Kenzaburo Oe - Somersault

"The Quiet Women aren't here right now to defend themselves," Ikuo said, "so let's be fair when we discuss them. I'd like the office staff and the Technicians not to be too eager to interfere as they formulate their program.

I really hope all the groups gathered here will do their own thing. Otherwise, the summer conference will be a complete bore."

"Not that you're Napoleon at Moscow or anything, Ikuo, but you do tend to set up camp on the high ground and watch the battle develop-with your private little army. Is that how you consolidate an overall strategy?"

"That's what Patron wants me to do," Ikuo replied.

"But you're the one who someday will protest against Patron, right?

You're Jonah, as the Young Fireflies call you."

"If I can make a request about your strategy, Mr. Hanawa, I'd just like you not to lynch Patron at the summer meeting. That's all I ask."

"That would be totally boring!" Mr. Hanawa answered.

In the west corner of the broad rectangular grounds, a refrigerated meat truck pulled up in front of the processing plant next to the dorm where the majority of the Technicians lived. Mr. Hanawa looked over at the truck and, with an easy dignity, brought their conversation to a halt.

"The only thing we're interested in is Patron's plan for the Church of the New Man," he said. "Some of the Technicians are laying everything on the line for that." And giving Ogi a short wave of the hand, Mr. Hanawa rushed off to join his fellows in white work clothes at the processing plant.

"Would you come with me now to see the Young Fireflies?" Ikuo asked Ogi. "Some of the leaders among them-I don't want you to hear what they have to say secondhand, from me, but have them talk directly to you, as a member of the office staff."

Ikuo strode ahead, not waiting for a reply. The two of them cut south across the clearing, toward the Farm, which jutted out among the trees on what looked like a peninsula, the slopes steadily getting steeper. Huge pop- lars and equally large weeping willows lined the path as they descended. On a rise far away, thin poplar branches jostled one another and angled inward, and the leaves of the willows sparkled like gold leaf in the sunlight. The pop- lars and willows were no doubt leftovers of a windbreak for the Farm set up near the ridge line.

Following the road as it twisted down through the wet broad-leafed forest, they came upon a stand of natural oaks and headed toward a house with a brick-colored slate roof where Mayumi, the dyer, lived and worked.

Along the way Ikuo told Ogi how the Fireflies were planning a performance at the summer conference, with Mayumi in charge of the costumes.

In this region's folklore, the legendary figures were unique characters.

Among the area's traditional events was what was called the Spirit Festival, performed for souls that had not yet reached their final resting place. The participants dressed as spirits, slightly larger than life size, and formed a pro- cession that wended its way from the woods down into the valley. Except for some small props, the special dolls and costumes they used would be burned on the shores of the Kame River and created anew the next year. As with the Young Fireflies, the Spirit Festival had been discontinued, but the young people were planning to revive the custom as an attraction at the upcoming summer conference.

At Mayumi's pine-log-and-earthen-mortar entrance, a dyeing kettle lay beside the door on the narrow landing. Just as Ikuo and Ogi arrived, the grass- colored front door opened up as if waiting for them, and a woman with an egg-shaped head and a halo of hair leaned out.

"Gii and the others haven't come back yet. Would you mind coming in through the veranda?" she asked.

Ikuo, shoes on, climbed up onto the narrow veranda that jutted out to- ward the steep slope down to the mountain stream, and Ogi followed after.

The veranda stretched to the southwest corner of the house; below it was an uncut lawn and, far below a sheer cliff, a branch of the Kame River.

Ikuo and Ogi went inside. The house was small, but the room facing the veranda had the generous feeling of a craftsman's workshop. A loom was set up in the back, with a bolt of indigo cloth in the process of being woven.

In the corner opposite the loom, Mayumi stood at her sink and stove, preparing tea, wearing a T-shirt and long canvas apron, a thoughtful look in her round eyes. Ogi noticed some photos behind Plexiglass that dotted the pine board walls. One sepia photo, when he took a good look at it, showed a house next to a round bayberry tree and the open interior of a second-floor room where two naked women-one of whom looked like a young boy, her breasts small-lay on a blanket sunning themselves.

Mayumi brought over a tray with herb tea to Ikuo, who was sitting at a low table leafing through a sketchbook that lay there.

"These sketches look like they're for the Spirit Festival," Ikuo said to her. "I like this one-is he the spirit of the trees or of the forests? I can't tell.

The one covered with twigs and leaves."

"They're not finished yet," Mayumi replied. "The one that looks like he should have been born a tree is the spirit called Gii. In this region a person who is equally eccentric is given the name Gii. Right now it's our tender young leader who goes by that name."

Ogi had Ikuo pass the sketches over to him. One of them was of a very unusual-looking person, part old man and part toddler taking his first steps; the cocoon-shaped figure was covered from head to toe in twigs and small branches.

"Gii likes the idea of dressing up like that. I'm sure he'll play the role of the spirit."

"I was imagining he'd play the role of the founder of the Church of the Flaming Green Tree," Ogi said. "When Asa-san came to the office to explain about the Spirit Festival, I heard that that spirit was the very newest one."

Mayumi looked at Ogi for the first time with any interest.

"Do you see on the next page the spirit with wounds on his head and chest and blood flowing down?" she asked. "In a wheelchair? That's the founder, Brother Gii, who closed the church and was about to go out on a world missionary trip when he was stoned to death. Gii feels it's too simplis- tic, too cartoony."

"Gii must view his father as a very complex figure," Ikuo said. "Most people in this region don't seem to believe that Gii's mother is Satchan and that his father is Brother Gii."

Noticing that Ogi wasn't quite following them, Ikuo pointed to the photo Ogi had been wondering about. "Those women in that voyeuristic photo are Satchan, when she was younger, and Mayumi. You see that thing between Satchan's legs? She has male genitals, as well as a woman's, and is able to give birth. Actually, when she was young she was raised as a boy."

Hesitating, Ogi looked again at the photograph, and Mayumi immedi- ately lost interest in him, turning her attention back to Ikuo.

"Gii's unwillingness to see his father reduced to some simplistic image is the same way he feels about the faith of the Church of the Flaming Green Tree. He doesn't want to trivialize the doubts the local people have about his mother. Whenever I read the transcripts of Brother Gii's sermons, he starts out with the Old Testament, the New Testament, or early Buddhist scripture, and so on, but he always takes off from there in his own direc- tion and ends up emphasizing God and mystical experience. Don't you think Brother Gii and Patron have something in common? After his Somersault didn't you hate how the weekly magazines reduced Patron to a comic-book figure?"

Footsteps sounded outside, rushing down the slope with firm sure strides. Mayumi went out to greet the teenagers, who piled in the front door, not the veranda, and could be heard cleaning up in the bathroom and sink.