Kenzaburo Oe - Somersault

Tachibana could take care of the office for them the whole day.

They set off from Tokyo in the minivan, Ikuo at the wheel, late on Fri- day night. They'd chosen this late departure to avoid any traffic jams, but soon found themselves side by side with eighteen-wheelers that monopolized the highway. The minivan was comically puny compared to these mammoth trucks, but with Ikuo's bold driving, not once did any trucker behind them blare his horn to hound them to let him by. Even when they left behind the satellite cities that ringed Tokyo, the highway was still lit by streetlights, the inside of the minivan darker than the outside. Patron was sitting directly behind Ikuo, Dancer beside him, with Ogi in the rear seat, which allowed him to view everyone else from the back.

Ogi wanted to take a good long look at these three people, the core group of Patron's new movement-minus Guide, of course-and as he looked at their shoulders and the backs of their heads, he was struck by emotions he'd never felt before, a combined sense of how strange it all was and how thrilling.

Ogi was indeed drawn to this elderly man, fast asleep like a worn-out teddy bear, his large head fallen back; even though Ogi was working for him, he still didn't understand the part of Patron that was on a quest for spiritual matters. Ten years ago, Patron had denied all the teachings he was working so hard to disseminate and had renounced his church. And now, even though he was starting a new movement, he still hadn't shown them any new teach- ings to take the place of the old. And here was this unknown factor--Ikuo -seeking to talk about spiritual matters with Patron. What sort of fate could possibly have brought Ogi together with these people as fellow voyagers? That he was with them was a fact, but each day it was one unexpected thing after another. Add eccentric Dancer to the mix, and Ogi had a premonition that this group was about to take him on the ride of his life.

The country house to which Ogi was taking Patron and the others was part of a large parcel of land his grandfather had originally obtained when the Nasu Plateau area was first developed, which had remained in their family ever since. When they arrived at dawn it was still dark, with low-lying clouds, and through a line of barren trees they could see two or three other villas. The Ogi family's place, though, a large Western-style home, stood alone in a desolate spot. It seemed different from his memories of childhood summer vacations… They decided that Ogi would go up to the villa alone to open it, while Patron and the others stayed in the minivan they'd parked on the road below; the ground rose up on either side of the road, which lay below a dried-up grassy slope. After checking the lights and the water and switching on the propane gas heater next to the stove, Ogi looked down through the cloudy window. The barren forest surrounding the building was an old one, with huge gnarled trees; some trunks that had been cruelly felled by a typhoon were scattered about. Ogi began to regret bringing Patron to such a cold, forbidding place.

Before long Dancer ran up to the house to get it ready and told him she'd give a signal when the house was warm, so Ogi walked back down to the minivan. For the first time ever, he found Patron and Ikuo engaged in a friendly conversation. Ogi boarded the warm minivan in time to hear Patron say, "It's not exactly a desolate wilderness, but with the woods like this, after the leaves have fallen and before the snows, it does have that feeling. The place I went to in my visions was like this."

Ikuo seemed surprised. "Guide told me it was more like a dreamy atmosphere."

"Guide was almost always the first person I talked to when my visions were finished and I returned to this side, so his impression of what it was like may very well be just as accurate. The sense I had of it, though, was like being in a desolate place like this, confronting that blurred white light. Since it was painful to go from the other side back to this side, as painful as dying, I imag- ine, I suppose it's a bit of a contradiction to say that the other side is a more bitter, desolate place than this side."

"I had the impression that Guide always spoke of your visionary world in bright, cheery terms."

"Whenever I come back from the other side I talk about what I saw there in a kind of delirious way, and Guide listens and explains it all in a logical way. What he says stuns me."

"How could that be possible? You're stunned by hearing your own ex- periences told back to you?"

"It's entirely possible," Patron replied spiritedly, turning an amused look first at Ikuo, then at Ogi.

"You take leave of reality, go over to the other side, and accept the spiri- tual, right?" Ikuo said. "How can you be stunned by hearing about what you yourself saw?"

"Maybe that's the fate involved in using language to speak and to lis- ten, especially when you're dealing with transcendental matters. There's no direct connection between the visions I see in my trances and our language on this side. If I wanted to go over to the other side permanently, all I'd have to do would be to immerse myself in experiences that have nothing to do with language on this side. Being immersed like that is how God reveals Himself; it's everything to me.

"Still, I suffer tremendously to return to this side. There wouldn't be any problems if I stayed silent after I came back, but that would be as if what I experienced on the other side never took place. Guide's the one who told me I couldn't leave it at that and encouraged me to put my experiences into words. Often when I listen to Guide retelling my experiences, though, I feel he's unearthed deeper meaning to them than I ever realized. He definitely is my guide when it comes to making this mystical world clear to me. But I do sometimes feel uncomfortable with it. That's what I mean by saying I feel stunned."

There was more they seemed to want to say, but they fell silent for a time. Ogi sensed a movement out the van window and discovered Dancer out on the porch, doing a pirouette leap-her signal that the villa had warmed up enough to come inside.

The living room had the very latest propane heater-a device with self- regulating temperature and a gas leak detector-as well as a wood-burning fireplace, and it was there the three young people had a breakfast of ham, bacon, eggs, and vegetable salad the next morning. Dancer put away as much as the two young men. Patron's breakfast consisted of liquid food, appropri- ate to an elderly convalescent, that Dancer had brought along from Tokyo in a thermos. Once they were free of the day-to-day routine of the office, Ogi was struck by how very simple a matter it was to satisfy Patron's worldly desires. The same, of course, could be said of Guide.

After eating, they all went out for a walk. Before they left the villa, Dancer made Patron prepare for the winter cold by wearing an overcoat over his sweater and a long muffler that trailed down to his knees. The clouds hung lower than one would expect on a high plain, and it felt like the first snow of the season was just around the corner. Ogi took Patron's arm to help him along, but Patron soon said he needed time alone to think and strode aloofly off ahead of them.

The three young people walked behind Patron, keeping their distance, Ogi first, with Ikuo and Dancer side by side after him. Ikuo had taken out a folding wheelchair from the minivan and, with the chair still folded up, pushed it along, Dancer helping him.

Dancer had recommended that they buy the wheelchair after Guide had collapsed and it looked like he wouldn't soon recover. After he left the hospi- tal, though, Guide had no need of it, and it had been stored in the outbuild- ing and then loaded into the minivan. Patron was descending the gentle slope now with a healthy stride, but coming back he'd have the uphill slope to face and might be glad to use the chair. Dancer took all possible precautions when it came to Patron's health.