Kenzaburo Oe - Somersault

Ikuo and Ms. Tachibana arrived, and when Ogi went out to the foyer to greet them he experienced a mild disorientation gazing at the real Ikuo so soon after seeing the painting. Tell Dr. Koga the ambulance is here, Ikuo told Ogi. He continued, in a voice audible to Patron, who was looking in their direction from a corner of the studio, "The last time, Kizu put up with the pain alone for so long it affected his heart, but with Dr. Koga coming over so soon they can take him to the Red Cross Hospital this time, don't you think?"

Dr. Koga stuck his tense face out of the bedroom. "Yes, we should get him to a specialist," he said. "I'd like Ikuo to come along. Everyone else just wait here until we get in touch."

Patron's response seemed a bit of a non sequitur. "We'll leave it up to you. Professor Kizu is going through a major transformation now, which may very well be a transformation for the good."

This made Dr. Koga so upset he thrust his gloomy face toward Patron, but he swallowed whatever he was about to say, turned to Ikuo, and asked him to have the stretcher brought in. After Ikuo left, since Dr. Koga didn't give Patron, Ogi, or Morio permission to come in the bedroom, they could only return to the studio. Ms. Tachibana, though, went along with Dr. Koga and made preparations for moving the patient.

Ikuo led the emergency personnel inside, the work proceeded apace, and the group soon set off for Matsuyama. All the while, Patron and Morio stayed glued to the painting. Ogi saw off the stretcher as far as the ambulance, parked below the weir, his mind filled with what Patron had said. A major transfor- mation… possibly a transformation for the good. What did he mean? That Kizu was undergoing the inevitable as he faced death, his body racked by the agony of cancer? When Ogi got back to the house, Patron was just as he'd left him.

Patron stayed that way for a while and then turned, as if awakening, and opened his mouth. He said nothing about the departed Kizu; instead, he asked everyone to assemble in the studio.

"What I'm going to say is something I should tell all the members of the church, but first I'll say it to you. I'd like you to pretend this is the chapel and I'm delivering a sermon."

Each of the four people picked out spots in the studio, redolent of oil paint, sitting on the boxlike bed or pulling chairs from the bedroom, settling down to listen to Patron's words.

"Since moving to the Hollow," Patron began, "everyone here, includ- ing the Technicians and the Quiet Women, has been steadily making prepa- rations for the future. As I watched all this, I felt it was urgent for me to settle on a schedule for officially rebuilding the church. As I said to Professor Kizu just before he fell ill, quite honestly I've felt, at times, driven into a corner.

"This is not just a spiritual question; it has surfaced in a physical way as well. The wound in my side-the one you call the Sacred Wound-has re- mained unchanged for the past ten years, but recently it took a turn for the worse. I came down with a terrible fever and felt the kind of pain I haven't experienced in a long time.

"I'd never thought of comparing the two, but the notion occurred to me not long ago that the physical pain I suffered was similar to the agony I felt when I used to fall into a trance. The question is, This time did I bring back a vision from the other side, as in the old days? And if I did, with Guide dead, who was going to interpret it?

"My thoughts hit the usual dead end, but suddenly an idea struck me: No, things are different this time. I not only brought back a vision but was able to translate it into the language of our side. The one who played the role of Guide this time was Morio. I'd like to thank him for all his efforts while I was suffering.

"I'll get to the details of how this came about in a moment, but what I brought back to this side, and was able to put into words with Morio's aid, is something I didn't comprehend until quite recently. I wasn't able to see it for what it is: a message directed at the founding of our new church.

"As recently as this afternoon, while Professor Kizu was sketching me, I told him the problems I've had restarting the church after declaring that I'm an antichrist. Professor Kizu captured that aspect perfectly in the trip- tych. It's still a rough sketch, but he's done a wonderful job of depicting me as the Old Man confronting Jonah, the New Man, and the world they are about to create. The painting helped me envision how my revelation would take shape, a revelation, as I said, that Morio helped me interpret.

"The painting portrays the confrontation between the antichrist spon- soring the church, the Old Man, and Jonah, representing the New Man, and the two of them facing the body of believers. The painting boldly depicts the basic misconception I had up till now about the difficulties I've been facing.

My mistake lay in thinking that I should be the one to build the new church.

But now I know that's wrong.

"Right after Guide's death, I asked Professor Kizu to assume the role of Guide for me. And as an artist, he has fulfilled those duties admirably. Just as Morio, in his own way, has done the same.

"Getting back to where I started: The night before my wound started to ooze, I came down with a fever; the pain hadn't yet made itself fully known but was beginning. I woke up in the darkness and felt an excitement in my chest-whether from pain or joy I wasn't sure. I don't drink, but I wondered if that was what being drunk felt like. Very soon, I became obsessed with this thought-that for the first time in ten years I was about to fall into a deep trance. But Guide wasn't here. I would suffer, and after all that pain there would't be anyone to interpret the vision I brought back from the other side.

It would be lost forever.

"I was desperate. I remembered the story Guide told me of the drowning child grasping at a straw. I reached out my hand in the darkness and my fin- gers brushed the Bible by my bedside, Guide's old Bible. Morio noticed some- thing amiss in the dark, and I passed the Bible to him. I don't care where, I told him, just open the Bible and mark a passage with your fingernail. Morio took the Bible and did as I said, but it was dark; he fumbled with it and dropped it under the bed. This bothered him, so he picked it up again and marked a sec- ond passage. I was already coming down with a fever, and could only sense Morio moving about in the dark. The next morning the fever was worse and I couldn't get up; later that day there was all that fuss about my Sacred Wound, so I couldn't very well check out what I'd asked Morio to do the night before.

"Time passed. I noticed that Morio seemed concerned about the Bible, and finally I remembered the exchange we had had the night my fever began.

I immediately looked through Guide's Bible. There were two passages Morio had marked, and as I carefully read through them, I discovered that they both contained the expression new man. I had Mrs. Shigeno check into it for me, and can you imagine-in the entire Bible, Old and New Testaments, those are the only places where that expression appears!

"Ever since my Somersault, what I've been thinking about is something along the following lines, not exactly verbatim from the Bible, but something like this: As this world approaches its end, a savior must appear who will make one the two that stand opposed, destroying in his flesh the dividing wall of hostil- ity, abolishing the law with its commandments and regulations. And I believe that such a savior will surely come.

He will create in himself one new man out of the two, making peace, and in this one body reconcile both of them to God through the cross, putting to death their hostility. This too, I believe, will come to pass.

"That being the case, what role will an antichrist play? Precisely this: He is the Old Man who acts as herald for the savior. All sorts of antichrists will appear-strange, comical types of heralds who clown around and make fun of God. All antichrists, though, are united in the role they play as Old Man and all that term implies. They are the ones who pave the way for the savior. I am firmly convinced of this, which is precisely why I want to con- struct my new church as an antichrist.