Kenzaburo Oe - Somersault

"Now, though, it's different-see that car coming from the opposite direction? Since the church is doing such a great job of running the Farm, there's no need to get concerned about where the vegetables or eggs are com- ing from. They're even raising char in the spring behind the chapel. So people feel much more secure. Now people along the river and those in the Outskirts as well don't mind if the road's closed.

"That gives you an idea of how much the church has influenced life around here in the past year. Simply put, we don't have to worry about get- ting a steady supply of inexpensive quality items. I'm sure this is obvious to you, coming from the city, but regional cultural differences show up in the distribution of goods; in backwoods places things are shoddy and expensive and you have to wait forever to get them. That's been reversed here. In the bazaar held here every other week you'll find not just folks from the Old Town but even people from Matsuyama coming here to shop instead of the other way around."

Fred was quite interested in all this when Mrs. Tsugane translated the details for him.

"Fred wants to know, after such a tragedy, with children present to wit- ness it, whether the church didn't become alienated from the local people."

Ogi conveyed the question, letting Mrs. Tsugane translate Mr. Matsuo's reply.

"That shows how wise the people in this region can be," Mr. Matsuo said. "Having the Farm is advantageous to them. There was going to be a mass suicide in the chapel, but in the end nothing happened, so the local people aren't going to harp on that forever. The east slope of the Hollow is a center for butterbur, and when it's in season hordes of people come from the river basin and the Outskirts. The people in these parts like to give names to places based on some event that occurred there, and they've given a new name to the mountain stream where they pick these butterbur. They call it Mountain Stream Where Twenty-five Refined Ladies Shat, and they say it's a particu- larly tasty crop of butterbur this year. Ha ha ha!"

Nobody laughed along with him, so the head priest changed to a more prudent topic. "As time passes, just as the achievements of He Who Destroys and Oshikome are now distant events for us, the summer conference will fade into the past and-who knows?-perhaps the only thing to remain will be that place name."

"Much like the Buddhist concept of the evanescence of life," Mrs. Tsugane suggested.

"The power of the land counts for a lot, they say," Mr. Matsuo went on. "The cypress island's been cleaned up, and that's where Patron and Ms. Tachibana and her brother are buried. The memorial was done in relief by the architect who built the chapel and has one of Morio's scores carved on it. The tombstone is surrounded by the lake and faces the chapel, but now it's all covered in snow. In harmony with the melody of the snow, you might say."

By then they'd left the district road, passed over the main bridge, and started down the cross-Shikoku-highway bypass, looking down on houses along the river that, in the snow, had already turned off their lights.

"Are Professor Kizu's remains buried on the island as well?" Mrs.

Tsugane asked. This time Ogi fielded the question.

"He wasn't a member of the church. And Ikuo in particular insisted on wanting Professor Kizu's soul to be free from the realm of God."

"But isn't Ikuo the one who took over as leader of the church after Patron?"

"He's leading the church, having separated the managerial aspect of running it from the spiritual," Mr. Matsuo said in a serious tone. "Ikuo him- self seems to be free from the voice of God. Gii's been selected to take over the spiritual side of the church eventually, and the Quiet Women and the Technicians are teaching him. Gii will be inheriting the Farm from Satchan, so it'll be convenient for the Farm to merge with the church, but I don't think that the managerial side-Ikuo and Dancer, in other words-did this purely out of self-interest.

"Gii has some religious element in him that connects him to Patron, don't you think? And half his genes are from the founder of the Church of the Flaming Green Tree, let's not forget. It's a little tricky to guess how Satchan feels about all this, though Gii's own choice is pretty clear. This spring he didn't go on to high school. The Technicians designed a curriculum they say can take him through high school and college in six years. And Ikuo is apparently drilling him pretty hard in English."

"Fred wants to know what you mean by saying that Ikuo is free of God's voice," Mrs. Tsugane said.

"That much English I can understand," Mr. Matsuo said, summoning up his dignity as head priest. "There's no easy answer, though, even in Japa- nese… If tomorrow it looks like the snow won't be letting up, you'll most likely be staying four or five days. Why don't you ask Ikuo himself? One other thing you should know is that, now that Gii and the other Fireflies are part of the church, they no longer call Ikuo Yonah. "

Mr. Matsuo drove the car through the entrance to the parking lot, com- pletely white in the darkness, and all the way around to the exit. Ogi helped him get their luggage out of the trunk. After quickly thanking Mr. Matsuo, Mrs. Tsugane and Fred hurried into the courtyard of the monastery, trying to avoid the thick flat snowflakes. Anticipating their arrival, the church mem- bers had swept the walk clear of snow. Just then music played, signaling the end of all official activities for the day.

Mr. Matsuo turned his snow-covered head toward the chapel. "Hear that? It's Morio's music."

The music's quiet echo was one with the snowdrifts and the snow fall- ing on the surface of the lake.

The next morning it had stopped snowing. Ogi and Mrs. Tsugane had used the oversized bed that Patron and Morio had pretty much lived in, while Fred happily made do with the Japanese futon they'd laid out for him in the living room on the south side of the house. In the dinette, filled with the lively calls of birds from the snowy woods, Mrs. Tsugane prepared a breakfast of bacon and eggs from the Farm, which had been put in the refrigerator for them. An hour after they heard the music announcing the opening of the dining hall, Fred still showed no signs of getting up, so Ogi and his wife lay in bed waiting for him.

Getting up was all the harder since they'd stayed up late in the heated dining hall talking. The late-night Hollow, lost in snow, had been as sound- less as the bottom of the ocean; the guests were startled each time they heard a piercing crack ring out in the woods. They'd been told what it was- branches of the bamboos in the large grove on the right-hand slope on the way to the Mansion cracking under the weight of the snow-but still it made them jump.

The little banquet held by the church members to welcome Ogi and the others, held two hours after their usual dinnertime, was hosted by Ikuo, Dancer, Dr. Koga, and Gii, and, from the Quiet Women, Ms. Oyama and Ms.

Takada. Mrs. Shigeno was away in Chiba visiting her daughter, who had married a physician.

All the Quiet Women had remained in the Hollow, and now most of the children they'd left behind when they moved to Shikoku had joined them.

Half of the Technicians had left, but in addition to the Fireflies, who'd been moved by Patron's sermon and were now enthusiastic supporters of the church, there were a number of other young people who'd joined, and pro- duction at the Farm was right on schedule. After attending Kizu night and day in his final illness, Ms. Asuka was now back in Tokyo editing the video of the summer conference.

As for Ogi, he had gone back to work at the International Culture Foun- dation and was planning in his spare time to write a book on the establish- ment of the Church of the New Man. He was preparing a first draft based on notes he'd taken from the time he first started working for Patron and Guide at the office in Seijo up to the hectic summer conference at the Hollow. Mrs.