Kenzaburo Oe - Somersault

"The assassinations were a much simpler affair. Members of the radi- cal faction planned to assassinate top leaders in the government, the bureau- cracy, and the financial world. The assassins would all officially resign from the church so they could take individual responsibility for their acts. They did, though, curry favor with a citizens' relief organization by making con- tributions so they'd help out in court. They came up with a long detailed list of targets. The list of bureaucrats was compiled by a fellow who graduated from the law department at Tokyo University. The list was confiscated later, but the authorities and police never made it public. They were afraid of the effect it might have if the media ever got hold of it.

"A hundred assassins murdering a hundred leaders in a short space of time. Accidents at two or three nuclear power plants. Once this was done the church members would all take to the streets to announce the coming end of the world and set off an all-out insurrection. Imagine how dangerous it would be, and how much courage it would take, at a time like that to be out on a street corner seeking repentance. Insurrection wouldn't just be some vague term anymore. Then, with no leadership in place and the government para- lyzed, they would establish their millennial reign of repentance. Actually, one or two years would be enough, because it wouldn't survive Armageddon. In the final analysis it would be a reign of repentance that focused on the end time: in other words, on dying and ascending to heaven.

"Since the Kansai headquarters followers were to be mobilized in this all-out insurrection too, I didn't know what to do. This morning I looked at the triptych hanging in the chapel, and I know it's based on the book of Jonah, but looking at the background of Nineveh up in flames I remembered the fear that gripped me back then.

"The whole church felt cornered by this crisis, because if you followed the church's doctrine you couldn't very well oppose this plan. That was the situation. In my opinion Patron's Somersault was the appropriate response.

The reason the followers at the Kansai headquarters didn't feel their faith shaken was because we made sure all our members understood that the dras- tic reaction of the Somersault was necessary to put an end to the radical faction's violence. Patron and Guide, who made this painful decision and thereby saved the followers from being entangled in the radical faction, would take responsibility through the Somersault but would, after a time, rebuild the church. This is what we all believed."

Just as a chilly damp wind blew in through the window on the valley side, raindrops began to pound on the slate roof. In the far corner of the wooden floor, the former junior high principal stepped down to the dirt floor and shut all the windows he could reach and, turning a handle, shut the win- dows higher up as well. From deep inside the fuigo the roar of the wind from the forest flowed back in. As the former junior high principal approached the dirt floor, he came over to the piece of wood along the entrance, one step lower than the sunken hearth, and waited for the four people seated around the hearth to turn their attention to him.

When they did, he pointed toward the little kamidana shrine farthest back in the dirt-floor kitchen above the stove with its old-style tiles. A moment later he called their attention to a kind of box like a sea chest in the shadows of the shrine.

"This is where Meisuke-san is enshrined," he told them. "A second kamidana, as we say here. You'll be seeing this in the Spirit Festival proces- sion, but there are two kami-gods-one in a light place, the other in a dark place, and Meisuke-san represents the second kind. He was the leader of the first of two insurrections around the time of the Meiji Restoration, died an untimely death, and was enshrined here.

"I think it's significant that a person like that can become a kami, so I don't feel like criticizing the extreme tactics your church was unable to put into practice. Truthfully, when you get to my age the idea of a millennial kingdom that focuses on repentance is quite an attractive notion. However, there is one practical fact I'd like you to be aware of. Not far from here is the Agawa nuclear power plant. I have nothing to say about some new blood brotherhood pledged to carry out terrorist assassinations, but if the remnants of the radical faction dust off their plans and try to blow up the Agawa nuclear plant, I don't care what it takes, I will stop them. It's only twenty-five miles from the power plant to Maki Town. As the crow flies-but radiation won't neatly follow all the winding mountain roads in order to get here!

"The buildings in the Hollow were first built by the Church of the Flam- ing Green Tree, which was quite active for a short time. The peak of their activity was when the congregation all marched out of the Hollow to this very nuclear power plant. When they arrived, all of them, from the Founder down, prayed, and the plant suddenly shut down. There must have been some small malfunction or something.

"In your case, those who were followers before the Somersault make up the core of the new church. I heard from my wife that Patron's policy is to accept even the former radical faction. Most churches end up excluding a minority. They push one group to the point where they end up creating a small extremist faction. This sort of intolerance is a common fault of movements in this country, so my wife was quite impressed by your church's level of for- bearance. I'd like to be a tolerant person myself. But there is an absolute line beyond which tolerance is impossible.

"I respect people who are preparing for the end of the world, I really do.

And I feel the same way about believers who value a millennial reign of repen- tance more than their own lives. I'd like to return the vegetation and plant life around here to the way it used to be and put a brake on the decline in the local people's diet. I'm just a simple old man, but in a way I do think about the end of the world. But if the former radical faction attempts to collect on their old IOUs, then as I just said you can be sure I will put a stop to it."

His hair was white as an old man's but full, and he shook his head to punctuate each phrase. Her prominent freckled cheeks shining, Asa-san took up where her husband left off.

"My husband did the cooking tonight in order to let you talk freely without being under the watchful ears of the local women. Another reason was he wanted the chance to tell you his opinion-as he just did! He's had a bit too much to drink, but it hasn't affected him, and I know he gave this some careful thought. Even if you hadn't come here, there still would be a history of Patron, Guide, and the church, wouldn't there, before and after the Som- ersault? My husband and my history can't be separated from this land here.

The Former Brother Gii's Base Movement, the New Brother Gii's Church of the Flaming Green Tree-these are all part of the history of this land."

"Don't forget Meisuke-san's insurrection," her husband added, now definitely showing signs of drunkenness.

"There's this history that clings to the land," Asa-san went on, "but this doesn't mean that history repeats itself. My older brother, who's a novelist, has written that most things people do is a kind of repetition-with-slippage.

Not just a simple repetition, in other words. Starting with the two insurrec- tions connected with Meisuke-san, through the Base Movement of Former Brother Gii to New Brother Gii's Church of the Flaming Green Tree, each one was a repetition-with-slippage. The slippage, then, is productive.

"And now here's Patron and all of you about to build your new church in this land. It's possible to see it as a repetition of previous events. Or maybe a repetition of things you all have done elsewhere. Either way, it will end up a repetition-with-slippage. In other words, there will be new elements in whatever you end up doing. As my husband was lamenting, your church shouldn't just have to repeat what it was trying to do before the Somersault."