, any guests should feel free to say what they wanted. She wasn't going to abuse her position.

Indeed, as Kizu continued his painting during his recuperation, one visitor after another came to see him. When he told them how Ms. Asuka, who was waiting in the next room, had come up with this metaphor about people being unedited videos, everyone had a good laugh, which loosened them up.

The first visitor was Dr. Koga, who questioned his patient and checked his vital signs and then pulled the desk chair over near the bed and sat himself down far enough away that he and Kizu could study each other as they spoke.

"Were you aware that Ikuo's been visiting the Technicians and the Quiet Women a lot," Dr. Koga began, "and carrying out an ideological inquiry of sorts?"

"I know the Young Fireflies have been questioning him," Kizu replied, "and he said he'd have to explain to them about the various sects in the church.

Most of all I think he wants to clarify things for himself."

"I can see that. There are things about the Technicians that even some- body like me who's known them for years can't understand, and that goes double for the Quiet Women.

"When I went to the monastery to have lunch, Ikuo cornered me to ask me about the Technicians. 'Why are they deemphasizing religious matters?' he asked. Not that they seem to be pushing forward with some social agenda like they did in the old days, but he doesn't think the repentant radical fac- tion-the men responsible for killing Guide-will remain in the shadows forever. He wanted to know what direction I see them trying to nudge Patron in.

"I told him that since he was so close to them I'd like to hear his opin- ion. I wasn't trying to sidestep his question but just to let him know he's much more aware than I am of what the Technicians are up to."

"What about the Quiet Women?" Kizu asked.

"Ikuo and I view them in about the same way," Dr. Koga said. "The Technicians are certainly sly old foxes as far as faith is concerned, but the really formidable ones are the Quiet Women. The Technicians are trying to incor- porate Patron in their own strategies, but there the Quiet Women beat them hands down. They've always been using Patron for their own purposes- before the Somersault and afterward.

"This idea of falling into hell is something Patron originally came up with, but the Quiet Women made it out as Patron's atonement for every- one, and they've repositioned Patron and Guide at the center of their faith.

Depending on how you look at it, it's been the Quiet Women who've kept Patron and Guide tied down. I would imagine that these past ten years it's the Quiet Women who were their heaviest burden."

"I think Ikuo's sensed this too," Kizu said. "He's formed ties with the Technicians-cooperating with them is another way of putting it, I suppose- to keep an eye on them so they don't go off on their own. But he's also been attending the Quiet Women's prayer meetings along with the Fireflies.

"Dancer went so far as to ask him whether he's been spying on the Quiet Women for the Technicians, but what he's really trying to pin down is what the Quiet Women are all about. Where they're coming from, so to speak.

Patron is very important to Ikuo. And he figures that the Quiet Women's faith may be the path that will lead him to Patron."

"I agree with you there," Dr. Koga said. "Ikuo has his own individual feelings about the transcendental, as you've said. As someone who's been driven by inevitable circumstances to be with Patron, I can certainly under- stand that.

"But a part of Ikuo still hasn't decided whether Patron's the one he seeks.

As things stand now, parading Patron around all over the place may not get you anywhere. Ikuo's keeping an eye on both the Technicians and the Quiet Women to make sure they don't try something like that. Favoring the Young Fireflies may be his way of introducing a third force into the equation."

"I have no doubt that Ikuo views Patron as the person who can mediate for him with the Almighty," Kizu said, "and he has an urgent reason for doing so, something I didn't know about until recently."

Dr. Koga looked questioningly at Kizu, who didn't go on. Sensing his reluctance, Dr. Koga changed the subject, though to something still related to Ikuo. "Ikuo told me once that Patron's teachings before the Somersault had a strong Christian element, especially in the personalized view of the divine- though now the notion of the antichrist has appeared. Ikuo said that when he attended the Quiet Women's prayer meeting there was an even stronger feeling of Christianity present. He wondered what that meant.